Mark Anderson
Biggin’ Up Blighty # 1
What-Oh all you fusion chaps and chapesses!
 Your correspondent here in the united grey and rain swept kingdom bringing you the first of a regular missive about all things musical, right of the Atlantic.
Over here we are loading our galoshes, pac-a-macs and toilet rolls in anticipation of the cloudy, wet season we call the summer music festivals and there’s a choice of over 300 of the blighters. Of course I won’t be attending any, as my wife, Her Majesty the Fox, wouldn’t dream of slumming it in a tent, let alone going anywhere near a chemical loo. However, tens of thousands of youthful Europeans will be doing just that. But what musical treats are in store for them you ask?
90% of them will probably be dancing deliriously to the latest ‘bangin’ beats’ or thrashing their hairy noggins to the same three chords humanity has enjoyed for the past 60 years, played albeit unbear-ably louder and ridiculously faster than ever heretofore. What’s that you say? Punk revival, Disco revisited? Surely you can’t be serious! This is NU Punk, Future Dance Bubble Rave and Tribute-Core to the MAX. Don’t even mention the past unless you’re an 80’s electro-fanatic (then you’ll be currently ‘cool’).
But most of all, don’t EVER mention the J-word. We happy few that still burn a candle for the musical zeniths reached in the golden decade of 1965-75 have been usurped by the tyranny of the relentless, remorseless, all consuming greed and virus-like culture of Dance. Like the rise of Darth and some dark star it continues to engulf the light (sabre) of forward thinking musical visionaries and reduce all phenomenon to Mammon, four to the floor pounding ever louder, ever faster, body over mind, matter over spirit, adrenal over cerebral.
Where will the forces of light prevail against the brutish hordes? Well, give it up for the Meltdown Festival on the South Bank. London UK this past 13-21st June. This year programmed by none other than musical Jedi Ornette Coleman and featuring the man himself in tandem with David Murray, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Carla Bley, Robert Wyatt and the Bad Plus amongst many others.
Mark Anderson is a drummer and guitarist, teacher and journalist. As a musician he has recorded with the likes of Surindar Sandhu, George Brooks and Steve Vai. He is currently a member of The Bird Architects and Paroksha. He lives with his wife and daughter in Bristol SW UK.
Biggin’ Up Blighty # 2
Peace on ya.
As I write this I’m watching the demonstrations in Tehran and getting flashbacks to the 60’s with peace signs being flashed at everyone, green wrist bands and headbands. Blimey it looks like the Isle of Wight. All we need now is Jimi coming on playing The Star Spangled Banner...
You cry and well you might, “Your point in all this?” Time, my friends, time. Wait long enough and it all comes round again. Let us all hope so for the sake of honest music. Music for music’s sake and not simply a boogie vehicle for the next hysterical b.a.d sex-monster.
Certainly we can draw a broad dividing line between those people who love music for its own sake and those who just use it and discard the wrapper after use. Let me use an analogy here. The majority of humans use music like a car, to get from A to B, or maybe to impress suggestible members of the opposite camp. They don’t care what’s under the bonnet (that’s hood to you Americans) or how it works, so long as it’s got flash upholstery, a big boom box in the boot (read “trunk” in the US) and some fuzzy dice, it’ll do nicely.
Then there are those who can tell just by the sound the engine makes that the third piston is a little out of sync and who will happily tinker on an old Morris Minor for months on end, covered in grease and dirt, strip it right down and build it right back up again just to hear it sound RIGHT. Users and Lovers I call them.
Fusioneers like demonstrators will champion who’s the fastest, who’s the killa drummer, who drops the fattest chops somewhat like engine enthusiasts. It doesn’t really matter. A student of mine once asked me “Are you a world class drummer”? My answer was pretty swift. “You’re only as good as last night’s gig.”
Anyone can be THE Wo/Man of the moment at any time. In fact, our role as musicians is to be the Champion for that particular audience at that particular gig. Everything else is just mechanics. May wisdom prevail.
Mark Anderson is a drummer, teacher and journalist. He is currently a member of The Bird Architects and Paroksha. He lives with his wife and daughter in Bristol SW UK.
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