Lo-fi thoughts and Shonky Reflections on 'Fragments of a Punk Opera'

 Working intensely on recording, writing, producing and filming more instalments of the 'Fragments of a Punk Opera', I've been reminded of the DCA exhibition 'Shonky: The Aesthetics of Awkwardness' which I attended in 2018, between 2nd and 3rd years of my BA. I recall the show making no impression at all upon me at the time, but it obviously stayed with me as I immediately thought back to it in terms of the form and methodology of that which is loosely-formed, rough, somewhat klunky - yet nonetheless still engaging or, I hope (with regards to my own work), at least entertaining. 

I routinely refer to my music adventures as 'lo-fi' and this is an accurate description, but it is also in keeping with the DIY aesthetic which is a signatory on the original punk manifesto. My method is basic, not by choice but by virtue simply of how it is: with no training in music production, I use basic means to create pretty basic music: the drumkit requires several hundred pounds worth of new skins and cymbals, and the main crash has a 2-inch split in it. Punk did everything it could with the rock 'n roll basics of bass, drums, guitars and vocals - one or two groups even incorporated keys, as I do too, albeit in a faux-jazz idiom which is still, I would claim, of punk heritage, as I have no formal or any other understanding of jazz and associated music theory (if it qualifies as jazz at all then it is genuinely 'shonky jazz', no?).

These jazz-ish moments may owe their inspiration to the classy sophistication of pop-musical geniuses Sparks via the smart-ass lyrics, but the production and attitude is more suggestive of the quirkiness found in early Adam Ant or the Stranglers. The works also reinterpret aspects of two previous (if not in fact still ongoing) bodies of work, 'Weimar' and 'A Punk Trilogy in 4 Parts': decadence, cabaret, dark humour and occasional historical and social references which all bounce around between the other recurring interests and obsessions - narrative, character, relationships, betrayal, heartbreak...and occasionally art, as in this track:

Herein, musical professionals will note missed beats, fluffed notes, flat vocals, hammy performances all round - none of which is done on purpose to simulate crude or raw aesthetics as a shallow raison d'étre, but is simply the results of "doing what I do". Sometimes the fluffs aren't noticed until well into the mixing process, and digital music editing can only fix so much. The Band Aid-patched results are therefore in full concert with the 'shonky' concept: I make music because I love it: it's an affair of the heart, not of the intellect. I do not try to polish the results too much: too-slick production would only highlight the fluffs and clangers even more, and make them sound much worse. A rough, hissy punk demo track can get away with a lot more than an HD production of 'Moonlight Sonata', in which instrumental perfection is expected.  

A recently-recorded track with a Sham 69 vibe, 'I Swear', humorously bleeps out the occasional swear words until the ad lib rant at the end, in which the f-bombs slip past the completely out-of-time censoring devices, thus not only calling into question the authority of the censor (which was wielded as hamfistedly during the original punk era as much as any guitar in the hands of countless young would-be upstarts), but also celebrating the subversive punk voice itself: despite all attempts to shut us up, we are still shouting:

For we know three chords, and we therefore are a band. 

As a working-class phenomenon, punk highlighted the élitism of the music world of its day, and levelled the playing field of musicianship (going on to inform various subsequent waves, and Grunge, in later decades). My body of work does not shun the economic divisions of society. The two main characters start off penniless, and possibly end that way, too (assuming they even survive). And does the millionaire gangster sit beneath a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II for reasons other than mere affection? Economic concerns are writ large across the 'Fragments' project, starting out from the reality of my need to replenish an entire drumkit and invest in a recording microphone (rather than merely yelling at the laptop), to the desperate situation of the two main characters, Steff and Jen. However, the levelling and liberating tendencies of technology, which originally allowed punk to flourish at street-level, have permitted this artist to realise their creative endeavours in a tangible form, in the same way that cheap Xeroxing technologies of the 1970s allowed fans and writers to publish and distribute their own 'zines, and no longer had to rely upon the stuffy music papers of the day for opinion and information.

Weimar Poetry Cycle: all 4 Parts

 

Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop all had their Berlin phases - and I think I've just concluded mine. Or at least one of mine. The concept has hung around for quite some time, although it has only been realised (and realisable) in recent months*.

This is the 'movie' edition incorporating the pieces 'Berliner Girlz', 'Marlene and Me' and 'Die Freudlosse Gass', with extra opening footage to give the whole work a cyclical feel, and the fourth 'satyr' segment, 'Weimar, Schmeimar...' which concludes the story on a bittersweet, but still light-hearted, note. I'm still seeking the opportunity to perform the whole sequence live some day, somewhere...though probably not on a smoky backlit stage.

There's a nice physical (as well as the obvious thematic) link to an earlier live work, my Brexit-inspired take on a couple of 'Cabaret' classics - in that both this and 'Berliner Girlz' uses the same prop chair.

*The first segment, 'Berlin Girlz', was actually first written some years ago, and incorporated as part of a one-act play within the text of my one professionally-published novel to date - whose very title shows that my Berlin phase has been in progress for some time, as well as its inescapable connection to retro erotica, as the novel is set in an establishment which dates from the Weimar period.

'Weimar, Schmeimar...'

Fell in love with a Berlin girl so many years ago

Strange to think how many things since then have come and quickly gone.

As Mr Hitler warred, and went,

and everyone was left quite bent

so out of shape, we thought we’d never

even write poetry again.

Yet, here we are.

A people scattered – we refugees.

We left the city on its knees

and fled, like all the lucky ones

Across the sea – all hail Manhattan.

Then one day, some day

I saw her, somewhere

Standing on a smoky backlit stage

She was on the path to self destruct,

I mean, man – she was really fucked

I grabbed her and I took her home with me.

She told me of the path she’d wandered

Prostitution, drugs, time squandered

How she almost ended up impaled

or, so she says...in vague detail

like a butterfly, in some entomologist’s case.

But it’s 1952, and – hey!

We’re in the land of opportunity

And every night, we dance together

To those old songs that brought us hither

And knock back whiskey, telling tales

of the nymphs and satyrs of the Domino house

Just down the road from the old White Mouse.

But all those days have gone, my friend

And while I hate to come across as picky -

The fun has fizzled, liberty’s been redefined -

The only mouse around here is Mickey.

Prosit.

(MB, September 2022)

Writer's note: while the Domino is a fictional establishment, the White Mouse is not, and was a hive of extremely liberal performance art in its day. I first found it referenced in Donald Spoto's biography of Marlene Dietrich back in the late 90s, and the reference has kicked around my head for all that time. Maybe my next Berlin-themed venture will be to try to replicate some of the more risqué acts from that period, like those made notorious by Anita Berber.