20th Century in the rear view mirror

God save the queen & the village green and independent music writing

God save the queen & the village green

Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free, he has set himself free for higher dreams, for greater privileges. ~James Baldwin

(Book: Nobody Knows My Name)

The death of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain has been an unexpectedly large watershed moment for me, and for a few friends and acquaintances that I've had the fortune to discuss it with over the past week. There have been layers of meaning and emotion for me that have peeled more and more deeply, like an onion or an artichoke. First, is the fact that my own mother died a year and a half ago, and that has taken time to settle, especially since it is coupled with the decision Elizabeth and I have made to live in her old house, the house my parents built when the subdivision was first being planned and which was my childhood home.

Adding to these circumstances is the fact that my father, who passed away nearly twenty years ago, was British. He served in the Royal British Navy and then in the Merchant Marines during World War II. He traveled all over the world, and when he decided to settle down, he came to the United States. He never returned to Britain, and he would sometimes amuse himself by making humorous remarks about the royal family in front of his mother and his younger brother, who had both moved to the States after he did. Unlike my father, his mother and brother remained anglophiles and they did eventually return to England to live. 

Parish church in Ormskirk, England, where my father was born.

These people are all gone now. I am by no means an anglophile. But I have read a lot of history, and I've likely read more British history than the average American. So I understand the cultural significance of the monarch, stretching back to Arthurian legend and, before that, to the unification of the various Anglo Saxon tribes--the Scots, the Picts, the Welsh, basically small bands that were loyal to one local follower who could easily be deposed by whatever horde arrived and so they were convinced to throw in together in liege to one ruler. 

And let's face it, some of these folks had a strong influence on the development and even the survival of the United Kingdom. Henry VIII rocked it to its foundations, Charles II restored the monarchy. 

But for many people of a certain age, the death of Elizabeth II signals not just the death of the longest serving British monarch, because, I mean, really? No, it really represents the death of the twentieth century. 

If British rock had a poet laureate of the realm, that would not be Sir Paul McCartney, nor Elton John, Pete Townshend, etc. An argument could be made for Elvis Costello, but he is really not so much of a loyalist nor does he have the real sense of nostalgia that McCartney flaunts, so...

My nomination for defender in song of most things British would be Ray Davies. I mean, this is the guy who declared in "Village Green Preservation Society" that

We are the Office Block Persecution Affinity

God save little shops, china cups and virginity

We are the Skyscraper condemnation Affiliate

God save tudor houses, antique tables and billiards

Ol' Ray is known as something of a lower case conservative, which is to say someone who understands tradition and a way of life that has been comfortable for many but who is also intelligent enough to realize that what has been comfortable for him has not necessarily been comfortable for others. The lack of resolution between these two is really at the heart of the very best of the Kinks' music.

For Davies, being conservative means conserving and preserving, not destroying, and he is just as frightened of being over-policed and over-surveilled as he is of the crush of modernity and the welfare state. In 'The Whimsical Conservatism of the Kinks" Roland Dodds notes that "unfettered capitalism, consumerism, ecological destruction and state violence go hand-in-hand with the degradation of tradition and communal values that should be bedrocks of “conservatism.” The violation that Davies' "Twentieth Century Man" feels is partially the way that far right-wing ideologies pay lip service to communal values while destroying them via their policies. 

The Kinks were banned from touring the U.S. in the mid-sixties, which blunted their chances for success there, but it also helped them find inspiration in the life that had grown up in post-war Britain. "Because we couldn’t tour there (the U.S.), I took solace in being English and wrote The Village Green Preservation Society,” he said in a 2017 Guardian interview. “I became productive. If I’d have been going to America, I would never have written that album."

In the same piece writer Adrian Deevoy and Davies discuss his encounter with Queen Elizabeth when he was awarded a CBE in 2004:

When the Queen awarded Davies with a CBE in 2004, he recalls that the monarch murmured “… so many songs” as she secured his ribbon. Could it be that’s she’s a fan? The image of Her Majesty mooching around the palace humming Autumn Almanac is an appealing one.

“I don’t know if she does that, but it’s a lovely thought,” Davies smiles wonkily. “Somebody probably said to her: ‘This is Ray Davies, he’s very prolific.’ I remember I said something back like: ‘It’s just the beginning.’”

‘Autumn Almanac’ is probably my favorite Kinks song, another character study that Ray wrote, Village Green style, that was inspired by a gardener in the Muswell section of London where Ray grew up. It's a cheerful ditty, espousing the joys of tromping around outdoors in the autumn, and it talks about how people like to get together on Friday evenings, even though 'tea and toasted, buttered current bun/can't compensate for lack of sun.' But then there's this section, which again shows Davies declaring the depth of his love for his land, his country, his very neighborhood when he sings

I like my football on a Saturday

Roast beef on Sundays, all right

I go to Blackpool for my holidays

Sit in the open sunlight

This is my street and I'm never gonna leave it

And I'm always gonna to stay here

If I live to be ninety-nine

'Cause all the people I meet

Seem to come from my street

And I can't get away

Because it's calling me (Come on home)

Hear it calling me (Come on home)

Things will continue to change. It just remains to be seen to what extent we can realize a dream to achieve communities that encourage both diversity and individuality while tempering the roar of the free market and its influence on our families, our cultures, and our lives. Long live the village green.

Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that I don't listen to a great deal of hip hop. There's stuff that I like but it tends to come from more than a few years back and I don't have the depth of historical knowledge to draw on as I do with jazz and rock music. I do listen to some artists who produce beats or create hip hop adjacent music in a jazz or EDM environment--Madlib, for example, but again, I'm certainly no expert. 

But I do subscribe to Gary Suarez' CABBAGES hip hop newsletter for a bunch of reasons. The first is that he's good at what he does, he's a solid writer and interviewer and all the stuff that makes a music journalist more than a publicity hack. Another is that he is not interested in regurgitating PR releases as so many so-called music and entertainment sites are happy to do nowadays. Still another is that he is interested in covering the folks who are creating at street level right now whether they have a name in the industry or not. Why write about the same major label artists all the time, right?

This is not some kind of attempt to 'sell' readers on Gary or his newsletter, and he has no idea that I'm writing this and we don't really know each other. I will disclose that he reads my newsletter and I'm pleased to have him as a reader. But what this piece is really about is that people like Gary and a handful of others are where the forefront of music writing is happening right now. We are not making money, not even enough to hire other writers. The people who run the major media publications, both online and in print, are by and large not interested in the kind of in depth dig that independent writers do as a matter of course in writing their work.

I think that the fact that such names as Robert Christgau, Nelson George, and Wayne Robins are writing here on Substack lends credence to the observation that some of the best music writing takes place outside the mainstream corporate media.

Independence in cultural criticism and documentation is not a marketing strategy these days. And believe me, I'm not the only one, and Gary isn't either. Music Journalism Insider is a newsletter run by Todd L. Burns, and it provides information on all kinds of articles, interviews, and pieces by other writers as well as Burns' own interviews with a diverse, lively group of writers who verge far beyond the usual suspects and genres. The fact is, anyone who likes to read about music and looks for writing that can tip them off in new directions (or old ones) will find much of interest in this newsletter.

Any of these publishers of independent music writing, including this one, could shut down tomorrow for lack of funds or if the driving force behind the site or newsletter falls ill or injured. Most have day jobs, or else they string along a portfolio of freelance writing that finances, sort of, their deep musical interests. It's a precarious ecosystem and pieces are constantly getting lost and disappearing, which makes it a lot like life. Because, you know, life is precious and we all have only so much time (but none of us knows how much) and there are things we'd like to do. 

I cannot help but recall that Lilian Roxon, one of my personal heroes and one of the first generation of music writers, the ones who showed how it could be done, died in squalor from an asthma attack in a New York City heat wave. People do this work, as much as they can for as long as they can, because they give a shit about the music. Not the music industry, or the charts, but the people and the stories behind what they create, the relationships they have. 

Greil Marcus' eulogy for Ralph Gleason, one of the greatest music writers and critics of all time, put it this way:

“as much as he was ready for the new, he insisted on the past, and he fought for that too. That people be remembered for what they had done was vital to Ralph; for them to be forgotten, or worse, never known at all, was obscene.” 

I think I can say that, after a couple of years writing New Directions In Music, this is the biggest message that I want people to take away: that the music and art that people created was important and deserves to be remembered. My audience for NDIM has always just been 'music', acknowledging that I am particularly interested in music that pushes against the boundaries of culture and genre. That's a terrible marketing strategy because people are increasingly interested in narrower and narrower niches in which there are at most two experts. But there you have it.

If you are reading this there is a good chance that you subscribe to my site and probably also other sites both on and off Substack. I thank you for your eyeballs and your time. Thanks to contributing to an ecosystem of people who are writing about music the way they hear it and the way they experience it. 

Lagniappe

I think that this observation from Frank Zappa is a good explanation of why the corporate music industry ceased to be able to function.