GALLON DRUNK ..... AND THE GHOSTS OF A LOST LONDON - "From the Heart of Town" - Live 1992

GALLON DRUNK ..... AND THE GHOSTS OF A LOST LONDON ... in... "THE MORGANITE PLUMBAGO CHUG & THROB VAMP" - "From the Heart of Town" - Live 1992
Respect goes to James Johnston because he has magnanimously allowed, or tolerated, in this film the effective aural degradation and visual manipulation of his musical endeavour in what is ostensibly a veritable tribute to the era of "From the Heart of Town". Despite artistic allusions, this film attempts to be an accurate as possible document of the band at the moment when their whole dynamic had shifted and they segued from a primordially rough band with a raw, untamed sound, to the polished unit developing more structured tunes and travelling in a thoroughly different direction to their previous recordings.
".....Chug & Throb..." could be perceived as a quasi-promo for the record, although it was unrealistic to expect the film to be accepted as a serious advertising tool. Whereas almost all films featuring musicians have a narrative interpretation revolving around them, in "Chug & Throb...." the members of GD are gradually expunged from their own images and reinterpreted as impressionistic ciphers. By avoiding any measure of verisimilitude, through a process that could be described in modern parlance as 'visual remixing' , the band are co-opted as oblique personifications, becoming in the process the subjects of a perverse audio visual experiment. They appear as spectral apparitions, white faces and black, sunken eyes, reduced to metaphors of the younger band they once were, reflecting the people we all once were. Travelling back in time into a ghostly past, these distorted pieces of footage take on an even more ethereal aura. Effigies of 'phantoms from the distant past' reappear out of the pea soup of degraded images which have been bleached and rinsed out through relentless manipulation. Eventually the band are reduced to deteriorated images that drift and judder before finally disappearing into a primordial murk - a mush of leaching colour and dissolved light, mayhem, louche continuity, synchronicity and comprehension. The form and structure of the film also derives in part from Brecht's 'Alienation' theories and Artaud's 'Theatre of Cruelty' - hence the health warning at the beginning, a necessary accompaniment to any visual experience in our present time.
The credit for first suggesting the basic idea that eventually became, nearly a quarter of a century later the "...Chug & Throb" film, were four people. Band cohorts Earl Green and Marc Istead had viewed the original 16mm footage of some early live gigs and liked what they saw, Geoff Cox, who worked for the record and publishing company, thought that a visual accompaniment to the proposed album "From The Heart Of Town" would make an excellent promotional tool. Likewise Julie Taylor, at the time Gallon Drunk's number one fan and editor of the short lived "Riot" fanzine (one issue). Whilst not a filmmaker as such, she did possess a temperamental VHSC video camera, used to shoot a number of the band's gigs and some backstage footage. It is this material which forms part of the backbone of both this film and its predecessor, "Frug & Shimmy", so it's fair to say that without Julie's camera neither film would exist, at least not in their eventual forms. A promo with zero budget seemed just the ticket and too good an opportunity to ignore.
By the time the wider world woke up years later to the innovative originality of 'FTHOT', the moment had passed, the ship had sailed, the opportunity had gone, and the media hoard, with the collective mentality of a flock of sheep, had moved on to the next big thing - the Spice Girls. "Oh call back yesterday, bid time return".
By this point in time the masters and editing tapes of the film had been abandoned and buried under an avalanche of other incoming material at the post production studio where a weeks worth of rough-cut editing had begun in the autumn of 1992. Sometime after this the facility was closed, and after it had lain derelict for several months, was quickly demolished and housing built on the site. The tapes were forgotten about and presumed to have been dumped in a skip, the common fate for awaiting most film and tape material when a studio, facility house or production company closes down. Unbeknown to anyone, by some stroke of luck or providence, these tapes were actually retained by an assistant editor, unconnected to the "....Chug & Throb" project and unaware of the production, who just happened to be an admirer of the band and thought that one day they might just be worth having a peek at. Eventually the original editor acquired the tapes, still playable, got in touch, and they reappeared into the possession of 'ejr' in the summer of 2015.
(This is an abridged version of a longer article that will hopefully be made available at a later time.)
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"THE GHOSTS OF A LOST LONDON.... " (Part Two)
Since their formation in the late 1980's, Gallon Drunk has been synonymous with, and has had an affinity for, London and what the city represents in all of its sprawling tawdriness.
The London of their 1993 album "From The Heart Of Town" (one that existed from the end of the war until well into the 1990's) is from an era that is more oblique, mysterious, earthy - and now vanished, probably forever. It's easy to get wistful and nostalgic over the inevitable passage of time the further the past recedes from the present. But the past is not always observed through rose-tinted spectacles, however emotional this perception may be.
This film ("... Chug & Throb...") is partly a paean for a vanished age and a transmuting city with a far from perfect lineage and perpetually tainted with a multitude of problems that has changed beyond recognition from what it was just over two decades ago when "From the Heart of Town" was made. Although a 'Lost London' of anyone's memories can be wistfully viewed through rose-tinted spectacles
What is London? This is not a rhetorical question as the answers, both in the present and the past tense, are there to see for all who care to look. It's dirty, slummy polluted and shitsville, like Delhi. It's exciting and vibrant, like New York as it was in the 1970's. It's also threatening and joyous, proscribed and rejuvenated, unplanned and co-coordinated, anarchic yet full of opportunities. A city that vacuums up the dirt and dust, spittle and detritus from the crumbling streets and pavements, the litter and dog shit from the parks and the effluent from the river and transforms it all from the proverbial pig's ear into a silk purse.
London is not so much representative of England or the UK as it is the aspirations of the entire European continent, and this despite Britain's geographic location stuck out on Europe's north west edge. The inherent Europhobia displayed by a significant proportion of the population, constantly reiterated by the continuous needling of the right-wing press and myopic bovine politicians over the past twenty years, can be partly explained by the attitude of successive governments who have consistently failed to explain to the British people why the EU exists and why it must succeed. Two world wars in the 20th century ripped the continent apart and for over 70 years no European country has been at war with another. The level of stability and prosperity enjoyed by the majority has never been equalled in the whole history of the continent. Those who think with their head rather than pine from the heart for a glorious golden past that never existed realise this; the flip side is the 'Olde Merrie England' of Hollywood myth, a sentimental figment of the imagination that has become, and maybe it always was, a bulwark against the future. There are two parallel universes cohabiting side by side in the UK. This dichotomy creates a puzzling contradiction whereby a country with a long tradition of liberty, opportunity and multi-culturalism co-exists with an unhealthy ingrained attitude of insularity, suspicion and splenetic nativism.
London as a city-state could correctly be described as being at the very centre of the cultural heart of the European continent. The urge for those born outside London is to gravitate towards it, pulled as if by an invisible rubber band attached to the Charing Cross, just outside the main entrance to the station. Those who call themselves Londoners now come from not just every part of England and the UK, but from every part of the globe. Hence it has probably become the most cosmopolitan city in the world. In many ways the past was ever thus.
This city, like most of Britain, has been a multi-cultural melting pot forever. It's clear from the historical evidence that the British Isles had long standing affiliations with the tribes in other areas of Europe long before rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age severed the last physical connection to the rest of the continent. By the time Britain had become an island, it was inhabited by a multitude of culturally diverse tribes who occupied their own geographic regions. Technological advancements in agriculture, pottery and metals travelled several thousand miles from their origins in the Mediterranean, the Levant and further east to these islands. That various peoples from far to the south and east of the British Isles were visiting or living here is beyond dispute; seafarers from as far afield as the Mediterranean are know to have traded with Cornwall, a great source of mineral wealth. Oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel reveals that the recently discovered Amesbury Archer was born in the Alpine region of central Europe around 2,300 BC, and he is but one example of many who probably undertook a similar journey. And this was all prior to the Roman invasion of AD43 under the Emperor Claudius, a land historically referred to as Britannia.
What did the Romans ever do for us? For one, and this is not acknowledged by many except historians, is that they institutionalised immigration and multi-culturalism as a defining facet of the Empire, including in these islands. They also realised that it was in their interests, and a lot less expensive, to incorporate the subjugated and ethically diverse peoples into a Greater Roman Empire by allowing them to retain their own religions and customs. This was a trick that was lost on most subsequent global empires, most notably the British who decided, with the possible exception of India, that brute force was the only way to show who was boss. Further evidence for Britain's later multi cultural past can be found in the paintings of William Hogarth, where many of the subjects depicted are obviously not Caucasian. Historical records acknowledge that other seafaring cities in addition to London, such as Bristol, Liverpool and Cardiff, were distinctly multi racial and had been for hundreds of years.
So, to the Ukippers and their isolationist ilk, if you have a problem with the way the country has been for millennia, try blaming the Roman Empire for its integrationalist policies and adopt the less mixed race Boudicca, the 'Queen of the Britons' as your figurehead and icon. And if she sounds too interbred, try a single celled bacterial organism or an amoeba for racial purity.
So, the point of this compendious history lesson is that we in this country, like inhabitants of most other countries, are all mongrels, the flesh and blood of a thousand physical interactions down the ages. For those who want to dispute this genetic assertion and really believe that they are descended from the loins of King Arthur and Guinevere (both Romano-British if they ever existed), St George (either Romano-Greek from present day Palestine or Lebanon) or some other legend, go and take a DNA test.
"Hey mongrel, who're you calling mongrel, ya mongrel?"
Yes, the past was ever thus.
"PARASITES OF THE NEW LONDON"
Yet the downside to this remarkable re-emergence of a city that was haemorrhaging its population for several decades after the war, is that to live in London today it's either very expensive or very, very expensive. It has become the lavish safe haven of choice for those endowed with affluence and wealth, and wealth brings choice for those for whom money is no object and the sole object of desire. Everyone else with any honest and intrinsic value is gradually being forced out at the expense of those with an abundance of undisclosed assets secreted in off-shore accounts and conveniently laundered through this country, and in particular, this city.
But back then, at least it was ours - the city belonged to us. Today the city belongs to those with a lot of money to park-up in what the world's rich see as a conveniently co-opted safe haven for protecting their own interests, occasioning a micro-city-state which has been achieved with the connivance of indigenous lackeys to do their bidding; the same people who have sold the city down the river and sluiced it out to sea.
The city is now a ring-fenced urban island where Russian oligarchs, Saudi royalty, the dictators and despots of the world park their money, much of it filched from their respective country's state coffers in the mostly unoccupied high-rise riverside condos and real estate depositories that remain as recondite as a tax haven. These architecturally bland and insipid apartment blocks have sprouted up along the banks of the river, a location which under more benign conditions could have been verdant green lungs, a creation to be enjoyed by everyone. Instead, as a reluctant sop, the public get a miserable riverside footpath meandering through a warren of dystopian, Ballardian riverscapes, punctuated by the inevitable chain outlet. The message to the populace is loud and clear: you can stroll but you can't touch. The message to the privileged is also loud and clear: if you've got wads and wads of loot and you need somewhere anonymous and secure to stash it, then London, particularly it's "buoyant" property market, is the place for you. The city-state of Blighty's capital has become the safe haven for the moneyed scoundrels who want to be insulated from the realities of the modern world with its public poverty by escaping wholesale into private privilege.
This leaves one overriding question; if this present trend continues and London becomes an antiseptic and impoverished cultural wasteland because only the very rich can afford to live in the city, will the people responsible for the creativity and innovation for which London has long been renowned and feted, up sticks and move elsewhere?
"While the poor people sleeping in the shade of the light
While the poor people sleeping, all the stars come out at night."
(Steely Dan - 'Show Biz Kids' - Walter Becker/Donald Fagan - 1972)