Rock N' Roll Without Tears

 TODAY'S SOUNDTRACK

GRAHAM BOND - LOVE IS THE LAW

First of all, we overshot our opening date. That calamity was down to an insurance issue, which... seems to have been sorted. Thus, we had to pass on the bank holiday weekend. A couple of socially distanced gigs needed to be rearranged, but people aren’t queuing up for those at the moment. In a sense, we need to ask ourselves what reality we’re in right now because it sure ain’t Kansas. But in short, yes we should be open for the first weekend of June. There are a couple of surprise gigs coming up which should soften the blow.  EDIT: WE OPEN TOMORROW, THAT IS 02/06/21

 

No news yet on the Arts Council Project Grant, the mysterious Black Stage Project. We’re waiting with baited breath for the ACE'S decision. I’m genuinely unsure of the outcome.

 

Our position here hasn’t changed. Whoever you are, whatever your persuasion; creed; colour or medical status, you will be welcome at The Peer Hat. We seem to be standing at a crossroads and honestly, as per usual, we don’t know which way the wind is blowing. Chaos rules. Make no mistake, we are not the servants of Order. We are a refuge for the weird, the fractal heart of the abandoned necropolis, Manchester. Remember that. Remember who we were before all this.

But I’m speaking in terms, somewhat grim, somewhat fatalistic. Optimism is the way forward, there’s no other choice.

 

What strikes me personally, is the sense that many people subscribe to the belief that human beings are isolated points - islands- that everything and everyone is distinct, separate, spinning away from the other. Think of an example of what I mean, you won't find it difficult. (If you suspect your example is what I mean... then trust your instinct: it's what I mean)

  In fact, the universe is in bewildering dialogue. With the aid of the internet we can range with abominable swiftness, node to node….from the pseudo material connection of quantum entanglement, to the hidden systems shared by trees and mycellium networks, to the presence of a single idea within multiple minds---connections can be observed. And what of synchronicity? That sense of events a-causally connected? The old alchemist Jung finds common ground with plummeting star of theoretical physics, Wolfgang Pauli… the parallels the two men found in each others’ disciplines, would only find further reflection as the years passed. Various  experiments have taken place over the years in an effort to expose what Einstein called "hidden variables" (or more famously, “spooky action at a distance”). Thus far said experiments have managed to point to these connections being not only possible, but common.  Uncertainty rules, something connects particles in a way we cannot fathom, perhaps only intuit.

 

A whole heap of experiments in this field of connections, were undertaken at the Institute For Noetic Sciences, lead by Dr Dean Radin. Take a look for yourself. From proving the efficacy of prayer before eating, to showing that the path of a baseball can be affected in flight by intention alone...following a review of their work, only the dogmatic and truly ignorant, would call bullshit.

 

The bullshit is our vapid culture and the pop science that inhabits the void usefully vacated by religion. It seems people will go a long way to avoid responsibility…a connected world is a world with fucking consequences.

 

If this stuff is even remotely true…and it’s true to the extent that multiple experiments exist with tremendously convincing results (I advise you pick up Dean Radin’s book, Real Magic for a taste of what’s missing), then we have to ask ourselves about the whole shebang…the ‘how this is presented factor’…the perceived reality.

 

Dialogue and an appetite for questions. Therein lies a way forward. That and to inhabit the fringes fully and with the knowledge, that within them, realities are forged and are being forged right now. But oh how we’ve been pinned down.

 

A new world has arisen from the depths of the modern kaleidoscope; a Ballardian landscape of isolation, whispers, politics and ideology masquerading as science. Amidst the ever throbbing, constant pulse of scanned barcodes delineating our right to be (that tech has just been sitting there hasn’t it?), The Peer Hat crouches, plastered in safety warnings, unhappily situated somewhere between dental clinic and Korova Milk Bar.

 

Where we are now, is not the sole result of a virus. It has been a destination reached within a vehicle that has been driven to combustion, by the way we have lived our lives, the stories we have accepted and the conversations which we have turned away from. Robo-narcissists patrol the aether ways of the web, looking for signs of heresy. Never has it’s like been known, and yet, and yet…still the fragment of a star... the optimism shines. People want it to be better, for it all to go away. But that isn’t possible. Not by doing nothing. It is the world. It is the culture we inhabit.

Nacreous totalities express themselves without pause, leading the sane and the good to declare the official story as winner in the reality war. Did they ever realise that their power was so great, that they had it within them to forge their own set of rules? Here, on the hazy fringe, we boil elements and produce dangerous possibilities. You of all people will know, that there must be danger. And sure enough, this is the greatest flaw in the dream of Utopia. But then Utopia is not a place or a moment that is reached---it is a constant process, a verb (like all the greatest things). Here Utopia is happening and that, my friends, is about the combination of sweet, sweet elements. Out there, the blend of propaganda and narcotic, zero sum entertainments defines the boundaries of existence. Here, not so much.

 

How we’ve howled this to the void!  Not many people read this blog, but if you happen to be one of them, then we are calling upon you to empower The Peer Hat. This is the moment of starkest need within the imaginal. Choked on repugnant corporate art, at that eats it’s own tail after sucking it’s own cock, art that does not break the skin--- the people are lost--- now rendered mewling, enfeebled, a nation of incels, pale, flopping caricatures of our former selves. And yet even before things changed we were blindly cruel, pampered imperial dilettantes with pillbox horizons.

 

Yes this is the time when the imaginal must be savagely occupied and the terms redefined. It can begin here. The hunger is there still, we teeter on the precipice and somehow, after all the efforts of politicians, scientists and priests, we find it our responsibility, to map the space, to boldly go where no motherfucker has gone before.

 

Friends, we must invent the world, the outer mirrors the inner. Let The Peer Hat, temple to the Nine Muses, be the stage for the psychodrama that will reverberate, a cosmic explosion of art that mutilates, of art that burns, of art that raises anew.

 

And what of the promise of further lock-downs, of an ultimate end to The Peer Hat and places like it elsewhere? It matters not. We shift our real estate, hard and fast...with no small violence, into the soul, into the hand that wields the brush or the hammer. She wills it, She whose breath is pure telluric fire, the cosmic flame of inspiration.

Oh the Black Stage is a virus, a mimetic virus that hooks itself to your dream. Why… it is happening right now. It is your turn.

 "Do What Thou Wilt" is back in fashion.

 

How does a magpie speak?

 

It doesn’t turn it’s beaked and inquisitive face to you and say “hello”, that is a given.

 

The sun falls upon the trees, the wind blows across the surface of the brown water. Somewhere a child screams in glee. The magpie never faces you directly. This is how it speaks. Nothing is isolated, new meanings form, ruthless they are ruthless, you are not what they were told they would find.

 

In a chorus then. Sure enough, you too are part of the choir

 

This is how a magpie speaks.

 

What On EARTH Is Happening?

 

Well we’ve quite a few lights on the horizon. Believe it or not… a first for the blog. Live shows...the possibility of gigs! I would hazard a guess, that you cannot wait for me to give it a rest with the side long glances and finger to the nose, ‘be seeing you’ winks. Let’s cut to the chase.

 

Astrid Williamson

 

Astrid was introduced to me by a mutual friend; I was genuinely surprised that I had not questioned the source of a voice I’d heard, I thought, within a dream… sometimes as a part of another act’s vibration.  I’m thinking of this: 

Sometimes like a nostalgic reverie I’m thinking of this:  

With time, her vibe has seemed to accumulate stellar mass…. there is something majestic in the quality of her recent music

 

It’s something isn’t it?

Broken space dreams, this is where I place her, a lonely voice drifting upon the solar winds. Needless to say, we can’t wait.

 

Let’s get some tickets here.

 

MIFFF’d

 

MIFFF’s started as some kind of response to Manchester International Festival’s distinct lack of Mancunian underground talent. But now it’s something else. We recognise some of Manchester’s worthwhile talent, whilst offering up a cry of un-distilled rage for the blood crime of Peterloo… and those that lost their lives, the crime unavenged. It is to the criminal, that we entrust our reality.To those that hold it up with their dead universe of cogs and spectator robots, fashioned from corruptible meat.

 

But yeah, there’s going to be some interesting bands and a party. You want a party right? So do we all. Let us raise a glass to Peterloo, wherever you happen to be on that day/evening.

 

Rat Alley TV

 

Looks like somebody else has got onto this new media thing before us. It’s only bloody Lane Xup, who’s irrepressible nature and fierce drive has produced Rat Alley TV. What is it? A video zine I’d say, and of course, one invested with passion and belief. Check it out!

 

 

Flowing Backwards

 

Always a pleasure to recommend the continuing reminiscence of one Ian ‘Moet’ Moss. As per usual, tune in via the link below.

CLICK IT!

 
STEAM RADIO Hulme

 

Eternal shout out to one of the hottest independent radio stations around. Naturally I have a show on there which you can hear at 4pm this coming Sunday! You’d be likely better served by tuning into Justin’s show OG OR MAN, which is ram packed with great local, independent talent. Check him out as regularly as you can, every other Sunday, 6-8 pm. Steam cloud below!

CLICK IT!

 

 

There are some other things which we can’t 100% stamp, so I’m not going to mention them here. Believe me, I’d love to spew them out, but...not yet. Best not. Instead, let me re-iterate how keen we are to have you back with us. Here’s hoping that the mad and relentless tide, washes away from the shores of live music for a time . We could sure do with some respite. And if not? Well, it’s low hanging fruit to be sure, but you’d be well advised to pick up surf skills, and failing that, learn to scuba dive.

 

So, with excitement and anticipation we hope to see you by this very Wednesday! Omnia sub petasum.

 

Pearly Monastery Of The Caterpillar Captive

TODAY'S SOUNDTRACK

CRANES-ADORATION

 And just like that, the blog has returned….

 

It’s been long enough since the last real post, eg. December (that January thing: ‘nice stuff people said about The Peer Hat’, definitely does not count---if you were indeed wondering, that was for the Arts Council’s perusal…not merely some form of grotesque flex), that it feels like a grandiose hello and thank you is in order.  The hello, I can manage quite swiftly. The thank you, I outline below:

 

Thank you. Thank you for proving me right in the sense, that Manchester needs a place like The Peer Hat .  And of course, a sincere thank you to the Arts Council…what did we get…somewhere in the region of 68k? That should help keep us going for a while. Really, it was fantastic news.

 

Does that mean that the future of The Peer Hat is secured? And for that matter, the future of venues  like The Peer Hat? Short answer is a resounding “no” (sorry to piss on your chips if you were hoping for a “yes”).  Let’s count some of the ways:

 

1. PRS seems to prey on the minuscule revenues provided by the grass roots music sector, as something akin to an afterthought. This mega corporation extracts sizeable sums from small venues at the behest, it seems of an unsupervised AI with the transplanted soul of a  pawn shop accountant. Something needs to change here, but we’re not holding our breath. Naturally, their next port of call is the deeply un-lucrative online gig trade. After all, we know the best way to make black pudding, is with bags of rocks. If you’re a PRS enthusiast, just spare a thought for where all that ‘miscellaneous’ revenue they strive to collect  goes---if you guessed back to the artist, you’d be half right. But if you guessed any lesser than J-Lo, Ed Sheerhan or some other  painted demon puppet, then I’m afraid you guessed erroneously.

 

2. The spectre of Vaccine Passports. Hugely divisive, just like pretty much everything and bound to affect business. We don’t really feel that it is prudent to talk more about this right now. Only that, whatever your point of view on the matter, shit is gonna suck for you and us.

 

3. Landlords stride the virus punk wasteland as lords supreme still. Imagine a mechanical Moloch, your favourite venue running at full pelt away from that mechanical Moloch, except of course, it’s running on a medium velocity conveyor belt. Sometimes the venue is able to reach the gargoyle at the lever and bribe it to slow down for a spell…but just lately, gargoyle snacks have been in short order.

 

4. The scars, the many scars. People are not the same as when first they were locked up (up, down…you choose). I don’t know precisely how we get back to whatever it was we were before. And I’m talking really, about re-finding the community.  I have friends who remain silent even as I say “see you on May 17”! I have friends who remain silent even as I say “See you on June 21!”

 

But I forget myself. Excuse me whilst I extract us both from this gloomy caveat to the celebration. This is not the same world: in fact it’s changing even as I write. We’re approaching the third great invisible war of our times. Drugs, Terror and now Pathogens.  And a technocratic embrace, which settles upon us and our dirty, sweaty lives, like a loving parent comprised out of hygienically sterilised tungsten, whose kiss is documentation, whose lesson is ‘safety first’...seemingly pressing in from all sides. Even, it seems, sometimes from within ourselves.

 

I am reminded of the end of the rule of religion (in the ‘west’), the witch burnings and inquisitions which preceded the Enlightenment. Such displays of cruel might, performed for the 'greater good' of the subject, did nothing to prolong their rule. Indeed, they hastened the demise of  Roman Catholic domination by probably a century (hot take).   So it is with the scientistic cults which currently hold sway. This is what I like to think of as ‘cosmic whack-a-mole’. You smash down one as hard as you can, only for another to arise faster than you can smash. Maybe the Tao is a better analogy (or even truth observation?)…the energy used to create a technocracy, finds it’s opposite expression elsewhere.

 

In other words, though we may not get back to the things we love, something new is being brought about…and it doesn’t look like the control fantasies of certain billionaires, or even the Milquetoast Satanic pop media fetishism of the media companies. It’s very exciting and exceedingly precarious for every single one of us. Figuring out how to maintain community, should be a high priority for those of us stuck on the front lines of the metamorphoses, those of us without recourse to the country life, permaculture fortresses or self sufficient communes in the heart of the Peruvian rain forests.

 

The Black Stage project is part of this attempt to realign ourselves with community. For those of you who haven’t religiously followed my ramblings with a detective’s nose for detail, Black Stage is kind of like an online Peer Hat. Doesn’t that sound absolutely fucking awful?

 

And that’s kind of the point.

 

There will be gigs and such and a Peer Hat in this hazy digital realm. But that’s exactly where it’s located, it’s definitely not the real thing and nobody and I mean nobody knows your name. And you can get trapped there.  Does it sound like a buzz yet?

 

We hope that, by exploring the fault lines in the virtual reality, we’ll be able to get closer towards something we might actually enjoy. We might even be in a position to inspire others, as time progresses and we begin to see what entertainment and community look like. Points of light across the dark. Camp-fires. A Peer Hat in every home, on every street. But it ain’t no franchise buddy. We don’t sell burgers here.

We’re going to do this and have another grant application in the works whose function is to fund the purchase of the equipment we’re going to need (and maybe help pay out to a the artists whom are involved). We will attempt it regardless, but this next bunch of monies could make a huge difference to the project. I guess it’s a case of ‘watch this space’.

 

We expect the website to become active shortly. You of course, will be notified.

 

As I’m writing this, a wave of fear passes over me. None of what is happening can last, it cannot be maintained, except upon an ever growing mountain of bones. This virus has not slowed down the war machine, the sabre rattling, the ecological carnage, the divisive rage.

I think about the bombs raining down upon the middle east (whatever that is)…I think about frightened masses huddling around cell phones, cell phones whose black screens contain minerals mined by small children. I think about how those same masses hide from the virus and then I find it hard to avoid shouting “get up, get out of the door and walk straight into the black sun my friends, for you have no earthly right to quake whilst ten year olds squirm in the darkness for your entertainment, convenience and comfort”…

 My fingers slow to a crawl and I am forced to meditate…something… to bring myself back. Let’s see whether or not I’m successful…

 Time passes.

Aaaaand I’ve got to nip out. SO much for my meditation.

 Time passes.

Aaaaaad I’m back and feeling a little better. Optimism is an entirely valid tactic and it’s working thus far…

 

We’re going to come back and try and be everything we have always been. Ultimately, the place is it’s people…if we can afford one another enough of a break, then we can get through this, whatever comes our way.  We’ve a bumper load of gigs coming up; people are positively itching to get going. We will do our best to facilitate those gigs , whoever you are and whatever you believe. We will find a way forward. You will find respect here for your own thinking and convictions. And you will hear things you don’t like here. That’s the deal. This is Manchester.

 

Repeat, this is Manchester.

 

Repeat…

 

 

My walks have continued, we have a fairly interesting dream topography of the area (and further afield). I want to spend a little time talking to you about those journeys… I know that I said I would back in December…in fact, it’s a blog post more or less ready to go. But it can wait a little while longer. This particular number had to emerge, these words and thoughts needed to be expressed, if only partly. Indeed, our truer meaning lies in what is not written, either in the space between the letters, or in the hidden communications that are suggested, in totality, by their painful and obvious absence.

 

Without any hyperbole, looking you all in the eye, I can speak for us here at The Peer Hat and say, unreservedly, that we love you.

 

May 17 is the target. We’ll see you then.

What else is happening, you grim bastard?

Flowing Backwards

A load of Flowing Backwards for you to listen to. Since we last posted, Ian's Odyssey  has just kept ticking right along. I feel like a bit of a rotter for not posting, just because I think you should all listen to this bloody podcast. It's so interesting and Ian's voice is incredibly valuable. I've said it before, I'll say it again...this podcast is a treasure. In fact, I would consider Flowing Backwards the Dead Sea Scrolls of Manchester mythology. 

CLICK HERE

Steam Radio

STEAM Radio Hulme is absolutely chock full of great local shows. I'd go so far as to say, it's possibly the most diverse, eclectic and high quality Manchester thing in ages.  I don't know why the font just completely changed either. Two shows spring to mind that are of immediate direct interest to the concerned Peer Hatter. The first is OG OR MAN, whose show has been covering the contents of The Peer Hat Black Stage albums. On top of this, his superior taste merits some attention so here's the damn link to his MIXCLOUD:

CLICK HERE

The second link is to a random episode of an idiot's show...he doesn't have his own Mixcloud, so you've got to be on it to win it or something...I'm sure he'll het round to sorting it soon. In the meantime, checkout this episode of OBLIQUE UNIVERSE with NICK ALEXANDER. And indeed, tune in on Sunday, 4-5pm to catch the latest episode (it's a one man panel show with an insane robot, again the caveat: 'or something').

CLICK HERE

Ok, that's all for now. We'll be back soon.

Towards The Vast Airs

 

   TODAY'S SOUNDTRACK - AUSTIN OSMAN SPARE 

    BULLDOG BREED 

We'd intended to release this blog entry yesterday, but the relentless stream of snowballs and black Russians took their toll and all of a sudden, here we are on Boxing Day. The main purpose of this blog entry is, of course, to wish you all a happy Christmas from the Peer Hat... to alert you that, despite appearances, we're stil very much alive and kicking. However, we want to talk to you a little bit about the future, both near and somewhat more distant.

Since re closing in November, we've considered the 'substantial meal' option. After a few minutes, we quickly realised that this was in fact, another dire little mirage in a year of punishing 'gotchas.' We pictured a Peer Hat filled with people simultaneously consuming scotch eggs and it just didn't seem on. From a more sober perspective, we were barely operating at a level that would allow us to cut even and that was at our social distanced capacity. Now picture every single person with a shitty meal and you'll actually find yourselves stifling a chortle. The 'substantial meal' con, although free money for Wetherspoons, was never going to be viable for us. 

If you recall this blog entry, we played around with what a cyberpunk version of The Peer Hat would look like. For 2021, we're happy to tell you that an aetheric copy of our venue, will turn up on the internet. It's not going to be just a straight stream and gig proposition. Instead, we're looking at something like a question hanging in the spot we used to inhabit freely with our physical presence. In this moment we now inhabit, the myth is stronger than the physical reality. Thus, to there we must go, in the trust that what you witness and indeed, take part in, will inspire your own communities and sabbats. I can say little more on the matter than this, if only because we are literally within the process of exploring beyond the gate and all that might be encountered therein. Wish us luck and keep your fingers crossed, that what we bring back, is gold  rather than any ancient evil... well, nothing too ancient or too evil.

In the meantime, we'd like to introduce the second Peer Hat Compilation album, Black Stage. It's finally here. A somewhat different proposition than the last record, on this occasion, we explore the topography of touring bands (with a few people who could easily have featured on the last release, sneaking on). It's got kind of a cyberpunk vibe to it.... I don't think this is any accident, ultimately.  Grab it below:

 

There's a lot more to be said, at least in terms of my own experience over the past few months... but we want this information out today and if I spend any length of time pontificating on the subject, then there will be no album let loose into the wild. Indeed, the siren call of a second round of cocktails, seems only too enticing...

So with that, we wish you a very happy Christmas and festive season. Things look bleak but times, they are a changin' and yes, even this, shall pass.

How To Raise The Stones

THE SOUNDTRACK

ENABLERS - NO, NOT GENTLY

I intend for this to be shorter than usual, if only because my time is precious and I don't have much of it (well, I didn't when I started writing this - things can change a lot in a few days) . Needless to say, the current climate is one which cannot succour a music venue for very long. However, I hope I've expressed adequately in previous posts, that the building is quite unimportant, that the temple to song is contained within each of us and must be re-consecrated when required. So far so good.

When I say 'within', I don't mean in some ephemeral sense, but in the blood, bone and connective tissue that form our bodies. We are, in a very real way, the dance and the dancer. When we are denied the right to movement, then we find our souls diminishing alongside our bodies. The natural state of things is to be in constant motion - this can also manifest in sound emanating from the viscera that constitutes the body. The drunken jig, the raucous song spilling over the tap room.

This slowing and silencing, is the worst aspect of our current crisis and requires addressing - it is no less important than any other aspect of our health, serving to form the topography of our vitality. It's about aligning ourselves properly in time, with a line of being that results in happy consequence,

I write because to write is a form of movement - and it requires real effort on my part. Certainly far more effort than the stories I would write as a child. The ideas seemed to flow freely then - I pictured epics with ease and although they rarely went beyond four pages of A4, there was great joy to be had in their creation. In writing, I see the Grail of childhood whimsy - it's about recreating that state, that place where all things were possible and no idea was considered weak. Indeed, the idea itself was never very important, very much less so than the fuel in the engine of it's motion, or perhaps than the invigorated container that enlivened anything that it held.

Yes, writing is about movement: both spatial motion (as my fingers trace patterns across the keys) and perhaps more importantly, temporal motion. The machinery of typing is as a time machine that has me gliding swiftly across epochs. Physical motion is also connected intimately with time. Time sung passes quickly, time danced is passed in the blink of an eye. This unlived time, is anything but - though we often ask ourselves 'where has the time gone' - what is encountered, is in fact the union with all time, the natural state of experience - all moments united and simultaneous. Funnily enough, this rapid movement, which is experienced as 'no movement' is intimately associated with the ecstatic state.This is no accident. 

A collision of moments leading towards singularity - if you're given towards the creative act, then this will seem a familiar concept - is the best way I can think of expressing what I'm reaching for. I believe that this engagement with true time and motion, which is life, is the reason why we need to participate, rather than spectate. Or, as Killing Joke's Jaz Coleman put it: "dodge the bullets or carry the gun, the choice is yours".

There is no requirement, in particular, for quality. True enough, if the interior world of the artist is weird enough, or unique enough, then it will attract attention - to the degree permitted by the culture within which it manifests itself. But art made on it's own terms, as movement interfacing with the 'timeless event', is the solution to one particular puzzle of being - what is time well spent? By this logic, it might seem that I would be as well served typing 'all work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy' over and over - and in a sense, this might lead to the ecstatic experience. But we only know art, if it seems like art to us. And it need ONLY be art to us, and seem like it fits the bill, in order to tap into that novel and unified dimension.

I can think of a variety of ways that this might play out in a performance venue that must close at 10 pm, that is not permitted to hold the musical revels by which it claims meaning and relevance. Bar games of ever increasing complexity. Chinese whispers, notes spread via table service. Parcels of information given with drinks which might contain hidden challenges or even violations of the law or appeals to the forbidden carnal. I speak theoretically of course - much of the appeal lies within the forbidden potentiality of  play, if not it's fullest rendering (which might spell disaster for all involved).

A couple of days ago, my partner and I, made our way up to Thirteen Stones Hill in Lancashire. Following a somewhat time strapped ascent, we were confronted by a plateau of unremitting bleakness and not a single stone standing to be found. This was of some concern, since, according to the Modern Antiquarian, there was in all supposition, a single erect stone remaining (though it's suspected that it might have been re-established in a recent, guilty century). There was no such stone to be found - though we did note a somewhat perturbing scar in the hillside, revealing suspiciously fresh looking black earth beneath. I double checked my OS co-ordinates and was was forced to accept (with no small amount of dismay), that the stone was gone or hidden. Furthermore, the sun was swift slipping behind the hillside and if we did not leave with urgency, there was a disconcertingly legitimate chance of being caught in the high dark. 

We made it back safely enough, but the glory of the Thirteen Stones can now only stand in the autonomous, art zone I am driven enough to establish for it. This blog is perhaps, not the place for that - I hope to bring that particular tree to fruition elsewhere. But I do think there is something to be learned from the experience - something very real, though it might be perceived only as a rainbow (though no less real for that). Manchester is a desecrated sacred site. To be sure, the process of profaning this special town, had begun many years ago. I don't need to make an arduous list of 'what we have lost' and 'what we have replaced'... Hacienda club for Hacienda apartments for example...or even more egregiously offensive substitutions such as Jilly's Rockworld for TESCO... the evidence is felt as an open wound in the psyche of any that have grown to adulthood in the city in the past 30 years. On the nose, so to speak.

But I can speak to the process of healing - nothing less than the piloting of time machines to treasured pasts and hitherto unthought of Utopian futures, with the simple mission command of 'Bring Back The Mother Lode'. Through our art, each and everyone of us, can participate in the creation of an illuminated and indestructible Manchester. One red brick at a time, if necessary. Not only is this possible, but it is our heavy obligation. Legions of the dead await resurrection via our arts. And not faceless ranks of spectres, but our ancestors, the very reason we stand here. Before them, temples must be raised, bridges built to span rivers we imagined uncrossable, labyrinths carved out of the collective bedrock, the cities fitfully dreaming unconscious.

This hearkens back to earlier posts I made regarding the telling of our stories and the rediscovery of our myths. It's the same continuum of thinking and it must not be silenced by the perceived necessities of our current age. Rethink and retrain? For sure. But not in the sterile cyber fantasies of the Ministry Of Information. Instead, artists of all disciplines and those that have formerly considered themselves but spectators, fans or appreciators - must learn how to be conscious with their work. To deliver upon the delicious promise of a new reality which, only at this terrible moment - finally permits itself to be glimpsed, heard or touched.

At any rate, we're closed again, so this is the ideal opportunity to test your time machine and visit The Peer Hat in all it's astral glory. I daresay, that you'll be quite surprised by who and what you meet. Of course, there's no reason to limit yourself to all too recent golden daze. The bio-political war being fought at this very moment, is begging for you to detach from blind obedience and inhabit it's fault lines as fully as you are able. Flex your imagination - if this thing is legit, then it can take the strain. Our stories, by utter necessity, must belong to us. We will never write them from the comfort of dread or from the fragile security that comes with compliance.

I hope to write here again soon, we have a strong plan for a performance season, so watch this space (custom built and cyber punk). Also we'll finally stick out that second album (we promise). The time is there to do all these things...and with that time, the repetition of the basic lesson - to breathe. The difference now, is that we must breathe into our actions. Though the first lock down and the constant existential threat directed at the things we love, served to rob many, myself included, of artistic inspiration, the luxury of stillness is no longer ours. Take a long look at the way things are. You know what you have to do.

What's Going On?

It's been a while since anybody has sent me anything. That's not to say that things haven't been taking place, because they have. Only, people's actions have become more personal, more private. I think I mentioned last time how the Lock-Down Album quickly became a somewhat derided form - and one that crucially, feeds upon it's own tail. Whilst being no time for escapism, the sense of reproducing one's own misery and isolation for the entertainment of others, has perhaps been stretched to it's logical limit. The dissociation of the ZOOM performance also leaps to mind -a sense of what we have lost and a sense that we might be giving fuel to the notion that this kind of digital simulacra, is any kind of substitute for what we are currently without - namely, the viscera of the live show.

Of course, this represents a very narrow analysis, there are ways of surfing this crisis. This is a time for film and radio - for the pirate broadcast and the video nasty...for the furtive narrative played out in chat room links to mysterious and revolutionary art. It cannot be any other way - for art to do anything less than devour this moment, is for art to become irrelevant. The shapes it must take, are the dragons which swallow suns, the beasts that come in roaring from the desert, the unthinkable abominations that rise dreadful from the watery aeons.

Flowing Backwards

What a triumph this podcast series has been, an audio autobiography that manages to capture the dizzy motion of one man's journey through the rites of life - whilst also serving to elucidate the sorrow of change and the human will to persevere, to see something worthwhile emerge from the ashes. If you haven't  checked out Ian Moss' story yet, please waste no further time and plunge right in. The latest episode can be found below:

CLICK HERE

Conclusions

It's going to be an indeterminate amount of time, before we are allowed to see each other again. How we deal with this, each of us, is a challenge that may seem immeasurable or trivial, depending upon a  great many factors. For now, do understand, that if any of you need to talk, conspire or be talked to, we at The Peer Hat will be on the other end of an email. If there's anything at all you need to tell us, don't hesitate. We have a long and difficult Winter ahead - months after this era defining occurrence first began, we remain caught in the slip stream of it's passage. But our commitment to the survival of our community remains, unbowed and relentless. 

One day soon, much sooner than the jailers imagine - the stars will be right.

nick@thepeerhat.com

The Grey Rain-Curtain Of This World Rolls Back

Warning, this episode of the blog is both long and weird. If it's at times indulgent, please grant us a reprieve, this once. In the future, we can chuckle about it over billiards and port. At any rate, buckle in...it's going to be hairy.

      TODAY'S SOUNDTRACK

   EARTHLING SOCIETY - KOSMIC SUITE NO.2

I suppose the big concern in the minds of those that occupy the increasingly niche world of live, underground music, is: has the world moved on without us? Is the Manchester we live in now capable of sustaining something like The Peer Hat (for example)? Never mind our brand of very distinct, ground level activity... can the city support the weight of a past which many people are now either dreadfully afraid of, or separated from by the very laws of the land?

In previous blog entries. I think I've been quite optimistic.

Optimistic about a return to normality.

And yet...there's an increasing sense, that a return to normality...is the last thing anybody wants, or perhaps feel permitted to want.

I don't simply mean in reference to the virus and safety. I also refer to the terms by which we live our lives, hour to hour,  day-to-day.  Personally speaking, I feel likewise touched by this unexpected sentiment. A peculiar and at first glance, alarming nostalgia for what lockdown represented to me, has arisen, unbidden.

There's this golden flush, an aura to the memory. The scent of a moment passed, a chance to breathe. A moment that perhaps we won't see again, or at least in so benign a form. Yes, there was fear. A huge amount of fear. I remember abandoning The Peed Hatton that last night in March. The evacuation of Saigon. I look back on that frantic hustle now somehow fondly, despite being in the grip of a rising terror.

The days and weeks would come and they would be difficult. That unwillingness to cross the threshold. Stay in. Shun contact. Protect your loved ones.

Weeks turn into months.

Longsight, Spring Equinox, The Beginning Of Lockdown

After a while, and I'm uncertain as to how long exactly, I discovered that my fear was steadily decreasing -  or at least my fear of imminently arriving death. That said, I don't think death is something any of us take very seriously, day-to-day (or at least those of us with lives relatively ungraced by death's prolonged residence). And by seriously, I mean simply sitting with it's presence, with it's inevitability. With the thought of it happening to oneself and to everybody one knows. By seriously, I mean preparing for it, coming to an accord, squaring it, seeing it in it's full abundance; fractal wave, blossom of expiration happening over and over, life giving way to life. Seriously. 

Was my lack of fear a new familiarity? An apprehension of the reaper's proximity? Was it in fact, the opening of the self towards an absurd newness? Death chosen, over a return to an increasingly sterile dystopia that we were told we were fortunate to be born into, "why look how they live in the gutter of Calcutta, in the ruins of Baghdad, in the Russian gulag". Jehova protect us. May your angels maintain the pillars of heaven...of time and of space. Hallelujah!

Most days I have walked past the geese blustering on the banks of the Ashton canal.

I have walked past people too, but it is the geese that are aggressively oblivious, as opposed to sometimes obliviously aggressive.  

In those death friended months following, I found myself exploring the territory, which I had come to take for granted, had rendered merely a lifeless backdrop. I had occasionally engaged in the rites of psycho-geography, the derive made famous by the Lettrists and the Situationists and the older and better known act of pilgrimage - a new technique for me.  I had brought it from the river a few years back and found it to be powerfully healing/inspirational.

A little while ago, I wrote a couple of pieces on LoneLady's efforts to re-conceptualise East Manchester, to finally replace that sense of mystery and Magic which had seemed in recent years, to have passed from the front of conscious appreciation.

We also would like you to consider the writings of trail blazing adventurer Martin Greenwood, of Tsuji Giri and Warm Widow fame. I have thought about this often.

There's a dense drizzle following me. It becomes more insistent.

This has been a summer of rains.

Morning, Arriving At Manchester Piccadilly

I had spoken about re-enchanting the territories that we live in day-to-day. To imbue them with magic,  with legends, to mythologise place, hill, dale, forest, edifice. Of course when I say mythologise I mean to render environment in some sense hyper-real, contained within the subspace of the imaginal that we give over to creativity, the place where the relationship between the inside and the outside merge to form a crucible that can be said, without shame, to forge reality.

What I had not realised, was that I needed , as a priority, to re-enchant myself.

So disconnected had I become from the land, so comfortable within the nest of my own rhetoric, that I never noticed how lost I actually was.

A man.

Walks past

Draped in.

A colourless cagoule.

We make eye contact briefly. The roulette of folk, the hope for a smile or some glimmer of recognition. But not from him. Instead, the inverted goose. Where are my angry friends now?

I hide from the rain.

So yes, I required re-enchantment. 

In order to do that my vehicle was travel. To weave the lazy pattern of opposites, rarely did I travel within a vehicle. Sometimes, like a rocket to a new moon, I would catch the train, but never further than three lines of hills. Except when it came to Hughes country, for which I, like so many people of this city, make an exception.

The Moors and Fields and Woodlands surround Manchester.

Before I could situate myself within that landscape before and unless I could situate that landscape within me there would be no England worth the trouble of re-awakening. 

Ballardian Cuboids 

Yes, I speak of lockdown fondly. My happiest days, my lost years found on the hilltop.

Despite the appalling challenge to freedom. Despite the presence of an unknowable virus

I look upon it fondly.

As an artist and as one of the owners of the Pier Ham I see a winding path up towards that plateau of Illumination, the one that kindled the first flame in the hearts of those of us  taken by rock n' roll. That funny little lie. That's how it seems to me now, here.

The Pair Hart is situated squarely within the boundaries of a culture, fuelled by deception, many of us embracing the idea that if we just play hard enough, we will be noticed and exalted. We will make our way. Cold truth suggests, that there's more likelihood of winning the lottery or being struck by lightning, than finding a meaningful career as an artist within the industry.

Celebrities, rock stars, tweets.

Yesterdays.

We see them revealed.

Human? Or in fact only spectacle?

Either way tied to the culture which invited them into the party

It's difficult to imagine the opposite. It's difficult to imagine not being invited... difficult to imagine being the perennial citizen/subject.

You would assume the system works.

I think we touched upon this in a previous blog post. But now we feel it stronger than ever. That music must occupy its own niche... rock and roll must be redefined in terms of the enchantment. I spoke regarding my own journeys across the land and of those journeys as being healing. Now the music must adapt and occupy a position that might be reasonably described as medicinal.Think again. Rearrange the board.

Busy road - an old road - cars stream past. I must cross to reach the Fallowfield Loop. Peace for another hour. Before later and people and drummed back into the clutches of that. Weird life, which is becoming increasingly bold. Increasingly determined to press us down. 

Cars stream. Puffed police school faces glance as if to ask: "Who goes there"? An endless cavalcade? I don't remember a time since all this began as busy as today. People are out there and yet the fear is not gone and worse than that. 

Yes, worse than that the distrust, the division. And the lack of respect people have for each other's position, thoughts, feelings and dreads.

It's a monstrous 'State Of Affairs'.

Get off social media...tear ourselves away from the opinions of others. They have no sway beyond what we ascribe to them. They must go. I have never seen so many vehicles on this road before... vehicles and school children.The silence I crave has gone - countrywide. There's a scramble of metal,  but at last I pass. The road says no entry. The rain continues to fall

I think about how hard it is sometimes to get even the simplest thing done. Because after all we were never in this to build a successful business. No, that was a side effect. It might be more accurate to say we were in it to pass our days.  More accurate to say that the Peel Hack was a harness, keeping us attached to something we thought beautiful and worthwhile, beyond and beneath the rigour of the 9 to 5.

Is it not more accurate to say that this confluence of roads, of ley lines, of the daily dreams and hopes of the people that frequented it, had in fact taken on its own momentum?...become a planet with its own gravity formed from the super hot gas of the human imagination, the will and the need for hope and love and. most importantly, meaning?

Real

I have been to some strange places. All too close for comfort. Too close not to be wonderfully unnerved.

I gorged upon golden teachers, bereft atop hilltops, asked "what am I supposed to do?" Fighting against the elements, fighting against the sheer terminal velocity/dead weight of lives hopelessly entwined within the body of the plummeting, rotting Leviathan that capitalism has become, that culture has become.

I've clutched rock faces with nerveless fingers. Scraped unfit legs. Struggled to find a grip something to hold onto.

I've lost myself.

I have unzipped the urban forgotten, liminal space.

I've soaked myself to the Bone.

I have whistled aimless melodies. I have waited to be visited by the Muse, forsaken.

Washed my feet in rivers

I have found molten rock on hot paths.

I have delivered hair clippers across miles of Moorland.

Visited stones.

I've laid my hand upon Her and woken Dragons. I've looked into the eyes of my love and turned her words into music. As she spoke, curdling the milk.

I have walked down this darkened squirrel infested path towards the Fallowfield Loop over and over , burning away impurities. Perhaps seeing who I am now, which is the land, which is the Peak Hoot, which is the Grail, which is itself only a movement along the path. The path has no destination. The path is the destination.

I've seen ghosts walking in ranks and clusters and chaos gangs and read books I never thought I would read. I brushed the coyly reserved gills of fungal blooms.

I've cried  tears of guilt.

Have wept more times than I can count.

Trying to find the path.

Not ever realising I sought a verb.

Churn Milk Joan

We said that we hoped to open on September the 4th and of course, we're several days beyond that now.

There are a number of vital upgrades that had to be made to the Peach Hot, namely the central heating and water. Honestly, we're so, so close. Honest guvna! Our new date, looks like September 18, though if we can make it happen earlier, then we're going to do that. 

But as I opened this weird, can of worms blog post, the psychology of how to progress meaningfully has been an omnipresent weight. Has the world indeed, turned without us?

On the Loop, leaves golden brown, ochre, phantasmagorical crocodile, mildewed black. Lincoln Green. Pea snap nettle. Melted blue plastic.

Droplets Of crystal

Arching Across every bow.

We're nearly at the Finish Line or I think, we're approaching the start of something previously unimagined. Blind and mysterious. If only it was as simple as socially distanced drinking measures. If only it was as simple as carving a holy place into an engineer's Fantasia.

Musicians and artists are starting to send us more of their music...this is comfortably familiar. But we find ourselves becoming harsher in our assessments. 

There can be no room for that which does not sufficiently quench The Thirst. Compassion now only for those who are compassionate.

We need only those who need only to give what they have to heal.

The rain picks up again tries to soak me, is soaking me.

It's funny to observe how the elaborate Palaces that I built to house my words early in the lockdown experience, have given way not even to crooked manses, but to the uncaring, inhospitable moorland.

We cannot confidently voice our thoughts, without fear of judgement. But we must keep asking questions. To question Purity. Question virtue. Question everything continuously. This is the process, the circle of re-enchantment.

So yes, we're going to soon complete our wee construction upgrade. We will throw open our doors. And then you may speak if you like.

(I step over a discarded face mask.

The sky is the colour of slate.

No donkeys bray in the sanctuary)

Somebody Is On Holiday In The Distance (Ashton)

We can learn to listen to 'place'. Consider this: a human body is not merely a single living organism. In fact, it is made up of millions of bacteria microbes and viruses. Likeiwse, a place like the Fallowfield Loop, is made up of many different species of tree, plant and grass. Not to mention the road I walk along (not  alive I hear you cry---but is a virus alive?) the pigeons, the crows, the magpies, the beetles, the worms, the rain and yes, the air.

The stories.

And us.

(Good afternoon. Mr. Magpie. How is Mrs. Magpie today?)

We speak now without language. Language is for human beings. A path speaks only in its passing.

Left Behind.

We ought to try and enlighten you as to what the general mode of thoughts is here in Manchester on the music scene. Although live gigs are technically legal (or at least will be very soon), there is a discouragement... a sense that one of us might get it wrong and ruin it for the others. 

But who can live like that, bound in that fashion? This the very basis of the life we've made for ourselves...what makes sense from a human perspective. I've heard people say, "well life is compromise". But the true compromise we make is with our own mortality. We accept it in order to remain human.

The conquerors are falling

We have everything hopefully set up as well as is reasonably possible... but it's going to be a learning experience because here is where the music happens, where the experience is had, where the tunnels are explored, where the map is drawn.

We will learn. What is right, what is troubling, what is best practice and what paths lead to suffering. You're a part of that. This place is as much yours as it is ours (as I have surely said before).

But let's just SPELL IT OUT:

If we thought that the world was merely crude matter and nothing but, then we wouldn't do this.

We can say otherwise. There is magic. And there are monsters to be met. The monsters of our age, are nebulous, are not the same to each person that beholds them. They are doppelgangers. Mercurial they shift and twist.

But we must be kind to one another as we return, as we listen. We'll listen to what each of us says--those who wish to convince will have their moment. Things are so and so and so. BUT what we will instead profit from, is the acceptance of our own blindness.

This music venue blog says this: There is fascism at work.

The old evil has reared its head Der Volk sings it's siren song, but through a Hall of Mirrors.

New satellites Blaze the circumference of the sphere we call Earth.

Fear more than anything to be trapped deathless.

Death is a gift of the universe to us. 

It strengthens our purpose

It sweetens life...life sweetens life.

Everything hums.  Everything vibrates. Nothing is still.

Now we are in the Wasteland truly.

The plain before us is vast and wide.

Beyond the plain, a mountain. Beneath the mountain, a tunnel..

The tunnel leads beneath the mountain.

This tunnel is the Great Conjunction, Saturn and Jupiter passing close to each other, as they do every 20 years. But this time will be the closest they have passed in 200 years: marking the end of the age of Earth, and  beginning the new age of air and revealing a whole new bunch of problems, excitement and strangeness.

Poetry.

This will occur during the Winter Solstice...funny how these things line up neatly.

We must use everything that we have to emerge unscathed, or if not unscathed, at least seeing as clear as we can and listening. And listening above all. If you listen hard enough, you'll find yourself asking questions, and that's probably the best anybody can hope for.

It's going to be a sweet thing to kiss goodbye to this fucking terrible time we've been living through. But the opportunity has been there to change change change.

Change, they say 'be it'. We say 'Let It Be'.

Someday soon, we'll start to talk about music again, but the terms of its relationship with us have necessarily to change and have indeed, already changed. It's no longer a case of recreation, but of re-creation.

We believe that there's going to be a whole new scene and slew of musicians and artists who reflect our very real needs...but it's difficult to talk about because we currently stand on the narrow threshold of this new time. You're going to see the wrapping up of some things and ideas, to which you've grown incredibly comfortable... which you never thought would end. You're going to see the end of rock n' roll.

Who would have thought that?

And what in it's place?

Simply put, it is our responsibility to make it directly lived and part of a process not an end result. Nor an imagined. and romanticised dystopia. The heartless automaton composed of

serial killer cutout photographs - three dimensional collage of expectations undone and unrealised dreaming

Clearly it's a very exciting time to be involved in music and art.

There may be trouble ahead ,but as The Man From Another Place says:  

"Where I come from, there is always music in the air."

Some of the things which I have noticed. 

 Joy Division lyrics on the platforms at train stations. Sometimes, amusingly, one is right there, say when waiting at Gorton. 

Farmers who string electric wire fences across public rights-of-way , something that has made me angry repeatedly. An erroneous entitlement to what belongs to no human being.

The way the squirrels balance upon and dash across the steel girders; electric lines - high above the railway tracks,  they freeze in place when the train comes.

I always wondered if they were live, but now I know the answer.

ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, I'LL SHUT UP! What else is going on daddy o?

Back In Time, Twice

Here's Ian with not one, but TWO episodes of Flowing Backwards...that this one is a double bill, is a result of my gross slowness. 

NUMBER 1    NUMBER 2

Black Stage Album, Second Edition

The second Peer Hat album, of course, also delayed, just needs us to write up the artist details. Once that's done, we'll put it out there a bit and then release into the wild. In the meantime, here's the last one in case you haven't noticed it around. 

 

 And Last But Not Least....

To our huge relief, we were awarded a grant that will help to keep us going until at least Spring (assuming no change of affairs). We're obviously very grateful for whomever at the Arts Council looked kindly upon what we're doing. Added to your amazing kindness, we can have a real punt at exploring this bizarre apocalypse. That said, Aatma failed in it's bid to secure vital funds. Considering everything started with Kraak on the Square, it could definitely use your support in the times to come. 

Let's keep our chins up however...the grant for The Peer Hat was amazing news. Let's see where our community travels over the next few months and 2021. 

See you all soon!