#i've been in a weird headspace lately in terms of art

[sacrilegious-skeletal-scribe]

Hey heretics, I've definitely not only been posting poems as I write them for the past three weeks.

So strange, conceptually, that my main output has become something I dislike bringing up in conversation. You tell people you write books for a living, their eyes glaze over and they ask you the two requisite question required for the conversation moving on. Hell, best case scenario they go back to whatever they were talking about before and you can leave!

A real life human being asks what you do professional, say 'Poet,' and feel the ambient hostility raise by six degrees. It not even specific anger, there's just this weird agreed-upon contracts that poets are somehow less artistically valuable? People say 'poetry' with the same vitriol as 'self-published novel.' Which bodes well.

I'm starting to fear the jokes aren't landing, because we've veered a little too close to genuine passive dismissiveness of the arts, so, pretend I'm jangling keys and don't pay attention to the smoke & sirens combo move behind me, this freeway accident isn't going to start itself.

All of which to say, art is going to fumble over itself way more than is ever going to feel comfortable. And you're just going to have to ignore it and keep going. Make more art and only take the time to tear it off your skin if it gets close to your throat. Never let anyone kneecap you and especially not yourself. That bitch hasn't earned it.

[boonesfarmsangria]

Orlando Weeks recently released his brilliant new record LOJA. It’s either the ex-Maccabees third solo album or fourth, if you count the children’s book and accompanying Paul Whitehouse-featuring soundtrack he made for The Gritterman in 2017. It’s also his best, pairing the intricate introspection of his previous solo work with the expansive art-rock dynamism that made The Maccabees so exciting. He launched the album with a four-night residence at London’s Copeland Gallery, exhibiting his artwork during the day and playing gigs in the evening. I (still Niall here, still hungover) was originally supposed to speak to him on the second day of the residency but he was swamped and very politely rescheduled at the last minute. We caught up a week a week later instead:

The New Cue #391 June 24: Orlando Weeks

Hello Orlando. Sorry I'm late, I couldn't find the link.

No, I owe you the apology, I cancelled so late last week, so thanks for doing this.

Don't worry about it, I could tell you meant business because you had a pencil behind your ear. You were in the zone. What was going on at that point?

All of it went well and I'm really happy with how it went, but everything took longer, required more time... I totally underestimated things like how long it took to cut all the paper to size, how early I needed to get in each day to make the prints to sell in the evenings. It was the first time I'd done it so it was a lot on the fly and I felt like I was barely keeping up with what I needed to get done and if I was having a conversation with someone where my responsibility to that conversation is to try and give good account and be good company or whatever, then I was gonna fail at that miserably.

Haha. With all that in mind, how did you feel after the run of four days?

I really enjoyed it. I felt like all the aspects could have stood on their own. The exhibition looked as I wanted it to look, the performances worked and made sense, especially in the context of the gallery. The general experience of being there all day and making more work for the event, all of that makes sense to me in terms of contextualising the record and staying busy during the day really works for me in terms of taking some of the onus off the evening. I don't like turning up somewhere and doing the gig and that being the be all and end all of my product that day.

It's a lot of dead hours.

Yeah and it just puts too much pressure on that moment. Even towards the end of Maccabees, I was beginning to try and find ways of getting into getting into those bigger venues, trying to get into them really early in the morning, finding a desk or a room that no one else is going to use and just be busy in there for a bit and it would take some of the weight off the gig in the evening.

Did it work? By the time the gig came around, were you in a different headspace compared to how you would have been if you've just been sitting there for hours waiting to soundcheck?

Definitely. Being a touring musician as a solo proposition, turning up at venues and setting up the merch desk and all the things that used to be fun about the early days of being in a band, I really like. I like being sure that I've met lots of people that work in the venue and said hello, I really like feeling that that is part of what the venue is, not just the backstage and the stage, all those people make the weirdness of sitting on a stage and playing music to people slightly less weird.

The flipside of that is, do you miss anything about doing those big gigs where The Maccabees ended up?

Yeah, there's the rareness of experience. It's not something that lots of people get to do. Towards the end of Maccabees, I was getting this really unpleasant stage fright that meant that I had the adrenaline through the afternoon and into the gig grew, my ability to process the adrenaline would just fail and then during the show, I would become more and more anxious and self-conscious and panic. Then by the time we finished the gig, my emotional drop off was really intense and unpleasant and so I found it really hard to enjoy those big gigs. In retrospect, I would hope to be in a better headspace to really process what that was, if that's possible. I definitely had some of those gigs that were great that I enjoyed but, as a whole, I was really struggling with getting to the end of the gig and not finding it just uncomfortable.

I feel like the new record has a real connect with the music you made in The Maccabees. I really liked the previous two but this one feels like it's got the ambition and expanse that The Maccabees had paired with the arty introspection of what you've done on your solo records. Is that fair?

I think so. There is an element of the first two that were very insular. A Quickening was basically made in Nic Nell's bedroom and then he moved flat and it was another bedroom and a bit of his studio in New Cross and then the second was made in Nathan Jenkin's [aka electronic producer Bullion] studio in Tottenham Hale. We were really nervous about being in confined spaces so everything was done with masks on so it was not a freeing experience. We were very lucky that we were making a record that the point was to try and be uplifting because had that not been the manifesto for it then I think it would have not been such a pleasurable experience because it was great. I really enjoyed it. But with this, there was Fiction back on board, so [Fiction MD] Jim Chancellor championing me and making me feel like 'Why don't you do that? You should!'. I feel very comfortable with Jim. And then also there being a bit of budget, there being enough musicians that I knew that I'd worked with, toured with, played with, watched, become friends, whatever, that I could put together a band. And I'd written songs that I thought would suit that.

My initial idea of the record was I wanted to try and make a band in a room record and it isn't that. That was something that Maccabees strived to do and didn't achieve. One of the records that I've listened to in the last like four or five years that I think does it amazingly and is an incredible record that I return to a lot is the Caroline debut record. They're rare things, especially when it's a lot of people.

Tell me about getting some of the guests involved. You've got a band you’ve put together behind you, and also Katy J Pearson, Rhian from Wet Leg and Tony Njoku on it. It might not be a band in a room record but it feels like an album where you are sparking off other people.

Yeah, and I think there is a difference between those two things. There is a huge amount of collaboration and successful collaboration to my mind on the record, which is different to a band in a room record. I'd gone away with the initial recordings and I felt like we hadn't nailed the band in the room record so it was then trying to think, 'Right, so if it's not going to be that, I made the rules, I made the manifesto, it's mine to break, it's mine to change and I want it to be the best version of whatever it's going to be' and then starting thing 'Okay, so My Love Is needs something else' and I think Katy has one of the great voices in terms of emotive voices and I think it works well with my voice. I felt like I had a favour in the chamber with Rhian because even though I'd said no to it, she'd asked if I'd be in a Wet Leg video so I knew her well enough to ask a favour or at least see if she liked the song. Tony Njoku I'd played with, he'd come and supported me a couple of times. We have mutual friends and I know him well enough to just ask him directly and send him some music. Olly, I'd seen Caroline and the record became something that I listened to a lot and I'd seen Caroline at Latitude. So there were enough people and enough time that I could approach people and let them have some time with the decision. It feels like a collaborative record.

By the end of the Maccabees, you lot were becoming notoriously slow. I think the last record featured in Q previews for the coming year two years in a row. Have you got better at working quicker o have you carried that into your solo career?

I mean, the reason Maccabees sounded like Maccabees was because the process took as long as it did. The sifting that had to happen, that's just as long as it took. Without those various, necessary Maccabee hoops to jump through, I can make decisions quickly, I can work as late as I want to or get up as early as I want to. I think Maccabees always had a really good work ethic, especially the last two records, everyone worked hard, I just think if you're in a group generally, that's just the kind of natural law.

You’ve been solo now for going on seven years. What have you learned about yourself over that period?

In relation to Maccabees, I can feel much fonder about all that time and I have a much nicer, easier time with all those people which is a very nice thing that time gives. I really love the process still, I really like starting with no songs and then slowly getting building a record. In terms of my work, I don't think I've changed very drastically. I just really like doing it. I count it, I mind about it still, like I find the responsibility of it... when I hear myself saying these things, it sounds so flat!

It doesn't!

I genuinely think the mission is to try and find ways of keeping that as long as possible. When I was saying that it sounded flat it's just because I'm so comfortable with that as my MO. I'm doing everything I can to justify to myself and to enough people to find its relevance that's a legitimate thing for me to try and sustain.

Does it feel weird or funny to you that you and [other Maccabees offshoot] 86TVs are releasing music at the same time?

I think it probably would have felt weird if it was happening straight away, I also think that what we're making is pretty different and the way we are framing it is different. I'm so pleased for the boys that, from when I speak to them and from what I see from their output, they're having a very good time doing it and they've been very sweet when they've spoken to me.

I tried playing the two tracks over one another to see if I could get an idea of what The Maccabees would sound like in 2024 but it sounded awful.

Hahaha, good! I'm quite relieved that it didn't end up that satanic messages started coming through.

I should've asked this at the beginning of this conversation but where are you at the moment?

I'm in Lisbon.

You’ve lived there for a few years now. Does it feel like home yet?

Yeah, definitely.

What are the main things you love about living there?

I find it hard to explain but I feel very new here. I lived in London almost all my life. Apart from a few years in Brighton when I was coming back a lot anyway, I was in London for almost 40 years so your fingerprint is everywhere, there is so much of your history in and so many eras of your history embedded in everything. It was so rare that I would go to somewhere that I hadn't been to before that I hadn't had a night there before or I hadn't seen countless gigs there. I'm habitual anyway so if all of my days are spent at a desk either writing songs or doing drawing or whatever, and any desk will do, then in the evenings, I'm less interested in going and doing a new thing or seeing anything or walking down the street and being like 'That's it's the first time I've done it' and here I feel like that all the time. And this is not to do with being noticed by someone that might have known the Maccabees but I'm inconspicuous here, I'm not bumping into people, I'm not coming across old haunts, I'm fresh here.

Constant surprise.

Constant surprise, lots of moments where I cannot believe my luck. The way that Lisbon sits, the hills mean where a sunrise happens or sets, if you're just one road over, everything is weirdly more colourful or the way that that light bounces, I'm so seduced by it. I keep thinking the newness will wear thin and it doesn't.

How far do you look forward, what's your mind on now?

Weirdly, today was the first day I sat down and started just playing piano and thinking about what I'd really like to do next. I really want to write something that Bill Ryder-Jones wants to produce or sing on or play guitar on. It's something we've talked about on and off for a long time. Even if we just did one song. I just sent him a video link for the McAlmont & Butler song the other day, just as like a 'mmm?'. I started trying to think how to write a pop song that he would enjoy. And then the other thing is I want to try and find other places in the UK or in Europe where I can take the Copeland gallery framework and put it into another place and be in a place for a few days and do play some music and exhibit some work.

Nice one man, thanks for your time.

Amazing, thank you again

[violetsystems]

#personal

Not unlike the gnome, this spot has long been my corner of the internet to piss in. I certainly don't think of it like that though in worse times I've trauma dumped my share in this void. Has it really changed anything? Not in the real world in the slightest. So you wonder if you've just disappeared from relevance completely at times. Which doesn't track very well when you catch a pattern of behavior with people in real life that feels worse than espionage. It's a weird headspace to be in lately. Having a paycheck but having no real way to change the things around you. Often I feel like an actor playing a role in which nobody gave me the script out there. I can be a good actor when I'm in the zone. I have no idea what the plot is or the outcome. In a country that claims to be free you would assume that this is in your power. To wrangle the narrative back. To write three paragraphs deep down in the dark and hope sane people read it and realize that you are not acting. That everything you've said constituted the thoughts of an actual person with human emotions that have been hurt worse than I could put back together myself. And yet I do. And this is probably barebones what is expected of a cis hetero white male in 2024. That part isn't really an argument to me and never has been. I am also not anywhere near a dominant power or some sort of collective force. I've always just been Tim. However quirky, oblivious to the social order, or blue sky scenario I can be? There are times I cannot go back to. I used to work at an art school and it used to be a place that felt like a community. Until I was ghosted and abandoned by it like some sort of art piece. I work in a different school and a different community. I still feel just as isolated if not worse. If you are going to follow someone around and keep track of them for years without elaborating on the point? I mean I get it sort of. If somebody wanted to know what I was about they could just ask me. And they never do. I think people are afraid to elaborate sometimes. Or it is surrounded by so much political red tape that people would rather default to their own silly lives and drama. I have never been married. Never had kids. Had a really long term relationship that ended and a bunch of tragically normal shit happen after. I took time to be by myself. A lot of time. That was explained in great detail in posts nobody seemingly reads.

I can write about this every week and it does just get worse. And I've attempted to apply the same logic as to why when I feed the stock market with money I'm supposed to save for retirement it automatically disappears in value. I am a person deep down that learns rather definitively over time. There's a point I reach where I can no longer be hustled in good faith. That taking advantage of a person knowing that it will eventually work out for them someday is definitely not my story. But I deserve it because I don't typically fit into some movement or community you can control. Other than Tumblr. Which for the record has been a community for however weird, hard to understand and complex it is? Much more understandable about what is expected from me in terms of rules of engagement and learning how to accept healthy boundaries. I wonder sometimes if that people in public have been watching my behavior so long that they think that's how I want to be treated in public. "Oh that's his thing." They gossip in the streets. Who is he? Does he have a name? Have you ever asked him his name? Have you ever interacted with him as a human being other than giving him quarters for laundry? I have had more valid social interaction and cues from liking someone's content anonymously than I have had in public. And I am a person who actually has to deal with the normal world often. A responsible adult comparatively to the other adults who control, bully, and manipulate their way through a system that says it plays fair. It doesn't. I think what I come up against in terms of an invisible wall in society is fear. The thing holding us all back from being ourselves. Or at least expressing ourselves how we actually envision. This is why I really like the idea of Pride. Repression is all around us. No matter if you are gay or straight. And the revolution around it is meant to be constructive and not the riot against norms as was a necessity back in the day. The norms keep getting worse. And I never really understood how allies didn't understand how important it was to see how bad it really was. That you can't change establishment by becoming it. And that when you align with establishment and isolate those who historically have tried to help you? It may turn out worse. That you can only establish yourself, move forward and help others on their feet stand alone as individuals in dignity and respect.

My country doesn't want that. It can't afford it. And no matter how normal I may think I seem outside of a few things I'm working on for myself? I can't explain away my life as some magical Seinfeld episode when we all knew more or less Jerry was a fucking douchebag irl. But wasn't it funny? When he got up on stage and defended all out war on a people? Is it funny that even with taking public transportation and historically reasonable rent that I can't even afford to be taken seriously beyond how well I am at performing IT duties in an office? I'm on a non profit salary. I wouldn't complain too much about my situation. I found that job myself. And yet there's this psyop overlaid upon my life over everything that makes me question. Did I reaaaaaly find this job? Am I really single and unmarried because I wanted to be or was I benched secretly by the government? Is the reason everyone knows who I am but pretends I'm not important because they secretly need to trash your life to feel better about the fakeness of their own? Is everything that happens when I leave the house an elaborate performance by a bunch of people fighting a war for my attention. I do not pay attention to anything other than my dash. You know it. I know it. I find myself wondering about it for long bouts of silence. And yet this interaction here is all I have. Everything out in real life is clipped to a dialogue tree populated in a town full of cardboard people. My mom reminded me that I have used that analogy since I was a child. That my theory was that a great percentage of people out there have no depth. Are only there to advance the plot line or the story. My cat has more personality than most people who try to interact with me. I'm getting paid again and I don't feel remotely happy about it. I'm chained to an excel spreadsheet again trying to figure out what exactly held me back for so long. I don't mind being held back if it's from stepping into a boiling volcano of a country. I just don't really get how you can just erase someone year after year then act like you are a superhero for it. I'm still here. I don't really understand what that means either. But I'd rather piss on all of this discreetly and heal at my own pace. Possibly in an actual urinal stall with some common decency and culture. Gnome what I'm saying? <3 Tim