Fat Chops At TASCOs

The jazz community is a little bit of a fringe society in a number of respects and being on the edge of it does leave you just a little bit marginalised. Nonetheless, being at a Fat Chops gig does leave me feeling just a little bit like I'm on the way to getting myself into an elderly underground thing. It's quite an institution in many respects - hope it last much longer. Slideshow is relatively good. See the slideshow of Fat Chops performance at TASCOs on Sunday 28th March 2010 to check out what it's like....

The East Side Project and the West Side Project

I picked up a leaflet last night from the foyer area of Symphony Hall during the interval when watching the Rush Hour Blues Poll Winners, the University of Birmingham Big Band. This leaflet told me all I think I needed to know about the East-Side area which I guess is partly inspired by the Lunar Society. What I thought may be suitable for the Birmingham area, largely to keep Cockneys happy would be the antithesis of the Lunar Society on the West Side of the City. While the Lunar Society and the East side project tend to be focused on stimulating ideas, broadening debate and catalysing action for the most ingenious use of industry and commerce, there is the opposite on the West side of the city.

This is largely the purpose Broad Street - reducing the quality of thinking and productivity throughout the city, getting the least out of people, bringing them through places like Spearmint Rhino to their lowest levels of conduct etc. etc. etc. Perhaps there's a social history of stupid things that people in Birmingham have done over the last few hundred years - an issue that may appeal in some form of joke museum - which side of the city should this be on? Surely this could keep those who wish to maintain a regional predjudice against the Brummie very happy. I say that thinking there aren't any joke museums around - they tend to be quite sober places - am I wrong about this, I guess it's an issue to reflect upon. They tend to be places that facilitate what I can class as an air of humility and respect towards your fellow man rather than places that cause a degree of distain, disrespect or concern. 

I heard that there were suffragettes in Birmingham a century or so ago and they failed to build an national or international reputation like those in Manchester or London. Whether this was because it was true that after objecting to the content of the newly built library in Northfield, they decided to burn it down. Why can't you be like those nice suffragettes in Manchester I hear the council ask them, even a century later.  

There's possibly quite a role for myself and others who may not feel adequate when they look at the achievements of the Lunar Society -is that what I would be saying if I were to be part of the Eastside project? A latter day Lunar Society wannabe? No, the Eastside project looks like it spans everyone and everything. It's got more of a working class edge to it, being based in an industrial heartland - working class people are meant to at it's heart. There may be some scope to try and inspire a few young people to innovate and do something a little more creative in the world of the arts - could the East-side project area be a means to doing this through an organisation like the Pump? There is at least a good chance young people would be able to get a project started if they wanted to make it on in the arts.

I wonder if this will be recognised as a means of establishing the year of Culture in Birmingham - innovation and stupidity, surely two things that Birmingham has the edge on over the rest of Europe. The East-West divisions within cities may be very much a national or internation trend that has taken place over hundreds of years and the plans the city council has had to redevelop the Eastside of the inner city to be more of a centre for art, culture and education show the city falls in line with international trends - the glitzy wealthy and partying side of the city on the West, those who'd rather stick their nose in a book (kindle, tablet or phone I maybe should say) on the East.

Migraine, headaches and mania - do sunglasses reflect a disorder?

I've been wearing sunglasses for a while now - nothing that unusual about that I guess but I've had a reduction in the low levels of tension that I tend to suffer from and on balance less of a feeling of pending headache that would be impossible to escape from. It was an issue that I raised with a health service representative who suggested I did a little basic research on the matter as there wasn't anything they'd been trained on regarding theraputic possibilities of sunglasses. It appears that their first thoughts were roughly correct, if information that you can access through the first few pages of a google search can be anything like reliable.

For some individuals there can be negative impacts it seems - sunglasses can actually cause headaches for some wearers - for me and perhaps a few others, there is the opposite impact - there is the general reduction in low level tension which can result in a headache after a while or if there are other contributing factors. For me, when I've been reliant on the standard methods of trying to get tension levels down, through relaxation, controlling my breathing, eating regularly and trying to exercise etc. avoiding the factors which tend to cause an increase in tension it's been almost a revalation. Sunglasses seem to be working as a means to taking the edge of the tension I tend to experience.

I don't think there is anything like the type of empirical evidence that would be necessary to cause individuals to get this type of treatment on the NHS especially when it's possible to get a decent pair of sunglasses for under a fiver on ebay. It would be interesting to find out which factors co-occur in determining who benefits from wearing sunglasses, even in normal lighting conditions, and who finds it a potential hazzard to health and well-being. Though I don't think I become rock star like, I do find that I can benefit from daily wear sunglasses and hope other people can too.

Bovril Bee Bop

The concept of doing something in the same style as a jazz musician is something of a cliche in the arts - Jackson Pollock painted in the same manner as a jazz musician, Jack Kerouac wrote prose in a long continuous flow like a soloist and I, well what was it that I did? This is rather more difficult to explain than I can really express.

It was a number of years ago at Swanshurst when I was at sixth form there that there were a few names mentioned having been seen in the dreams of staff and students who were at Swanshurst at the time. The names didn't mean a thing for years - until I met people who's names were mentioned at a place I worked at recently. It doesn't surprise me that this type of thing takes place - coincidences purposefully manipulated in order to cause an individual what I class as distress through what may appear like a paranormal phenomenon. This is a pretty unusual form of harassment I'd tend to argue, a form that should result in at least investigation by the Police but may be this won't take place.

What may seem quite a coincidence is that I've not had full recall of the events that took place there over twenty years ago now - when I lost an entire weeks memory - I had no recall of an entire half terms break. What I think took place was a brainwashing session similar to that shown in the Mancurian Candidate that is only likely to be dismissed as pure paranoia - a product of my own imagination. One of the concepts that I think has emerged recently, has been the Bovril Bee Bop that I didn't understand for years. The concept of Bovril in Birmingham is quite unique - a drink that you have only at a football match, and at no other point in your life - as Jasper Carrott said once.

What I think took place was only manipulation that I think was totally unnecessary - I think the concept of 'Bovril Bee Bop' was born, only for the purposes of ridicule. What I tended to do when I was taking shots of the musicians performing at Rush Hour Blues was to try to mimic the senses of the musician while I was taking photographs of them, trying to photograph in a manner enhanced by the subtle changes that drifted around the room as the music took control. When Charlie Parker played jazz, the world listened, when Kerouac wrote the world read his free flowing text and when Pollock painted the world wanted to watch the results emerge. I have been photographing non-league football with the same gusto as Charlie Parker played his most inspired solos, as Pollock painted his most magnificent works, as Kerouac expressed the doubts and fears of a nation. When I photographed non-league football the world until now has ignored the freeflowing photoessays that make up bovril bee bop shots of Solihull Moors home games this season. Maybe one day, the world will flow with the tunes of Bovril Bee Bop.

In some respects I think there's a possibility that the idea was one I was manipulated to have - what ever took place there at Swanshurst on or off the grounds does still bug me - perhaps very little took place. Was the concept of Bovril Bee Bop something that was generated only for comedy purposes - and why have I lacked so much in the way of inspiration when it comes to finding a means to connect with a jazz community? It's a real shame that I didn't manage to get my ideas in order but I guess, like jazz, photographing jazz is very much about the moment and somehow, the moment even though it may not be caputured perfectly, can still be represented. While I suggest that there's been some form of ridiculous manipulation I can only expect to be beleaguered by problems but for whatever reason, I guess I still think this makes more sense than anything else....curious really.