We Are Proud Of Our Choices

[Note: this was written in -16 celsius Berlin after some 10 weeks of below-freezing conditions. Feels a bit churlish to post it now, when i'm in Sydney in the sunshine with nothing whatsoever to moan about, but forgive me as we cast our minds back...]

In 2005, in my home town of Birmingham, the Springhill Institute started an art project where members of the public were invited to sing their moans about the things that currently annoying them loudly and in key. The idea has been taken up and similar projects are running in Finland, Hungary, Japan and Australia. I now present the Prenzlauerberg Complaints Choir in concert.

(In C. Con fuoco ma non troppo)

“Why do (almost always male) journalists in particular insist on making exhaustive lists at the end of any given time period / year / decade etc.?

Come to think of it, why do people insist on referring to to the year 2010 as the start of a new decade when it shouldn’t really start until 2011 – there wasn’t a year zero was there?

Why is my mail inbox stuffed with links to hundreds of bland anonymous post-minimal deep-house promos that sound like they were made on a laptop in twenty minutes?

Why can only half the people sending me these promos spell my name correctly? (“Hello Erwan Peason you are being sent this promo because you are a valued member of our music scene.”)

Why do the Pirate Bay refer to Big Content but never Little Content and why do more people not see them for the parasitical freeloading ratbags that they are?

Why is my metabolism so slow that I store fat like an arctic squirrel with a thyroid disorder?

Why do the worst natural disasters happen to the poorest countries with the most vulnerable people?

Why are my townsfolk incapable of clearing snow or gritting the pavement until the path to my studio has become a sheet of treacherous black ice?

Why when my hausmeister decides to clear our ice, does he insist on doing it at seven in the morning, right outside my window?

Why didn’t I buy that Korg PS3200 when I had the chance?

Why isn’t Berlin by the seaside?

Why is so much of my income tax spent on executing morally bankrupt foreign wars, nuclear defence and generally clearing up the greedy messes of late capitalism?

Why am I still incapable of growing a beard? I’m 37 years old, for goodness sake.

Pat Robertson. Jeremy Clarkson. Dick Cheney. Silvio Berlusconi. Nick Griffin. Fox News. Simon Cowell. Just why?

Saturday morning in London. I’m on a sofa bed in the flat of my friend Al Usher. Tonight we’re playing our first DJ set together as Partial Arts and despite our combined age of seventy-two years and hundreds of gigs under our belts we’re nervous as hell. As we play each other music, trying to get a handle on how things might work tonight, Al’s fourteen month old son Yann is babbling happily in his play-pen. Tender in years, he is curious about everything, scared of nothing.

I dreamt last night that I was in the studio producing New Order and they were messing about, blocked, stuck. And I didn’t know what to do. It’s a cousin of a regular anxiety dream where I have to perform a concert and I don’t know the songs. Next Wednesday that dream could come true. I have to play keyboards for a webcast promoting Tracey Thorn’s forthcoming album. As producer I know the songs backwards and yet having to perform in front of people, even a few friendly ones, makes me feel physically sick. Only my love for the record and the knowledge that Tracey will be even more terrified made me say yes in the first place. Solidarity outweighs fear.

As you do things repeatedly you imagine that repetition and familiarity will bring confidence and calm. That age and experience form a bullwark against anxiety. Tracey has performed at Glastonbury. I have DJed at Love Parade. Shouldn’t that give you license to be a little blasé? Not a bit of it. As you get older the stakes seem higher. I tell myself that fear is an index of giving a shit – scaring is caring – but that doesn’t make the frequent trips to the toilet any more enjoyable.

I’ve just finished a mix CD for Kompakt. It is my third and yet it took me twice as long to make as the others combined. The knowledge that I have successfully accomplished it in the past is no comfort. Rather it makes the prospect of doing it again scarier. It’s as if I’ve completely forgotten how I achieved what I did before, as if that was another person. Will I live up to expectation? Can I pull it off again? When will someone tap me on the shoulder and say “Sorry, son. You’ve had your time. Grab your things and come with me”. When will the game be up?

In a restaurant in Beirut, Laila and Carma have ordered me a feast; Halloumi and figs, unpasteurised goats cheese, tabbouleh, saj with yogurt and thyme, more houmous than even my friend Simon (who would sell his soul for a mashed chick-pea) could eat. I’m here to play a great party called Cotton Candy. My generous hosts tell me some DJs are afraid to come here, put-off by the periodic instability of the Middle East. Stuffing another delicious piece of cheese into my mouth in the sunshine, I can’t think why.

I was woken by an explosion at 8.30am. As I shook myself conscious I heard the rain sheeting down, realised “thunderstorm” and fell back to deep sleep. Laila had a different reaction; she remembered summer 2006 when Israeli air-strikes hit the airport (tourism is the major industry here and so destroying the airport a simple way to cause economic difficulty) and other civilian infrastructure in retaliation for Hezbollah missile attacks on northern Israel. Returning to bed was not an option.

In the West we casually talk of “living in the moment” or “seizing the day” but our prosperity and security is such that we have little idea what “now” really means. The worst we have to fear is accident, sudden illness or economic downturn. Compare life in somewhere like Juarez, Mexico. One of the major drug-routes into the US, a brutal turf-war between the cartels and state law-enforcement agencies has resulted in the world’s highest murder-rate. When everyday life includes the threat of extortion or violence, just going out for a drink or a dance becomes a small stubborn act of defiance.

Halfway through my set there last November, a light shone directly in my eyes. A balaclava’ed man with an automatic rifle was waving a torch at me to stop the music. There were a dozen others on the dancefloor, all similarly armed. The promoter quickly told me it was only police checking the age of the kids in attendance. They left after 20 minutes and I started the music again, heart beating half out of my chest (who needs coke when you have adrenalin?) The cheer was massive, the rest of the party amazing. A false alarm, but for a moment disco escapism never felt less of a luxury.

1. That there are always people crying in airports. They are ignored because we think we know the reason for their tears.

2. That there are always nuns too.

3. That the nuns are not crying. (They are neither about to meet nor be separated from Jesus. Barring incident.)

4. That the Spanish love the sandwich for its ready-at-hand convenience but seem determined to eradicate any other potential it has for joy or nutrition.

5. That middle-aged German tourists always clap once their flight has landed safely. Whether this is out of politeness or relief is unclear. Maybe it’s the latter, as they crowd the gangway and attempt to barge their way to the front of the plane paying no regard as to whether anyone ahead of them wants to leave their seat.

6. The ability to sit for 12 hours straight without moving (apart from to shift my weight from one buttock to the other).

7. That tiny Spanish swallows, like DJs, make their homes in the rough concrete buttresses of Ibiza airport. They arc and swoop, bickering in mid-air, tracing petulant little dog-fights amongst themselves, unwilling it seems to rest or to pause for even a moment. Again, like DJs.

8. That if you travel frequently enough, home becomes a moot point. You can learn to feel as content in a transit lounge with a coffee and a book as on your own sofa, sometimes more so.

9. That Fernweh (wanderlust) can be as powerful as Heimweh (homesickness); it’s possible to feel homesick for the road, for the liminal, for momentum, for borders, for trajectory for its own sake.

10. That everything you need to know about American foreign policy, xenophobia and empire can be gleaned by spending an hour in the non-residents queue in US Customs and Border Control, JFK.

11. That the opportunity cheaply and frequently to see the blue sky above rippling banks of cloud, always different, always beautiful; to float over patchworks of fields, deserts, ice-floes, steppes, rivers, glowing matrices of streetllights makes us the luckiest of generations on the planet.

12. That this can’t go on.