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 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 so he could collapse on the floor in convulsions, whilst eminent members of our legal profession 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. Me, whose parents he accepted, were lower middle class like him, but I who wasn't so could easily be associated with someone convulsing during the early part of a heavy session. 

Expecting me to calculate that he was wrong whilst absorbing the information over a phone call. Unbeknownst, I cast the dye on our friendship from the moment I put the phone down, reaching no disagreement. Course, I should've said "it's very British to convolute a class system in a knee-jerk reaction to Marxism by sub labeling everything and creating such unfortunate incidents as these." 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 is going to have relevance in the future as far too many folks are being duped into thinking there're no class war. 

BEATS OF LOVE

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

FAMILY FEUDING is horrid. You get to know facts but no details. Just that mother's partner's son's nephew Lee took his own life.

However you read it, it's truly tragic. I know he was deeply cherished and loved. And know his parents don't deserve the trauma and guilt. His generation are victims of a type of older selfish voter who wants everything ring-fenced; their property, their pension and their healthcare. 

A bit like the philanthropists of old, they'll often take on some financial responsibility, but in a controlled way. Philanthropists who set the rules. Politicians fear them since, as they proved with Brexit, they can be unpredictable and self-harming. Reasons they shouldn't have everything ring-fenced.

Lee's generation is further away from the property ladder and much more likely to be in debt. Making life choices appear far weightier than they should be. In the cold light of day, failure is a necessity of learning, but we're hearing very little mercy from a type of selfish voter, making the fear of it 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 influenced by the older folk for once. I just pray our family feuding could stop with this most traumatic of endings.