"Hell... Remember when you was young
And you used to go..."

"...Punch Call!... No, no, remember when you used to say who can do this the longest?"

"Oh, reason, reason, yesterday’s flimsy ghost! – I had already expelled you from my dreams, here I am on the verge of seeing them couple with apparent realities: this place is filled with my self. Reason vainly strives to have me denounce the dictatorship of sensuality.

Enter, Madame, my body is your crown and scepter. I stroke my delirium like a pretty horse."

 - Louis Aragon (The Paris Peasant)

Picture: "The Enchantress" by Heinrich Lossow (1868).

Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish - Flowers.

If you are not adding your own percussion by half way through then you may not be human.

Sore fingers.

Rounding off the week with yet another fantastic reworking of a track from the album (check out the others in previous posts).

This time solo artist Tangled Limbs, with the use of a loop pedal and a dictaphone and some lovely guest vocals, transforms "When I Go" in to an entrancing mantra. Click play!

Reworkings all over the shop!

After yesterday's mini-album (see below if you haven't already) comes a reworking from the Producer of my album, Yila, with his band Aloosh. 

Beautiful. Have a listen.

Producer FlamesYall sent over a whole mini-album of reworkings of some of my songs featuring K.I.N.E.T.I.K, Cyclops, Keb0, Goose and Worgie. Really nicely done. Very honoured! Well worth a listen I think and when you are done click through to the rest of FlameYall's work and enjoy...

Previous remixes:

Buddy Peace remix of "When She Comes"

Kettenkarussell remix of "Dust In My Veins"

My Album Details

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“For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers”

For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers,
green roses, chrysanthemums, lilies: retrophilia,
philocaly, philomath, sarcophilous—all this love,
of the past, of beauty, of knowledge, of flesh; this is
catalogue & counter: philalethist, negrophile, neophile.
A negro man walks down the street, taps Newport
out against a brick wall & stares at you. Love
that: lygophilia, lithophilous. Be amongst stones,
amongst darkness. We are glass house. Philopornist,
philotechnical. Why not worship the demimonde?
Love that—a corner room, whatever is not there,
all the clutter you keep secret. Palaeophile,
ornithophilous: you, antiquarian, pollinated by birds.
All this a way to dream green rose petals on the bed you love;
petrophilous, stigmatophilia: live near rocks, tattoo hurt;
for you topophilia: what place do you love? All these words
for love (for you), all these ways to say believe
in symphily, to say let us live near each other.

 - Reginald Dwayne Betts

Picture: Source forgotten, if anyone knows where it originated then let me know. Thanks.

Everything You Need To Know About Jackamo Brown.

- or -

The Unnecessary Expo.



"I considered it desirable that he should know nothing about me but it was even better if he knew several things which were quite wrong" 

(The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien)

The above words were quoted, by the author of this note (who will have possession of the 'I's and 'My's henceforth), a few days ago in a comment underneath one of the "mysterious" Jackamo Brown press photos that appear on the facebook page. Despite my attraction to the idea of the complete self-effacement of the artist that seem to echo in the above quote I have decided to set that ideal aside to a degree and dispel the slight mystery around Jackamo Brown that should not really have ever arisen in the first place. I'll let you know several things about him, and me, that are quite true. Due to a lack of forethought on my own part I have found myself responding to the handful of press questions that have come my way in a strange dual voice that does not sit well with me and I have come across some speculation in facebook comments and the like as to who Jackamo is which, again, I am not too comfortable with and never intended - I would hate to think of anyone buying the album thinking they are getting something which they are not. To that end: Jackamo Brown is not Scroobius Pip.

To continue in the negative; Jackamo Brown is not a guy with a guitar pasting a name he thinks is cool over the one he was given. Neither is he an artist compensating for his modest ability with an attempt to generate a mystique around his identity and music.

Jackamo is, as I see it, a heteronym (QuickWikiLink). Whilst perhaps not as developed, or well crafted, as Pessoa's Jackamo exists, to my mind, in that category of creation that stands at a greater distance from it's author than a straight alter-ego or a simple pseudonym.

Jackamo was born/created here...

Click To Enlarge
or
(GoogleMap)

...a little cottage (and for one harsh winter a caravan without a bed or heating and with frozen-shut doors every morning) on the grounds of what once was a farm in the hills of West Wales which did not really belong to any town or even have a postcode, where I lived for four years. For the final year I lived there I lived there in increasing, self-imposed, isolation culminating in months on end without any real face-to-face contact with anyone beyond some mumbled niceties when buying food and the only conversations being the odd brief call from home and an ex-girlfriend, when my phone line was working. My time was largely spent reading and writing Philosophy (you can read a cringe-worthy draft of a paper partly concerning solitude from that time here: Zolpidem, should you desire, I had to spend a long time scanning and uploading it for other mundane reasons yesterday so I thought I may as well get more "use" out of it here, I really don't expect or advise anyone to read it but I'll claim it's inclusion adds some kind of context) but as a break from those concerns I would fiddle with my guitar and after a time began to write some songs.

At first the songs were purely dealing with personal experience; "Lay Low" is the simplest of songs, closest in style to a lullaby I think, about a sense of alienation bought about by a teetering on the edge of breakdown from a couple of years of frequent LSD 'experimentation' (a naive but nonetheless fruitful trial despite the 'ill effects' of the whole period) whilst "Dust In My Veins" described the wannabe-Kierkegaardian urge to relinquish love in favour of a dedication to Philosophy (some may have spotted loose references to this in the album artwork) but soon I found myself writing with a different voice and different aims. "Elena-Jane" came about as an attempt to write something like a folk story-song of which there are countless examples though I remember Nic Jones' version of "Icarus" being one that was always in my mind at that time and so probably exerted some small measure of influence - as far as an influence can penetrate an ever-nascent ability anyway. "Prayer For Slow Death" on the other hand was an attempt to take Ralph Ellison's definition of the Blues as, "an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain"*, to the extreme, to the point where the Blues traditionally seeks relief and asks, "spare me over another year"**, and "When I Go" was an attempt to strip the traditional tragic love story down to it's most basic recurring urge, forsaking the verbiage that usually accompanies such tales. Whether any of these succeed in their aims is, of course, down to the individual listener to decide.

The latter type of songs of that time were already attributed to the as-yet-unnamed Jackamo and as my own self moved further and further away from the self that had produced the more personal songs he subsumed them too; taking with them a biography and countenance of his own. It is probably strange to say but I tend to recognise these old photos of myself more as Jackamo than I do as "me aged...". 

Click To Enlarge.

Click To Enlarge.

(the person on the left in the photo on the right, incidentally, is Andy Bond who also plays guitar on the album)

Some time later when I was living back home in Essex I met Grant Cox and David Hinz and after confessing I occasionally wrote songs they convinced me to do a recording for them and with my hand hovering over the cassette label of those first recordings I christened my character Jackamo Brown. 'Jackamo' came from Nick Drake's "Three Hours" which was one of my favourite songs back when I first started playing guitar and 'Brown' came from the fact that back then it was often noted that I always wore brown (this was not a preference as such, I have always only owned the bare minimum of clothes to get through a week and replace items only when they wear out and at that time I owned a couple of brown items and my shoes were brown which meant I was nearly never without something of that colour). From then onwards "he" has existed as a heteronym in a true sense and I have occasionally added songs to his catalogue.

Hopefully this explanation of "who" Jackamo Brown is has shed some light both on the supposed identity mystery, any uneven responses to a previously private creation getting a little attention and on previous related statements about having no interest in pursuing a career in music or in playing live which I have voiced more or less vaguely in various comments and little interviews. It should also explain the nature of the press shots - it seemed natural that if such shots of Jackamo were needed then I should be the one photographed but as "his face" is not the same as the one I see in the mirror obscuring my face seemed equally natural (however, a front on shot was also taken, just in case it might be needed for any unforeseen reasons).

As for the I of this note; I live in Essex, work a handful of hours in local libraries each week choosing a negligible wage and avoiding a career of any sort in favour of spending the vast majority of my time pursuing Philosophy, Literature and Music and switching between efforts to write something of the first two and an ever-looming disgust with the urge to communicate any of my ideas. 

Mystery dispelled I'll recede back in to inconspicuousness.

* From the essay "Richard Wright's Blues" contained in the collection of Ralph Ellison's essays titled "Shadow and Act" (Vintage Books, ISBN: 9780679760009).

** "Death, Have Mercy"

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Rob - Do You Mind If I Keep On Watching You.

From "A Satyred Love", more or less a perfect album for me...

Album Playlist

"In all my loves there is an ineffable moment, the one in which, for the first time, I discover the face of a companion whose destiny I am granted, when I lean avidly over the traits that soon will become familiar to me."

- Lucien ("The Necrophiliac" by Gabrielle Wittkop, 1972)

Picture: "The Anatomist" by Gabriel von Max, 1869

(When the wife of a distinguished man dies, or any woman who happens to be beautiful or well known, her body is not given to the embalmers immediately, but only after the lapse of three or four days. This is a precautionary measure to prevent the embalmers from violating her corpse - "Histories" by Herodotus, 420BC - de Selincourt translation 1972)

CD (11 songs over two tracks) available from Speech Development Records and all good online retailers.

Digital download (11 separate tracks) available from:

iTunes - http://bit.ly/QhEfTJ

Amazon - http://amzn.to/TPqccE

Play - http://bit.ly/QSrcsA

Spotify - http://spoti.fi/RvXeRL

7 Digital - http://bit.ly/QhELkF

Nokia - http://bit.ly/Pylopg

Deezer - http://bit.ly/PqVN4b.

Click here for videos...

...and here for Facebook

now
  at this innocent hour
I and the one I've been sit
on the threshold of my gaze

 - Alejandra Pizarnik

Picture: "Silhouette Du Peintre" by Léon Spilliaert (1907).

The Shout by Jerzy Skolimowski (1978)

Uncut magazine liked the album it seems!

(October issue, out today)

Couple of amendments though:

1. Due largely to an unwillingness to repeat two modules I had already studied during my advanced BA I actually have a Post Graduate Degree and not a full MA.

2. I am great at parties, I'm always there singing this song...

Album can be bought here: Speech Development Records or here: iTunes
(or most other online stores, other digital options in the post below)

You're An Idiot For Not Coming To My Home

You're an idiot for not coming to my home,
where everything is refined and clever.
Here, under the eaves hang canvases,

sketches, Mikhnov's drawings, up to the standard
of Florence or the Louvre.
In the evening Glenn Gould or Casals play Bach,
you can chance upon poetry read aloud,
Dante is popular here, but apart from him
there's poetry from the Bible, today, for instance
Khlebnikov was holding sway;
the master of the house is also a poet.
Now do you see how stupid you are, you fool.
Idiot, you don't know my wife,
but if you do know her, then you are all the more stupid,
knowing her, in not having slept with her.
Semiramis or Cleopatra alongside her are railway station
cocottes, not knowing what heaven means or sin.

- Leonid Aronzon


Picture: "Symposium" by Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1894).

(From left in the painting: Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Oskar Merikanto, Robert Kajanus and Jean Sibelius)

tHis iS cAIrO, nOt tHe ScReamErs

Second video and album out today...

CD (11 songs over two tracks) available from Speech Development Records and most good online retailers.

Digital download (11 separate tracks) available from:
iTunes - http://bit.ly/QhEfTJ

Amazon - http://amzn.to/TPqccE

Play - http://bit.ly/QSrcsA

Spotify - http://spoti.fi/RvXeRL

7 Digital - http://bit.ly/QhELkF

Nokia - http://bit.ly/Pylopg

Deezer - http://bit.ly/PqVN4b.

Second track and video from the album below. Once again directed by Scroobius Pip and shot by Tom Coles. Starring: Alison Naicker, Bobby the dog, Jim Henderson, Andy Bond and Tierney Nash.

Jackamo Brown on Facebook.

Woman Reading.

She licks her finger, little flick
of tongue and fingertip on furlough
to turn a page - 

a motion that distracts her.
The thread of phrase is broken
but for the word at turning -

vessel.
Vessel as in ship or blood?
She has to pause, all context lost

but blouse and skirt, this urge
to take them off
an ache

for something to contain it all.
Maybe vessel, maybe "el" alone,
bobbing on the tongue. Maybe

luscious, maybe just a finger to her lips
is all the afternoon
was asking for.

And lays aside her book.

- Kathleen Flenniken

Picture: "Study of Legs" by Henry Lerolle.

Nic Jones - Oh Dear, Rue The Day.

Powell - Search.

"I recognise in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty - a sunken beauty"
- Jean Genet

Picture: "Enrapture Scene Two - Escape" by Mark Stock (2001)

Re-Post... First video from my album directed by Scroobius Pip and shot by Tom Coles and starring Zoe Peters, Elizabeth Miles and Katerina Lambrakis.

Free download of the track and a great remix by Buddy Peace below.

Jackamo Brown on Facebook.

Michael Brownstein - Ned.

There are even single-word poems, or single words that ought to be poems; the best one I know of is the Tierra del Fuegan word “mamihlapinatapei”.

- John Barth, (A Few Words About Minimalism)

Mamihlapinatapei - a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that they both desire but which neither one wants to start.

Picture: Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in "Flesh and The Devil" (1926).

First video from my album directed by Scroobius Pip and shot by Tom Coles and starring Zoe Peters, Elizabeth Miles and Katerina Lambrakis.

Free download of the track and a great remix by Buddy Peace below.

Jackamo Brown on Facebook.

Article/Interview about my album and other matters on ilikemusic.com

My album is now available for pre-order should any of you wish to.

Get it here: http://scroobiuspip.co.uk/store/

Many thanks to anyone who does!

Artwork by Syd Emery - http://www.sydnee.co.uk/

William Bronk poetry reading, Harvard (1956).

Jackamo Brown - Schwredder In My Veins (Kettenkarussell Dub).

Some time ago I was amazed to find out that my favourite minimal techno duo Kettenkarussell had listened to, and enjoyed, my music on myspace. I was even more amazed, and honoured, to discover they had done a remix of my early recording of my song, "Dust In My Veins". 

Haven't shared it till now.

"During the time of our experiment, I discovered that I liked to eat the legs and breasts of women, for as in other animals, these parts are delicacies. I also savored young women's breaded ribs. Best of all, however, I relished women's brains in vinaigrette."

-Diego Rivera

Picture: “Nieves”, A model for Diego Rivera, 1943

Diego Rivera - An Experiment in Cannibalism.

William Hazlitt - The Pleasure of Hating

‎"Friend donkey," he said as they went along, "you, verily, go running after a bunch of thistles, the meagre fare with which I have provided you; but you leave behind the lovely road that is filled with all kinds of most delicate herbs. And thus do all men, scenting out, some of them, the bouquet called Fame which Fortune puts under their nose, others the bouquet of Gain, and yet others the bouquet that is called Love. But at the end of the journey they discover, like you, that they have been pursuing things that are of little account, and that they have left behind all that is worth anything"

- Charles de Coster (The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere)

Picture: "Landscape with Donkey Rider" by Jan Wijnants (1655-84)

Rick Ross - Hustlin' (Prince of Ballard Remix).

Phonetag - Why Dog? Why? Mix.

The Sound of Jazz. CBS (1957).

Alden Van Buskirk - Lami.

Essay on Alden Van Buskirk.

Alden Van Buskirk playing the piano (29th Nov 1959).

The Robert Shaw Chorale - That Lonesome Valley.

I open it in lamplight,
the yellowed book smells of grass and mould.

I skim the pages, a rain-like sound is born
and a thin wind passes from page to page

and over the battlefield.
The smoke of cartridges disperses like dandelion fluff.

Din; silence. Many horses roam
and horseless men. Through shutters

country sounds and smells. Swallows' shrill cry.
Fennel, and cow parsley. Poppy, dandelion fluff

and on the pages of the book, wisps from cartridges.
The soft ring of the lamp encloses the battlefield.

- Eeva-Liisa Manner.

Picture: Joseph Cornell (untitled and undated but circa 1960-70)

Ivana Stefanović - The Epistle of Birds (1976).

Jiro Inagaki & Soul Media - Breeze.

Stuff - And Here you Are.

“Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don’t stop to think, don’t interrupt the scream, exhale, release life’s rapture. Everything is blooming. Everything is flying. Everything is screaming, choking on its screams. Laughter. Running. Let-down hair. That is all there is to life.”

- Vladimir Nabokov

Painting: Lawrence Alma Tadema - "Exhausted Maenads after the Dance" (1874)

C. Northcote Parkinson - Democracy.

Dictatorship.

Russian Theocracy.

"His mind was so filled with fights, adventures, enchantments, and other wonderful things which he had read about, that his fancy easily changed everything he saw into something that he wished to see." 

- Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote, Chap. 18)

Picture: "Don Quixote and Sancho Panza" by Honoré-Victorin Daumier (1855)

"Ty kto takoy?"

"Davay, dosvidaniya!"

100 Posts, 0 Comments, 0 Follows.
Winning Streak.

I Will Write On My Doors: 

Every Visit Is Aggression 

Or 

Don’t Come In, Have Mercy 
Or
Everyone Bothers Me
Or
Damn All of You Who Ever Ringed My Bell

Or
I Know Nobody
Or
Dangerous Madman

From the back cover of Emil Cioran's "Passionate Handbook".

The Works of Philo Judaeus (1855)