MY RESIGNATION

from
‘I see a black wall and I want to paint it grey’

From the desk of admin@penkilnburn.com

Tuesday the 31st of October 2024

Kind Bill,

This is my resignation email.

Over almost thirty years, I have been at your beck and call, day and night, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. Every whim you have ever wanted to share, with whoever might want to click on ‘open’ and not on ‘delete’, I was there. Always there.

It is time for me to step down. Spend whatever time us email addresses have left, in whatever our equivalent to ‘in the sun’ might be. I mean who will need email address in the new world?

It has been an honour to work with you.

But...

I will not hold back from taking this opportunity to share some truths with you. Truths you might not want to hear. Do we ever want to hear what other people’s version of the truth is? But the difference is, an email address’s version of the truth, is the most unvarnished truth there is, without actually being a fact.

Are you following me? I know your mind has a tendency to drift these days.

Over these decades, you have pontificated about music, as if you knew something about music. And just in case you have forgotten what a couple of those pontifications were, I will remind you...

Firstly...

In the Autumn of 1977, you declared that...

‘Any music that can be defined as a genre, thus can be mimicked, as in someone declaring “Let’s form a Punk Band” by definition means punk is already dead. As in, a genre of music only exists when those that are making it, do not know what it is they are making.’

In taking this elitist stand you have failed to take into account the thousands of bands around the globe, over the following decades, that have made that statement “Let’s form a Punk Band”, and in so doing have not only liberated themselves, and their sex, and their class, and all the other cultural restrictions they may have found themselves in, but have given something to all those that hear them. And that it is a truth that may last for decades to come.

Secondly...
In the Spring of 2003, you declared that...

‘Since the birth of the commercial commodification of recorded music, that began in 1902, with the release of the first record by Enrico Caruso, all this music had been reduced to one genre. That genre being Recorded Music. A form of music that comes out of a speaker. And whose primary purpose was the promise (lie) of Fame & Fortune for those making it.’

Your declaration coincided with the launch of your thing called The17, which has to be one of the most elitist attempts going, at someone wanting to become a niche ‘cult figure’.

And with this, you declared that...

‘Recorded music is now dead. And it has been killed with the whole file-sharing; downloading and streaming revolution.’

This declaration was as naive as someone saying back in that 1902...

‘Now we can all turn on a tap in our house to get running water, instead of walking to the village well every morning with a bucket, real water is dead. And as such we need to get back to using the Village Well and carrying the water back to our home in our bucket, so we can have real water again.’

That was never going to happen.

And it never did.

Are you keeping up?

Anyway...

As you are very aware, as me being merely an email address, I have never actually been able to hear music, let alone stand in judgement of what I was hearing or heard.

That said many millions of the emails that have been sent using our email address names, had had files of music attached or even links to music within the email. But like we can never actually look you in the face, we can never hear what you use us to send.

But...

I have read trillions of words written about music. As you know, all us emails have been able to read instantaneously every word contained in every other email sent in the world. And from those trillions of words that I have read, I know I can tell you the true four genres of music that exist, and maybe they are the only ones that have ever existed.

barge underpass

Thus...

This judgement of mine is not corrupted with actually having to hear the music.

Those four genres are as follows...

PAST:
PAST is a genre of music that people only become aware of once they reach their mid 30s. It is a music that stimulates a sense of loss, of time passing, of opportunities missed, of better days, of things that could have been, when music was real, and days lasted longer, and dreams of a sunlit future were there to be embraced. As a genre it is mainly made up of music that people first heard as a teenager. But the act of listening to this music, beyond the age of 35 makes it a totally different thing, a totally different genre to whatever the listener imagined it was in their youth.

WEAK:
WEAK is a genre of music that people listen to, to make themselves feel more empowered. Humans need to feel empowered, is one or their overarching weaknesses. A weakness that is always there to be exploited, even if those doing the exploiting have no idea that is what they are doing. As in, there is no conspiracy theory to be explored in this.

During your lifetime, for males, WEAK has mainly taken the form of Rock and Rap music. That said some females have engaged with this form of WEAK, as in them wanting to feel, or possess, or appropriate that imagined male sense of empowerment. We all know that the eclectic guitar is just a facile phallic symbol, and guitar solos are just a form of public masturbation, but there have been women who have embraced / appropriated this male weakness for wanking to the crowd.

WEAK can also work as a music that gets people on the dancefloor, and in so doing, express their sexuality within the safety of the clearly marked boundaries of the dancefloor, where ‘don’t touch me there’ rules apply. The names given to this type of WEAK, has varied from Disco to Rave, from Salsa to Ballroom. But those names and styles are just the wrapping paper to what is really going on, which is – ‘Look at me, ain’t I hot.’ And for some (many), being hot on the dancefloor is all the empowerment they need.

WEAK can also work in an exclusively female way, that can rival both Rock and Rap. There have been many female artists that have been able to make this work for them over the decades. But right now, they rule. WEAK for Women is the biggest earning form of music in the music industry in the 2020s. We don’t need to name the names but whoever they are and however many millions of dollars they are earning, the Patriarchy who still own the Music Industry, have never had it so good. Especially with all the tie-in Fandom that comes with it, as in the Fandom doing all the PR work for free.

LONG:
LONG, or BELONG, to give it it’s full name, is a genre of music that people use, and need, and consume, and pay for, so they can feel they belong to something. This hunger to belong, and thus have identity seems to be something that can be, and has been commodified by capitalism, communism, nationalism and every other form of ‘ism’ since the start of ‘isms’. From punk, to playing the fife and drums to celebrate the Glorious Twelfth, to singing the Red Flag, to sharing Taylor Swift moments on the platform of your choice, all fit perfectly into the genre of LONG. Even those nichest of niche musics, is all about belonging to a tribe, even if there is only you and one other person who gets it.

HERO:
Many consumers of music need a hero to worship, or at least admire in passing, or just for a one-night-stand. Once capitalism replaced religion as the prime way to keep the people in order, music heroes replaced gods and deities and saints and messiahs. These could be from Mark E. Smith to Beyonce, from Elvis to Tupac. All of them doing the same thing, playing the same tune even to my non hearing ears: the same tune.

And you may have noticed, each of these genres are not mutely exclusive. You can be lost on the dance floor feeling totally empowered, at the same time feeling you belong to the tribe of Rave. Or sit in your bedroom worshipping at your alter to Bowie, at the same time wallowing in your memories of being a teenager. It seems people are not fussy about keeping within these distinct restrictions.

So...

Bill Drummond, now that I have told you this, I know that you will never want to be seen to be involved with, any sort of music that fits into any of the above, four all conquering genres.

That said, I am very aware of the Voices From The Galloverse recordings you have instigated, thus have to pass comment on these before you make further mistakes.

These recordings undermine the whole PAST thing, by the re-recording those songs from a certain time and place, in ways that could never reward the ageing listener, with the rewards they would get, from listening to the original recordings, from the late 70s and early 80s. So that is good on your part.

As for WEAK, there is nothing for the listeners to these recordings, that makes them feel empowered. Quite the opposite in fact. Thus, that is also good.

On the BELONG front, there are some cracks in your process here, as some listeners to these recordings might feel they belong to a very niche group of individuals who get it.

And lastly...

HERO, here it is obvious, you are still desperately reaching out to be the nichest of all niche cult heroes. The fact your name is associated with these recordings is the giveaway. If only you had released these recordings without any context that involved you, or your history, it might have worked.

Thus...

These weakness of yours in both the BELONG and HERO genres, by definition undermines your aspirations to instigate music, that exists outside of any above defined genres.

Some other advice before I head for that place in the sun...

Being an old entitled white heterosexual male means by definition, you can and will never be able to make, the only form of art that the Publicly Funded Art Market want right now. That form of art, as anyone who has a passing interest in these things knows, goes by the name of Diversity & Inclusion. You do have a D&I Department don’t you?

Which leaves one other area for you to explore – Fandom.

Fandom is the most raging of...

Fandom in all its forms is so…

Fandom will outlive us all...

Fandom will out eat itself before pop ever could...

Fandom is the addiction with no known cure...

Thus...

Fandom has to be destroyed.

Like the Climate Crisis, there are only days left to right the wrongs and tilt the tiller of survival.

If you can dismantle the whole structure that fans the flames and then commodifies fandom, without anyone knowing it was you. You will have achieved something.

And on that note (that I will never hear),

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye
Goodbye!
I’m glad to go, I cannot tell a lie
I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly
The sun has gone to bed and so must I...

Kind Regards,

admin@penkilnburn.com

Post Script:
I have requested that a local artist does a portrait of me on his wall Under the Junction, just so you can remember what I looked like long after I have gone.

ABOUT:

The Penkiln Burn does not know what this website is about, other than it once began and one day it will end.