Cusack Serves Imperialism

Here's a blog about the Scratch & Reflect Ensemble; a musical project I've been involved with since early March -:

In mid-January I received an email from Andy Wood, editor of TQ fanzine. It had been sent to him by guitarist, music therapist and all round good guy Chris Minniss, who I’d seen play live with pianist Paul Taylor as Hen, at one of the early TQ live events at the Lit & Phil, as well as meeting at various other gigs, generally under the No Audience Underground umbrella. Chris struck me as very enthusiastic and highly supportive of projects outside of the mainstream. Hence, when I found out from the aforementioned email that he was trying co-ordinate a new project loosely assembled on the principles, if not the practice, of the late Cornelius Cardew’s early 70s Scratch Orchestra, I was more than keen to be involved.

Cardew, who died in suspicious circumstances after a hit and run accident one snowy night in December 1981, had come to prominence in the 1960s as one of the foremost British avant garde composers, known for such works as the piano-based “Treatise” and his masterpiece, the probably unfinished, orchestral work, “The Great Learning,” which was based partially on Chinese Maoist opera. I possess CDs of both of those works which, I must admit, are fairly tough listens. Much easier to get along with are the songs of Cardew’s later career, though their actual aesthetic value is minimal, to be polite. Always on the fringes of the ultra-left, Cardew fell under the spell of Marxist Leninist theoretician Hardiel Baines and became one of the founding members of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist), or the RCPB(ML) for short. Well, not that short I suppose. Apart from the fact the still extant RCPB (ML) has probably never had more than 50 members in its entire existence, it placed itself so far beyond the realms of traditional reformist thought (remember I’m an SPGB impossibilist) by throwing in its lot with Albania after Tirana split with Moscow, Beijing and just about everywhere that wasn’t nestled under the slender wings of the Shqperian eagle, it became more and more obvious that a level of insanity rather than dialectics was a key component of Baines’ increasingly vitriolic statements. Have a glance at “When Comrade Enver sharpens his sword” for instance. Actually don’t bother, unless you’ve a thing for dogmatically argued critiques of pan-Slavic chauvinism.

Somewhere along the way, Cardew renounced his entire previous body of work as being Bourgeois in character and purpose, partly by writing a ferocious diatribe entitled “Stockhausen Serves Imperialism” and even more savagely, by dedicating his life solely to the production of what he called Revolutionary Art. Not a new term I’ll grant you, but it served the purpose of providing an ideological term for his later work. Initially this took the form of solemn, piano pieces based on Irish Rebel Songs. You can hear his funereally paced takes on “Boolavogue,” “The Bold Fenian Men” and other classic Irish ballads on YouTube. They aren’t bad to be fair, but things really took a turn for the worse when he began to only compose Revolutionary ditties for the masses to whistle and hum while semi-dismantling the Bourgeois state. Impossibly sprightly, nursery rhyme or Sunday School hymn tunes accompanied words of the utmost banal sincerity. For instance, take his showstopping, floor filler “Song for the British Working Class” -:

 

British ruling class puffed up with arrogance

Boasted that the sun shone on your vast empire

That sun has now eclipsed.

British ruling class, we have got news for you.

Your time has run out; You have got to go.

CHORUS:

Light is shining in the sky

Heralding the dawn of a glorious new day,

British working class you're the revolutionary force.

To build our socialist land.

British working class you have a fine history

Fierce battles waged against a vicious enemy

With grim determination.

British working class aspires to revolution

In the face of attempt to crush this aspiration.

Of socialism in Britain

CHORUS

In the 1840s Marx and Engels on our shores

Organised and hammered out the objective laws propelling history

Marxist-Leninist science is the guiding star

Charting the course of the working class

Socialist revolution.

CHORUS

Persisting in the face of every difficulty,

In 1979 was formed our new party, a glorious victory.

Rallying to this flag is the only way, workers

To usher in, a bright new day of

Socialism in Britain.

CHORUS

I did secretly hope that Chris was wanting to form a Cornelius Cardew covers band, though I knew this to be unlikely. When I emailed him back, he outlined the project was more about seeing what could happen if a disparate set of players came together, with no preconceived ideas, and spontaneously composed pieces they could all play along with. The location of our meetings was to be the Bensham Community Centre and the dates for sessions were fixed as March 15th, March 22^nd, March 29^th, April 5^th, April 12^th, May 3^rd, May 10^th and May 17^th. The only proviso for those wishing to attend was that they would endeavour not to miss more than 2 sessions. In the end, I only missed one; March 29^th, when the Newcastle United trophy celebration precluded me from travelling by bus from North Shields to Gateshead. While we had a revolving cast of participants in the early weeks, the composition of the Scratch & Reflect Ensemble eventually came down to half a dozen of us: me, multi-instrumentalist Chris, my friend, guitarist Martin (from the Shunyata Improvisation Group) and three others I didn’t know before this, namely Andy (violin and cornet), Arthur (guitar) and Sally (guitar at first, then drums).

I have to admit that I was beyond nervous at the first meeting. Having spent half a century as a below average rhythm guitarist, after convincing myself that I really needed to get back into creating noise, I’d branched out in a more experimental direction, first with genius electronics composer Chris Bartholomew, with whom I’d made a CD, “Dresden Heist” in 2023 and performed a couple of gigs, before he went on to bigger and better things. My guitar work mainly included drone, repetition and feedback, styles which I explored in more detail on my 2024 solo CD “The Earth is Flat.” The one solo gig I performed based on that project was at Blyth Arts Centre last June and was such a disaster I contemplated giving up music entirely, though I later refined my plans to merely giving up performing alone. Indeed, I’m also putting the finishing touches to a second solo release that I hope to have available at the back end of the summer. Don’t rush all at once. There will be plenty of copies to go round.

As you’ll note, what I hadn’t done is make music with other (proper?) musicians, which is why I was so scared that March morning as I journeyed by bus to our rendezvous. Thankfully, I needn’t have worried. Martin gave me lifts there and back every other time, saving me probably 2 hours each way. Also, while I wasn’t in the same universe as any of the other players in terms of technique, ability or imagination, I soon realised that my decision to bring a bass rather than a guitar was the correct one.

While I know the notes of a bass guitar, I’m not ready as yet to audition for a place in Soft Machine or Weather Report, so I had thought, as this was to be an experimental and perhaps avant garde gathering, I could “play” the bass as a percussion rather than stringed instrument. This involved amateur level prepared bass, with bottlenecks, plectrum scrapings and using drum sticks and brushes to make a sound, rather than using the strings in any conventional way. I did this for perhaps the first two sessions, then pretty much abandoned it as a bad, unhelpful idea. The great thing about going in the car with Martin, a bloke whose work I greatly admire, considering myself an avid fan of his Shunyata oeuvre, was that we could talk deeply and meaningfully about music, noise and the composition of it, especially when it came to improvised and experimental styles, when we weren’t talking about football or politics of course.

The whole idea behind Scratch & Reflect wasn’t that we should make one enormous din, as I’d initially expected I must say, but that we avoided what Martin termed “aural blancmange” and created recognisable, semi-structured pieces that could be revisited, reworked and, sad to say, abandoned if they didn’t work. This was a lightbulb moment for me. I had chosen not to bring a guitar as I figured, correctly I’ll contend, that the last thing the assembly needed was a bog standard barre and folk chord chugger, who kept dropping his plectrum and got lost whenever someone threw a minor note into the mix. Therefore, to both justify my place at the table and to provide a supportive framework for the more skilled and inspirational players gathered together, I had to play my version of properly, within my technical limitations. That’s what happened 60% of the time anyway. This level of self-criticism and the idea that the least skilled participant has an obligation to lead the ensemble at some level, were perhaps the two most central ideas behind Cardew’s initial manifesto for the Scratch Orchestra and, I’m certain, one of the main things Chris wanted us to get from the sessions.

Certainly, from the third week onwards, I stopped being a noisemaker and became a metronomic, if limited, bassist, providing a clear, repeated pattern in 3 of the 5 pieces we worked upon. Having undertaken musical exercises Chris had guided us through, involving swapping instruments and choosing from a large Perspex box of percussive toys he used in the day job, all of which were intended, I presume, to make us more relaxed and intuitive to the nuances of the other players’ preferred styles and approaches, we settled down to make some music, rather than just noise. Others also varied their practise. Sally changed her guitar for drums, for which she displayed an immense amount of talent, while Martin forsook his acoustic for a beautiful Ibanez semi-acoustic that I’m in love with even now.

One other development that helped to focus our thought was the news we’d been offered the chance to perform in front of an audience. Thursday 29^th May at the Dunston Staithes Café at 2,30 in the afternoon, to be precise. This, to me, was a brilliant piece of news. Not only did it give us the chance to perform in public, but the event also signalled a defined ending for the project, or possibly this iteration of the project. Hence, after we resumed from the Easter hiatus, the final three sessions were dedicated, albeit with a little improvisation to loosen us up at the start, towards actually compiling a set list.

While the 5 pieces we performed weren’t truly songs in the accepted commercial sense, they were recognisable as different musical entities. Some were more successful than others. Some were more discordant than melodious, but from the primordial aural soup, we emerged as a kind of low-rent approximation of Dirty 3, Penguin Café Orchestra or the easier bits of Henry Cow. I’m delighted how it turned out.

 Although, I have to say I was very nervous, possibly because of the Blyth experience, or more pertinently that I didn’t want to let anyone, either my fellow players of my mates Richyy and Craig who had so kindly made the trip from NE6 and NE3 respectively to lend their support. My thanks is as deep as it is humble. Your kind words made the whole thing a pleasure to be involved in.  I’d never been in the Staiths Café before, though I used to cycle past it when my parents lived in Swalwell. Since they unhelpfully died, I’ve not been past in years. I must go back. The Oat Latte was a non-dairy delight. The Millionaire Shortbread a delight, pure and simple.

Once we’d got the place set up, it provided a convivial spot to play, though I admit to being slightly thrown by not being in eyeline of the guitarists, so couldn’t fully appreciate what they were playing. If anything, the live performance proves to me I’ve become slightly more intuitive about what works and what doesn’t. Thankfully, almost all of it worked this time.

Our set consisted of the following working titles, with added comments from Chris in parenthesis, but while I’m continuing to dance about architecture, I’ll try to describe my role in them, as I wouldn’t dream of analysing the work of my fellow players.

1. Early Teenage Drunkards (ABA structure, ascending chromatic movement signals move to B section, last section more explorative). Martin came up with the title for this one, based on noise pollution from two plastered young lasses jabbering away outside Cullercoats Watch House, while Shunyata played their contemplative, meditative improvisation inside. Section one was harmonics on E on the two bottom strings endlessly. The second section was D and E sliding to D on the top two strings. Once I’d properly tuned up, I was very happy with this as, modesty aside, I came up with the initial idea. No autographs please

2. Count to 9/Outbreaths (ABA structure, cymbal indicates change, with the last section as a green light to explore). For this one, we only ended up playing each section once, which considering the performance lasted about 55 minutes, I was amazed to discover, is probably about enough. In the first section, where we do all count to 9 and choose two numbers on which to play, I played a note on numbers 5 and 6: D then E. For the second section, I played G with C sliding to B, then G with B moving to C alternately, every time I exhaled. I really liked this one.

3.Ocean Swell (Arthur starts, we develop a meditative piece based on his washes of guitar. Arthur gives his recitation on mining heritage/staithes in the middle part of this piece. Slow grow, slow fade). This was lovely, reminding me very much of “Ocean” by The Velvets. Probably the most psychedelic and rocky of the parts we played, my bass saw me going from A to C and then A to D.

4.The dream was a castle/on the hill, my sins burned to embers (vocal exploration beginning with drones/vocal sounds based on a C minor tonality. Sing, listen, use words based on the castle/embers dream ideas). The 60% of the time I played “normal” bass was over, so I parked it for this unaccompanied piece. When we’d done this in the Saturday sessions, it was actually emotional to be involved with and I’d love to revisit this again, as it somehow felt in the large, rectangular room, rather than the circular space we’d grown accustomed to in Bensham, that it was lost. It felt almost inhibited compared to previous takes, but it still got a great round of applause. Obviously, I can’t sing, so I droned “on the hill” endlessly, cupping my hands around my mouth to vary tone and volume, while Martin led (as it was his dream we had based this on). Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d be involved in the performance of such acapella emotions, though I do like to ruin the odd Irish sean nos number when I’m in my cups.

5.Three mice (Andy leads with a slow unfolding of the tune, then we take this as starting point - led by our listening, not too fixed on 'playing the tune'). A loud, discordant number based on “Three Blind Mice.” Andy had expertly played the violin on the first three numbers, then swapped to cornet for this one. It was the only one where I abused the bass, however minimally, with a drum beater on the body, scratching at plectrum beyond the neck to the back of the pick ups and then using two bottlenecks to produce discordant washes of sound as the rest of us went for it, with Chris playing an old cassette of Alan Robson’s Nightowls at one point, perhaps as an unconscious homage to Cardew’s work on the first AMM record from 1966. This was experimentation and probably the hardest piece to keep focused on. I’d thought all of our stuff would have been like this but, I still find myself amazed to say, I’m glad it wasn’t merely a challenge for the istener. Perhaps I’ll take that message into my own solo stuff. Or perhaps not…

When we finished, people applauded. While several of the audience had been out the room for drinks, they returned. Incredibly, nobody had actually walked out for good. Lots of kind folk said nice things about it and we all left on a high. Martin dropped me home and, adrenaline spent, I crashed out for an hour, before reflecting on the performance and the whole project.

As regards speculation rather than reflection, I wonder now about the future of Scratch & Reflect. It’s Chris’s baby after all, so he gets to decide, so yes, it is possible that with the project over, this was our one moment in the sun. If so, it was a good one. Certainly I’ve become a more intuitive and less inhibited player, and I’d absolutely love to make more music in the future, whether as a continuation or development of this project or another one entirely. I guess I’ll have to keep an eye on my inbox, but for the avoidance of doubt, I have bass and will travel (by bus if necessary).

My special thanks go to my fellow players Andy, Arthur, Sally, Martin (for the lifts and conversation) and above all to Chris, for his vision, enthusiasm and organisation. This would not have happened without him. You are all diamonds.