CURRENT 93 – 13/10/2018

A brilliant night last night down in Shepherd’s Bush watching Current 93 perform their new (and very melancholy) record The Light Is Leaving Us All. The accompanying visuals, as you can see from the photos below, were amazing – eerie, disturbing and very powerful.

It was great to be attendance with writer friends such as Justin Hopper and Timothy Jarvis, Brian from Swan River Pres, and many more. A great night!

THE SCORCHED MUSIC OF THE EMPEROR WORM

‘There is a writhing worm in all of us, waiting to be freed.’
– From The Salvage Song of the Larks, and Other Stories, by Michael Ashman

I have a story in the latest Coffin Bell Journal that you can read here.

THE WARREN IS EMPTY

I have a piece today in The Quietus, looking back at the film adaptation of Watership Down on its fortieth anniversary in relation to Michael Moorcock’s ‘Epic Pooh’ essay, the music of Fall of Efrafa and Richard Adams’ claim that the story has no allegorical aspect to it.

You can read the piece here.

A PERSONAL ANTHOLOGY

I was pleased to contribute to the excellent ‘A Personal Anthology’ series run by Jonathan Gibbs. The concept is simple – a writer chooses twelve pieces of favourite short fiction and explains why others should read them.

My list:

1. ‘Black County’ – Joel Lane

2. ‘The Stains’ – Robert Aickman

3. ‘The White Cat’ – Joyce Carol Oates

4. ‘The Husband Stitch’ – Carmen Maria Machado

5. ‘Wide Acre’ – Nathan Ballingrud’

6. ‘An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk According to One Who Saw It’ – Jessie Greengrass

7. ‘The Horse of Iron and How We Can Know It (And Be Changed By It)’ – M John Harrison

8. ‘Four Abstracts’ – Nina Allan

9. ‘The Man Whom the Trees Loved’ – Algernon Blackwood

10. ‘The Cheater’s Guide to Love’ – Junot Diaz

11. ‘The Last Clean, Bright Summer’ – Livia Llewellyn

12. ‘The Unwish’ – Claire Dean

You can read it here.

HOLLOW SHORES REVIEWED IN LITRO

'This is not just a brilliantly written collection; it is written with passion and anger and hope. It’s a common term of praise to say that a piece of fiction raises many questions. Budden’s work doesn’t just raise questions; it warns of the dire consequences of neglecting the human need for a connection with nature, and points the way towards a love of one’s home landscape and folklore which is free of dubious political connotations.'

A wonderful review today for HOLLOW SHORES in Litro. Thanks to Aiden O'Reilly for a perceptive and insightful review.

Read the whole thing here: https://www.litro.co.uk/2018/09/book-review-hollow-shores-gary-budden/

HOME TO ROOST

'Gary Budden has been directly instrumental in raising the profile of psychogeography, new weird and strange fiction within a distinctly British context. His own stories, recently showcased in his debut collection Hollow Shores, engage with place, class and memory at a gut level, seeming to morph into something else even as we encounter them.'

I'm very touched to have been mentioned in this fantastic new essay – 'Home to Roost' – by Nina Allan (The Race, The Rift) concerning THIS DREAMING ISLE, the new anthology of weird and dark fiction from Unsung Stories. It make it's Kickstarter target in 12 hours! But they've added stretch goals now, with the potential of Rob Shearman, Alison Littlewood and Kirsty Logan joining the lineup...

Read Nina's full essay here

And buy the book via Kickstarter here

MACHEN, MILTON, METROPOLITAN

On Saturday 18th August, 2018, Adam Scovell took a trip to the end of the Metropolitan Line to to find the grave of visionary writer Arthur Machen (1863-1967) at St Marys Church in Old Amersham. Machen has been a key influence on my own thinking about place for many years, especially his book The London Adventure (Or, The Art of Wandering), as well as his weird fiction like 'The White People', 'N', 'The Three Impostors' and 'The Great God Pan'.

We then set off on a six mile-ish round trip through the Buckinghamshire landscape of bleak ploughed fields, patches of green woodland, soaring and magnificent red kites, eerie and empty farmland.

We passed through the village of Chalfont St Giles, stopping to see the cottage of John Milton (closed, opposite Milton's Indian Restaurant), and navigating our way through subdued suburbs, interpreting signs that were more hindrance than help as we walked under towering pylons in yellow fields, passing a marquee for a posh-girl's birthday party, through an equestrian centre flitting with barn swallows, before back to Machen and then the tube. 

Photo by Adam Scovell

Paradise lost

MUD AND FLAME

I am pleased to say that I have an essay in this upcoming anthology about the iconic film, Penda's Fen, a 1974 BBC film that achieved mythic status. There is a bit more information here.

PAUL TREMBLAY, HÜSKER DÜ, LAST MANGO IN PARIS

(L-R: Paul Tremblay, Lydia Gittins, me)

I was incredibly chuffed to be described by the brilliant horror author, Paul Tremblay, as 'the editor with the best taste in music in the biz' today. Paul is the author of the novels A Head Full of Ghosts, Disappearance at Devil's Rock and the newly published The Cabin at the End of the World, and I recommend all three of them. Great works of empathetic, literary horror all focusing on families in crisis whilst using, and subverting, standard horror tropes.

So how did this come about? you might ask.

Paul was in the UK promoting The Cabin at the End of the World, and as his UK editor at Titan Books, I was fortunate enough to accompany him and publicist Lydia Gittins on the first leg of the tour up to Edgelit in Derby – a one day genre fiction convention where Paul was the guest of honour. It was a cracking day and great as ever to meet fellow writers, editors and readers. 

You can read Paul's full account of the trip here – but needless to say it involved us bonding over a shared love of music like Hüsker Dü and Fugazi, and discussing the finer details of Bob Mould's solo career. I then waffled on about my love of Jawbreaker and Watership Down-themed hardcore punk (really), and found someone who wasn't completely bored by what I was saying. A result in my book. I also experienced an unusual ale in Derby (Paul's choice) called Last Mango in Paris, featuring a blue-tinged chimpanzee on the label. 

Weird fiction and punk rock: i'm telling you, there's a real connection there.

‘Fiction is becoming darker, weirder, bent-out-of-shape’

I was very pleased to get a mention in the Irish Times this week, via their interview with Ashley Stokes of Unthank Books. So thanks Ashley! He said some kind things about my work, as well as my good mate Gareth E. Rees, as well as mentioning us in the same breath as Angela Readman and Daisy Johnson (Fen was a brilliant collection). Here are some choice quotes:

'At grassroots level, and by that I suspect you mean writing that’s not influenced by MA programmes, is becoming darker, weird, twisted-out-of-shape, dripping with fear of the end and apocalypse. The new writing I’m enjoying at the moment – the likes of Gary Budden and Gareth E Rees – are potholing in these caves.

'I also find myself looking out for Angela Readman, Daisy Johnson and Gary Budden, the latter being someone who meshes weird horror with a very English rumination on place and landscape to create stories simultaneously eerie, yet oh-so realistic.'

You can read the whole thing here.

A CONSTELLATION OF WONDROUS PLACES

Here is a reading of my story 'A Constellation of Wondrous Places', filmed in Morden Library as part of my City of Stories residency. I am running workshops in Merton on the 12th and 19th of June – all the info here!

ENFIELD TOWN, WHERE WE PAINTED FIRE ACROSS THE SKYLINE

Old trains clank as they ease in and out of the overground station. We listen to the tannoy admonish a man who rides his bicycle along the platform.

Our neighbour with carcinogenic lungs smokes below, hacks, fights for breath every single day.

There's a low ambient hum to the outer city that I adore, a meshed murmur of commuters' voices, slow moving traffic, station activity, the shrieks of schoolkids, the flap of a wood pigeon's wings.

Look one way and see the shimmering monuments to excess that form the London skyline. Look the other, over the roofs of the town, to the woods and unexpected green of Trent Park. 

As dusk comes, we paint fire across the skyline.

NOTES ON THE LANDSCAPE PUNK SCENE

Extract from the introduction to Magnesium Burns: The Collected Zines, 1999–2011 (Punk Positive Press), by Melissa Eider.

---

The 'landscape punk' scene of the mid-to-late-2000s was formed around the nexus (some said unholy trilogy, some said bunch of wankers, depending on your view on the whole thing) of NOMADIC TRIBE, DEAD INDUSTRIAL ATMOSPHERE and SCARP. 

Ranging from gypsy-traveller style folk-punk to dark and brooding epic crust and post-hardcore, the scene took a great deal of inspiration from not only classic works of eco-themed English literature like Richard Adams' WATERSHIP DOWN and THE PLAGUE DOGS (the Brighton-based FALL OF EFRAFA being the most noticeable band to do this), but also the popular genres of London-focused psychogeography, deep topography and urban landscape writing as popularised by writers such as Nick Papadimtiou, the politically charged landscape writing of American writers like Rebecca Solnit, the weird fictions of people like Joel Lane, and crucially the Incognita series of books republished by Malachite Press. 

The Incognita series included lost classics by Alexander Baron, Hecate Shrike, Maureen Duffy, Michael Ashman and D.A. Northwood, among many others, resurrecting a valuable archive of hidden London literature. The tracks 'Juddering' and 'Demon of Woodberry Down' by SCARP, both references to Northwood, became iconic of the scene and have remained enduring classics of the punk, post-rock and hardcore underground well into the twenty-teens.

NOMADIC TRIBE released only one album, the critically- regarded but commercial flop, 'Concrete Palimpsest', a record heavily indebted to nineties underground hardcore acts like SCATHA, A FIELD IN ENGLAND and SEDITION.

DEAD INDUSTRIAL ATMOSPHERE (their name of course an homage to the great LEATHERFACE) are still going strong. Albums like 'City of Worms' and 'Miracle at New Cross Gate' are considered staples of any discerning underground music fan's collection. They tour regularly across the UK and Europe, but have distanced themselves somewhat from the landscape punk scene.

SCARP split acrimoniously and with much bad blood, effectively ending the scene; something which has been well documented elsewhere (in the pages of Magnesium Burns in fact – read on).

BACKLISTED PODCAST – THE LOWLIFE by Alexander Baron

I was lucky enough to be invited onto the Backlisted Podcast, to discuss one of my very favourite novels, THE LOWLIFE by Alexander Baron.

Have a listen here:

John and Andy are at the dogs this week, discussing the 1963 cult novel The Lowlife by Alexander Baron. They are joined by London enthusiast Peter Watts(the first person to write a biography of Battersea Power Station) and Gary Budden, author and director of ground-breaking indie Influx Press.