R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens

I heard with some sadness on Friday that the great polemicist Christopher Hitchens had died of cancer. It wasn't entirely surprising, but from his recent appearances (including a particularly moving one alongside Richard Dawkins) showed that while he'd become physically frail his mind was undented. The man remained, and will remain, an inspiration. Looking about at the obituaries that accompany the falling of such a giant, there are no surprises, and they can pretty neatly be separated into three separate categories - the sick cluckings of Christian voices - fake love thy enemy homilies, speculation of a deathbed conversion and words on Hitch being in hell; fawning obits of the like that would no doubt, if he was anything like his public persona, have made him sick; and last and most obnoxious of all, "it's what Hitch would've wanted" obits casting an eye on his troubling shift to becoming a Bush-loving neocon, occasionally shooting barbed potshots at the Religious Right who had accepted him into their ranks. As you can tell, my writing on the subject will be the third of those - well, I'll aim for that, but it'll be quite balanced as I do like the man's writing.

That old chestnut - "I didn't always agree with his political views". I didn't, many of us who lean to the left didn't. We were actively irritated by his toeing of the Bush party line. On this particular subject he managed to make his brother, Peter Hitchens, perma-scowling Daily Mail columnist ever so slightly on the right of Martin Webster, seem reasonable. He started favouring "humanitarian interventionism" - all men are entitled to their opinions, but when it results in Guantanamo Bay and the death of 113,00 civilians its time to throw your hands up and admit you're wrong. He didn't, of course, he just sneered at those who'd let such petty thing as facts get in the way, hanging all his faith that he was right on lies (familiar?), and made another proto-EDL remark about Islamo-facism. This was, of course a common theme - check his track record on Yugoslavia. He was an outspoken atheist who brought up his twelth Jewish roots whenever challenged for supposedly anti-Semitic remarks, as if that ever mattered.

Now, at the risk of being fair to a dead man who can't defend himself, something Hitchens would never have done or cared about (and why would he?), some of the ones flagged up as anti-Semitic categorically aren't - circumcision, where there is no medial impetus, IS genital mutilation - just the same as the mutilation of young girls but less frequently frowned upon as it has become accepted in Western society (and to be fair, it is less damaging). Its an interesting point that, according to commentators of different religions and political backgrounds Hitchens is a right winger, a leftist, an imperialist, a socialist, a Zionist and an anti Semitic anti-Zionist who has particular dislike for Catholics / Muslims / Jews depending on who you listened to. All this adds up to two things - he's a blonde fat thin man with red hair and a clean shaven beard, and also his own man - not easy to pin down into one box. This was refreshing in a world of "creative free thinkers" churning out books of each other's opinions differently worded, and toeing the party line.

So while I and many people didn't agree with his views and thought he was a hypocritical idiot for holding them and espousing them with all the theatrical fervour of a Bible belt televangelist, that was actually part of the appeal. Here was a man who had no truck with the "left/right" divide thats all well and good and tidy but often bears no resemblance to reality. There really was something of the Orwell about him, a man with similarly flawed logic often bordering on the hypocritical, probably why he idealised him. Both had a way of expressing opinions many of their core readership would despise in a way you'd respect, couched in ornate writing, referencing everything from the halls of Academia to Trotskyist tracts to pop culture and inserting self referential asides that managed to be both boastful and self deprecating. He remembered that free speech included his own ideological enemies as well as his friends. The man could write, and the man could debate. Often it wasn't even that he was right but that his opponents were so wrong. Look at the vultures circling, the "good Christians" spewing passive-aggressive bile in a way that Jesus would've been disgusted by if he'd existed. I will miss him and you probably will too if you've read this far. Let's not remember him as an arch polemicist, let's remember him as a flawed but very intelligent and inspiring man.

After all, it's what he would've wanted.

And imitation, I think you'll find, is the sincerest form of flattery.

A Tribute to Rowland S Howard

When Rowland S Howard left this “planet of perpetual sorrow” (to quote his own words) two years ago he was overshadowed by the deaths of others less talented and the general new year festivities. Not for me, naturally, I was inconsolable for a few days. As much as I enjoy these festivities moping over deceased Australian cult icons is one of my hobbies I'll prioritise over anything. Now it’s two years later and I'm still a little annoyed about how it went down. Especially at this time of year, the thoughts return.

How is it that Rowland hasn't received all the posthumous garlands and “I was always into him” claims that others, less talented both subjectively and objectively, have received? While dying at 50 isn't exactly the poignant entry to the Forever 27 club vultures and hacks salivate over, his was still a tragic enough death - dying of a disease he was too poor to be treated for days before he was due to Make A Comeback. So why hasn't he received the posthumous praise that'd make me shut up, or moan about that instead?

For the last two years now I've been writing posts on blogs no one reads, eulogies to Mr Howard. See, he was my Johnny Cash, my Diana, and his death taught me something about empathy. No one wanted to be the one to tell me that Rowland S Howard had died. To recap, Rowland S Howard was one of the best guitarists to walk the earth. Objectively. There was no heads down ponytailed blues rock wanking or bursts of "Look mummy no originality" shredding. He could do divebombing art terrorist sheets of noise and feedback, though, nd he could do it without recourse to FX pedals or anything more than a White Fender Jaguar and a small amp. He could make the damned thing peal out sheets of noise as melody and melody as noise that could bring tears to a statue. Nevermind making the baby Jesus cry - his tone made the baby Jesus real.

Then there's the voice. He was, in an age of X Factor wannabes a great interpreter. A voice that made White Wedding sound properly sinister and sexy and out Lou Reeds Reed himself on a cover of the Velvets' Ocean. He turned Life's What You Make It into the cry of a man aware of his own mortality that left me sobbing - although Pop Crimes only came out after his death over here and context is often everything. He turned those clogged pipes onto songs about lust, death, love, lust, death, theft, lust, death, religion lust and death and made every cussed word as beautiful and tarnished as you could imagine.

He was also a great songwriter, writing the love songs that they play in singing greeting cards in some Bible belt nightmare of hell. No one else on the planet sounds like him, and plenty of us have had a good go at it. Even down to the looks, something that should be irrelevant that isn't - an androgynous face with a boxer's broken nose in the middle of it. Onstage with The Birthday Party the flailing and the jump backwards. When Nick Cave is going around fighting people and Tracey Pew is in leather trousers and a cowboy hat humping his bass, still being the most fascinating thing onstage is quite an achievement - but he was. Right up to the end.

I wrote the bulk of this a while ago before they'd started paying attention and realised what they'd lost but gradually it happened. There's a film about him, Autoluminescent and just seeing the trailer reduces me to a snivelling wreck - could be one to watch alone, its unlikely it'll hit any cinemas near me anyway. Australia's Homebake festival now has a Rowland S Howard stage. Two years on, though, and he's still not had proper tribute paid by the rest of the world, and he touched us too. The serious music press are celebrating either the emperor's new clothes or tried and tested coverstars ranging in age from The Strolling Bones to the Arctic Monkeys (!!!). I'm going to write a tribute to the man every year whether anyone but me reads it or not. The Horrors, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and S.C.U.M, acts the critics are dribbling over at the moment - none of them could exist without him. Nick Cave's career would definitely be different, as without him The Birthday Party would've been just another goth band. I realise its blasphemy even as I write it and they'd be a bloody good goth band, but still.....

There's no time to celebrate mediocrity. We'll all be dust ourselves at some point.

Jesu, Joy of My Desiring

A less thought out post than the ones I was aiming to do but the large amounts of writing I'm doing for my course (on misogyny in hip hop and rock lyrics; Alan Moulder's production techniques; and the contextual roots of industrial music) kind of put a stop to the idea of me writing at any length some of the big ideas I had for a while - til I've got that last one out of the way in any case.

I would, though, like to share with you a recent discovery of mine. Well, I say a recent discovery, I've been into this act's work for quite a while. One of the highlights of last year was setting out for a night out with Jesu's Star blasting in my ears, and I've been quite fond of the Silver EP for quite some time but lately with nights growing longer, the skies darkening and winds going cold I've found myself drawn to Jesu. For those readers who don't already know about Jesu, it is the project Justin Broadrick embarked on after breaking up industrial-metal pioneers Godflesh. Broadrick has many projects on the go, and most of them are excellent - even while in Godflesh he found time to work on Ice Techno Animal with Kevin Martin; play on Scorn's first album Vae Sollis with Mick Harris and Nick Bullen (the other two original members of Napalm Death, a lineup preserved on the excellent side 1 of Scum); and generally remix and appear on many other projects. As he continues to do.

In Godflesh tracks like Flowers you can trace the roots of Jesu, a more shoegazy project marrying the slo-mo grinding beats and walls of down tuned guitar with twinkly synths and twisted pop melodies. For the most part on Jesu (itself named after the final track on the final Godflesh album), Broadrick uses clean singing as opposed to the vocal delivery on Godflesh tracks somewhere between a hardcore bark and death vocals. For the most part, Jesu is excellent and the Silver EP was a great start point, from the title track sounding like Disintegration era Cure at their most deathlessly majestic but made even gloomier to Star, still one of my favourites from Jesu, where that down tuned pop really comes in.

This could be a pop-punk track from Green Day or Blink 182 (yeah, where its 80% pop - 10% rawk - 10% punk), you can hear that in the chord sequence, the melody, the lyrics and Justin's breathless delivery. But its delivered over a machine beat straight off a Godflesh track, with that same Jesu guitar sound spilling over into atonality at times. It was my first real exposure to his stuff but I can only think how startling it was to long-time fans that here Broadrick is, making a piece of pop genius - one that is just begging to be used in an American sitcom in a "realising you have to literally run to your love to make it happen" scene.

Then that slams into Wolves, with a wash of droney guitar textures wrapping itself around a brutally slow, punchy machine beat as the bass throbs gently away. The high pitched guitar melodies soon entwine with a big down tuned riff, and you may find yourself involuntarily swaying and headbanging very slowly. His vocals are mixed low at first, soon rising up semi-triumphantly when the drums drop out only to be buried again, and it just evolves slowly. I've noticed this track lasts 8 and a half minutes and Broadrick rarely seems to do anything under four (bloody stoners....), and as I'm usually a lover of short songs that say what they need to and get out quick I'm surprised I've fallen for this (and Nadja) so much lately. Infinity held my attention as one long, hypnotic track for the full 45 minutes of its duration. The final track Dead Eyes is if anything even better, mostly instrumental with treated vocals buried deep under the distorted beats and guitar, throbbing bass and washes of backwards electronics. Another one to cause the involuntary slow motion head banging, for me at least.

Listening to some of his other work (bits of the self titled, Conqueror and Ascension) I'm equally impressed with all of it, and very pleased with my recent discoveries. If you're not yet a fan, then check him out and if you are, feel free to give me some recommendations of what I'd like by him or others.