No.

He still didn’t look right.

When I got in, Ed and Trewin were bickering over the implementation of our new inter-band messaging system. The system came along with a whole bunch of news email addresses, apps, and all the elements of integration that make the modern world such a great place to hang out.

To recount that actual conversation would be nothing more than the kind of tennis match you’ve heard a thousand times. Was it a tennis match, or was it an endless relay race? More like getting drunk and lost at a party. There we have it—the goings on in this band either scale the heights of an ornate skill set or devolve into the most granite-brained stupidity. And it is never possible to know which one it is at any given point in time. All we know is we breath, and we’re ugly, and there’s always something to do for somebody, somewhere. Our crunched-up and stepped-on shells have pierced our soft insides.

So Trewin was crumbling under the pressure of a new app. He was lost in the wilderness of words on a screen. I couldn’t blame him—he had been staring at the same computer screen, sat in the same chair, sleepless, dreamless, and with only a limited depth of tenderness for about seven weeks straight. What I thought was dust on the piano keyboard was actually dirt from unwashed fingers.

Ed, Seryn, and I showed him how you can share music instantly on the new system; how quick, easy, and beneficial it was once you looked at the screen and took in the words rather than tried to make them bend to your will. I wouldn’t put it past the man to call up the particular multi-national company that makes this system and—after much talking, holding, and department hopping—convince them what to change and what to scrap. I’m sure I once caught him on the phone to Heinz whining about the inevitable regression of society when the logo of a basic foodstuff impresses a childish nostalgia on an entire public. Or maybe it was him catching me.

I want to forget what I know and learn to hate what I love.

Beans.

So we settled the issue of the system. He would...basically do what he always did, and not talk to anybody anyway. Meanwhile, the file sharing system was good. He could work it. We rearranged things better to his liking while he showed us why it was pointless, terrible, and an interruption to his day.

He rolled and lit a cigarette, grimacing and hissing as he inhaled, but brightening immediately.

His eyes were bulbous, his skin grey, and his voice was that of a sad dog.

We listened to a track that needed work. We thought it was finished months ago, but on this listen something seemed a little off. Could it be that as the other tracks have been polished and buffed and improved, this one had fallen a little behind the curve? But we thought we’d finished it! This was the one about which there were no doubts! We all loved it before! What’s it doing now, tormenting us like this!?

All of our phones beeped with a new incoming message. New James had sent a message concerning Trewin’s problems with the system.

Stop being an idiot. It’s easy freaky lemon squeaky.

The track continued to play, and the meandering structure caused a loss of interest.

Trewin folded his arms on the table, smacked his head on them, and moaned.

“Oh God,” he said, “kill me now.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “just work on it and send it over.”

Tim

Parks and decoration.

Brighton is cold tonight.

Happy New Year.

And we hope you had a fine Christmas.

Christmas is a time for reminiscence (and meat) (dead animals that is) (a dead thing in every house, plonked proudly on a table made from another dead thing, only for things that will eventually die to shovel it into themselves because I need it in order to live what a boring excuse that’s become for everything it’s an excuse for), but we didn’t do any of that (as I recall).

New years is a time for resolution, and new beginnings, but we’re on the tail end of finishing the album – by the time we’re ready for new beginnings it’ll be springtime, and what is there to celebrate about spring? Flowers? Literally who hasn’t seen a flower by now? Why do we lower our standards so? Flowers grow in Chernobyl.

I’ve just come back from a band session and the rather pleasant feeling is: more of the same with a bit more. We’ve hit a few periods of momentum over the past year – it’ll be nice to hit one of those again. We’ve all got it in us, we just need to keep the temperature down and see what happens. It’s true we’ve got to up our game in many ways – but it’s always been like that. More of the same with a bit more. We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to learn. We’ve got to be open.

This isn’t anything new. This is just moving forward. Doing this is about standing and waiting to jump on a moving roundabout. There’s nothing more to add.

So if I’ve understood everybody correctly, I’m going to spend the next few days down the park (it’s cold, so I’ll wear my mac), trying to hop on the roundabout. I’ll also try out the swings as a metaphor for the ups/downs (forwards?) of career/life, and probably end my day early by going down the slide.

Don’t worry if you don’t read this – I won’t use this opportunity to make you feel guilty – but if you’re here then hello. I don’t know what this is but it’s going to get better.

It’s an odd ride, isn’t it?

So have fun, and stop being so careful. Quit your job (if you're looking for a sign - this is it) and go back to school or go travelling or whatever and just do it. Live in one room for a while, if you have to. It’ll be fun. What do you think you’ll be missing? There’s literally nothing here.

Tim

The Fable of the Van, or 'How to Make an Album Underwater'.

We were cruising just fine, until a problem came up.

The van’s engine, until then our must trusted ally in the fight against Achieving Nothing, was sputtering, groaning, and cutting out at random intervals. Its glitchiness started just as we entered London—as if the four wheeled veteran had made an effort to wait for the best time to finally admit its frailty but, in a case of combustibilia nervosa, was guilty of a gross miscalculation.

Sometimes on failure the engine would burst into life, and roar, bringing us smiles of relief. Sometimes it would crank and its tones would veer up and down, like a hoover singing a Christina Aguilera song. Sometimes, after the engine cut out, we found ourselves riding a large, yellow, four-wheeled rock.

This blog entry tells of the first time we drifted over to the side of the road.

We got everything started again, and, making decisions on what to do, approached Blackwall Tunnel. If you’re not familiar, Blackwall Tunnel is a long...tunnel, with no place to pull over. Tons of traffic makes its way through it every hour of every day.

There were stories about people who had broken down in there, causing tailbacks for miles and grinding half the city to a halt. These stories hit the whole of London. Some wanker’s broken down in Blackwall Tunnel...

It was rush hour, and after numerous delays we were running late for our gig at OSLO. We had to risk getting all the way through. Cars were piled up on either side of us, trailing down into the dark entrance. The opening scrutinised us like an eye. It scowled. It knew what we were up to.

‘That’s the point of no return...are we sure we’re going to do this?’

To our left was the final turn-off before all traffic was funnelled into the black by a hundred signs.

‘We don’t want to be the ****’s who break down in the tunnel.’

‘How long will it take us to get around to another crossing?’

Phone’s were whipped out. Sat-navs smashed with sweaty palms.

‘In this traffic? About forty-five minutes to get there, and then we’ll have to get to the venue from there aswell.’

‘Right. I guess we don’t have a choice, then.’

And then the engine died.

‘Oh no...’

We drifted forward a few feet, restarted the engine, and scarpered off the main road on the last turn-off, out of everybody’s way, to pull over, spend five minutes on our lives, and make a decision.

Everybody had something to say. Six people all trying to figure out whether they themselves were stupid. Who was the most wrong person here? What’s the gamble? What’s the here and there? How long to wait for a fix? How long to take an alternative route? Do we run the same risk whatever we do? How late can we afford to be? What’s sunk? What’s up?

We are, when it suits us, a democracy.

Four votes to two: we go through the tunnel.

Ed’s arms are folded.

I’m jumping around the cabin.

‘You just have to believe, Ed. We’re all on board. If you don’t believe, then it falls apart. If we all do it, we’ll make it through. Trust me. That’s how it works.’

‘It doesn’t though, does it?’

‘No. But YES! DO IT ANYWAY. FEEL IT. BELIEVE IT. COME ON!’

‘It’s an engine, Tim. An engine that’s going to get us into trouble.’

I believed in that engine, and I believed in my bandmates.

We turned onto the main road again, ready for the great eye to take us in like a tiny photon, indeterminate, of unknown status, either a particle of success or a wave of unmitigated failure. Breakdown inside the eye will mean the gig is off, and London stops.

We passed the point of no return.

‘COME ON!’ We all chanted. Ed rested his head on one arm.

‘She’s been fine since we last started her,’ Trewin said. He revved the engine and it purred.

The traffic slowed as four lanes merged to two.

COME ON.

Once the lanes had merged, there was space. The traffic kept moving at a steady pace. The entrance to the tunnel moved over us like an eclipse, and from then on it was all concrete, tiled artery and grim, artificial roadside light.

Ed clenched his fist. He was silent.

The rest of us shouted.

‘COME ON! WOO! WE CAN DO IT!’

And we all believed into our bellies and we all starting singing football chants. There were three things to the experience: the doors of the lorry in front of us; the ochre warp of the tunnel walls passing on each side; and the sound and sensation of song and will in that cabin, driving us forward. We were already at the end, tasting victory. We had already succeeded. We were over on the sweet otherside, in the sun, nowhere to go but forwards in every direction. There was no questioning it. We had the sheer volume of voices on our side. We had taken our gamble, together, and we had won.

But we hadn’t. Yet. The tunnel was a long, and soon my throat cracked. Nothing changed. We saw no progress. After a few minutes, the white lorry, moving at the same speed at us, appeared static—a square void hovering in focus. The tunnel walls no longer passed in blurs but were blurs, like paintings. It had all turned to simulation; film set. Now our songs served not only to take us above the river where we could breathe but also to make the inside of this cabin real. We asserted not only our beliefs but the existence of those beliefs. We made ourselves real and looked at each other with doubts about our destination. We had fallen victim to bravado and brain chemistry. What were we doing? We kept singing, up and down. We should have called for help. The engine stayed smooth, but we faltered. We're not going to make it, are we? We were lost, on a path with only one road...

And then the pitch of light changed, from pub-tooth yellow to pearlish white, around the outside of the white lorry that now looked dirty and real.

‘YES!’

‘COME OON!’

‘VINDALOO...VINDALOO...’

The traffic stopped and we could see the ridges of the tunnel’s round exit.

‘I can’t believe we’ve done it.’

The traffic moved again and we moved off.

And then, twenty metres shy of the tunnel's exit, the van’s engine went dead.

‘NOOO!’

We cranked the thing and pumped the gas as the white lorry sped away from us. We drifted forwards shiftlessly, like a piece of debris lost and aimless in space. We chanted and hollered at the engine, at the world…

‘There’s a big guy behind us,’ said Trewin.

And the big guy blew his horn as we slowed:

PPPHHHHPHRPRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP.

Which echoed down the tunnel.

‘...Christ.’

We were almost to a standstill, losing all momentum. Cars were slipping by us on our right, with ease.

COME ON.

We all shouted at the top of our lungs, cajoling each other and ourselves.

Ed shifted forward in his seat, an energetic smile on his face, completely in the throes of a new emotion.

Other cars were beeping around us.

The van stood still. Trewin cranked the engine.

‘Alright! I believe! I believe!' said Ed, 'We can do it! Come on, Buttercup!’

Our van is called Buttercup.

And we all called her name at the top of our lungs.

...

POWER.

And we roared out of the tunnel, almost rearing on our back wheels, beeping our horn. Trewin threw his arm out the window, clenching his fist, and the big guy behind us, a huge metal tanker, blew his horn again, short and repeating along with us. We caught up to the traffic and settled in the London evening light, ten minutes away from OSLO.

We arrived on time, and, as the venue had no lift, carried our gear up six flights of stairs in silence.

Tim

P.S. The album will be done. We have a date. What that date means, we do not know. Whether we get there in time depends on whether we can will ourselves across the river to the other side of the tunnel. Eh? Eh? Do you see?

How it feels to come home.

We are not on tour.

What do I wish?

I had been home longer than three and a half minutes when I received a text message. Mr Douglas, do not forget your 10am dentist appointment tomorrow…

This was not the text I was expecting. My manager was due to get back to me about what days I would be working this month. She’d reeled off a few dates last time I was in, but I work there so seldom I hardly listened. As far as I knew, I was due behind a desk for a day or two in the distant future. I had asked her to text me back to remind me of exact dates. I thought she had a good week or so to get back to me.

The message from the dentist didn’t half make pretty shapes; entirely abstract by this point in the evening. It said something about the morning—something a long way away. Further application of whisky will sterilise any wounds for now (I figured), a morning panic-scrub will make all those tidy gnashers gleam like greek arches, and a quick goodnight kiss will improve my mood such that any overnight healing will be hastened by deeper sleep and a flood of health-enhancing chemicals.

Needless to say, on day one of the band’s return, my affairs were not all in order. The internal bliss and renewed intellectual peace following our experience outstripped the unwarranted self-importance of any ‘appointment’ or ‘supplemental employment’.

Later, as my weak and heavy eyes fell closed, my phone buzzed.

It was a text.

You know you’re in tomorrow?

-

We are not on tour.

What do I wish?

I woke up too early to a dark morning and shnarfed down an unhealthy breakfast from a plate nobody had washed. When it came time to leave, my face was too-dry-soapy clean (I could feel my skin crack when I smiled), I had my neat shoes on (with holes in), and my stomach had decided to take me on a 17th century sea voyage. The woman who lives in the same place as me (is she sadist? Masochist? I can’t tell which, but it must be one), who had left the house about twenty minutes before, WhatsApp’d me to say the bus stop at the end of the road would be out of service for the next hour or two, and I’d have to walk the extra distance to the next one that was working.

It’s very cold. She said.

I put one foot out of the door and a sheet of rain fell from the sky.

-

We are not on tour.

What do I wish?

I arrived annoyingly early at the dentist’s, as I’d rushed through the rain straight onto a bus. The run was long and lurching (thanks to the sudden onset of nausea), and the bus was packed and hot and misty, so I’d sweated through my work shirt which I’d have to stay in all day.

The receptionist looked at me over her glasses and offered me a seat.

I had a long time to go until my appointment and the other person waiting was coughing through stories of grim infections she’d had. She laughed, and was good natured, but I tried hard to bury myself in internet ego death. It was no good—my stomach was churning and rolling and I held it with one hand and winced. One of the receptionists (one of them: an old person made young through that parasitical age-transfer that can happen when a lump in time so desires to steal what is not its own, the other: blending so well in to her surroundings I thought there was a strong wind moving papers about) had decided to put The Worst of Smooth Elevator Jazz on the reception stereo. The cackles of the infected woman played along to it. Since the last time I had been here, all the interesting decorations had been taken down. There was, however, a rack selling herbs in metal buckets. The walls and the surfaces and the chairs were gleaming white. Of course they were. The combination of internal biology and external ambience gave birth to the fatal combination of not only needing to fire lunch from the front, but actively wanting to.

I blindly sweated a few cog twirls down the plughole and my name was called. I followed the hygienist down the hallway into the white surgery without looking at her. I smiled at the floor and braced my abdominals. My belly had a knife in it.

‘Feel free to put your things down there and make yourself comfortable on the chair.’

So I got on the chair, and the motors ran and slowly and, like a great cannon shifting its aim, my open mouth was now directed straight at her face.

She smiled.

My stomach lurched and I rolled my eyes.

‘Is there anything in your mouth that’s bothering you?’

‘Not yet,’ I thought.

And another wave of nausea ran from the bottom of my stomach through my chest and into my face, throwing my consciousness off. Something would have to give.

‘Not really,’ I said.

She looked at me. A moment passed. She smiled a soft, motherly smile before donning a face mask and a pair of protective goggles.

-

We are not on tour.

What do I wish?

What is enlightenment?

Is it a state of bliss, or a state of ignorance? Or a state of bliss in ignorance? Or is it knowledge of the bliss of ignorance and the acceptance of bliss as bliss? Enlightenment is nothing more than enlightenment. Is that what it is?

What is the opposite of enlightenment? What of the heaviness of a thought? Is enlightenment the freeing of the mind from the weightiness of thought—a state where you are able to see the valuation of thought as an illusion? What is the value of that illusion?

Of what value is consciousness?

Thus, a quiet day at work passes. Another drop in the bucket. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Fluorescent lights kill.

Nausea passes.

Teeth get cleaned.

As I walked home past the gyms with large windows, I watched the women on the treadmills with their bouncing ponytails. I stood still and watched them run and we both failed to change in size or shape.

I wish we were on tour.

Tim

an album

Taken from The pre-musician's guide to advanced post-musical production, b3rd edition, (2013).

---

How to make an album, by Timothy Douglas (bass).

IF you are one of those people who takes the miragic carousel of life as real (IF), then congratulations: you are living in The Modern World. In this The Modern World, among the more popular things to do is to make music for listening. Music for listening can iron out your worries/shirts, liven up a boring funeral, or make you cry at just everything that's wrong.

No wonder it so as this popular!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!and!!!!!!

Music, much like a plumber's tool, comes in "information boxes". These "fo-bos" are delivered in different shapes. Smaller fo-bos, called “EPs” often come as packs of four (4) or five (4) songs or “tracks”. Fo-bos of ten (and/or 11) tracks or "songs" are “albums”. “It is albums about which we for an will be looking at today.” She said.

To make an album in The Modern World, there are ten things you need to do. We will start with number four (5):

4 (5). Miss your deadlines.

A deadline is called a dead line for a reason; it is the place in space where dead lines reside.

Experiment:

• Draw a line on a sheet of paper.

• Did you create this line? Or have you simply caused a small part of a line that already existed to manifest? This line clearly existed before you (unless you invented the possibility of geometry! (Which you didn't!)-!!and), and so is infinite and therefore better than you. You're not even as good as a line.

• Rest.

If you think about this as correctly as I have, you will understand that the place where all lines exist preeminently is a place to which you do not want to go. Neither is it a place you will want to think about. Steer well clear, then. Ignore the “deadlines” that punctuate your ever accelerating progress.

7. Run out of your money.

“I have all the money in the world!” said the man who never finished his homework. Why would you finish your homework when you have all the money in the world? You wouldn't. I never finished my homework and I didn't have any money. I didn't even start my homework! I didn't even have a home! I didn't even go to school! I was never even born!

Don't start your homework; do run out of money. That's the only proven formula for any success ever and is as old as time (which is quite old!).

(and young!)

3. To make an album you must run out of your money by spending your it.

If you're going to need to run out of money (see above it's quite clear), you're going to have to find a way to do it. Spending it is the most popular way to run out of your money. Aside from private healthcare and Council Tax, there are many things a person can spend their money on. Studios, instruments, make-up, guns, and a list of english colloquialisms with the names of seasons in them are the first things that spring to mind.

Think of as many things to spend money on as you can, then get some vomit-inducingly attractive person standing at a till to list them on a receipt for you until you die.

Experiment: 

• Do exactly what I just said.

6. Maintain poor lines of communication.

The last thing you need when you're trying to do anything at all even heart surgery is people communicating with you all of your time. Ugh, I hate all forms of communication. I don't even like it when my legs communicate with my brain. Legs can get a lot more done (swinging!) if simply left to its own devices, so cease communication with all potential interactors at all your costs (which is all your things!).

2. Have distractions to you.

Invent a game with your shoes! Tie yourself up and then wonder how you did it. Make a different album! Nothing is uninteresting if you've got something else that needs doing, so distract yourself as much

9. Lose will to live.

It's 3am and you need the toilet. You go to the toilet and hoist the arc and look at yourself in the mirror. There you are; paragon of animals. There you are in your 'jamas, staring at a sheet of reflected technicolour. Your skin looks pale and your eyes look deep. You feel dizzy with thought. The world is quiet, and a sudden sense of individuality returns after years of service to others.

What am I doing?

Where have the years gone?

Stare at the mirror for twenty days or until breakfast.

“Here comes another great album.”

5. Destroy others.

If you want to commit to making an album, you will also have to commit to not committing to anything else. This includes people. The loved ones with whom you had previously surrounded yourself must take on the role of mechanical hardware, while the mechanical hardware that you work with daily should take the role of emotional confidant, object of care, and reticent repeated sexual partner.

1. Destroy yourself.

"You are nothing. You are a waste of space. You think you're so clever, but really you're a dot on a speck on an arse. Fuck off. Go on. Fuck off."

You may find yourself thinking slightly less of yourself as doubts start to creep in following months of isolation and “private creation” (and when you think about everything you've done).

This is your favourite part.

The whole point of being someone who wants to make an album is to come out the other side of the process as someone with no idea who the person who started making it was. When you start to find the music recorded by that happy ghost unpleasant and baffling, it will finally hit home that all sentient life is not only an accident, but a mistake. This realisation will enhance creativity. Destroy yourself and see for how long you can crawl through the wreckage of your spirit, screaming into the great echoing void for anything that resembles mercy. (Hint: It's a long time!)

8. Desire nothing.

You have nothing, and by now you have convinced yourself that you will always be nothing. There is nothing. Your album, then, is nothing. But you (and your friends!) want your album. By this logic then; if you desire your album, you desire nothing. Congratulations on finding the most Western route to nirvanic cosmic annihilation. Now set the levels on your input gain.

And finally of for your and with…

10. Do not divulge your secrets.

There is a reason your rooms have your doors. Your rooms have your doors so you don't have to install laser systems to burn out the eyes of sneaky trespassing bastards. Behind all albums/doors are stories and events that tell as much as the music/dungeon itself. Do not share these stories (at least as they are occuring).

Doing this is unseemly and could decrease your future income.




Follow your excellent how to guide (this one) and you will have made your album.


---



We made an album.

We recorded it and mixed it and selected the artwork.

Now that our part is over, it needs to go off to other people to have things done to it so it can make words and videos that people will find interesting. If people don't find the words and videos interesting, they might not know the music exists, and so never hear it.

We've had to come to the conclusion that this happening would be sad.

It's been nearly two years, so I think we're going to take tonight off.

It's Wednesday. There's no use in denying that.

Tim

"That's not what I said."

While throwing eggs at a cow (I was trying to make breakfast) the other day, a woman in drab, beaten clothes approached me, handing me a pamphlet.

“Time slows down as gravity increases!” She barked.

I didn't trust her skin and clothes because they blended in to one another.

Here gives you what the pamphlet said:

–

The dome has a ceiling as wide and capacious as the sky.

Beneath your feet is sand, and as you look around you see many soft shaped figurines posed as walkers. Each is attempting to make its way to the centre of the dome – the direction in which you, too, are heading.

In the centre of the dome, at ground level, augmenting the impression of vastness given by the gentle golden arches that soar above you, is a large black orb that at first glance appears lost in some orgy of vibration.

The black orb spins so fast that there can be no point of contact between perceiver and object, yet any person would insist, to any interrogator, that it is there.

You make your way towards the orb, breathing in air that thins and becomes easier the closer you get.

You start to feel light, and move with great freedom.

Closer to the centre of the dome, you notice that the sculptures change their posture. At first they were proud. Some were holding hands. Now they are separate, and some of them have fallen to their knees.

You keep walking, your arms swinging.

Your brain starts to fizz as breathing becomes so easy and smooth; you feel the thrill of gliding on ice. Your feet almost hover above the desert floor, they feel so light. Your chin rises. Your chest puffs out. Your body fixes on the orb, and you continue past the sculptures. Some of them show signs of struggling under weight.

You begin your approach, and the vibrations of the orb start to affect you. You now tilt your head and wince, but keep going as something in you says you cannot stop.

Soon your easy breaths become strange as the air begins to pulse. Now you walk and you see your skin move out ahead of your bones. The air distorts as if manipulated by heat. The sculptures around you are all on hands and knees. Some have curled up into balls and some stretch out in desperate worship of the orb that now stands over you, filling up the sky.

You continue as best you can but you feel a clash in your imagination. Every movement double takes at the rate of vibration you feel from the orb. You feel that you have already taken each step when in fact you have not moved. You see the orb and you reach out to it, but your body does not. Your hand is by your side. It rests as now, and moments ago when this feeling first arose. Your hand is out in front of you as if the task were already performed.

The sequence rolls.

And you are not there, or behind, but right here, existing as a point of past and future thought. You drop forever to the ground, inhale with limitless lungs, and now forever stretch one rough hand out towards the orb.

–

“What in stupid hell is this?” I said.

The lady, taken aback, shrugged beneath her rotting cotton.

“Religious... it's like religious things. It's about...look...”

She wagged a finger at the pamphlet.

“Here – this bit here. In the words.”

“I haven't got time for this! I said, “My band have got an album to finish!”

Ha ha ha! What a laugh, eh readers?!

Tim

No, go on.

You don't have to make music – the notion of actually making music carries with it too much pressure and mammalian cultural baggage.

If you were actually going to make music you'd have to confront ideas of meaning, history, non-verbal communication, evolution, sociology, ethics, technology, physics, alchemy, ontology, epistemology, psychology, economics, and how a jumped up wedding DJ with an accent can become one of the country's leading taste-makers.

These things are not only ugly to think about, but they are, as I am about to show in one quick swoosh of an outlay, entirely unnecessary.

So burn your Universities to the ground, and silence your chattering minds with Chinese synthesised liquids.

No, you don't have to actually make music, dear listener – all you need do is make something that sounds like music, and all of your problems will be solved.

GNIDAER PEEK

The beat, for example, no doubt stretches back to our most primitive states. 

• Perhaps an accidental mutation led to us enjoying the thud of a stomped foot at some post-hunt regathering, leading to a desire to hunt more in order to celebrate more and hear more thuds. 
• Perhaps the beat of some drum reminded our brains of the bodily thump of running through a clearing, again on the hunt, the synthetic memory short-circuiting our adrenal circuits and giving us some rush or other, in turn strengthening neural pathways and therefore increasing our adrenaline on a real hunt, making us better at that practical task to such an extent that those who increased their hunting ability with this ritual caught prey at the expense of other packs and survived to gave us habits that persist to this day. 
• Perhaps playing drums just gave the most intellectually bereft a means to attract a mate, and we're all doing them a favour.

SO, like pretty much everything we do, the point of the beat is to provide a way for us to engage in the rehearsal of cultural actions more integral to our survival than these overblown rehearsals themselves. Middle-of-the-road-bland-pop with a standardised beat and fantastical sexualised lyrics? Dislike a challenge? Good music by which to work to in one of Cameron's slave cubicles, while fantasising about “a life that doesn't so closely resemble hell”.

Maybe.

I mean, there are of course much broader hips to this, for example

BUT WAIT NOW STUPID

WHAT NEED FOR ANY OF IT?

RECALL WHAT GIFTS I HAVE GIVEN  THEE

Kick on beat one, snare on three. Add some boom to that kick and some snappy high-end crunch on the snare.

Sounds like music to me. Fuck the needless theorising.

It takes the pressure off somewhat, does it not?

Of course, it doesn't. But it at least feels like it does.

Whose are the playing cards? Who cares.

SO WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?

Lucky you have learned that all you have to do is never, ever actually have fun, but just do things that make it feel like you're having fun.

At all times without end.

That's all you have to do.

Have fun doing that.

Summer's almost over.

Tim

P.S. We'll be giving musical lectures on these subjects in Germany this October. If you want tickets, you can win them, here (bring a notepad and an easel).