Dear Polly Jean Harvey,
When I resigned from Les Inrocks, I told them it was high
time they put a woman on a front cover and that Catherine Ringer didn’t count because she was with Fred Chichin.
Two months later, #36 in June
1992, you were the face of that newly monthly magazine. I remember vaguely
seeing on the board’ “chemin de fer” PJ Harvey, but how could I assume it
was a woman.
Hello Les Inrocks, I know you read me.
So, let me know if you want me to take down that pic,
I nicked it from the webosphere.
Les Inrocks #36 - June 1992
You were of a glacial beauty. An androgynous
pirate nymph muse. Instant rock icon. I read the critic and bought Dry on Too Pure straight away. It suited me fine you were associated with
the Rio grrrl movement, although you
denied your involvement with it. Dry took
me over a decade to like and really like... like a vintage wine; your “venom”
took its time to titillate the meanders of my eardrums.
To Bring You My Love... I bought the CD and K7 – well in 1995, not
so many cars had a CD player, and I was on a strict doc order: permanent
intravenous! Luckily, Island Rec friends told PR to put me on
guest-list for your Forum gig. I
never overdosed though!
But enough of shoe polishing... On
2 January, I received my first PR email for 2015 by Head of Press Office
herself on your project @ Somerset House.
I literally went into positive conniption: what a brilliant idea to record your
new opus voyeured by a crowd without seeing anybody apart from your team. While
I sent the email back to request pictures, Time
Out had already published the news and the booking went mad and collapsed
and relapsed... Obviously, I wanted to voyeur too as a reviewer, get a press
pass (like many of my stooges, none reviews with no invite... don’t be ri/di/culous!):
1st PR email of 2015
I asked what made me a non-national
reviewer, étant-donné I write in
English from UK, but admittedly, Mea
Culpa?, I don’t hold a British passport! Nor do I hold a NUJ card! A quick
apology... she meant “national newspapers”. Surprised by her lack of differentiation
between the media outlets sphere, I asked in what way was Time Out a newspaper, or if she actually meant “only mainstreams allowed”.
I dared add a soupçon of provoc’ by
asking if she thought it was acceptable to expect me to review a piece on your
project while inviting me to buy a ticket? I couldn’t help the sarcasm... Am I
bad? Do I feel bad? Heck no!
During the Thatcher’s years of Brit commando, the iron lady tried hard to
divide its people. The 80’s are remembered by her “... (people) are casting their problem on society. And, as you know,
there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and
there are families. And no government can do anything except through other
people, and people must look to themselves first...” Unfortunately for her
gov, in post-punk era, people were welded: artists, working-class, unemployed
and all who wanted to join the crowd. I simplify,
I simplify, as Henry David Thoreau said! But it seems that her politic was a timed
bomb. The division that didn’t occur at the time is happening right now, before
our eyes.
“The future teaches you to be alone, The present to be afraid and cold, So
if I can shoot rabbits, Then I can shoot fascists, Bullets for your brain today,
But we'll forget it all again, Monuments put from pen to paper, Turns me into a
gutless wonder, And if you tolerate this, Then your children will be next... Gravity
keeps my head down, Or is it maybe shame, At being so young and being so vain...
And on the street tonight an old man plays, With newspaper cuttings of his
glory days...” #ManicStreetPreachers
– From Franco to now...
Why would an art space privilege
press tickets for a certain crowd? As some people say since I posted online an
extract of the email, this is not just in Britain. It happens everywhere now. A
press officer’s job within the arts sphere is to contact members of press
(whether they are “certified” or not doesn’t matter) in order to have articles
written about their acts. In exchange and according to a marketing strategy
plan, they offer a CD/DVD/PV/ticket.
There is no transparency on how
many Time Out reviewers would get
press tickets for one published article. Then, there are The Guardian, The
Independent, BBC (radio, TV, online
- very newspaper!), NME (very newspaper!), Le Monde (very national!), New York Observer (very national!), and
so on.
Those who use to be journalists,
critics but have been made redundant or are doing other activities but still
write online, can not have access to the same “facilities”. I can not compare
my blog to Time Out in terms of viewers, and surely they have a quicker/immediate
impact on ticket sales. I was actually wondering whether TO had a sort of exclusivity for your event announcement as it took
another hour or two before other mainstreams had their words out in the world.
© Seamus Murphy
Recently, Jehnny Beth of Savages “has criticised what she sees as a "system of class" being
operated by promoters of some music festivals, having witnessed festivals where
punters must buy more expensive tickets in order to get nearer to the stage... The
absurdity of the situation was suddenly clear to me: a system of class applied
to a rock festival, a capitalist attitude when music should be for everyone.
What a sick idea," wrote Beth. "I am deeply saddened and angry that
we let these kind of things happen. Rock music is here to bring people
together, rich and poor, young and old. Don’t let the fuckers make you pay more
for a decent spot in the field." (Read full article below on NME).
As mentioned on my last two posts
/ verses of 2014, I questioned the discrimination or what I rather call the New Racism, of a press officers’ job. Strictly
speaking, there is no link to a race, a religion but there is a social superior
/ inferior aspect. I will view it as an expansion of ancient racism that is now
too obsolete to mention, so why not re-invent a topic... Fuck yeah, let’s save
the rich and let them pour champagne and petits-fours
at PVs while cultural starvers are at the gate waiting for some crumbs. Do you
have Marie-Antoinette
waving and raving in your mind?
Do you remember when we used to
drink with the in/famous at White Cube
in Hoxton? Gone with the Wind! Let’s
make room for a Drowning By Numbers
era. Let’s make room for bankers in the culturosphere. In April 2014, Michael Rosen wrote on Sajid Javid as #CultureSecretary (see
The Guardian piece below): “My experience
within the cultural field... is that this country is very ambivalent about
"culture". That's to say, it's very convenient for politicians to
make loud noises about the importance of this or that big cultural figure – Shakespeare, Beethoven and the like – but very difficult for them to acknowledge
or support the thousands of ways all of us create and consume culture in small
groups, locally and – more recently – in digital forms... No matter you (Sajid Javid) are of working-class
origin and your cultural background is a million miles from the Etonian toffs,
you are now part of the class (yes) that runs the ludicrous world of the
mega-rich gamblers who have caused millions of people across the world to lose
their jobs and welfare.”
It does make me smile though when
a PR or art event organiser claims to be the son or daughter of a working-class
hero. They might be son or daughter of, they surely have forgotten where they
come from. I read or watched recently a piece on Chomsky, he was saying that those of un-privileged backgrounds have
no time to defend their class because they spend it on working hard to pay
their study debts.
Those who have “made it” to the
superior step of the ladder are piling-up their gold for themselves and their offspring: they can twit they rubbed shoulders with such and such actors and "it's good to know we are both from working-class background", but they never twit on injustice around them... they are too busy! They have no interest in others unlike the older generation (like Ed Lewis, ex Cinema Director of Riverside Studios) who never gave up the fight against the Establishment. However, I am not certain that the younger generation working in art centres
are of “poor” backgrounds. They seem to be quite disconnected with the art
world and those who really care for it are constantly reminded (hello me) that
we don’t have the figure for it. But sticking with the new generation of “talents”,
Nick Cohen tickled where it needed
to be tickled: “... You cannot imagine
the parents of today's stars being so gauche. They come from a world that is
closer to David Cameron's Bullingdon
Club than (Judi)Dench's Quaker roots in Yorkshire. The forthcoming Riot Club –
which bears the subtitle "Filthy. Rich. Spoilt. Rotten" – is meant to
satirise David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson's days at the Buller. Unintentionally it will also
satirise itself. To put it as kindly as I can, the producers did not have to search
far to find actors who could give a convincing impersonation of inherited
privilege. Max Irons – son of Jeremy, since you asked – plays one of
the sleek young beasts. Freddie Fox,
son of Edward, another. The only
difference between them and the current leadership of the Tory party is that
they went into acting rather than politics... In arts that boast that they
"celebrate diversity" everyone looks the same.
Dame Judi tells the Observer today aspiring actors beg her for money to help fund their
training. She worries that acting may become an elite occupation for the
children of the rich, because no one else will be able to meet the costs and
take the risks.” (see full article below on The Guardian).
So Miss Harvey, you are going to
record an album, hopefully a gem, within a structure that will remind me of the
umbrella backdoors on how your future opus is marketed. And I honestly think
that you have no idea. Some “deciders” have already selected who can view you...
and they are not poor! Those who are, are invited to buy a ticket! £15 for a 45
minutes session! I guess the album will cost about the same price... An
interesting Kickstarter way. I have read the reviewers and it’s a good copy and
paste from the press release. Perhaps, I should be nice to Time Out’s peeps and beg for a press tick. Perhaps, they should
divide ranks: instead of writing “colored people” that way, “white people that
way”, they could arrow their alley “mainstreams that way”, “stinkers that way”
(of course we wouldn’t see or hear anything but we would drink cheap cider
instead of champagne!). Perhaps press people making money out of their writings
could say something about some of us, The
New Beggars!
“Can you hear them?, The helicopters?, I'm in London, No need for words
now, We sit in silence, You look me, In the eye directly, You met me, I think
it's Wednesday, The evening, The mess we're in and The city sun sets over me,
Night and day... And I have seen, The sunrise, Over the river, The freeway, Reminding
Of this mess we're in and The city sun sets over me... And thank you, I don't
think we will meet again... The sin and This mess we're in...” You know
that song PJ.
I wish you the best for the
recording and yes, I love your idea of the Recoding
in Progress.
Sybille Castelain for babylondonorbital@gmail.com
Jehnny Beth of
Savages on NME: http://www.nme.com/news/savages/79418
Michael Rosen on The
Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/11/open-letter-sajid-javid-culture-secretary-michael-rosen
Nick Cohen on The
Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/13/privileged-few-control-culture-politics-media?CMP=twt_gu
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