DEEP SCRATCH

Tag: Culture Wars

  • breath breath

    breath breath


    Breath, Breath, to the KLF

    Life, life, to family and wife

    Curse, curse, on war mongers perverse

    Love, love, all humans hand glove

    Stop it, stop it, those who fire the damn rocket

    See, See, hypocrite BBC

    Peace, Peace, in the middle east

    Greased, Beast, selling arms murder feast



  • This Artists Response To Eurasianism: Artlandasia.

    Hard questions emerge for us all, since the threat of Putin’s militaristic Eurasianism rears its ugly head on the world stage. I’m compelled to ask myself what I can do and what my worldview is today? What is to be done, today? How can an individual take on the history of the world and make meaningful and useful communications? What defines and distinguishes our values from those of the dictators and fascists, the fundamentalists and genocidal maniacs?  

    Suddenly, we’re refocused on Russian history, Vladimir Putin, NATO and, depending which way to decide to look on a map, the rest of the world. That’s a lot of study and depends in part on the ability to think objectively, putting yourself in other people’s shoes, it also depends on the time you have and the access you have to good information. Be that as it may, this is my part of the war effort, to shout loud: support your independent artists, build a new alternative to the hideous far-right fantasy of Putin and it’s western New Right allies: Artlandasia.  

    Independent artists, to include some independently minded artists who may not be strictly independent proper, are powerful cultural entities and help define what it is about human culture we love and what we view with revulsion. Simply put, there’s plenty of evidence for artist led and artist supported collectives to run a country, such is the broad definition of the artist in 2022. By running a country, I mean both the practical day-to-day operations of the industrial and technological infrastructure already in place, and that good ole’ entertainment demanded by contemporary culture. 

    Besides their extra explicit artistic skills, musicians, for example, may have a good understanding of negotiations, fair-contracts and working together in a team, listening and thinking fast on their feet. This is the kind of mindset and skill set we need to defeat an oligarchic dictatorship, brave skilled individuals able to work in different groups, listen and then harmonize. Indeed, varied experience and credentials and evidence are helpful in determining who plays which roles in this proposed new humanistic society of artists. Leaving Bono aside for a moment, I’d seriously support somebody like Sting as a candidate for president of Artlandasia, if such a public facing leader were required. Who would you suggest?  

    If we include all writers and literature, we Artlandaisians already have the founders of that other, non-Artlandasian space. From Thoth to Plato, from Confucius to John Adams, we the artists can lay claim to their innovation of language, their impact and influence, yet re-directed toward an open-society of self-owning ones, Artlandasians, distinguished from some Unipolar Empire of divine guided mad kings and mad generals. No, we stand united by a literal harmony, our voices make music, we worship synergy, pitch, tone, rhythm, with desire for beauty, truth, meaning, understanding. Inclusion, multicultural synergy, the innovative and progressive forces of world history reunited through art. For example, Jazz and Blues traditions (rhythm, melody, innovation, sincerity), speakeasy traditions (poetry, history, philosophy, literature) hip-hop traditions (turntablism, graffiti, breakdancing and rap) and on and on. Something for everybody, the ability to read the room.

    We acknowledge and celebrate the eastern influence on our western traditions, we pull down our vanity and conceit to meet with the other, excited and hungry to learn and listen and co-create. To explore the wonders of life, language, love, nature, outerspace, inner-space and the human condition. Together, why not all together? Artlandasia is all-around-the-world, and proposes a globalism defined by Buckminster Fuller: around-the-world-connected, around the world trading, around-the-world-sharing. Equally distributed resources and responsibilities. A new global ART alliance. 

    Computer programming and coding is an artform, another fact Artlandasia can exploit to further its cause. be creative with it. Artlandasia encourages open-source universal programming languages such as Python, to be taught and practiced top-to-bottom within the socio-cultural sphere. To borrow a term from Douglas Rushkoff: program or be programmed. Artists have a tendency to be disciplined and many are already prepared to learn a new non-alphabetic language, for instance.

    Many musicians are familiar with the need to adopt and change plans, to update and learn new skills to survive. Both the digitization and exploitation of their artform and marketplace over the last 20 years, plus the global pandemic lockdown has strengthened our grasp of economics, technology and the minds of the people. The general heart of the matter. Global internet and communications infrastructure are our friend, the backbone upon which Artlandasian can fairly function for all-around-the-world technology.

    Artists, not generals, have the means to impact public opinion by way of writing, design, and programming. Artists are the leading edge of the culture war and have empathy, compassion and sympathy essential to a fair and trustable alternative to violence and bullying. Please consider supporting independent artists who you’d like to see more deeply embedded in society and politics, in decision making and representation of your personal and national identity. Fuck war, let’s art.

    –Steve Fly
    03/03/2022
    Trondheim, Norway.

  • SQ – Permdemic (Wack Rhymes For Wack Times)

    What about hairworkers
    Those on the fringes
    Who add colour to what’s natural
    With dye from syringes

    The highlight of my day
    Is to go get a cut
    Perhaps have my nails done
    On hand and/or foot

    Health hair workers
    On the frontline
    I’ll shave your head
    If you shave mine

    Look at that bouffant
    On that buffoon Wilders
    I don’t see hair like that on
    Farmers or builders

    Look at how stylish
    Men’s hair does sway
    On the head of Donald Trump
    Or Thierry Baudet

    All the royals
    Use the best hair oils
    Wrapped in tin-foils
    Blonde or brunette curls?

    Hair is a statement
    A sign of the times
    Global permdemic
    We dye for our crimes

    Like LA porn stars
    With Kardashing flare
    We all need nail salons
    Sunbeds, nice hair

    Suite hair nails watch
    Briefcase wallet
    Royal banker politician
    Make me want to vomit

    More cosmetics than a hooker
    You stupid mothercomber
    To open up the schnippers
    Just to style your fuckin’ look, err

    I’d rather look like cousin it
    Than resemble Baudet, piece of sh*t
    Shaved of any self respect
    Uniform behaviour check

    –Squintin Quarantino

  • Support Your Artists To Strengthen Your National Security

    Support Your Artists To Strengthen Your National Security

    But it is the names of the artists who have yet to grace those stages, the artists the public do not yet know and risk never knowing, that we should be talking about. Grassroots music venues aren’t about the past of our music industry, they are about its future.–Mark Davyd.

    Yes, I’m an artist, musician, but a professional? (not if you base it on my income) many of us, if you hadn’t noticed, are not in this for the money and fame. This is a therapy for our friends, family, extended audience, our perceived enemies and above all therapy for ourselves, as all else flows forward from self. Until the government fully supports creative arts properly, in all sectors (during a pandemic or not) citizens will be wide open to foreign state interference and the toxic tip of disinformation.     
     
    I used to joke twenty years ago that the local Job Center should make “Job Seeker Records” due to the fact all the musicians I knew were either signing on or had to keep a day job to support their artistic calling. DJs were lucky to get twenty quid from a gig, often paying to play when organizing their own events, independently and paying to release their music with little hope of commercial success, exclusive dubplate culture among DJ’s was not for profit. Those who were fortunate to get signed with an advance, equal to the money earned from a regular 9-5 job, were not viable in their home town and enticed to the largest city nearby, or London. In the 1990s I witnessed successful people moving away from their nests to larger cities where the action, the work and the money are at. This sad fact seems wrong-headed and would be unnecessary if local support were provided. The consolidation of industries under the neoliberal surge in the 1990s is responsible for driving creative talent away from where it is currently required most, home. 

    If big tech and government and the music industry wanted to solve this they’d create a local infrastructure to support/fund creative arts, business with the same effort and pride with which they support the international finance sector, the arms manufacture sector. Yes, artists and creative industries need the money to pay rent and eat and survive, yet at the same time, we could all benefit from a new relationship between the arts and commerce, where the state and its corporate backers come together to support a decentralized and rotational network of independent artists, capable of being seen and heard equally with market giants like Ed Sheeran…without having to resort to Apple Google Facebook Amazon and Spotify for all their distribution and licensing. 

    Most but not all artists and creatives I know are left-leaning, it comes with the territory of open sincere exploration and experiment, the opposite of absolute conclusive conservatism. I get the sense that the current hard-right conservative government in the UK enjoys bashing the left and creative arts culture, an excuse to underfund, look away and inflict intentional suffering. This is nothing new since the 1960s and 1970s the Tories have attacked the liberal arts, working-class creative culture and generally they supported massive corporate takeovers and consolidation of the music business industry (Labour too), up to its current domination by the five big tech companies and two or three major labels.

    Every artist I know has questioned and fought for independence, probably with more passion in the early days, “we’re never gonna’ sell-out or play that pants commercial shit” type attitudes. Then they get married, have a family and play in a Ted Nuget cover band at retirement homes. I’m not judging, but there remains an underground, experimental, abstract…in it for the sheer exhilaration of making it new every time, authenticity in great art and artists. The attitude and life of Thelonious Monk as opposed to Jeff Bezos, to make a stark contrast. 

    I’ve two suggestions, start-up local “Job Seeker Records” imprints, modelled as if you were funded by the state. (See Scarfolk Council for examples)  Demonstrate how much future creativity lies dormant and untapped. My second suggestion is more on a personal level, try to support people in their early artistic endeavours and experiments, encourage the following of one’s intuition in combination with healthy research, study and practice. As many great musicians and artists repeat, music is a therapy for them, the process is part of the journey, the destination unknown and when the voyage is over when you find yourself with your creation, is only a part of the creative process. To campaign for keeping governments, the recording industry and finance rotational and decentralized should not be exclusive with leftwing politics, but the progressive movement toward an equal humane society of self-owning ones, united in a common process of sharing resources, intelligence, imagination and beneficial tools worldwide.

    The Covid-19 Pandemic has brought us all into a world that musicians have been familiar with for decades, the recession of bands, labels and funding, tours, independent venues, and markets due to consolidation by big tech and the major labels. IF…artists had thriving and viable systems based on the Bandcamp model for example, in conjunction with grants and support from the multiple billions in profits generated by the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and their shareholders, they could thrive and create freely without having to worry about paying rent, eating and/or paying medical bills and health expenses. These would be first world benefits of living in Great Britain, America, and some of the other richest most technologically advanced societies on earth, and most importantly the artistic productions would be subsidized to become freely available for everybody on earth!

    Yes, art and music should be FREE, FREEDOM! But only with the support and subsidy provided by the state and corporations taking the cream off the top and giving very little back. Universal Basic Income would already cover the immediate challenges to most of the people I’m concerned about here, it has a similar result, not starving and having the means for self-therapy that can be shared with others, a win-win in any caring society. This new vision I’m riffing on (dreaming about) would also benefit a nation’s identity and status on the world stage, bringing altruism, equality and balance to a nation’s entertainment-media ecology. Instead of the Euro-Vision song contest, we need something more like the Eurovision–who supported the most artists to create the most songs, which in turn created the most shared revenue and employment for that nation–competition? 

    Local bands and local folk music, experimental non-commercial music must have an equal footing in the mediasphere with Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga and Kanye West. The audience can still choose to tune into whatever they wish, but they feel warm in their hearts that the creative arts are open and seductive as a viable career for some, a form of therapy and community for others. Either way, it is subsidized, so no need to second guess. To trust that taxes and all working communities everywhere are happy to support the arts in equal measure with the rest of the economy, ballooning with finance, arms manufacture and pharmaceutical trade. Those who claim that funding the military and army and navy is more important than the arts do not understand or do not want to understand the current battlespace of disinformation warfare. Art and creative industries like gaming have been hijacked from creative artists and weaponized to support populist hard-right movements, see Pepe the frog, Trump 2016 and the Vote Leave campaigns for appropriation of art in service of anything but support for artists.

    Imagine if Banksy were foreign secretary, Stephen Fry Prime Minister, Brian Cox and Roger Penrose as education ministers, Jamie Oliver as Health minister, Gary Lineker as minister for sport, James O’ Brien as minister for communications. Why not? They’re arguable the best at managing those domains.

    How have people ended up voting for the dullest most blatant liars and cheats, while going further than not supporting artists and creatives, attacking them and joining the hard right in stereotyping them as the enemy in their vulture culture warfare.    

    I’d like to continue this thought with the hope of refining some points and counter-arguments.

    –Steve Fly (29/10/2020)
    https://www.patreon.com/stevefly


    https://www.musicweek.com/opinion/read/viewpoint-mark-davyd-on-the-battle-to-reopen-every-venue-safely/081590