Winterbrass - Jason Tyndall

The Bureaucrat

"Below their message
Containing me under my office
He, 'neath those supplies used to stress it
Me in his office"

-from "Winterbrass", the new poetry collection from Jason Tyndall.

"Tyndall marvels and winces at our despair; his dispatches are humane, generous and quietly furious"
Publisher's Weekly 
"Elegant complexity or exhaustive simplicity? Tyndall is the later-Wittgenstein of modern verse; of that which we cannot speak, we must allow Jason Tyndall to say it for us"
Independent
"An unfashionably honest howl of raw refusal; a refusal to accept the solipsism of modernity, a refusal to accept its ironical vanities, a refusal to accept acceptance. We are sleep-walking through a waking dream, Tyndall says, and instead of taking pot-shots at the Sandman we must place Morpheus square in the cross-hairs. But - he whispers - what if we miss?"
Kendall Murray, Literary Review
"Tyndall speaks with a tongue that has licked the moon, kissed the stars and sucked the very heat from the sun. Muscular and fearless, he goes about his work with a deeply moral fervour."
Times Literary Supplement
"Through a kind of liturgical necromancy he digs up urban horrors, reanimates them as pastoral idylls, and invites us all to blow his horn of plenty"
Spectator
"Crucial"
Guardian

Jason Tyndall, yesterday

An advert from our sponsors

Ghosting The North

When I covered Gordon Burn's sad death at the age of 61 I failed the spot this superb piece in the Quietus by Austin Collings which surveys Burn's achievements and looks at the 'Northern Noir' of his progeny David Peace. It serves as a fitting tribute to Burn's cryptic legacy. I have to disagree with Colling's criticism of Burn's treatment of character. 'Alma Cogan' is the finest novel I have read, and I found his creation and control of Cogan as a cynical, soiled star satisyingly complex. 'Happy Like Murderers' is the last word on True Crime; the exhumation and burial of a whole genre. Burn is not under-rated, but under-read; critically adored, while most of his potential readership simply haven't heard of him. As his prowess is acknowledged, his grip on the collective imagination can only tighten.

(This post originally published accidentally in the extinct Gravenhurst blog on 30/09/2011)

Bert Jansch 1943-2011

We say goodbye to Bert Jansch at the age of 67; a modest man, a musical giant, and his influence on mine obvious. When I first listened to 'Jack Orion', and heard him cloak 'The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face' in medievalist mystery, I thought "I need to be able to play that", and every bit of guitar work I have engaged in since has been an attempt to prize it open, to steal its secrets. It hardly need be said that it remains intact.

I'm so busy working towards the completion of another Gravenhurst album, (Jansch rip-offs multifold) that I only seem to log in and post here when someone awesome dies. It's turning into a crap little obituary column; syndicated deaths, sour milk skimmed off the back of others' work. I must write something of substance soon and shift the focus of the Notebook back towards grubby politics and grotty culture. For now, put on a Jansch record and bask in dazzling rays of bright and beautiful musicianship.

Rest in peace dear Trish, we'll miss you

Bookish-priapic

A Core Foundation of my New Year’s Resolution Superstratum is (for internal administrative reference purposes: NYR2011SS-CF12pp12/nf_inf.x1.3)

[:] maintain optimal bio-rhythmic routine

Another is (for internal administrative reference purposes: NYR2011SS-CF12pp12/nf_inf.x1.4)


[:] maintain optimal creative routine(s) and subroutine(s)

A full explication of the issue is beyond the scope of this post but the essential worry is that the two objectives may be at odds. If so, then hopefully only contingently and not necessarily so, and nothing that can’t be smoothed out over the course of this week. (Though strictly I suppose I have a year, don’t I? Again, beyond the scope of this post...). In essence, I want to be awake at the same time as other people and I want to have a way of broadly measuring my work effort to attainment ratios. Though I’ve always been a night-owl it isn’t good for me, and doing something creative for a living can make it hard to know when one has achieved enough for it to feel ok to stop and do something entirely passive instead. But then, I do various creative things purely for my own entertainment, such as Ultraskull and most blog posts. And I tell myself that I want to do them more frequently, thereby setting myself up to fail to meet self-imposed standards of recreation. Dammit man, pull yourself together! The issue facing me right now is that I intended to get to sleep by two and get working by ten, but now it is six in the morning and I am laughing at a list of silly book titles I have written. The plan went wobbly around two when the film I was watching went on until three. Pretty basic planning issue there (note to self - see NYR2011SS-CF12pp12/nf_inf.x1abs.time – cf. “Time-keeping”). The film, 'Hallam Foe' was enjoyably moody and did nothing to aid my winding down for the night. And then... I felt my modish poise uncoil to the slutty scent of carelessly shaved pencils, bookish-priapic, all smeared ink and dirty erasers, the coquettish discipline of medium-priority administrative procedure... and before I knew it I had recommenced cataloguing titles for the Art, Photography and Slavic Youth Cinema section of the Ultraskull Mobile Lending Library. Oh God... It's half-past eight... how did we get to here? We have to stop doing this... we both know it's wrong... so wrong... we're so... bad... oh...


Kendal, Kimpy Transgressive Yoke: The Works Of Frami Rallentando (Taschen 1998)

Kipper, Kimpy Rheiner Knizia And The Lone Flame Steeplechase (Dover Editions 2002)

Kotterel, Jethpa Darius Tschevchenko's Arc-Weld Timepiece (Diode Club 19¬¬) * LARGE PRINT

Loperamide, J.K. (Ed.) The Best Of Ian Brady (Void 2007) * AUDIOBOOK AVAILABLE

Jackson, Steve & Livingstone, Ian The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain (Penguin, 1982)

Beegees, C.B. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid: Carlos Blessing's Nine Lives in Print (Taschen 1986)

Kermode, M. Living Loose With Lucio - Ian McCulloch's Italian Cinema Career (Shox 2002)

Strategy 5 The Strategy 5 Manifesto (Strategy 2005)

Dogcollared-Greens, Delia Intention, Pretension Or Purely Convention? How to Choose an Effective Title For Your Non-Fiction Book - A Multi-Titular Approach - Plus! Not Forgetting... ...the Use Of Dots!* *And Be Sure To Get An Asterisk In There For Added Inanity - //NEW EDITION! Fully Revised And Updated To Accommodate It's Own Claims! (Keep Going -Ed. 2009)

Cancer, Nancy Please Daddy, No! Etcetera: Dispatches From The Bravely-Overcame-Shame-For- Financial-Gain-And-Talk-Show-Fame-Gravy-Train (Cake & Eat 2003)

FIN.

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Thought For The Day: "Particularly when it comes to formatting, Blogger is fucking shit."

Gravenhurst news

As I haven't posted anything for ages, I thought I'd paste in the latest Gravenhurst mail out, thus contravening my self-imposed regulation of keeping this blog independent of my day job (not taking my work home with me). New song lyrics aside, the mail out is the most creative thing I've written for a while so what the hell. Here we go.

Greetings people of refined taste and discerning proclivities. And hello to the dull, the indifferent and the moronically incurious. And the horrifyingly pointless. All are welcome here.

I am roughly half way through the creation of the next Gravenhurst album. I will however be taking a break from writing and recording in November because Paul Smith of Maximo Park has a solo album coming out and he has invited me to perform as the main the support act on his tour of Europe and the UK, and naturally I said ‘Fuck yeah’. So here are the dates.

Thursday 4 November, HOLLAND - Amsterdam, Sugar Factory

Friday 12 November, ITALY - Milan, La Casa 139

Saturday 13 November, ITALY - Rome, Blackout

Sunday 14 November, ITALY - Mirano (VE), Moon Club

Tuesday 16 November, SWITZERLAND - Luzern, Bar 59

Wednesday 17 November, SWITZERLAND - Fribourg, Café de la Fonderie

Friday 19 November, SWITZERLAND - Zurich, Plaza

Saturday 20 November, FRANCE - Paris, Fleche d'Or

Sunday 21 November, BELGIUM - Brussels, Botanique/Rotonde

Tuesday 23 November, UK - Southampton, Joiners

Wednesday 24 November, UK - Oxford, Jericho

Friday 26 November, UK - Nottingham, Bodega

Saturday 27 November, UK - Leeds, Brudenell

Sunday 28 November, UK - Birmingham, Glee Club

Monday 29 November, UK - Bristol, Thekla

Wednesday 1 December, UK - London, Bush Hall SOLD OUT

Thursday 2 December, UK - Manchester, Deaf Institute. SOLD OUT

Friday 3 December, UK - Glasgow, Classic Grand

Saturday 4 December, UK - Newcastle, Sage 2

I will be playing at least four new songs and several old ones, switching between electric and acoustic guitars as quickly as possible and trying to avoid wasting time repeatedly tuning up. I will as ever be accompanied by a number of drone-making electronic devices. I am assured by a reliable source that the Deaf Institute in Manchester is haunted and that three-part harmonies may be provided spontaneously by the resident revenants who are doomed to wander the eternal limbo between the realms of the living and the dead, unable to rest in peace until they find that fucking stereo mini jack to quarter inch patch lead that some cunt from the support band accidentally-on-purpose wandered off with after a gig that ended in disaster when part of the building collapsed, trapping the group of singers back stage for three days over the course of which they were driven insane by a monumentally pedantic sound engineer. By the time rescue workers reached them they had smeared the walls with their excrement and eaten their own eyes before finally strangling themselves to death with XLR cables. The sound engineer was found unharmed, lucid, and fervently espousing his position on the problem of phase cancellation in applications involving multiple microphone placements.

Hope to see you there.

Nick

ULTRASKULL IS BACK! 100%! NEW: MINI ISSUE THREE

Ladies and gentlemen, after a long period of mysterious absence, Ultraskull is back on the web, with a *new third installment*. The previous issues have been improved so the pages load faster and are a bit less crap. You can't polish a turd but you can stick a flag in it, and the Ultraskull avatar stands strong and proud against the forces of tyranny, fanaticism and etc
More importantly, the new issue, while on the slim side, and an inexcusable three or so years in the making, contains a new Spade Warrior strip, plus new characters Keith Harris and Orwell, Terry & Dune and more, presented by new Editor Mr. Skeleton, and Guest Contributor Master Rod. And naturally, now it's back up and running, Mr. Skeleton welcomes contributions for a fourth and hopefully much bigger edition. Please bear in mind that Ultraskull is PROBABLY NOT WORK SAFE.

http://www.silentagerecords.co.uk/ultraskull

Coming soon: an Ultraskull Facebook page...because everyone else does that.

In addition, the Silent Age Records site is back up. Though the label is on hiatus until I repress the Gravenhurst debut 'Internal Travels', for those already acquainted it may be worth checking out to find out what everyone who passed through the SA stables has gone on to do.

http://www.silentagerecords.co.uk

Word.

signals on the wire/2151/ transmission one

signals on the wire/2151/ transmission one


-->

go outside for a fag. spiteful weather. raining cats and dogs. dogs and cats. cats, suspicious. dogs, don't understand. cats and dogs. pakis and wogs. pakis and wogs the taxi driver said, like my dad's mate frank used to say back in London in the eighties. not now. not round here. not in the centre of bristol. maybe on the inside but no-one's saying it. martin cabbied in Bangor for a bit after driving and managing the last tour. shit money; forty per cent to the company, the other sixty covers the hire of the cab, the diesel, the cleaning off the saturday night puke from the plastic seat covers, the windows and the sign that warns them about the fifty quid charge for puking on the plastic seat covers, the windows and the sign that warns them about the fifty quid you'll never get from them unless you call the police and spend the rest of the night wrestling over the fucking principle because you would have made more money if you'd cleaned it off yourself and carried on earning what's left of the sixty after rental, diesel, puke and casual racism from the cab office that isn't worth getting involved with but it costs you something to keep it on the inside, you just can't say how much it's worth but it's more than your job's worth to get involved. on a good night fourteen hours could take you home a hundred quid plus the tip- a bad penny thrown at the base of your spine creeping up to your neck sat down for fourteen hours, creeping up to your clenched teeth in the cab office on a break where someone's ranting at the news Enoch Powell said it! He said it fucking fifty years ago, rivers of blood, blood in the rivers, blood in your blood, blood in your clenched teeth in the cab office on a break where you don't break, you keep it on the inside, like you always do but it's chipping away at you, this bad penny tipped into the base of your spine, they build up these tips, creeping up to your neck creeping up to your clenched teeth in the cab office where someone's ranting at the news Enoch Powell said it! He said it fucking fifty years ago! Rivers of blood, blood in the streets, blood in your blood, their blood in your blood, their blood in your daughter's blood, poisoning the blood line, blood in your clenched teeth in the cab office where you finally break and punch the fucking racist cunt in his stupid fucking Welsh face.

but no martin didn't do that of course, he's older and wiser which basically means he's got his shit together, unlike me. and i wouldn't be cabbying in Bangor for as many reasons as there are rain drops caning down all around me as I smoke outside the flat that has been the most stable feature of my life for the last three years. the smoke is vile; I'm feeling it nowadays. Something changed when I turned thirty just like everyone tells you it does. It was a physical change; I had no mid-life crisis; there was no change in the profound chaos of my existence. fourteenth of may two thousand and fucked if I can remember was different only in that I reserved the bit by the fire at the Hillgrove pub in Kingsdown and I didn't have to pay for the drink.
--------------------

Listening:

Distance - My Demons
Distance - Repurcussions
Boxcutter - Oneiric
Boxcutter - Glyphic
The Bug - London Zoo
Steppa's Delight 2 (Comp)
Hatcha's Ten Tons Heavy Mix (Planet Mu) - VA
Excision's Darkside Dubstep Mix - VA
Ikonica's Vice Magazine mix - VA
Broadcast and the Focus Group investigate Witch cults of the Radio Age
9 Bach - 9 Bach
2562 - Unbalance
2562 - Aerial
Tang - Another Thousand Days Out oF This World
Recession Vol. 1 - VA Mixed by October - (Caravan Recordings)
emptyset - emptyset - (Caravan Recordings)
Techtonic Plates vols 1 & 2 - VA mixed by Pinch (Techtonic)
Warp 20 Chosen - VA
Warp 20 Recreated - VA (Warp Artists cover Warp Artists)*

*includes Gravenhurst cover of Broadcast's 'I Found The F'

Reading:

Tom McCarthy - Remainder

Just The Weight Of The Water

Blasting out Slowdive's 'Machine Gun' really fucking loud while on gruelling, unremitting hold to the National Insurance Contributions Helpline For The Self-Employed, I looked up the numerous and touchingly pollyannaish interpretations of the song's impenetrable, delay and flanger-soaked lyrics. I once interviewed Neil Halstead; he couldn't remember them. (I have now had the pleasure of playing shows with him; naturally, he still can't remember). I briefly met Rachel Goswell while interviewing Mr. Halstead; she couldn't remember. And if 'Machine Gun' is a challenge, try 'Souvlaki Space Station'. Slowdive are clearly very strong candidates for Band Holding The Most Unequal UK Music Press Villification To Enduring Fan-Adoration Ratio, awarding them a perversely righteous honour. They deserve more. Director Greg Araki is a massive fan; he has used their music on his films throughout two decades, from his underground days pioneering the New Queer Cinema to his mature work such as the astonishing 'Mysterious Skin'. The excellent Morr Music released 'Blue Skied an' Clear', an interpretative tribute album of Slowdive 'covers'. Writer and promoter Nat Cramp champions them; his Sonic Cathedral is subtitled 'The Night That Celebrates Itself', knowingly co-opting a tired old press criticism of the shoegazing 'scene'. And obviously, for what it's worth, I love them too. Slowdive were treated so unfairly and viciously by the UK music press that it hurts. But the young generation of fans have grown up and are settling old scores on the band's behalf. And we will win you know.

RIP Gordon Burn January 16, 1948 - July 17, 2009

The finest living English writer is now among the dead, which ups the competition considerably. Somehow I only just found out.

He rendered true crime as fiction; his novels read like brilliant reportage. His work trounced any easy distinctions between the real and the imagined. Google for obits. They mostly read the same, paragraphs quickly garnered from his publisher's press release. His work: fiction -start with 'Alma Cogan'; true crime - if you can go there- 'Happy Like Murderers', his startling account of Fred and Rosemary West. His sport writing- 'Pocket Money' and 'Best and Edwards' got me interested in Snooker and Football respectively; I previously had no interest in sport. I only read them because they were the work of England's finest living writer.

____________

This blog has been neglected because I've managed to scrape together some, largely pseudonymous, paid writing work. The Police Diver: Commercial Division. Once I have established a rhythm the Notebook will return to form, I promise.