It was early 2003, I
was 21, and I was working, in the loosest sense of the word, for a
small online music magazine. We covered the more extreme and esoteric
end of the electronic, industrial and metal scenes. You probably know
what I mean, an unlistenable mix of Black Metal, Grindcore, Drone and
a lot of other stuff that not many people actually listen to. I don’t
really know how I ended up working there, I was drinking a lot at the
time and going to lots of gigs, but I think I met the editor/owner at
an improv night that turned into a warehouse party somewhere in
Shoreditch in 2001. We spent the night sniffing shit speedy coke and
shouting at each other about bands we claimed to enjoy. I think I
made a good impression because when I woke up on the floor of his
room in a pub squat in Hackney Wick he offered me a job at his new
venture.
Of course I said
yes, I was broke, sleeping on friends sofas and the chance to get
paid to go to gigs and write about horrible music was too good to
pass up. Looking back I have no idea how the magazine was funded,
there were 4 of us in the “office”, which was a shared studio
space just off the Kingsland Road. I assume the owner/editor had some
kind of family money because he paid us all, not much, but enough for
me to get a room in a shared flat on an estate in Dalston, and we all
had laptops provided, we even put on some nights that more than 10
people came to.
Having somewhere to
live and some disposable income was brilliant, but in many ways
having some money was a terrible thing. I could afford to buy drugs,
and drink more, and whilst at the time I was having fun, I can see I
wasn’t happy at all. This might have something to do with the music I
was getting further into. I was one of those tiresome people who said
they listened to everything but I’d always liked the extreme ends of
whatever genres I was into at the time. Death and black metal,
gangsta rap, noise, free jazz, bubblegum pop, breakcore, you name it,
if it was unlistenable or offensive I was into it. At the magazine I
became the guy who wrote about Power Electronics.
This was because,
even at a magazine that prided itself on being far out on the fringes
of music, nobody else could be bothered with it. We all liked a bit
of Whitehouse, Consumer Electronics and other stuff from the early
80’s birth of the genre, but everyone else thought that was enough.
Being a contrarian fuck I decided it was actually the future and
spent ages writing to PO boxes to get sent tapes in the post. If
you’re unfamiliar with P.E. as a genre let’s just say it’s usually
someone pushing some kind of synth to make very uncomfortable
frequencies, often with someone screaming over the top and what they
are screaming is usually about rape, submission, murder or genocide
with artwork to match. Sometimes extreme right wing politics are
thrown into the mix, sometimes it’s just celebrating the work of
serial killers. I was never into the politics, and didn’t want to
kill anyone apart from myself, but the nihilism appealed to me. I
also used to justify it by saying it was the art I was interested in
and the not the people behind it, and although the ideas were
repulsive, it didn’t take away from it’s impact as art, and in many
ways it helped show the hypocrisy of the increasingly decadent
liberal society we were a part of. Sex, murder, death, all capitalist
commodities, right? And fuck you, you like Burzum so don’t be a
hypocrite.
What can I say? I
was drunk most of the time, high most of the time, and desperately
unhappy when I wasn’t one of those things. This shit worked for me.
The Countryside Liberation Front tape threw me. A jiffy bag was
thrown onto my desk with a “probably another shit awful Nazi power
rape tape for you here” from one of my esteemed colleagues. The
office banter was brilliant. I opened it and out dropped a tape,
black and white photocopied cover, collage and block printed.
Standard P.E. stuff. It was like the 80’s never ended with these guys
but when I looked a bit closer the name itself was enough for it to
stand out.
The Countryside
Alliance had just marched through London, they were opposed to what
they saw as the anti-countryside urban political elite that were
doing horrible things like attempting to ban fox hunting and other
wholesome country activities. The march was huge, and was attended by
Conservative politicians, landowners, farmers and other so-called
custodians of this green and pleasant land. The tape was like a super
militant version of this. The cover featured two balaclava clad men
in full hunting gear holding shotguns and dead foxes, it folded out
into an A4 collage, more images of hunting, hunt saboteurs in
crosshairs, trespassers will be shot signs, images from the
Countryside Alliance march, pro-hunting quotes from members of the
Royal Family, and across the bottom of the page a large block printed
phrase “Extreme Tory Noise”.
It looked exactly
like the pamphlets which the Animal Liberation Front used to publish
detailing it’s actions liberating animals from testing labs and
sabotaging hunts. It also shared the same aesthetic sensibilities of
the pamphlets published by the far right and far left from the 60’s
onwards, which were a huge influence on a lot of the artwork from
other Power Electronics releases. I was intrigued. The titles of the
tracks were:
Side A
1.This Is Our Land
2.Blooding
3.Trespassers Will
Be Shot
4.Rambler Scum
5.No Right Of Way
Side B
1.The Enclosures
2.Lynch Poachers
3.Commons And
Commoners
4.Hunt Ball
5.Death Of A Sab
I had to wait to get
home to listen to it. This was before the recent resurgence the
cassette format for releasing music. P.E. seemed to be the only genre
still actively releasing on tape and I was the only person I knew
with a tape player. My walkman was out of commission after an
incident with a platform and a train. I don’t think anyone in the
office would have appreciated me playing most of the stuff I covered
anyway. I left the office in the afternoon and went home via the off
licence, £6 for 5 cans of Stella, I got 10. Sorted.
For what it was, it
was good stuff. It’s hard now for me to work out how I could tell the
difference between most of the stuff I was listening to. This tape
though, it was suitably crusty, analogue, the vocals were angry,
layered in feedback, and you could distinctly hear the classic
British upper class accent delivering venomous missives against what
they saw as their enemies, which basically seemed to be anyone from
the city, anyone who opposed hunting, ramblers, left wingers, even
the rural working class. Hunt Ball and Blooding were both
celebrations of post-hunt rituals but laden with a hatred of anyone
who dared to oppose these rituals.
I worked my way
through the beers, in my room, in a flat, in pre-gentrification
Dalston, listening to what sounded like public school boys attacking
my very existence, and needless to say, I fucking loved every minute
of. I listened to the tape through about ten times, it was only 30
minutes long, and it chimed with my own sense of self-loathing. I was
also 100% sure this was some kind of genius situationist prank, and I
was going to track whoever made this down and write a feature.
The Grenadier, in
the borderland between Belgravia and Knightsbridge, wasn’t one of my
regular pubs. I sometimes went to Hyde Park to walk around aimlessly
smoking dope under the pretense of being a flaneur but missing the
point entirely, and I trawled the Music & Video Exchange in
Notting Hill at least once a week, but other than that West London
was uncharted territory. I was sitting here waiting for the person
who had answered the message I’d left on the answerphone of the
contact number printed on the inside cover of the cassette. I got a
call back from a private number saying I could meet a member of the
“organisation” at The Grenadier. I almost laughed out loud at the
tone of the call, it was perfect, it was like I was going to meet a
representative of the paramilitary wing of the Countryside Alliance,
hilarious.
Waiting in the pub I
was feeling slightly apprehensive. It was busy, a midweek after work
crowd, mixed but there was certainly more old money floating around
than I was used to. A number of men were wearing penny loafers and
red trousers non-ironically. In my mind I was more sartorially aware
than most of the people I associated with but I was feeling a bit
dressed down. West London can do this to a person. I was early,
drinking nervously, which meant quickly. I was three pints in when my
phone vibrated on the table, I’d been having a chat with a red faced
man in a pink shirt about something, possibly football, he was
getting me a drink, I had almost forgotten why I was there. I
answered. Posh voice, commanding, loud:
Voice: Be a good
chap, and come outside. We’ve got a vehicle waiting.
Me: What? One
moment. (To pink shirt red face) A SHORT, WHISKY! (Phone)
Voice: It won’t hang
around for long, make it a very short short.
Me: Jesus, ok, this
is all very good stuff. A fucking car. What next?
The phone went dead.
I downed the whisky and barged my way through the scrum. There were
enough rugby shirts for me to imagine this is what an actual scrum
would be like. I stumbled out of the door into the mews. I could see
a green Land Rover Defender, bottom half mud caked, unusual in
London, parked up, it’s lights flashed at me. I composed myself and
walked over. The passenger window opened, I could make out a baseball
cap pulled low, Barbour coat pulled up, voice from the phone call,
telling me to jump in the back.
Yes, I jumped in the
back of the Land Rover. For someone who was very proud of his
self-proclaimed cynicism about everything, I was pretty trusting.
There was someone next to me, wearing a balaclava.
Me: This might be
the best yet, this is why I love Power Electronics, which one of you
is the guy? Do you all make the music?
Balaclava: Come on
old boy, let’s get this on. (He had a canvas bag in his hand, he
gestured towards me with it.)
Me: Oh fuck, (I was
laughing), ok, ok, this is even better, I’m in, I’m in, secret
location right? (I let Balaclava put the bag over my head.)
I don’t know when I
passed out, but I think we must have driven for about an hour. I
heard someone say something about Reading Services, then someone else
telling them to shut up, then I don’t remember much. I had a banging
headache, couldn’t get word out of anyone, so I just closed my eyes.
I could have taken the hood off but didn’t want to ruin the mood,
after all, this would make great copy for the 20 loyal readers I’d
accrued. This was gonzo right? Foxhunter S. Thompson reporting for
duty. I drifted off.
I woke up in a wood
panelled room. I was tied to a chair. There were three men standing
over me, wearing shooting gear, Hackett, Barbour jackets, colourful
chinos tucked into Hunter wellington boots, all holding double
barrelled shotguns, broken in the middle. To top it off they all had
balaclavas on. Strong look, I thought.
Me: Why the fuck am
I tied to a chair?
One of them stepped
forward and ruffled my hair.
Him: Oh, just a
little security precaution, we don’t awfully like having the oiks
visiting here, you never what they might steal.
Me: Yeah, this was
funny when you picked me up, lets just do the interview, I’ll write
the feature, we can all part ways, 20 people will read it, they will
all buy the tape, send me the next one?
Him: (laughing
gently) Get him a scotch, not the best stuff.
Me: That’s better.
Him: We thought you
would enjoy our little tape. We saw how much you enjoyed all the
others, all the terrible noises, horrible covers, shock tactics
masquerading as political comment, that type of thing.
Me: And?
Him: We hoped you
would contact us. We know you, we know about your trivial life, your
sordid little dalliances. It amuses us greatly. Don’t misunderstand
us, we found you because we all share a love of loud noises, you’ve
seen us at gigs, maybe we fund your life. Our families are very
important people but they indulge us.
Me: (Despite the
calming effects of the large scotch I was getting a bit impatient)
This is all very good, very, very good, you guys are brilliant, but
come on, get to the fucking point, I’m supposed to be reviewing an
action at a gallery in Stepney or something, I think. (I was a bit
confused)
Him: Well if you
make it back of course.
Me: What the fuck do
you mean?
Him: We’ve wanted to
try something, put our more extreme ideas into action, hunt something
a bit more interesting than a fox. You’re going to be released soon
enough, but you should run, very fast. (They all laughed, I’m still
haunted by the sound of posh people laughing, I can’t even go to pubs
in East London anymore).
I woke up in a
ditch, grey light, dawn, to the sound of a horn, and horses
galloping. I ran. I jumped over fences, I ran through streams. I
found a road, I followed it. My jeans were stuck to my skin, I was
covered in mud. In retrospect it was lucky that, at the time, I
dressed like a rambler anyway. My Berghaus anorak had certainly not
had a workout like this in London. I could still hear the hunt behind
me. I thought so anyway. Now I’m not so sure, but I kept running.
I made it back. I
cut off the road across a field, I could see what looked like a
motorway services on the other side. I threw myself over a fence and
landed in a carpark. Leigh Delamere. I’d never been so happy to see
people, normal people, a Costa coffee sign, a McDonalds logo. I
checked my pockets. I had my wallet. I was muddy, but no one really
noticed. I went into the toilets. I took care of myself. I sat in the
services. I decided that the life I was living wasn’t really for me.
Yes, transgressive art and politics can be interesting, but you
should be careful about what you involve yourself in, what you
advocate. You might end up on the wrong side. They might not like
you.
OK, well, since you asked, I’m going to refrain from my usual old-fart smart-ass non-replies here.
It
all seriousness, the first thing I do in fighting this battle is to
encourage those I meet, so infected, to get over their self-loathing.
Your enemies want you to hate yourself. Your enemies want you to hate
your life. Despite how your enemies have branded you, you need to take
ownership of your misfit/outsider/loner status.
Redefining what your predicament means to you will undermine the status quo more than you think.
The
second thing I try to do in this battle, is to encourage networking
between all types of outsiders. Even in the eighteenth & nineteenth
centuries, hermits that lived in near-complete seclusion still managed
to flock together in large gatherings to deal with common concerns.
The more we can rely on each other, the less we will need to rely on the ruling class.
And
yes, thirdly, to be vocal (noisy) about your dreams, needs, and
visions. One thing I’ve learned over the passed 33+ years, is that you
never know what is going to click inside someone else’s head. It could
be any little thing on your part that will inspire them to take action
in their own lives.
When I used to work at a book shop in San
Francisco I once made an off the cuff remark to a visiting author about
the bowling alley at the south poll. I didn’t think anything of it
again, till a few years later when I found out she was so taken by the
idea of a bowling alley at the south poll that she actually flew there.
She even ended up living in Antarctica for awhile.
It’s the old expression, but it only takes a small spark to start a big fire.
So,
what spikes my interest? It’s when I noticed how being a criminal
actually did very little to erode society. Even the typical serial
killer conforms to society’s expectations of him. If anything, society
needs its criminals and killers to justify its efforts in keeping order
in the first place.
I love entropy, and the lonely inconspicuous
free-thinker going about his business does more, in the long term, for
social entropy than anything any criminal could. Besides, it’s the whole
“bite the hand that feeds you if that hand doesn’t feed you all” thing that I just can’t shake.