Having, being, enflaming

[imomus]

Today I have a mixed bag of things I want to signal:

1. My latest column for Frieze gazes at the art world through the prism of Erich Fromm's book To Have Or To Be, which influenced me in a post-materialist direction when I read it, aged 20, in 1980 (the year Fromm died). It's possible to experience the art world in having mode (objects, collectors, acquisitions, profit, auctions, investments) or being mode (experiences, relationships, sensations), but my article wonders just how symbiotic these modes are; does the being-mode of some depend on the having-mode of others? It's a chance, also, to re-examine Fromm's fusion of Marx and Freud: "The person exclusively concerned with having and possession is a neurotic, mentally sick person; hence it would follow that the society in which most of the members are anal characters is a sick society."

2. The next thing I want to draw your attention to is a couple of rather good cover versions of my songs. I don't know who Amanda Palmer and Steven Wilson are, but they seem to command sizeable and passionate audiences. And they've both covered songs of mine rather well. Here's Steven Wilson doing The Guitar Lesson:

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And here's Amanda Palmer, on tour this month, singing I Want You, But I Don't Need You to a gratifyingly appreciative crowd (but also, I think, stretching them a little with the song's casual brutality):

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3. Finally, I want to flag some free downloads of three records by my favourite early 80s synthpop band, The Passage. I should really write a big long entry about The Passage one day; how their music is a complex triangulation of the concepts of fear, love and hope, a structure echoed in recurrent musical motifs which tinkle and thunder like themes in some great didactic synth-rock opera, how the political vision of this band was the most intelligently left-wing of any of the British 1980s bands, how the transition from night to day, from PM to AM, symbolizes their belief in revolutionary change, how they courted The Fall (unrequited) and slated Anderton, Manchester's evangelical chief of police (even more unrequited, despite a shared love of biblical references), how Witts recruited pretty, big-lipped, floppy-haired Andy Wilson and -- judging by the sound of his voice on some of these songs -- drugged him too, possibly with the Hoffmann Laroche products he loved to sing about, how The Passage is what Hanns Eisler might have sounded like if he'd started a synth band and signed to Cherry Red, how Witts now teaches in the music department at the University of Edinburgh.

I love The Passage, and now -- thanks to this cache of illegal downloads on Castles in Space -- you can too:

The Passage: For All And None 1981 (description here).

The Passage: Degenerates 1982 (description here).

The Passage: Enflame 1983 (description here).

When Cherry Red asked me to list my 15 favourite tracks for a feature on their website called My Favourite Flavours, my list began and ended with The Passage. More Top 15 lists here, including Cornelius's, which includes an album of mine called, apparently, Circus Maximamus ("I’d like Momus to make another record like this"), and poet Simon Armitage's ("Nick Currie is one the all time narrative songwriters and wordsmiths").

For full listening pleasure, though, you should get LTM's CD re-editions of The Passage albums, which include extra tracks, singles and radio sessions. Last week I sent LTM a cassette of The Passage live at the Manchester Ritz for a Passage live release they're preparing. Rarely has Retro Necro sounded so good.

Comments

[sleepyworm.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I think Amanda Palmer's teenage fanbase will only assume that she wrote that song! I wanted her to give credit there...

Frat Party Brecht

[(Anonymous)]

Her audience manages to make the song sound like a Frat Party anthem. "F*cking, man. No love. Love is lame. YEAH. Just F*CKING. No involvement. No consequences. JUST F*CKING. Rock ON dude. Cabaret KICKS ASS. Whoop whoop."

Re: Frat Party Brecht

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, there is an unfortunate aspect to the Western conception of masculinist feminism that when women assert assholish sentiments they're seen as "empowered", even if these are the same assholish sentiments that would be condemned as the worst kind of male chauvinism.

That said, although the song does assert the essential selfishness of even unselfish activities ("If your pleasure turned into pain / I would still lick for my personal gain" etc), I don't think it's an assholish song. Its main subject is how excessive neediness "fucks everything up". I think the device I use here is the "faux mechant" device (that's how Birkin described Gainsbourg, as a "pretend bastard"); you present something ethically rather elevated as if it were assholism. This comes, of course, from a fear of sermonizing. People identify much more readily if you seem to come from their lowest impulses than if you swoop in from on high.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

You shut your whore mouth and make me a sandwich while I put on my wifebeater and empower myself.

[(Anonymous)]

Amanda Palmer's fanbase (which has a wide age range) realizes that she often covers the work of other artists, and is presumably familiar with her recorded catalog. If they don't recognize when she's singing someone else's song, well, people of any age can be ignorant. I heard her sing this one last night, was enchanted, felt compelled to track it down (not hard), and ta-da, now I have someone new (to me) to listen to. I don't know how Momus escaped me all these years, but yay.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Welcome, stranger!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, and thank you!

Of course I now also have another blog to read--damn it :)

[sleepyworm.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I was referring specifically to her teenage fanbase, not her entire fanbase. That song in particular is not SO much of a stretch for an audience member to imagine is written by Ms. Palmer if they aren't told otherwise. Regardless, I'm glad some of her fans will do the work to figure out who she's covering!

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the clarification. Them kids, they'll figger it out (the ones that care, anyway).