Musical Interlude: Brixton Recipe

Take two parts Brixton clublife to an equal measure of tongue in cheek; fold into some melted swamp production and season with some tumble-weed country guitars. Grind up a detailed knowledge of Primitive Baptist theology and sprinkle liberally on the mixture. Add two spoonfuls of freshly ground Marxism-Leninism with a Third-Worldist orientation and a generous pinch of knowing references to every major rootsy American musical tradition since Robert Johnson. Throw in some more steel guitars, and gently heat under a classic R’N’B flame.

Once the mixture is really cooking, serve instead of the bread and the wine in the First Presleyterian Church of St. Elvis the Divine ( UK). It is the best motherfuckinacidhousecountrymusic you can possibly imagine.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Alabama Three.

Myersons

Yeah, drugs can really fuck up families. Yeah, sometimes things get really bad between parents and teenagers and it is a fool who thinks the answer is to start moralising about someone else's pain. I know there 'but for the grace of', go my family or other people I love.

But a book? That's just the narcissism of the self obsessed media classes. It helps no-one's pain, and spreads the family damage into the future.

P.S. Having posted this I went to bed and wondered if it was, perhaps, a bit over-personal and ungenerous. This morning however I find I am the very model of fair-minded reasonableness. Well, at least I am by the standards of potlatch.

Two stories about work and mind altering substances.

This last week it's been half term in London schools. Just the right time to organise a police raid on my nine-year old's primary school...

I should explain. The caretaker had been growing - ahem, I mean allegedly growing, of course - a small forest of cannabis plants in the boiler room. It was the sky-high electricity bills which revealed the secret. Someone tipped off a tabloid and suddenly Mrs. Charlie, a parent governor, has spent half the week issuing po-faced statements of support for the excellent head and the other half fending off humorous texts from her mates archly asking if this was a new PTA fund raising initiative. This should be a nine day wonder: there's no suggestion that any one's little darling came into contact with the plants.

But these things can linger in the collective memory, as Richard Fortey's rather wonderful 'The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum- Dry Store Room No.1' has reminded me. Before the war, there was allegedly an illicit still inside the hollow Big Blue Whale. (It's a delightful book - the NYRB review is reproduced here). The Head of Exhibitions was said to be responsible. I can only imagine it didn't show up on the utility bills....

Grown Up Writing

I think many currently illegal drugs should be legalised. So does Shocko. But the difference is he can write about it beautifully, in the full knowledge it's not a cost free judgment call.

There should be more of this kind of writing - writing which acknowledges moral and political complexity, and yet still faces up to the need to come down on one side of an argument. I think the Fatman does it routinely, even if I don't always agree with every conclusion. It's grown up writing.