BEATS OF LOVE

170. Pro>gen (Land Of Oz Mix) by The Shamen

I SORT of became hedonistic in my early-twenties as the nineties raged on, but before that relatively short spell, I was surly and high-minded.

Journos, like Jack Barron and Dele Fedele and musicians who spoke to them like the Shamen got me into dance music. Journos and musicians who pushed us to take the rave experience seriously; to hear what the drugs were doing to the music, and vice versa.

Despite seeing myself as more open-minded and enlightened, the only noticeable change was my taste in music. I was getting more eclectic as I widened my net. My clothes were full of holes and I wore tie dye shirts under fishing jumpers or I pilfered my sister's designer sweaters. I was unsurprisingly the scruffiest in the Hacienda when the Shamen's Synergy experience came to town.

And despite still buying an increasing amount of overlooked cheap bangers on major labels, I have an unbending sense of loyalty to acts like The Shamen, whose Land Of Oz mixes like this beauty made the band momentarily hip as clubbing took hold. It really annoyed the indie faithful, but it was a burst of jerky positive energy that I knew inside out.

Whether it was tripping, pissed or just being conditioned to only dance to songs I both knew and liked, I spent my night in clubs hunched against walls, until briefly lurching onto the dancefloor in a pained but enthusiastic manner, conducting some private ritual only I understood. What I noticed in proper dance clubs was that nobody else stood still, and nobody needed an imaginary mountain to get them moving. 

In typical fashion, just as my scruff look became popular in places like the Herbal Tea Party, I began shopping for clothes and found myself equally out of place there, now overdressed in new clobber. My world has always been my bedroom. A place free from the constraints of conversation or fashion. A place where I play music, read, dream, and worry. I feel quietly alien from people who don't do these things, as though we're orbiting different planets entirely.

Sure, I didn't evolve the way I'd hoped, but at least I've never had Ebeneezer Goode in my subconsciousness. I know folk who have.

BEATS OF LOVE 

169. Act Normal: Joy and despair in Postcolonial Britain by Pete Kalu

I READ as a means of catharsis and to learn about myself and the wider world. 

I write for the same reasons despite feeling dwarfed by the many, many, many superior writers. Pete is one such writer whose vibrant and purposeful prose was in a different league from my strained observations when describing the work of Benji Reid. In person, he's self-effacing, neurotic but brimming with passion.

And in this memoir, he is too. Modesty creates a real life stutter, holding neurotic folk back, yet expressed differently, say on a written page, that same modesty creates a candour and wit which communicates an inner confidence that, in person, you can only ever sense at best, never quite grasp. A wholly unique life has become much more than the sum of its parts as told here.

Memory is fragmentary and abstract, so short stories; some only colourful vignettes, without chronology or design, make a sort of perfect sense. It conjures vivid sensation in the reader, and its only constant is the black experience. Not the clichéd black experience but a self-effacing, passionately honest one that, though making himself often the butt of his humour, also constructs observations of psychological genius. Either way, you're left in awe at his storytelling. 

I found it cathartic; it taught me about myself (I cringe to admit) and, thankfully, about the wider world.

BEATS OF LOVE 

168. Time Ain't Nothing by Green on Red 

REMINDED OF a good pal who compartmentalised his friendships based on a precise understanding of the British class-system this week when discussing the likelihood of Marx having relevance in the future.

My good pal, despite being advised by his doctor to take things easy, was out on a heavy session. His mother had sacrificed a lot; and here he was, collapsing on the floor in convulsions, whilst the eminent lawyers he'd been drinking with beat a hasty retreat, abandoning him. My mistake was to sort of agree with him and concur that these folks weren't his friends. 

Once in semi-recovery and cut off from these highly paid and highly entertaining professionals, he rethought his idea that they weren't his friends. Reasoning that they had much more to lose than the likes of me. My parents, he conceded, were lower middle class like his, but I, unlike those professionals, could afford to be seen with someone convulsing at the start of a heavy session.

He expected me to calculate that he was wrong about them not being his friends, even as I was absorbing it all over a phone call. Unbeknownst, I cast the die on our friendship from the moment I put the phone down, reaching no disagreement. 

What I should have said was this: 'it is very British to convolute a class system in a knee-jerk reaction to Marxism, sub-labelling everything until the original categories dissolve into social embarrassment.' Marx astutely kept it simple, pitting owners against all wage workers.

It's the sheer simplicity that's its genius and which still instils fear in every lying capitalist. Course, Marx will always be relevant, because too many people have been convinced there is no class war at all. 

BEATS OF LOVE

167. Teardrops (Charlies Flat Dub Mix) by Crucial Rockers

FAMILY FEUDING cuts like a jagged knife of greed. Tears that reveal nothing except that Lee took his own life.

I know he was deeply woven into hearts, and I know his parents shouldn't bear the trauma and guilt. Folk of his age are the victims of a generational tragedy. Selfish older voters want everything protected; their property, their pension, and their healthcare. 

Essentially hoarding their own security while building instability for the younger folk. Cutting and cutting into smaller pieces the slice of the pie with that same jagged knife of greed. Politicians fear them since, as they proved with Brexit, they can be unpredictable and self-harming. A reason in itself why they shouldn't be protected.  

Lee's generation is further away from the property ladder and much more likely to be in debt. Student loans are a financial albatross, while company pension pots are now pitifully small. This constant cutting means life choices are now far heavier. In the cold light of day, failure is necessary for learning, but we're hearing very little mercy from these selfish older voters, making the fear of failure all too common. Adding more and more pressure on the younger folk.

Sometimes stark facts can be emotional, helping to envisage a world that isn't shaped by the greed of selfish older voters for once. One of good-will that provides shields. I just pray our family feuding stops with this most traumatic of endings.