A New Form Of Live Music

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

About six months ago I made a conscious decision to see more live music. I have seen a fair amount in my life, not loads and not enough to be impressive in any way, but there have been memorable experiences I can count on more than one hand. There have though been occasions in which I have passed up on seeing someone; leaving a show early fifteen years ago because of girlfriend issues and not staying to see The Prodigy still rankles as a major moment of regret. This spring and coming summer then I was hoping to see some music but this has clearly all changed. While some summer festivals have been postponed until the autumn it is pretty clear I’m not going to get this music fix in the short term.

This pandemic has forced people into embracing new approaches to getting their message, music, produce and so on out into the world. The internet is yet again showing itself to be a most incredible tool and social media may have plenty of downside but it is proving to be an brilliant source for sharing when people need it the most. There is one phenomena which I have been enjoying and that is the live music. From what I can see this began with people not necessarily famous but who were used to performing regularly be it bars to small venue. I have a few friends on Facebook who have put on some shows and while I haven’t watched them all, I have enjoyed them, not announcing my presence just watching as if I was sitting silently at the back of the gig and leaving just as they ended.

A few of the more famous musicians have been getting in on this too, for various reasons, some charitable and some personal. I watched Post Malone do a really good show of Nirvana covers to raise money for the World Health Organisation. I then listened to a few of his actual song and realised he wasn’t for me, but his take on Nirvana, with the help of Blink 182’s drummer Travis Barker, was really impressive.

I discovered yesterday that a favourite dub artist of mine Panda Dub took part in something called the Aftrwrk Online Festival.

While these are ultimately the type of videos you’ve been able to watch on YouTube for a longtime there is something different about watching them live. We are leading such disconnected lives in quarantine that even the slightest connection to something happening in the moment that others are also partaking in can not be overlooked. I don’t think for a second that this form of music will overtake actual live music in person but it will certainly have forced people to view and approach other medians of live music in a new way.

Tonight then there is one by a group called Whitehorse who I came across about a month ago. Tonight they are doing a live show at about 22.00 British time. This is a link to their facebook page from which I think it will be shown.

Maybe I’ll see you there.

Another Piece Another Poo

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I mention sometimes why I write this every single. These are usually days when I’m struggling to think of something to say. Today I shall do the same, but not necessarily because I’m lost for words. I decided back in about October or November to write a piece on this blog every single day for a year. I didn’t post anything for the first month to make sure I was serious. It also gave me the chance to drop out without anyone knowing anything in the worst case scenario. Were I to look back I imagine there were some shocking early pieces but then I imagine they’re also spread throughout this whole blog. Sometimes I go through the motions, sometimes I think I’m a genius and others a pretentious arse. But that is inevitable because really what is there to say for four to five hundred, and sometimes more, words each and every day.

If I really wanted to make this thing some kind of success I know I should focus on one particular topic or one approach to different topics. But I don’t, not really. We all want adulation and some kind of confirmation that our wildest desires are right but really I just want to write something everyday. Maybe when I complete this thing I can bask in whatever warm glowing feeling the moment provides. Anything else I can worry about then but first and foremost I probably have about half a year remaining.

In the meantime, if anyone remembers something I wrote the other day about getting told off in the supermarket; in it I mentioned the local Facebook group that were doing their best to create the impression that this is a comedy village. One post that started out with photographic evidence of dog poo and led to revelations over the discovery of the human variety, may enjoy the news that we’re not alone in suffering such faeces trauma. It appears according to this story here that there has been some kind of attack on local seaside communities. Just imagine how exciting their local group is right now. It is incredibly tempting to send the BBC a link to the now defunct group chat, it would be the talk of the village for six months at least if we made national news. But I won’t. Even though I want to.

So that’s that. Another day in the life of someone who feels the need to share something with you daily. One more day done. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.

We, The Uncontacted Species

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

This is going to be one of those pieces in which I remember half an idea and then try and wing it. A couple of days ago I was reading an article about the possibility of life on other planets. I planned on writing a piece about something in the article that same day but I forgot all about it. Now the only bit I can remember is the idea itself that gave me one of those wow moments. It wasn’t any great achievement or possibility of something but was in relation to us. Human beings. The author was talking about why no aliens have made contact with us. While there were a few obvious suggestions such as they don’t know we’re here, there are no aliens and they have made contact we just don’t know. He also raised the idea that they know we’re here and keep an eye on us but without revealing themselves, and it’s for our own safety. He related us to uncontacted tribes in the Amazon and for a second it blew my mind.

We as a species seem to have this sense of our own worth and greatness. Human achievements are blasted out and in our face at a near constant rate. While we accept there may be other species out in space more advanced than us, we don’t ever see ourselves as primitive. I don’t like that word because arguably it suggests a certain superiority, which always depends on who is measuring and what they’re measuring. In many ways our advanced technological societies have become emotionally primitive, we’re disconnected and cut off from what it was that helped us evolve as a species. Just imagine though for one second, we are a tribe intentionally cut off from the rest of life in the universe.

In truth I’m struggling to convey the feeling I had in full. It felt incredibly important to view ourselves in this way. Almost as if it’s something our collective ego should understand for it’s own good. It’s also almost impossible to explain what I mean without using words that are degrading towards secluded tribes. It’s my own understanding of worth, my own worth ultimately, and it doesn’t correlate with the image I like to have of myself and show others. It was such a powerful moment of comprehension because as I related to it it just exposed my unconscious sense of superiority. Not so unconscious anymore it appears. To see in others is one thing but to experience it in ourselves is another. What an interesting little moment to explore. Well I enjoyed it anyway.

A Fine Pinnacle Of Existence

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Two Magnum ice creams and a choux bun, I’m not doing very well in my attempts at cutting down on sugar. I work in a bakery and make pizzas which means I’m surrounded by food that isn’t going to do my health a lot of good. Without doubt I’ll make myself a pizza at one point and probably one of the burgers we sell too. Throw in the little cakes or chocolate slices that are just lying around crying out to be eaten and my time in this job is becoming bad for my health. It doesn’t help when I then go to the supermarket, something takes over my mind and I start dreaming of cream cakes. Out of nowhere I somehow manage to rationalise with myself why I might as well buy it because of whatever genius idea I come up with at the time. And it is genius, or at least it appears to be. Perhaps more of a flawed genius then.

It is remarkable how despite the best of intentions, upon entering somewhere that contains tasty and unhealthy food, we immediately give in to our base desires. Life is certainly easier that way but I doubt it’s better. I think I’m not alone in this. In fact I know I’m not. But then I say that with everything. No matter what you’re experiencing someone else has or is also experiencing it. When it comes to giving in to our desires, well society is based upon that. The foundations of our current existence are built upon how easily we will give in to our wants. Our needs are important but there’s nothing like an ice cream to distract us from whatever unpleasant necessity that keeps on prodding us.

The strange thing is I have the discipline to write this each day but not to resist the chocolate eclairs. I lack the discipline to resist something that I have a slight allergic reaction to and which makes me slightly puffy and pink. Once more my own fallibility slaps me in my little puffy face and I just carry on. Beyond not eating the cream, what can I do. If I’m going to carry on doing it why beat myself up about it. But I do, because I’m human. It’s really hard being human, it seems to just be one series of cockups after another. Yet we survive, despite the odds we’re adaptable. I’ll eat the ice cream but then make sure I eat plenty of green vegetables. It balances out and I reach the level of fine. It really is the pinnacle of existence in these strange times.

The Traditional New Scrabbler

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Well I’m supposed to be writing this but I’ve gone and got myself distracted by a game on an app. I try to resist playing games on the phone or computer because I know how addictive they can be when I enjoy them. I assume they’re designed in that way to do exactly that and that just makes me even more wary. I’m a little bit of a traditionalist when it comes to these things too. I like my board games to be a physical things you can play with you hands and I’ve never really got into the computer game versions of them that much. It’s a little like a physical book and a Kindle. I appreciate the practicalities but give me the pleasure of an actual book any day. These games then are the same. Today though in response to the offer of a game I downloaded the Scrabble app.

I’ve not played the actual game that often in my life; a few unsuccessful and self-conscious times as a kid was about it before I played a few games with a housemate of mine in Athens. He was a passionate fan and we would smoke and drink through these epic battles. Scrabble as it should be played. I’ve probably played only a couple of times since then but it would always be a game that I would suggest if there was the option. I was a little bit cautious then on playing it like this, and like a Kindle, it’ll never compare to an actual book but unlike a Kindle I might actually give it a shot. So I’ve been enjoying it is the point.

Computers have managed to replace and recreate so many things. Smart phones are simply incredible; phone, camera, music, internet, an app for anything and so on. Technology though hasn’t been able to replace everything yet, not the board game, nor the book and I’m sure there are countless more. Perhaps it’s just my age though. Mobile phones started to become a thing when I was about sixteen years old, like an old man I can still remember a time before. Maybe this lack of appreciation for something technology has managed to ‘upgrade’ could be this emotional attachment. Maybe it’s just that there’s something much more to physically experiencing something than technology can ever create. Let’s hope something manages to survive with the evolution of this new normal and this old man can rest easy.

Der Fußball

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

And with a bang the football has returned. Well kind of a bang, if a bang was quiet enough you could hear people talking and clapping over it. Football is weird without fans in the stadium. There is just no doubt about it. No debate. Before lockdown when people didn’t really seem to understand much, I was just hoping it would stay going for one extra week because my two teams Manchester United and Celtic were playing Tottenham and Rangers respectively, both of whom are rivals and were in poor form. It was perfect timing. But then it became awful timing. The football was cancelled and lives have felt hollow since. Now today was the first day of the second part of the German Bundesliga and we can all rejoice once more.

Well kind of rejoice because English football is probably a month away still and Scottish football will most likely get cancelled. Saying that Celtic will be crowned Champions for the ninth season in a row and then only one title off the Holy Grail of ten straight titles. If getting nine feels like an anti climax to some, it will be saved up for the ten in a row parties to come. In England Liverpool will win the league for the first time in thirty years. I like to think I’m a semi sensible and rational man but I passionately loathe Liverpool and everything about them, it’s the same with Rangers in Scotland. This is the best possible way for them to win the league, a complete anti-climax with no supporters and no excitement. Fuck them, couldn’t have happened to a more horrible bunch of c***s.

But yes, no domestic British football yet, so it’ll be the German Bundesliga for now. No fans, which as I said is weird but there were other aspects I would never have thought of. The substitutes and coaches are spread out with two metres between. The players can’t celebrate together which looked very disconnected and unnatural. Some did but on the whole it was controlled despite the close contact in every other element of the match. I would like to see how contained they would be if one of them scores a last minute winner in the cup final. Disinfected balls. Ball boys keeping distance. Audible claps and shouts. At least you get the interesting aspect of being able to hear what the players are saying to each other and how they interact. That’s not something you normally get probably for good reason. But it’s returned and while I’m not pushing for lockdown to be eased in an irresponsible way, I would selfishly love the return of football properly. I just miss the thrill and excitement. I can’t even imagine how good it would be to watch a game in the pub with a few pints but I’ll resist dreaming of that for now as I’m just teasing myself. It’s one step in the right direction at least.

Knut Hamsun The Nazi

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I questioned a few days ago about whether there is credibility in someones words despite them not being able to live by them themselves. This was in relation to Heidegger the career driven Nazi compared to someone like The Buddha. Yesterday I talked about how hard it can be to find sources of information and opinion that are contrary to yours but are credible, well researched and not based upon bias. In the end I decided against buying the book on Nietzsche and his take on contemporary society, not because of the topic but because I don’t know if I can trust the author not to waste my time. I haven’t given up on it and I may still one day but instead I stumped for Knut Hamsun’s Growth Of The Soil. I have only read one of his books before and that is Hunger, which is about the struggles of an impoverished writer trying to survive in late nineteenth century Oslo, Norway. It is a psychological journey through the irrational mind of someone enduring existence and I suspect there are certain autobiographical elements to it. It is an incredible story and I enjoyed it so much I decided not to rush into another of his books, instead spread them out and enjoy them as I felt right. Knut Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920 and from that one book alone I can see why.

Knut Hamsun though is an incredibly divisive figure. At the turn of the century influenced by what he saw as British aggression and Imperialism he developed a strong support for Germany and Germanic culture, supporting them in both the First and Second World Wars. Despite being eighty years old at the outbreak of the Second World War he managed to get an audience with Hitler and thoroughly pissed him off through his obstinate old man behaviour, and in attempting to get him to release imprisoned Norwegians. He did through write a eulogy for Hitler after his death and was going to be tried for treason after the war but it was decided his behaviour had been down to the mentally debilitating affects of age. Understandably he has been a divisive figure in Norway ever since and I directly quote from a Norwegian biographer on Wikipedia; “We can’t help loving him, though we have hated him all these years … That’s our Hamsun trauma. He’s a ghost that won’t stay in the grave”. This then is the next level of the dilemma, to read and love an author despite him being a total Nazi. Well seeing as I bought his book this morning it’s pretty clear how I feel about it. Sometimes it’s all about the literature. When it suits me at least.

Challenging Our Beliefs

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Today was a day of soul searching. Soul searching in the sense of trying to decide whether I should buy a book which is written by someone who I think holds a different ideological belief to me. For a rather complicated reason I found myself searching through my ebay basket deciding which book out of the ridiculous amount I’ve saved I would buy. I finally settled on one called “Get Over Yourself: Nietzsche For Our Time”. Now while I’m not entirely ignorant of the great mans beliefs I would struggle to sit down and roll many off in much depth and as he is someone who I would like to learn more of I thought this book looked like an interesting read. Quite often we learn better from things we can relate to so the concept of this book seemed ideal for me, and in some ways still does. I decided to do a little research on it though, check out the reviews as much as anything and there aren’t many but I did start to get the impression the author Patrick West was of a more right leaning perspective politically and I won’t deny that this concerned me somewhat. Hence the soul searching.

The thing is I want to hear different perspectives, I think it will help me to create a more well rounded set of beliefs and values. I am more likely to read an article from a left wing news source but I don’t refuse to read something from other sources, unless it’s YouTube of course which I draw the line on. I admit though that I unconsciously and consciously am more critical and demanding of something that potentially challenges my ideals. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t read this book, I might just agree with him and he might explain it from a perspective that opens my eyes to a new understanding of the world. My problem is that a book that is described as challenging “identity politics, therapy culture, ‘safe spaces’, religious fundamentalism, virtue-signalling, Twitterstorms, public emoting, ‘dumbing-down’, digital addiction and the politics of envy” can easily fall into the realm of alt-right internet trolling bullshit. I would love to read about them from a Nietzschean perspective but Nietzsche’s words have been corrupted so much over the years by all sides that there’s every chance it has happened here again. That’s the problem, I would love to read this perspective and this approach to understanding contemporary issues, but it has to be credible, the arguments can be agreeable or disagreeable but they can’t be flawed through inherent bias.

I went on this Patrick West’s Twitter and it’s not clear from any news articles he posts where he really stands. He’s written for The Spectator which is a respectable conservative magazine, and The New Statesman which is a respectable left wing magazine. What concerns me though is that in each of his Tweets he starts off ‘The latest The New Poujadist’ and it turns out there was a chap called Pierre Poujade in France in the 1950s who led a right wing populist movement. This doesn’t fill me with confidence that someone who is that willing to pick a side, although I don’t discount I misunderstand this cultural reference, could in anyway write a balanced sociopolitical book on contemporary society. And it’s so frustrating because in a way I actively want to read things I disagree with but I also don’t want to waste my time on crap and a book that could have had such potential may just be a load of crap. We live in such polarised times that stepping out of bubbles has never been more important, but coincidently, it feels like it’s never been so hard either when people are so intent on making noise in some vain and inglorious desire for attention. Back to the drawing board.

A Strava Wanker & A Pint

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Something remarkable happened to me today. Firstly I promise I’ll never become an exercise wanker, apparently they’re called Strava Wankers in honour of an app that allows you to record your run and post it online for all your friends to see how great you are. I admit I do have the app but it allows me to take the piss out of my friend when I run faster than him which probably makes me a hypocrite in some way. Anyway the point before I went off on one, twice, was that something remarkable happened today. While running I stopped hating everything about existence in that moment, usually the twenty five minutes worth of moments I run for, and found myself looking up and around myself at the sun and the fields, and realised I was actually enjoying myself. I felt that happy feeling I’ve heard people get from exercise. Apparently it’s not all about pain, suffering and just wishing you could either walk or magically be at the end of the run or life. It’s possible but I might actually get something from this exercise thing other than competitive pride sores on my feet and ego.

What my ego doesn’t like though is the realisation that I am not unique. I’m thirty-four and I’ve taken up exercise. It makes me want to vomit. I was cool once. Soon I’ll be wearing lycra and high vis jackets, and leaning against the bar in country pubs on a Sunday talking too loudly about the incredible milage I’ve just done on my super duppa bike. Well I probably won’t but I never thought I would take up exercise either. I must say though that I really can’t wait for the pubs to be open, to just drink a nice pint in a beer garden or in a nice cosy corner by a fireplace. Chat a little shit with people and stumble out into the night air. The worst thing is I can’t see this happening until the end of the summer just in time for rain and cold dark nights. Fireplace it is then. Maybe someone can create Strava for drinkers although I can’t possibly think how quickly we would get distracted from it and move on to being interesting again. Interesting in that drunken and barely interesting kind of way but you’re drunk so you don’t give a shit. I’m hardly in quarantine, I still work and while some things have changed not a great deal has; but my god I hope this bloody thing ends soon. I’ve just about had enough of it now. I want a pint.