#3: playlists for survival
#3: playlists for survival
welcome to newsletter #3 from us gobscure going out just before 'yu have already survived' tours to yorkshire thanks to our artistic associateship with live theatre newcastle
hope some ov yu can make performances at leeds 15 june www.slunglow.org/shows/
or harrogate 25 june www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk/events/you-have-already-survived/
feels like most ov what we make / do would-ov saved us a lot ov scarring growing up and saved 'the state' a fortune ... learnt to distrust education edge-yu-cayshun edge-yu-k-shun, socialsmirk-socialwork, sick-chiatry early on, top gaslighting but nae help ... one early blatancy wz age six n other bairns getting tongue-lashed for no reading ... 3 primary school teachers were previously soldiers and got handed us bairns as reward for their brutal repressions far far away. we loved books, loved to read, so would slip to the windowsill and nab other books to hide inside the one we'd already fully digested ... one day that soldier-teacher spots what were doing, stops lashing the others and bullies-bullies-bullies us and bans us from reading (i.e. sitting quiet, causing nae disruption, and learning ourself). were forced to sit and witness others receive their lashings across months cos theyre not reading ... born with a voice, we kept ours (just), ken where the others are buried (who lost theirs), were finally being heard, folx who were broken yet questioning and writing / making sounds / community organising helped us - 'yu have already survived' is partly about that
'yu have already survived' solo theatre show, plus album, installation, publication and more is about the power ov words, our first poem (age seven) and realising unicorns were real (if extinct) at the same time. i.e. those stories mustov come from somewhere (palaeontologists have long said its the now extinct siberian rhino. neanderthals, denisovans and homo sapiens will have seen this species - not a predator, not something easy to prey upon, aloof and unusual (folx would not have seen many single horns on animals?) and so a different story will have been told about this megafauna . books and jokes and stories and song taught us about scraping away the mud and guts ov myth and legend (or whatever) to find the roots (sometimes routes too) underneath
altho we loved words we spent much ov our time around musics - folx lugging / driving boxes ov records to market, those who crafted fliers/posters/liner-notes, who built instruments, who sang or improvised or ... learnt way more here than thru edge-yu-cay-shun. one single wz the men they couldnt hang song ironmasters. blokes almost two hundred year ago putting on frocks to go out and smash toll-gates across west / south wales - such love&rage wasnt shouted in school. we call such songs : playlists for survival. what sounds are essential for yu? that keep yu alive, allows yu to keep going? heres illustration we use in 'survived'
last time we were homeless, (hope it is last time), we named what drove us nuts about homeless hostels most. the noise. internal voices, tinnitus-sing, shouted threats, doors being kicked in, the intercom buzz from gaslighter 'services', football matches opposite, glass smash, drinks can blown uphill (beauty-full!), nazi demo parking under our window one time. but we'd been donated blanket by our best friend marty (their playlist for survival included outlaw country, bizets carmen and birdsong), and taking wire-structures in that room and building kindov cage to keep others at bay, mattress on floor and us on top ov martys blanket with leaves on and putting headphones on and listening to ... stars. we played and played sinopah by annea lockwoodover and over. she had sampled stars (among other things) vast, epic, crunchy ... cd player, batteries, headphones, a plastic tub with cd's in kept us going ... we had dvorak string quartets, a lot ov leo records cd's (our fave label ever?) including amina claudine myers saluting bessie smith and sainkho namchylak and vladimir tarasov and ... mahler, june tabor, marina rossell, a load ov real world from mari boine to little axe, kayhan kalhor, boogie, albert ayler, carla bleys escalator over the hill, south african jazz, age ov chance, laibach, odetta, joe ely, omit ... liberation!
4 illustrations from may yr map never run out collection ov shortpoems / drawings via lulu.com/spotlight/gobscure
more liberation wz hiding out along that river - afon wysg - birdsong, trees, our first punk gig (audience) defying sick-chiatry as teen ... 'survived' show starts with us explaining waters ov this river as places ov peace : stilling tinnitus, lessening physical pain including herniated spine (caused by those soldier-teachers) and osteoarthritis, and easing our mental distress ...
show ends with our asking folx to close their eyes while we build soundscape ov birdsong, river-sounds and leaves and then sing 'whats love in yer language?'
(title ov album ov song / soundscape sitting alongside 'survived' show