Existential Crisis of the 21st Century Queer

A few months back, I was on a date with a charmingly queer Australian gentleman. At the end of the night, after considering my grubby jeans, messy long hair and English reserve, he said ‘you’re not very gay are you mate?’ I didn’t really know what to say. I really am very gay, but exactly how gay does gay have to be? I suppose what he meant was that I’m not excessively camp; the behavioural model of the modern gay stereotype: effeminate, extrovert, flirtatious and very sexual.

Call me hung up, but to me this is a total paradox. After the huge courage and bravery of the gay liberation movement, which fought for the individual’s right to express their feelings publicly and without fear, a mainstream gay identity has been established which still leaves many within the gay community feeling alienated and uncomfortable.

In the 60s, what used to be ‘hush-hush, keep it behind closed doors and for God’s sake don’t get caught pants down with Jonathan’, is now ‘I’m just so gay! Look at me everyone, look how gay I am!’ I was standing next to a woman who jokingly shouted those very words at the party bus going past at the Brighton and Hove Pride festival this summer, having a laugh with her friends. It was odd to be laughing with them. In a sense, the secrecy, compulsory discretion and feeling of danger of covert homosexuality in the 1960s feels almost appealingly adventurous in comparison. There’s really nothing like a bit of danger to drive two individuals together, to make their love more passionate, more taboo, more precious. Danger and adversity affirms the reality of love and makes it stronger. It’s what makes Romeo and Juliet and countless other love stories so moving and tender.

Obviously it isn’t constructive to think along these lines, and I’m certainly not suggesting the re-criminalisation of homosexuality. The watershed of civil rights and legislative reform for gay people in Britain is a triumph of liberal democracy. As a British gay man I’m entitled to civil partnerships; legal protection from discrimination in the workplace and the trade of goods; freedom to join the armed forces and equal access to In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) and surrogacy. It’s complacent to agonise over gay life in Britain when in many nations people still face the death penalty, severe sentences or just violent discrimination for being openly gay. But inevitably, one wonders where the LGBT movement is headed next, if not abroad. At least in Britain, the war is being won.

So we can all relax. No wait. Now we can all have sex! And we can all flaunt our sexualities publicly, shamelessly and safely. The industry which has boomed alongside the advances in LGBT rights in the last 20 years is extraordinary, attracting mixed emotions of jubilation and apprehension. Take Gaydar for example; a kind of randy Facebook for gay men. You upload your vital statistics and profile photos, you decide how sexually explicit you want it, and then browse for potential match ups in your local neighbourhood. Twinks, chubbies, bears, preppies, muscle men, the categories are endless. The sexual preference list is equally intriguing, including breath control, glory holes, vanilla, and my personal favourite, vacuum pumping. ‘What you want when you want it’, the slogan reads. Despite the obvious convenience of a potential hook up being just a mouse-click away, any day of the week, Gaydar’s unromantic presentation of sex merely as a commodity is a portentous example of the marketisation of homosexuality. But as my brother recently pointed out: “if the chances are only ‘one in ten’ then isn’t there a need for quite a lot of marketing?” He certainly has a point.

With the civil and legal rights now secured, and the encouragement from the likes of Gaydar, gay clubbing districts and Pride festival weekends, the debate now revolves around how one decides to ‘be gay’ and the public performance of sexuality.

Following the courageous act of coming out, I’ve witnessed many individuals abandon their individuality for the social requirement to ‘be gay’. It suddenly becomes the only thing that matters. In the process, a lot of what has defined their character since early childhood is then rejected in favour of broadcasting their sexuality to the world. This is where I take issue: ‘coming out’ shouldn’t have to entail a sacrifice of individuality.

I understand the need to perform homosexuality: we’re few and far between and no one, especially when young, wants a life of involuntary chastity. It is hard work being gay, but if you subscribe to the preeminent model of behaviour you may limit the development of your own sexual persona. Humans are socially defined by their skills, opinions and interests, as well as sexuality. Individuality is sacrosanct. Why rush into a generic sexual identity? Surely it’s worth taking your time over. After all, there’s nothing more attractive than originality.

PCA- Post Colonial Applause

Post Colonial Applause (PCA) is something many of us have surely witnessed, but never quite put our finger on exactly what it is. I'll offer my recent experience at the Barbican centre in London as an example:

One of my favourite bands, the mighty Afrobeaters 'Antibalas', were doing a one-off concert at London's Barbican Arts Centre. It was a tender consolation for missing out on the WOMAD weekend in Wiltshire, and they were tremendous. It's very rare that people end up jumping up and down and roaming around to music in the Barbican Hall. Normally you're nailed to the chair, and any attempt to connect the musical mind and body together is promptly quashed by the mercenary Barbican ushers who roam the grounds, cattle-prods at the ready. But that night Antibalas released an afro-Boogaloo and everyone was very smiley and sweaty.

The support act, the Gangbe Big Band, were also top-notch; a jazzy,beefy afro-brass band from Benin. It was an intriguing blend of sounds, giving a sense of Benin's colonial past. Benin became a French colony in 1892 and was part of French West Africa until democratic independence in 1960. With the arrival of the french government came the influence of the European military marching band. Colonial officers imported Western instruments and taught the natives military marching band and dance hall tunes. You can definitely hear this in the Gangbe sound. Compared with the funky roll of an afrobeat groove from neighbouring Nigeria, the Beninese sound appears more four-square, more metrical, not so polyrhythmic and basically a bit more 'white'. The snap, crackle and pop of polished Western big band brass are tightly interlocked over West African percussion. Despite the colonial instrumentation in the brass (trombones, trumpets, even sousaphone!), much of the melodic material is authentically Beninese, taken from their own cultural canon of West African Vodun songs and spirituals. They had made it their own.

So it's very much the post-colonial concert experience. You're sat watching a muscley 6-foot-4 inch Beninese master-musician wielding a sousaphone in front of a sea of mild-mannered, appreciative and well-educated Guardian readers in the centre of the London metropolis on a warm summer's evening. This is of course a good thing. Historically, musically and culturally it's very rich. It has made me browse about the web at home trying to put together a vague understanding of traditional West African music, of Benin and a bit of French colonial history. But I can't deny the discomfort that you sometimes get from the multicultural concert experience. It has nothing to do with the musicians on stage. They were having a ball. It's more the audience-performer dynamic which seems to build up when you get African groups coming to prestigious Western venues. The irritation is at its worst when a performer talks to the audience. The trombonist from the Gangbe big band took it upon himself to introduce and interact a bit with the audience. He spoke more or less in broken english; a few nouns, a few verbs, just enough to get something across. But even before saying anything at all, somehow just by virtue of standing there in native dress there were a few 'oh yeahs' and mini-bursts of applause. Just what exactly is this concert hall phenomenon? Why am I reluctant to join in? Why am I holding back from enjoying it, and just accepting it as spectator enthusiasm and the joy of multiculturalism?

Somehow it's different. It's patronising. It's pre-emptive applause to cover awkwardness. Maybe it's the context of a rather debatable colonial history which, as a former colonial power, we now feel perhaps slightly uncomfortable with. It's the audience applause version of the nervously effusive laugh. A kind of collective defence mechanism which without thinking about you become a part of:

"Having enslaved and dominated your country under French colonial rule, committing what would be seen now as innumerable human rights atrocities, I'm now sitting watching a smiley trombonist in traditional Beninese clothing from a former slave colony trying his best to say a few words in English about the next Vodun tune. All things considered you've done really rather well. After all, the frenchies did try their darndest to knock that Vodun stuff out of you. Oh, you're approaching the microphone again. I think it's time for another round of well-earned post-colonial applause. Well done."

Maybe this is just rather cynical, but for me it's all in the sound of the applause. It just doesn't really mean it. It sounds feebly obligatory under the circumstances. And so I ask you to be vigilant in preventing others from patronising African artists from former European colonies with pre-emptive, guilt-ridden applause and indiscriminate 'yeahs' to fill any silence. It demolishes any real feeling of intimacy and ease between the audience and performer and is slightly embarrassing for all concerned.

Thank you.






* I would like express my gratitude to Thom Harmsworth for defining this cultural phenomenon and coining the term.

ZU live @ TpO- Photos

'ZU' @ TPO, Bologna (English/Italiano)

Last night I went to TPO just outside Porta Lame, one of the precious few social centres left in Bologna. They'd organised 'INDIETROTUTTA' a two day mini-festival of bands, comic strips and talks to discuss the future of independently produced music and art.

It's a great venue. It's just nice being in a place which has been re-appropriated and transformed into something else, but with the past life still visible. The sense of progression, transformation and innovation seems to rub off. I guess it's a main reason why I feel compelled to rant about it now on my silly little blog.

I don't know what TPO used to be. Maybe a storage warehouse or something. The main space is tall, long and wide with the bars at one end, mixing desks in the middle, stalls down the sides and the stage at the front. It's an awesome space. It has all the stuff you need, and it's the perfect ambience for aggressive rock music. Industrial, concrete, dimly lit, cavernous, the perfect crucible to jump up and down, get rowdy, lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven and so on...

So the venue is great, and that's one reason to write. But the main reason is to document my sense of awe for 'ZU', last night's headline act. Experimental/metal/math/no-wave/punk/freejazz/noise...the genre list quickly becomes absurd. They've been working on their sound for a decade, released 14 albums and have even travelled as far as Africa to do gigs (about a 1000 in total). But their latest album, 'Carboniferous', produced by Mike Patton and released on his Ipecac Recordings label, seems to have discovered new territory to explore.

'Carboniferous' is about texture and rhythm. Caveman drums, roaring bari-sax and overdriven bass cut into you like jagged sandpaper. The sound machetes through your ears. Not only the creation of the timbres, but the way they are organised into geometric blocks of sound; cutting across each other, breaking down, rebuilding again, jerking into new time signatures, moving into unison stabs before fragmenting into chaos once more. Caustic textures animated by visceral rhythms breath life into an abominable creature. If Megatron from Transformers were to bed the Hydra of Lerna from the ancient Greek myths, perhaps ZU would be the unspeakable musical spawn. Industrial, ugly, mechanised, 3-headed, primitive, violent, visceral; for me, ZU is the perfect expression of the political and social turmoil felt by the long-suffering Italian left in this political dark age of Silvio Berlusconi. The stuff of nightmares.

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Ieri notte sono andato al TPO, appena fuori Porta Lame, uno dei pochi centri sociali rimasti a Bologna. Avevano organizzato 'INDIETROTUTTA', un mini-festival di due giornate con gruppi musicali, fumetti e discussioni sul futuro della musica e dell'arte indipendente.

E' un bel posto. E' piacevole stare in un luogo di cui ci si è riappropriati, un posto trasformato in qualcosa d'altro, ma dove è ancora visibile la "vita" precedente. Il senso di progressione, trasformazione e innovazione sembra influenzarti. Suppongo che sia questa la principale ragione per cui sento il bisogno di scrivere subito sul mio stupido piccolo blog.

Non so cosa era prima il TPO. Magari un magazzino o qualcosa del genere. Lo spazio principale è alto, lungo e largo con il bar su un lato, il mixer nel mezzo, i banchetti laterali e il palco sul fondo. E' uno spazio meraviglioso. C'è tutto quello che serve ed è l'ambientazione perfetta per del rock aggressivo. Industriale, pieno di cemento, poco illuminato, cavernoso: il perfetto crogiolo per saltare su e giù, fare casino, puntare i pugni magri come antenne verso il cielo e così via...

Quindi il posto è splendido, e questa è una ragione per scrivere. Ma la principale ragione è testimoniare il mio senso di stupore per gli ZU, la band di punta della scorsa notte. Experimental/metal/math/no-wave/punk/freejazz/noise... la lista dei generi diventa velocemente assurda. Hanno lavorato sul loro suono per dieci anni, registrato 14 album e anche viaggiato fino in Africa per fare concerti (circa 1000 in totale). Ma il loro ultimo album, 'Carboniferous', prodotto da Mike Patton e uscito per Ipecac Recordings, sembra avere scoperto un nuovo territorio da esplorare.

'Carboniferous' è un lavoro incentrato sul timbro e sul ritmo. Una batteria primitiva, un sax baritono ruggente e un basso strapazzato capaci di sfregiarti come carta vetrata. Un machete sonoro per le orecchie. Non solo la creazione dei timbri, ma anche il modo in cui sono organizzati in blocchi geometrici di suono: tagliati l'uno con l'altro, frammentati e poi ricostruiti di nuovo, scossi dentro nuovi tempi musicali, muovendosi con stacchi all'unisono prima di frammentarsi una volta di più nel caos. Timbri caustici animati da ritmi viscerali danno vita ad un creatura abominevole. E' come se Megatron dei Transformers fosse andato a letto con l'Idra di Lerna della mitologia greca: forse ZU è la progenie indicibile. Industriale, cattivo, meccanizzato, mostro a tre teste, primitivo, violento, viscerale. Per me, ZU è la perfetta espressione dello scompiglio politico e sociale provato dalla sofferente sinistra italiana in questo periodo oscuro sotto Silvio Berlusconi. La sostanza degli incubi.

Translation Adviser/Consigliere di Traduzione: Luca Vittorino

La Poesia

I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to poetry, but reading up a bit for an Italian poetry exam on Wednesday, I think I'm now beginning to understand a little better why we should all read and ideally write poetry. Professore Bertoni, who takes the class, has written a book which is apparently something of a cult hit on the Bologna poetry scene:

'La Poesia: Come si legge e come si scrive'

'Poetry: How to read and write it'

I'd like to offer an extract:

"A pensarci bene, la lettura (e la ricezione silenziosa, la scansione intima di un'opera scritta) è per noi condizione comunicativa cui non è facile rinunciare: veicolo di memoria acquisita secondo la mappa tracciata del libro, possibilità di rilettura e di reinterpretazione (misurando sulla partitura definitiva del testo la mobilità e la variabilità dei nostri punti di vista e dei nostri cambiamenti interiori), richiesta/dovere di concentrazione assoluta e di lenta, progressiva immersione in una parola che non ci appartiene d'acchito e che siamo anzi chiamati a decodificare, a delibare e a fare nostra a poco a poco, spinta al confronto fra tradizioni e lingue, dialettica storicamente aperta di vivi e morti, vecchi e giovani."

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"Thinking about it, the act of reading poetry (and the silent recitation, the intimate articulation of a written work) is a communicative act which is difficult to renounce: the 'transfer of memory', the chance to re-read and reinterpret (judging the mobility and variation of our points of view and the changes that can be made), the demand for absolute concentration and of gentle, progressive immersion in a word which isn't immediately clear, which we have to decode, deliberate over, try our best at, so that little by little we arrive at the comparisons between traditions and languages, aware of the historical dialectic between the living and the dead, the old and the young."

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Asides from the social/historical imperative to discover the collective 'memory of society', Bertoni also conveys the importance of poetry on more spiritual levels. He describes poetry as a way of combatting the feeling of emptiness, narcissism and the 'disposition to internal silence' rife in the so-called 'postmodern' age. He quotes Russian Nobel prize winner Josef Brodskij:

"poetry is not a form of 'entertainment', and in a certain way it's not even a form of 'art' either. I see it as an anthropological aim, genetic, a linguistic lighthouse. It's evolutionary".

I really like the 'evolutionary' idea. A kind of a fortification of the self; words enter your mind for you to puzzle over and ponder, usually on your own in a quiet space somewhere, and nobody can take away any revelations of understanding that may come with reading. Similarly, if you try to 'perform' your new-found poetic prowess trying to impress on others how much you enjoy Sanguineti's 'Postkarten' you will rightly feel like a pretentious wanker. Seems to be best left for the mind to enjoy.

...And yet I feel the need to put this in a blog. Ha ha ha ha ha...what a pretentious wanker I am.

Moving Sounds and Bodies

Musicians and Dancers as one- David Byrne show in Modena

David Byrne- Love has Come to Modena

A couple of weeks ago my parents visited me for a few days to celebrate my mum's 60th birthday. And what better gift from a loving son than a surprise trip to Modena's Teatro Communale to see David Byrne in concert? An entirely selfless act which I noblely endured without too much grumble: it was possibly one of the best concerts I've seen.

The setting was spectacular; a 19th century theatre shaped like a giant cylindrical sponge cake whose height exceeded its width. The lights went down. A 57-year-old Byrne promptly strutted to the microphone to discuss 'tonight's 20 course menu'. As he stood before a theatre-full of Italians he paused and quipped that 'you must excuse me; my English isn't very good'. He also made it explicitly clear that if emails had to be sent, phone calls had to be made, texts had to be sent, then go right ahead. It was all ironically formal. Then without further ado he struck up the band.

There's no point writing at length because it'll be painfully dull compared to what it was in the flesh. But it was electric. Cherry picking from the 3 Talking Heads collaborations with Brian Eno as well as the latest Byrne/Eno project, every song was a joy. A lot of personal favourites came up as well; 'I Zimbra' from Fear of Music, 'Strange Overtones' from the new album and an unbelievable version of 'Houses in Motion' from Remain in Light. The attitude is basically punk; forthright, sometimes a little obnoxious, sometimes sarcastic. Byrne is a lyrical genius. There are sardonic narratives, adapted anecdotes, pop philosophies, but he has also said that he likes to choose lyrics not with the idea of constructing a narrative, but simply because he likes the sound of the word. This is the joy of 'I Zimbra'; an adaption of Hugo Ball's Dadaist poem 'Gadgi beri bimba'. None of these words have specific meanings, but with the punchy polyrhythms, chanting and driving riffs, for me 'I Zimbra' conjures a tribal African dance sung in maybe a fictional Nigerian dialect. The music is fantastic in the true sense of the word.

It's music which captures the hips as well as the imagination. This was a sit-down concert in a formal setting, a throwback to the 19th century aristocracy. But the urge to dance still conquered the hearts and minds. First the heads nodded, then people were clapping, sometimes singing, and before long people were leaning right out pounding their fists and boogeying around the booths. It was like a compartmentalised gallery of dancing styles; some concetrating on the arms, others going for the legs. And this wasn't a young audience! But everybody seemed to feel so. The stroke of genius was the use of 3 dancers who were fully integrated into the show. The songs weren't just hacked out for the sake of a tour. There was a full choreography which Byrne himself weaved in and out of with his guitar. Spirals; jumps; twirls; handstands; integrating props; throws; sometimes swopping with the backing singers; taking over the stage for dance solos: a treat for both the eyes and the ears propelling bodies out of seats and arms into the air.

This is all getting embarrassingly carried away. But it's the effect of the music. It embodies Byrne's inexhaustible lust for life which goes into all that he does, whether that be in music, in the art studio, running his radio station or designing bike racks for New York. Modena is a very sleepy little middle-class town in Emilia-Romagna, but that evening in the Teatro love had come to town.



(subsides after foolishly writing at length)