._Blog

SOUNDTRACK TO THIS

Let's get the mediocre/not so good news out of the way: we failed in our bid for Arts Council monies. Initially, I was hit pretty hard by this. Against my better judgement, I'd put a degree of store into a successful application. Evidently, it was not to be....but I refuse to let this drag us further down than it already has (the process was a total pain in the arse...the best way I can think of putting it, was akin to bending the bones of a beautiful baby in impossibly tight swaddling clothes). As I mentioned a couple of blog entries prior, we will find a way through this, one way or the other....although my feeling, is that it's going to be a process of symbiosis...a little from us, a little from you.

Official bodies don't seem to be big on us this week...we were overlooked by some website asking about your favourite small Manchester venues (as must be something of a trend with me, I'm not going to name any names, but the shortlist didn't exactly scream 'smallness'). I guess we must be tiny. But... not insignificant, since you 'little people' show your support for us in the unlikeliest of places. It's lovely to see and also, I think, quite appropriate...every so often, I have to catch myself and say "look, you're not that big of a deal". My guess, is that it's a side effect of living within a kind of world bubble...an expanded moment, a semi-private space--- planck scaled to order.

It's ironic, that after my anti-hope rant, I would find myself succumbing to it's decptive poison...but....we're not really about concrete realities (in the sense of the hard, grey and unyielding). Instead, I like to locate us in the dreaming geography of the city....a node of potential that reaches back towards a past both imaginary and embodied, whilst expressing the riotous promise of a future yet to be written. In effect, we're at the edge of something..like a literary genre, but released into the air, spreading, making revelatory contact with willing hosts...

The Peer Hat is merely the material embodiment of an idea. I want to say that this idea has something to do with grass roots and DIY culture... but it feels exploratory and new. We seem to be tumbling headlong into a cyberpunk now...which must make the revolutionary ideas of that present...a weird and frightening new thumos , something else again. I'm still trying to figure that out, feeling my way as I go. I should stress again, that I'm only the mouth piece for what I feel, are the will and dreams of, if not many...a considered section. To be as to a radio...to tune into the small voice.

This blog, as you might have guessed, is as much about mental health as anything else. I'm quite candid about my own issues, I think in an effort to reach you and yours. This space here, is a lighthouse. It's saying: 'this shit isn't as bad as you think. You will make it home'. I think that the sense of some things being indestructible, is important to us in navigating the storm. To be invincible, is not a case of being bullet-proof (though admittedly, that wouldn't hurt... literally), it's rather a case of being fearless. Stronger than The Peer Hat as a 'cool' pub or venue, are the ideas that we all help it to embody. Community, togetherness, etc. And the one's that get me going...the myth stuff...the magical stuff...the night Manchester that exists in the Dreaming.

In the last blog entry, I hope I demonstrated some sense of how close that spectral geography is to us this very moment. I need only conjure up that alleyway with a few choice words, words that, oddly, seem desperately to want to be written, with nary a hint of input from myself, beyond the mechanical. You think I'm sitting here, thinking about this? No these words are very much alive and breeding. I have had the pleasure/fortune, to enjoy several instances of a thing, that leave me convinced that our perceptions are not moored to our heads (wherever they are). Rather, our brains, I think, act as kind of resolution focus, tightening the signal from this reality into something workable. When I write about The Peer Hat, or 'Rat' Alley (copyright, Lane), or the Black Stage..I'm not describing something as was. Rather, I'm transporting you to a place as is...the objective reality, with the subjective placed front and fore-centre. Not false. Not imagined...but a piece and parcel of the whole.

I took you to The Peer Hat as it is, cast as the set for some mysterious Nativity. Silent Night, the angels watch, close lipped, like statues, though they are unfathomably present and alive. Sometimes they are beautiful people, but other times, they are clouds, or beams of light. They are both when you stand and watch, when you squint...when you watch yourself squinting within a dream.

The sense of space, belongs to time also...writhing in the firelight (there is a fire now in Stevenson Place, bright orange and crimson), you can see the silhouettes of heroes. As they look on, remember that this is not really about The Peer Hat, but about our ability to create legends and myths. I absolutely believe in the power of our mighty dead...but their stories are as nothing, if we don't honour them, by pursuing them. These are fantasies that every community, every shaman has trod. We're out of practice, but... guess what? It's our birthright.

A birthright steeped in myth, is a passage towards good mental hygiene. Just as the Dreaming Peer Hat exists and can be visited (with all resultant comforts and joys that can be experienced therein), there is no path that has been walked on this planet, that is as important as the one you move along right now. One day, those paths will be stories told around the fire to others making their own way...but it's important that we allow that process...the narrative motion of our lives to be given full flow. That means acceptance, of the good and the bad....and not being bowled over by the big waves when they come.

Now is such a wave. We can rest assured that there will be other blows and wounds to come for all of us. But if you can keep that dreaming Manchester coherent, it will be the map, humming beneath the reality we're permitted to acknowledge, that will guide you towards a better home than you ever thought possible.

And now for the stasis pod dreams of hyperspace passengers (STUFF YOU'RE DOING)

Johnny Dreamguns has been roaming the psychosphere in digital format for an indeterminate amount of time units. His music is a kind of warped cabaret, a smiling joke at somebody's expense, maybe his, maybe yours...but underscored by a current of brutal pop sensibility which forces the listener to question the intent behind all of this madness. It's a serious business indeed. Johnny is most famous for his role as Plague Doctor 1, whom you might remember from their brief interaction with Andrew Lloyd Weber a few years back (his former band mates haven't been too slow in crafting oddball gems as you can see here...check out The Frozen Embryos), he also put in a notable shift playing guitar for Politburo, 2011-2017. At any rate, this represents the apogee of his work so far, demanding you strap in for a bizarre ride into a particularly warped cyber-medieval zone of the Other Place.

And the link to his site is right HERE

Lane, irrepressible, her life force constantly jolting me back towards something approaching animation, called out way back in March for people to contribute towards a virtual art exhibition. The response was really quite cool, so as well as linking you to Rat Alley in that groaning blue and white place, I'm going to upload it all to here...right about NOW!

Becca Smith

Becca Smith

Becca Smith

Ben Corry

Ben Corry

Ben Corry

Ben Corry

Charlie Potatoes

Donna Black

Donna Black

Donna Black

Emma Lomax

Emma Lomax

Emma Lomax

Emma Lomax

Fruschian Void

Fruschian Void

Fruschian Void

Fruschian Void

Fruschian Void

Gary Fisher

Gary Fisher

Gary Fisher

Lane

Lane

Lane

Lane

Pete Phythian

Pete Phythian

Pete Phythian

Pete Phythian

Richard Miller

Shell Lock

Shell Lock

Shell Lock

Andi Callen

Do you still feel like you're here?

From their own website:

Tune in every day in May at 12pm PST for a new reading by artists, performers, writers, & cultural activists reading manifestos to construct a poetic reflection on our current sociopolitical challenges.

Participate in this collaborative project and submit your own manifesto:

GO HERE

In the meantime, here's Peer Hat regular and wonderful performing artist, Ericka Sance with her take on the project. Whether or not you know Ericka, her oeuvre is something you should pursue at first opportunity. I think the atmospheres conjured in this reading, are perfection.

Here comes our man Ian, the key turns on the past again, he transports us to another time, another place, which feels so vital in comparison to our current circumstance. Necessary.

Here be ye link

I think that's all for now. I'll update if anything comes to mind that I've forgotten...I hope there's nothing, but there's really a lot happening right now. Time to sign off in writing, but not in spirit. Remember, in a dream...we're right around the corner.

Akin