Sex is great, but nothing compared to the real thing.

Let us begin with Incels. They represent the most extreme group affected by the decline in how much sex young men are having, as they are the ones who aren’t getting laid at all. They are a product of their epoch: spending way too much time on the internet and cranking their hog to all manner of porn. There’s no way to put this mildly: There’s nothing like trouncing your own self esteem by watching women you desire being fucked by other men on a screen. It breeds resentment towards the men and towards the women involved in pornography, and it forms a para-social relationship between the subject and the viewer. You feel as if you have shared some kind of intimate moment, but it is a one sided affair; the reality instead experienced by another ‘more worthy’ man. Effectively having the ‘Plato’s Cave’ of wanks on a nightly basis. No wonder these guys consider themselves black-pilled. An Incel might have felt that in the first place, but you are now reinforcing notions of your own unworthiness, ugliness, ineptitude and status as a gooner with zero SMV. If I remember Contrapoints’ seminal Incel video essay of yesteryear,3 the ultimate takeaway was that these guys probably ain’t all that bad or that ugly; they just think they are. Nevertheless, engaging in these kind of behaviours night after night are bound to make them angry and disenfranchised. They’ve subsequently become a political force, as their own inability and powerlessness to form intimate bonds with women- to their mind- must be part of some larger political conspiracy rather than a failure of personal autonomy. Talk of state mandated wives has always kicked about in the subculture, for example. Being held in an Ouroboros of online forums that reinforce their self hatred and vitriol, with their pornography consumption being its fuel, we see more and more grifters capitalising on their potential and using it as a means of kicking back at a system which they view as having failed them and society with all of its permissibility and none of its justice. Which is of course the fault of the great enemy: feminism. There is a great article in Harper’s Bazaar4 about Gooning culture and self identified ‘porno sexuals’ as examples of how the Incel movement is evolving and even re-examining how it defines itself. Point being, these gooners (in the non North London sense) are goons (in the mafia sense) and the greatest power they have is how they distribute their attention, and their resources.

You look lonely, I can fix that.

Some of you may remember the podcast I made with my friend Luke called Down and out in Essex and London. In one specific episode ‘a deep dive into e-girls’ we discussed this strange blurring of lines between TikTok dancers/ E-Girls and Only Fans models. Fairly often you would see girls on TikTok and Instagram reels doing little dances or whatever, these girls were growing their social media presence through ‘vanilla’ content, in order to siphon a proportion of this following towards their Only Fans accounts. The unintended spandrel of this on the subconscious level, is that you suddenly start perceiving any girl you see on social media as potentially having an Only Fans. It gets you primed to think about every woman you see on social media as a sex worker, or potential sex worker. It conditions you to think that women are objects for your gratification, their agency exists only to gratify you. They are effectively a commodity. Moreover, Only Fans has set itself apart from previous pornographic platforms; it enables perfect conditions for those aforementioned parasocial relationships. You can have direct contact with that Only Fans model, should you be able to pay for it, (and should they allow it). You can be witnessed by them, for the cash, via the platform. This doesn’t mean that you get to have sex with them by the way, just that you can have a maximally parasocial relationship of your own choosing.

As for sex workers themselves, Only Fans represents the ideal of winning the lottery: a way you can potentially escape the constant grind of a nine-to-five. But realistically, your run of the mill Jane Doe OF creator will make nowhere near that. The average creator makes $131 per month.5 Nothing to sneeze at, but hardly quit your day job type territory. Bare in mind Mr Only Fans was paid $700 million in dividends before his death.6 Can Only Fans therefore be considered a vessel of female empowerment, especially if financially it only empowers a small subset of its creators? I’m sure some people feel empowered by using the platform to produce content, regardless of whether they are making a huge amount of money off the content they are producing. It would however, be unrealistic to assume that most Only Fans creators do it for the love of the game. Another appeal for sex workers may be that there are fewer men involved in the production of the content the same way that there might have been in the past- it likely bypasses the scummy aspect of male dominated film sets.7 Though this cuts out male intervention in the production of sexualised content to some extent, it is worth considering that ultimately 78% of the consumers who pay for content on Only Fans are male, whilst 84% of the people who produce content are women. 8The content is still very much designed for male gratification.

I’m constantly wary of arguments which postulate that such mediums can seriously be considered as mechanisms of sexual emancipation, seeing as the medium itself exists within the context of a patriarchy. The male consumers on the other side of the bracket, increasingly frustrated, resentful, lonely and empowered to become entitled as a result of what Only Fans and the wider social media nexus represents psychologically: that you can have a piece of someone no matter who you are. The inverse works as well: no matter who you are, you can sell your sex on Only Fans. We therefore, can view the rise of Only Fans as a phenomena related to supply and demand, the demand for your ‘girl next door’ type porn, except the girl next door is on the next reel. The whole interaction exists between ‘unwilling’ but dependent consumers, and creators looking to sex work to make a better life for themselves or for whatever other reason. Largely, these are people trapped in a cycle, and at the core of the issue is the question of value. One party wants financial liberation, the other wants to get as close to a sexual experience as possible, given their inability to form real-life romantic relationships with women.

No one dies a virgin: capitalism fucks all! (2008)

It’s very easy with capitalist critiques to say: ‘capitalism is the root of all evil’- of course it is, because it’s the root of everything, it’s like light spreading out in the universe: we cannot see beyond it. But it’s hard not to look at the state and accessibility of internet pornography as capitalism doing a bad. Sure, Only Fans and pornography is making some people very rich, but is it worth the societal fragmentation it is quietly contributing to? As with all questions of this sort in late stage capitalism, the answer is: yes; so long as money can be made, the society can perish, since it never existed in the first place. Thanks Margaret Thatcher, who by the way would have loved Playing a New Game With Hot Step Sister (2017). As with all issues we are confronted with in the modern age, government protections seem woefully inept and behind the times. The porn ban that Keith Stalin introduced is so easily bypassed by anyone with a shred of internet savvy it’s pitiful, and the notion of banning VPN’s even more so. In a similar sense to my reticence to accept notions relating to pornography and sexual emancipation, I am equally wary of arguments of consumer choice being a meaningful mode of systemic change. Perpetuated by the flawed concept of the ‘rational’ consumer. Our consumer choices are often shaped by the forces of capital.

I think the only hope is that consumers of pornography can look within themselves at certain behaviours in their life and ask themselves: what’s on the other side of this? Is there something that this behaviour is preventing me from attaining? Possibly true intimacy? Is there a cycle I am perpetuating? When you lie there, trying to unwind by watching porn, trying to convince yourself that this is normal, or it’s something that’s good for blowing off steam, or something you need to do to feel fulfilled, or to support an Only Fans creator you like, just remember, that all this activity is a synthetic version of something that -given the right conditions- is the most transcendental experience two or more people can have together: Not just sex itself, but in the companionship of this shared experience. That while you lie there, clumsily looking at other people having sex, or some Only Fans model strutting their stuff, recognise you are likely watching people producing content under some form of duress. That you are all united in a darker experience, morbidly playing out your role in the Super Bowl of BDSM: Daddy Capital vs the World, who is effectively a live in sub at this point. Everyone thinks they are getting their rocks off, and getting their slice of the pie, but the house always wins. All of us engaging in this salacious industry think we can get closer to that place we’ve all been dreaming that porn will take us: be it sexual gratification, a release from stress or worry, wealth, completion, companionship, acknowledgement, fame or self esteem. But in reality, by chasing that experience using these means, we’re all being dragged further and further away from it…

I think it’s a pretty persuasive world view, and it got me thinking: in face of AI’s irrepressible rise, what is the point of doing anything? People are using AI to write articles, to make music, all kinds of other creative acts. Yes, there are the instances where AI is doing things like spell checking articles or stem splitting tracks, but that’s not the use of AI I’m worried about: It’s the actual use as a substitute for human creative output, or more broadly the kind of use that supplants the human experience. Let’s face it, if you use AI, you can increase your output massively. In a world where everyone starts using AI, say to write books or to write articles, or to make music, they can output way more and based on propensity have a greater capacity to monetise their work. The lowly writer plonking away at his keyboard night after night writing The History of Dime Square: my love for Dasha and Anna- a passion piece that a publisher wouldn’t even sniff at -let alone give them any real money to bring their indisputably important creation to fruition- doesn’t really have a hope in fuck at competing with the chad who is just shamelessly prompting his way to glory, firing out Clavicular & Androgenic fan-fic and likely getting a Rainbet or Stake sponsorship at some point in the not too distant future.

I think in view of this, you have to feel the desire to create as an impulse, if you do, you will always produce no matter what. Defy, defy, defy. To quote Mewtwo: “I see now that the circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.” In other words; you have no control of the world into which you are born, it just so happens that we are living through the age of forever capitalism, are you going to let that stop you being creative? Are you going to ‘take the quiet life a handshake of carbon monoxide’ (Radiohead 1997) or are you going to decide to say fuck it- and become the mountain (Stoned Jesus 2011).

To add another quote to quote corner: “We grin through the canon smoke”. This is something that a mentor of mine says in relation to the attitude that artists (and the righteous) have to adopt to live fulfilling lives and ignore all the bullshit. But smiling in sulphur residue aside, it has to be conceded that where we are at as a society is sad. You have Elon Musk, literally the richest man in the world, both claiming there is nothing we can do to stop the rise of AI and also in some nebulous and unspecified way that it is going to bring about a global Moreian Utopia (Now That’s What I Call Communism Vol#226). If the richest man in the world feels pants-down powerless to do anything about the rise of AI, how the fuck is anyone meant to feel empowered? Even if will is to some extent and illusory phenomena. Everyone feeling like they are powerless over their lives, creations and career is not good for morale, because god forbid we have job security and feel a sense of autonomy.

AI in and of itself is not the issue: all technology is a double edged sword. But people’s feeling of hopelessness and discontent in an ostensibly ‘godless’ world is not a winning formula. People need to feel empowered and not alienated by its rise. As for stoicism and becoming the mountain or grinning through canon smoke, it must have some limitations. If they came and took away your family for some Kafka-esque crime would you simply accept it? Should we be doing more to change society or should we accept our relative powerlessness regarding the powers that be and try to enjoy the ride?

What my mother advised me during a period of intense mental anguish this year is that you have to pick your battles: 95% of the time, you have to just accept the conditions of your life and the world and really save up for those 5% (or less) of moments where you fight battles. If you go around attempting to fight 100% of the time against the injustice of the world, you will end up a driven into the ground and the world will look idly on, you having not even landed a hit. For me that 5% are acts of creativity, in view of all of the bullshit and the increasingly diminishing likelihood of an arena screaming my name (should they even be able to pronounce it), I still follow my creative impulse, I don’t worry whether I can be supplanted or not. As for Steph and the feeling of being overworked and increasingly redundant at the hands of people who are better able to use AI, I don’t know what exactly the non creative solution to the curb stomping is, what for her the point in doing anything is. The solution is somewhere out there in the aforementioned contrarian soup of defiance and acceptance, a kind of soul alchemy where you do your best to manifest things in accordance with your values and allow that to be enough, bravely following your feet regardless of outcome. The alternative is lying down and quietly dying on the curb. 

But here I am on a busy old day with a night shift coming up and a blank and ominous page before me! I’ve flicked through my list of ideas for articles and they are all big subjects that require big brain power and research to write about. I am therefore confronted with the conundrum: Do I skip today’s article knowing that I will have broken my own rules about how much I want to post per week, or do I want to squeeze something out? Seeing as you are presumably reading this sometime after 15:00 on a Wednesday, you will know which choice I opted for.

There is a division amongst humankind: those who say let’s stick to the deadline and those who say: no, let’s take our time and get it right. I don’t think either approach can work at all times. Despite the fact that I will almost always opt to stick with a deadline rather than extend it, I can imagine a scenario in which some things have just gone terribly wrong, or even mildly wrong, and need a bit more time to get sorted out.

I think in this deadline-extension case, the hallmark of whether or not it represents a strategy of avoidance is whether or not you consistently push deadlines back, in which case you are either fearful of a certain outcome or poorly organised. I don’t think a dangerous, pathological compulsion of the same sort could be attributed to meeting deadlines. Yes, it could be potentially dangerous if you constantly strain your body and mind in order to meet them, but other this, you are keeping your word.

Excluding a situation in which you deliver something that is complete cack—where you really should have communicated that you were not going to meet the deadline—on the whole, even if the thing you delivered wasn’t perfect, it was delivered on time. It’s a promise to yourself that you continue to meet and ensures things get done. In other words: it’s good for your self-esteem, especially if you have a biting mind that can invent negative stories about yourself. If you say: ‘Yes, I feel a certain way, but the evidence of my actions points to a narrative that supersedes the machinations of the mind peddling its usual bullshit about my self-worth’. In the long run, you can begin to build a higher estimation of yourself based on evidence and not just emotion. Proof is in the pudding after all.

If, conversely, you never follow through on what you say you will do, and constantly miss deadlines, or don’t keep your word, then to some extent the thoughts that say: “I’m a piece of shit”, will be hyperbolic and lacking self-compassion perhaps, but they will to some extent be true because you are not fulfilling criteria you probably ought to be. I’ve always liked the prescription: “Those who lack self-esteem should engage in estimable acts.” Keep proving to yourself that you can and you will, and you’ll end up somewhere there or thereabouts. Alternatively if you can’t and you won’t, you’ll have to settle for the feeling of remorse.

The 17th of July marks the release of Dreamwire’s first EP: Veiled In Clouds. The EP is entirely self-produced, and as far as I am concerned; represents a milestone in terms of the bands overall sonic and visual identity. The songs on the EP (Break the Sky, Dreameater, Fools Game, Modern Culture, Ghost Boy and Left Him at the Station) were all songs written towards the end of 2025 and in early 2026- with the exception of Left Him at the Station, which was one of the first songs we wrote when the band formed almost 2 years ago. One of the key characteristics of the songs are the lyrical themes. Fionna had just entered a new relationship and imported the energy, passion and sense of completion she felt into the songs. With the experiences being felt in real time, the songs describe all components of love; from the initial flame of wholeness in love, in Break the Sky1, to its lustful and aggressive aspects detailed in Ghost Boy23, to the deep unknowns of love being described in Dreameater4, and the ‘game of love’ in Fools Game5. The main lyrical outliers are Modern Culture which talks about the dissatisfaction of the social media age, the pressure people feel to be contactable at all times plus the alienation you feel when you know someone is ignoring you on WhatsApp6 and Left Him at the Station, which is a good old fashioned blues song about leaving someone at the station after a three day bender.7 In any case, these lyrical themes encapsulate a moment in Fionna’s life, and subsequently the band’s developing history.

I knew that unlike the previous Dreamwire single releases, I wanted the recordings to capture us all playing together in a room, but obviously we had to do this on a shoestring budget. Our previous singles were all studio recordings, where we recorded each instrument individually. The problem with all recording in a room together is you get bleed- the sound of guitar in the snare mic, or drum mics in general etc. This means you can’t compress + push the drum sound in the way you might like without also cranking the guitar sound in that mic in a potentially undesirable way. Luckily there is a modern work around; a beautiful tool is available for anyone using an up-to-date version of Logic: The stem splitter8. This is normally used to split up the components of an audio file into its constituent parts (drums, bass, guitar, vocals etc), however in this instance, I used it on each individual audio track to isolate each component. So on the aforementioned snare track with guitar bleed, you can stem split that, and voila, you’ve got an isolated snare track. So Dom, Luke and I all recorded together in a room at Rooz studios with none of the isolation you might get in a more expensive studio, but the power of the AI stem splitter at our disposal. Fi then came round to my house a few weeks later to record some vocals. This allowed us to get a really strong live feel on the EP, whilst also enabling clean vocal takes. The stem splitter is powerful enough that Fi could have probably recorded in the room with us and we could have isolated her performance, but we didn’t go for that on this occasion.9

I wanted to be selective about what kind of technology I used in the recording of the EP. This entailed no comping and no tuning of vocals or anything like that, (although we used heavy auto tune on some of Dom’s backing vocals as an effect). This gives the EP a raw and real property, with warts and all. I also did very limited comping; I basically kept almost everything as whole takes including vocals. In relation to the guitar, I actually mostly used guitar dubs, because when we initally recorded all together, the guitars were not loud enough. This gives them a kind of distant sound in a recording, so the next day I dubbed every song with the amps absolutely cranked. For the uninitiated I use a stereo guitar set up which utilises stereo effects; a chorus to do some general stereo spreading and some specialised stereo effects, specifically: stereo delays and panners. Because I am the only guitarist in Dreamwire, there is a lot of space to play with the production elements of the guitar, beyond having the one guitar grab both the hard pan L/R of the stereo field, rather than having to share it with another guitar or keyboard. I had three mics on each amp: a close mic, an Albini mic (one that’s 3ft away) and a room mic. I can play with the blend of these mics as a production tool. I recorded two sets of dubs for each track meaning I can alternate between a doubled guitar (two mono guitars) and the stereo signal. I also decided on using a reverb send panned hard left at times and made use of a bitcrusher running on one side of the stereo field, as a constant stereo guitar signal can get one dimensional if that’s the only tool in your locker. All in all, the various options I have available ensure that the single guitar that plays throughout the whole EP doesn’t get boring. It is again related to that initial desire to give the EP an exciting live feel: if we had loads of keys on it, it wouldn’t be an actual sonic representation of how Dreamwire play in a room. The only exception to this is in the solos where I push the boat out ever so slightly more, (specifically Ghost Boy), I automate aspects of the bitcrusher to keep it interesting which I wouldn’t be able to easily achieve live. Another advantage of having the single guitar parts throughout the EP is that it enables Dom’s singing bass style to be more front and centre: he is not limited by having to accompany any fiddly melodic guitar parts (because I rarely play them) and therefore his virtuosic bass parts are brought to the fore. Luke’s drumming also really holds the whole EP together, as he has a unique feel based to a large extent in prog rock influences, which serves as a grounding component within the competing sonic influences that manifest in each of the other members playing styles.

I also knew from more or less the inception of the project that I wanted to get a cassette tape feel on the EP; for it to feel degraded and ageless, something that you couldn’t really place as modern or archaic -something from a dreamscape. This as well as the live feel I was attempting to capture meant accepting minor flaws of the songs/performance and of the mix I otherwise would have tweaked in digital format. You can’t do once you have committed your mix to tape. You end up having to accept certain quirks of the way the tape bounces (mainly the noise). it also has, to some extent, created that ageless, placeless sound. In an age where everything sounds the same, this EP sounds unique. This is what you ultimately want when creating music: it’s not whether the songs are perfect, it’s not whether everything is super clean and evenly mixed, it’s whether or not you are creating a particular world in the music. At Dreamwire’s core, there really is something special and meaningful: it’s not posturing, it’s real. All these production components are just the means to an end of how we discover what that thing really is. It is very much digging in the subconscious in an endless search for discovery.

In the latter stages of mixing and producing the music, we did a photo shoot with the absurdly talented Demi Hopkins, whose photographs feature in this article. In preparation for the photo shoot Fi and I were toying around with various ideas in relation to what we wanted to depict: that each of the band should be unique characters from unreal places, that we should collide the mystical with the brutalist, (Tarot, muskets, knights and Thamesmead). We then took the photos on a bright and sunny day in March. As the finishing touches were applied to the EP (specifically the bouncing to tape), we got the photos back from Demi, and everything about this thing we were trying to uncover: the other-worldliness, the collision between the modern and the archaic, the dreamscape itself- all suddenly became very real and tangible. The tape sound and the black and white and eerie images she gave us were married somewhere out there in the world of forms and then brought back to earth. The world was realised, the project complete. It’s a lesson in always being willing to work with other talented artists: they can sometimes see something you yourself are blind to and help you embody that thing you long to show.

Finally, the relationship that propelled Fionna’s writing on the EP ended abruptly again during the waning of the project. To quote her directly: “It’s interesting because I think the songs were all written and half recorded for the EP. When the relationship ended It was like a creative crescendo ending in a real life tragedy”. The EP itself is bookended by this relationship: its kindling ushered in it’s inception and its termination it’s release. I hope one day to be able to look back at this intentionally timeless entity and remember the bittersweetness of taking the dive: whether you risk it all in love, or by putting yourself out there time and time again by playing in a band, practicing, playing live, and self-producing your own recordings- making art that demands hours of dedication and graft, not to mention money and care. It is emotionally exposing, but at moments like this -as I sit here writing the article and appreciating all the toil that has gone into it’s creation- totally worth it and fucking epic. Veiled in Clouds is the product of months of emotional toil; the ultimate labour of love, and despite the ups and downs, it was seriously fun to make and brought the band closer together as people and professionals.

Veiled in Clouds is out on 17th July 2026 on all good streaming platforms. Please however, considering buying it on Bandcamp as it remains the best way of supporting independent artists.

I know a few people who lean into the style of the past. Most of the people who do this either do it to give a twist to a modern look, or to pay some homage to some bygone era1. Harmless and fun. There is however a subset of the latter group who’s adoption of past styles seems to be pathological in nature. It’s as if their interest in these past styles is a denial of the reality of living in the modern world. This could be born from pure ultra fixation. But for some reason I associate it with repression and dissatisfaction with the time and place you were born into. I guess we can call this Ultra Nostalgia.

Since at least the 2010’s nostalgia has been all the rage on the internet. People may remember the ‘only x’s kids will remember this’ meme. More recently there’s been a lot of use of 80s sounds in pop and counter cultural music, (Charlie Puth, Mkgee). The Ultra Nostalgia I am describing is a bi-product of this to some extent. But would we characterise this as Ultra Nostalgia? I would assert not. This is just a normal level of nostalgia that people have, as all nostalgia represents an escape from the troubles of now, and who doesn’t want an escape from time to time. The aforementioned Ultra Nostalgia is this form of escape but in perpetuity and in an all consuming sense. Think people who recreate historic battles, but instead of taking off their uniform after the battle, they keep theirs on when they get home.

This would be something like dressing like you are from the 50’s, listening to 50’s music, collecting paraphernalia from the 50s etc. Ideally having a 50’s car. Ironically and somewhat tangentially: I can imagine some people profiteering off this dedication to 50’s style on Instagram.

And yes, the use of Instagram to promote this lifestyle poses a bit of an existential problem to the concept because obviously these people are not Anarcho-Primitivists; They do not reject modernity altogether- just wherever is convenient. It is a style based pathology. It is vibes-ball, it is LARPing. I think a part of the appeal is that people actually see you do it. You need to be validated in being committed to the lifestyle to some extent.2

In London there isn’t one music scene but instead; there are various scenes that all co-exist. The most famous of which (at least in terms of Rock), was the Windmill/ South London music scene, who’s wave has come and rolled back out to sea to some extent. Bands like Black Midi, Black Country New Road, Shame, Wunderhorse, HMLTD, Fat Dog, Fat White Family and Sorry could all be said to be a part of this scene loosely. Seeing as a lot of these bands have moved up the ladder, the Windmill/South London scene is now in a sort of after-burn era. There is however another Rock Scene that seems to be doing quite well for itself/ on it’s come up. I don’t want to name anyone specifically in order to not be perceived as being a bully, but this scene is very much into emulating the styles of the 1960’s and onwards. It ‘builds on’ (strong way of putting it) the musical styles of the 60’s and early 70’s, specifically The Beatles, The Clash, The Jam and the Sex Pistols. As well as emulating Brit bands from the early 2000’s who themselves were emulators of that 60’s style (Libertines etc). Some components of this scene I find redeeming. Specifically the fact that they aren’t afraid to dress up big and try and write some choruses, things which some of the ‘scratchy’ Windmillites are broadly speaking not particularly interested in. I must say however, that I otherwise find this whole scene totally depressing. It’s sad to constantly try and emulate without innovation. To relieve the past glory of a time you weren’t even born. Say what you will about the Windmillites, there are always attempts at innovation, maybe not from all, but from some. In the case of this other scene, it’s like: ‘it worked before, lets do it again’, and you know what? These bands are doing well. There is an audience for it. People want to relive the perceived heyday of British pop-culture.

Thus far I have described Ultra Nostalgiaism in relation to fashion and music. There is however a darker side to it in politics. Years ago the notion of re-migration (an utterly terrifying prospect, by the way), was a term people wouldn’t have even known the meaning of, now it is increasingly becoming a normalised concept within right-wing discourse. This is very much in keeping with the two R’s3 of British politics; particularly in relation to Restore- the idea that Britain has lost its way, and somewhere out there in the past, before we invited all these bloody foreigners in to build our country, there was a beautiful, blonde and Anglo Saxon paradise. Naturally, they therefore glorify the British Empire4; they are happy so long as we are subjugating the foreigners. I ask at this juncture that we spare a thought for all the brave soldiers who never even got the chance to vote Reform5 and instead died from cholera in ditches, splayed across all corners of the world whilst subjugating the natives. All this demonstrates is how dangerous nostalgia can be, seeing as it is actively facilitating the rise of pernicious right wing grifters who actually don’t give a shit about the core ideology they espouse to love so much and instead capitalise on peoples frustration with the state of modern Britain in order to achieve their crypto-fascist and financially driven agenda. The same repressive pathology seen in the LARPers is manifested in these people also, it’s just that in this case it isn’t related to fashion or music- loosely speaking the Hippie and Lefty side of the LARP- it is instead a desire to embody the lifestyle of a patriot saving Britain. Perhaps such people dream of trading places with the soldiers of old: dying for ‘Is Maj in a foreign land from typhoid whilst upholding an empire on which the sun never sets, rather than sitting on Twitter all day and feeling impotent.

The modern world can be difficult to come to terms with. There are fewer corners of the world that remained unexplored. You can’t get lost any more: “because you can find yourself on google maps” (WLS2). The future seems bleak and everyone seems to feel we are ultimately living through a decline. Things seem increasingly out of our control as democracy dies in a slow motion car crash and Orwellian corporations like Starlink, Waymo and Palantir become increasingly dominant forces in the Occident. When confronted with these facts, it’s hard to remain optimistic, if anything a lot of young people feel hopeless. It’s hard to remain sane. We aren’t really designed to process the amount of information we are constantly bombarded with6. Can you blame people for glorifying the past; a past that they often were not there to witness? No. But that’s exactly the point: there wasn’t some mythical golden era off there in the past; there was always struggle and strife, there was always imperfection. It is just convenient to look back with rose tinted glasses and believe that that time was simpler and believe that if you somehow manage to embody the spirit of that time, you will somehow import the simplicity of that time into your modern life in some kind of strange and primitive ritual. I would reject the concept as one of a denial of the now. The only way we are going to make inroads is by accepting reality as it is7, accepting the path we have walked down that has lead us here; both as a society and as individuals. To bravely confront the world as it exists on its own terms. There is nothing to gain from fear except division.

The other day I was in the gym minding my own business on the shoulder press. Some guy came over and asked if we could share the machine. He was very friendly and open so we got talking about the basics of fitness: eating enough protein, lower reps with slower eccentrics (he suggested I lower the weight and focus on form- bastard), and getting enough sleep. We talked about the dangers of whacking off all day at home and agreed that everyone needed to get out of the house more. He was a nice enough guy. It’s beside the point. Anyway this guy, who we shall call S was talking about how he thought a girl in the gym was beautiful and that he might talk to her later. He stated ‘she’s tall’ with an air of reticence; the real time psychological trappings of his fear manifesting. I reassured him that this wasn’t nearly as bigger deal as he thought, as I know various women who don’t care about their partners height. He was shorter than me and I exist in the tall/short purgatory of 5’111, and she was taller than me; existing in the floral and flowing planes of those over 6ft: who’s growth plates refused to shut up shop until an arbitrary and inherent status symbol based on numbers suddenly being in the 6’s and not the 5’s had been achieved2. I digress. I went home. Two days later, I returned to the gym, and low and behold; there is our protagonist, our hero, our short(ish) king with the girl: her sitting on his lap, believe it or not.

I like many other mortal men suffer from the condition of being intimidated by female beauty. If we think back to our previous article Fuck ‘making it’, just do it, it starts with this whole spiel about overthinking leading to paralysis- the solution being activity and getting it out there and moving on to the next thing. There is however, a mental block for many in relation to asking a girl out. There’s something uniquely frightening about risking rejection in this way, as if all your fears and insecurities suddenly come to the fore and that rejection by a girl will mean they are true. We make excuses about it. Rejection is a good thing to get in the habit of in relation to humility, because firstly, it demonstrates that if you get rejected, it’s got nothing to do with your personal insecurities and feelings of unworthiness and secondly if you are brave enough to take a risk and put yourself out there, you may end up developing something really special with that person because you did take a risk.

In my life recently, I’ve been noticing how much of my behaviour is driven by fear. I’m quite an angry person and have a very bad temper at times; the question I ask myself in an attempt to mitigate these explosive bouts of anger is to some extent: What lies behind anger? Often it’s anxiety and fear. My therapist assures me that these are the emotions that we are most geared towards feeling. These are largely anachronistic hang-ups and in modern society where many of us don’t exist within Hobbes’ state of nature, they have largely become existential. We fear rejection, we fear not succeeding, or not being fulfilled -or being humiliated.

In a world where everyone (particularly a lot of men) are holed up in their goon-caves, and where the internet has become the dominant third space, an increasing disconnect and pronounced sense of despair seems to be being felt. This space is distinct from reality but somehow alters our perception of it. An extreme example of this would be an Incel echo chamber or something to that effect; where you start to believe things about yourself on the premises of untruth and hysteria. They think only chads have the boldness and bravery to go and get a girl, whilst they are condemned to a life of digital voyeurism, but this is not so. Often the difference between people who get the girl, (or anything else for that matter), are the people who just take the initial risk to put themselves out there and push through their fear. Nothing more, nothing less.

Our protagonist, could have made any number of excuses. He could have thought ‘ah fuck it, she’s taller than me she’s probably not interested, because he heard somewhere that women like men who are taller than them, or some other bullshit. But instead, he powered through the fear and voila, he’s been courageous and now he’s with the girl he thought was beautiful. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to work out between S and his girl -though I hope it does, it doesn’t make S a good person, it doesn’t have any moral value except that it demonstrates that being brave sometimes pays off big. On another day, under different conditions he might have fallen flat on his face, but on that night the stars aligned, because he took that initial risk. This whole excursion has been a helpful reminder to me, that next time I feel that pang of fear, to try to analyse it in relation to the possibility that something incredible may be lurking on the other side. If you let fear govern you, and you play it safe, you risk nothing, but equally, you may never fulfil your dreams.

I get the sense that something is going very wrong in the world and everyone seems somewhat despondent about it; no one can quite put their finger on what exactly it is. It’s hard to identify because of a blurred line between the inner and outer world. The climate issue feels like it isn’t really being addressed appropriately. London has just been exposed to cold, wet February-ish weather in early June, having had some of the hottest May days on record. And now it’s 35 degrees and will be in the 30’s for the next few days. Everyone’s on Hinge, yet many of the people I speak to feel exhausted by dating apps and its transactional nature. People talk to you for a while and you feel your heart flutter and then they condemn you to eternal silence as the universe of your patter spreads outwards and reaches absolute zero, (a zero being what you might feel like). Many people are left quasi/fully virginal and increasingly resentful at this fact. Maybe I’m projecting. Waymo cars are an increasingly regular feature on the roads. Does the average person want driverless cars? Probably not. Do we have a choice? No. Moreover, it feels harder and harder to make an honest buck and that which you do make will be sucked up by the cost of living. There’s a long established precedent of everyone being monitored all the time: we are really living in the reality of Foucault’s panopticon. To my mind this results in a underlying paranoia as a result of having data collected about us all the time. The racist diatribes about foreigners which were condemned (I imagine) to various dingy pubs are now publicly (and proudly) explicated as normal discourse. The richest man in the world regularly shares antisemitic content on the platform formerly known as Twitter on a daily basis. I think broadly we describe these symptoms as the illness of late stage capitalism: a system designed for human flourishing which we are now enslaved to. We’re at a point at which everything is getting really strange and disconnected from reality but somehow also is all bound up in this overarching conspiracy: an age of techno-feudalism. We know the systems we are using are compounding our spirit’s curb stomping and our planet’s damnation, yet we are compelled to use these tools in order to operate functionally within society.

Is it any wonder our society is rife with addiction and dependency? We have the old fashioned ones and the newer ones, specifically social media, which Keith is talking about banning for under 16’s3. RIP Keith. In any case, the erosion of our synapses means that when confronted with all this stimulus, we feel vaguely numb. Things have always been out of our control, but it feels to me that these days whatsthepointineventrying syndrome is having a damning effect on young people and their mental health.

I was on holiday not too long ago with my uncle in Ireland. Halfway up a mountain and beside a loch, he began talking to me about the amount of information we have access to in modern society. His point was effectively, that we have pre industrial brains that haven’t really adapted to the infinite -for all intents and purposes- quantity of information we now have access to. This has now caused an information overload. This really got me thinking about information and the sources from which we process it. Standing there by that Loch, the information we were processing was mostly coming from nature: the sound of the wind rippling through the water and the grass, our footsteps, our conversation. Now consider the main source of personal stimulation that we all hold at our fingertips: the phone. A few decades ago it was used primitively for contacting people who were too far away to shout to, now it is a tool for us to enter a different realm altogether.

Exposure to all this information, we really cannot really make sense of much, because we are overloaded. Some people claim they will really be able to use all this information and effectively harness the systems of control. They’re full of shit. The rest of us who are incrementally more honest with ourselves are fighting an unrelenting deluge of information and misinformation, spread by people who spend too much time on the platform formerly known as Twitter, instead of getting therapy, and who notice the obvious decline of many their metropoles, and fail to see their personal failings and instead wrongly blame foreigners or Jewish people, or usually some conspiratorial permutation of both.

I posit that when people are over stimulated and overwhelmed, they reach for over simplified heuristics which help to explain a world that is increasingly complicated. This is not to say the world was never complicated, only the component of overstimulation itself is the thing that is exacerbating everything. A cycle of addiction; endless scrolling, a requirement to always stay in the loop. Pornography your ancestors couldn’t even fathom available in a matter of clicks. Not to mention the fact that any woman you see making innocent little TikTok dances could well be an Only Fans content creator- this blurred line alone is enough to point to how corrosive these kind of association can be, especially for the developing mind (a kind of a modern and warped Kuleshov effect). Effectively, it’s all too much, but it’s also never enough. It’s all so stimulating- it’s all become extremely boring.

As for Elon Musk. He’s the richest man in the world and he’s constitutionally miserable. The only difference is he’s much richer than you and probably could do something about stopping the spread of hate if he wanted to. Otherwise, he’s still a flesh sack and as I mentioned earlier: all too human. A victim of the system he himself perpetuates. The only real solution to the malaise of the world. is to say fuck it, you just have to really defy all this bollocks. It’s self awareness. There’s the condition of the world, which is frightening and uncontrollable, but there is your inner world; which is your fortress- let yourself be lead by the courage you find there. As my father and I were discussing the other night in relation to grand systemic change: the only hope we have is that people act with courage to defy the negativity of society and champion the values of kindness and tolerance within themselves. If enough people do this, we may begin to see a change in the world and our societies. Or the power of the systems may be too powerful to overcome, in which case we are all cooked.

When I was running the other evening, I was thinking about this phenomenon in relation to mixing and producing music—specifically my recent mixing of Dreamwire’s upcoming EP Veiled in Clouds and my friend Liam’s EP. Both projects (which I produced and mixed) sound pretty idiosyncratic. I am of the opinion that modern music (specifically rock) is so ‘cleanly mixed’ that it sounds bland. Vocals are compressed within an inch of their life, and drums are cut so super-precise that they don’t feel like they exist within a physical space; instead, they are just blocky and robotised (sometimes literally snapped to the grid). The worst crime of all is cowardly guitar tones that are turned down and sit tamely in the mix without biting. AI music represents the final result of all this activity: music that sounds so perfect it fails to excite. My prediction is that people will get bored of this sterilisation and start craving signs of the human in music.

Both Dreamwire’s and Liam’s tracks are bounced to cassette tape. Originally, this was to get the tape sound (a sort of futuristic/vintage liminal sonic space), but it has actually yielded a more interesting result: I only have so much patience to bounce the mix to cassette with so many reversions before I want to put my head in the microwave (RIP James O. Incandenza). In other words, tweaking a mix after bouncing it to tape is a pain in the ass. Specifically with guitars and drums, which are bounced together onto two tracks of a four-track machine (leaving the other two tracks for bass and vocals). If I don’t think the guitar is cutting through sufficiently, I don’t have the luxury of just doing a quick digital tweak. I either have to opt for workarounds like mid/side EQ, or I have to bounce to the tape all over again. The initial learning curve of getting the gain staging right and making the mix bright enough to have enough ‘air’ meant doing a few bounces over several days, particularly with the Dreamwire project.

Funnily enough, I saw Dan Carey—of Speedy Wunderground, not Tool fame—talk about the same phenomenon. He said he likes recording directly to tape because it limits what you can do to the song afterward. You can do take after take if you like, but because tape is expensive, you are basically left with the option of going over the take you just did. It forces creative decisions. This ties in perfectly with Brian Eno’s concept regarding budgets and deadlines: limitations are good for creativity.

Listening back to Dreamwire’s and Liam’s EPs, are there things I could maybe adjust? Are the guitars a little too loud on the Dreamwire EP? Maybe. Is the vocal filter on Liam’s EP too acute on two songs? Also maybe. But firstly, no one cares as much as I do. Secondly, the thought of having to go back and re-bounce the songs for the n’teenth time is too torturous. Thirdly, and most importantly of all, you have to stop worrying at some point and just let it go. The idiosyncrasies that I might deem ‘technically incorrect’ (for want of a better term) are exactly the kinds of things other people might love. I always think of Definitely Maybe. By general recording standards, that album sounds pretty rough around the edges, to put it mildly. But it captured a vibe that, in turn, captivated people’s imagination. Listeners didn’t care about its sonic imperfections; those imperfections became the very thing that made it special. You make it, you let it go, and you let other people give it life and love it.

So, if you think you’re a perfectionist as an underground artist—think again. Perfectionism is just some bullshit cage you’ve made for yourself. Real perfectionism in music is omnipresent right now—we’ve effectively perfected perfection—and you know what? IT’S EAR-WATERINGLY DULL. Embrace flaws and embrace vibe. If it’s real and has idiosyncrasies, in the long run, people are gonna fuck with it.

Geese are a Brooklyn based Alt Rock band. Their album Getting Killed was widely touted as one of the best of 2025 and Geese are credited to some extent with renewing interest in the genre. Their frontman Cameron Winter is treated almost like a christ like figure sent from Brooklyn to save the world. Specifically, he was described in the Observer by Kitty Empire as: “the voice of a new generation”1. You would think that Geese therefore are pretty popular right? As in: the voice of a generation must surely have generational reach? Think again, bucko. Geese’s most listened to song (Au Pays Du Cocaine) clocks in at 25 Million streams on Spotify and Geese as of writing this have 1.5 million monthly listeners. For comparison, a band called Chase Atlantic- a band who I maintain nobody has ever heard of- clocks in their top song (Swim) at 1.4 Billion listens, their second (Friends) at 1.2 Billion. Chase Atlantic have 19 million monthly listeners.

It begs the question, why isn’t Mitchell Cave (the lead singer of C.A) being talked about as the voice of a generation? Poor Mitchell Cave doesn’t even have a goddamn Wikipedia page. Not to mention the fact he isn’t even the most famous Australian man named Cave- Nick Cave by the way, sitting at a measly 8 million streams on Where the Wild Roses Grow. In pure Spotify terms (the purest of terms, I am sure you will agree), Chase Atlantic are about as popular as The 1975. The mainstream media has totally dropped the ball on Chase Atlantic. The Guardian have written various encomiums on Geese, Nick Cave and The 1975, but Chase Atlantic? Zero. That’s fucking right. Justice for Chase Atlantic and their billions of streams. This begs the question: What is Kitty Empire talking about when she describes Cameron Winter as “the voice of a new generation”? Is it because “Cameron Winter: The voice of 1.25% of a generation”2 didn’t have quite the same ring to it? If we think of historic voices of generations- at least those who compare to Cameron Winter- I think of Bob Dylan and Neil Young. These two had records that went platinum numerous times, Dylan’s best selling record sold about 6.7 million copies (it’s a compilation record), whereas Neil Young’s Harvest sold about 7 million.3 For comparison, the best selling record of all time- MJ’s Thriller- sold 66 million copies. For even greater and more dynamic comparison (and to demonstrate some streamflation) the top 10 artists on Spotify kick about the 100 million monthly listeners mark.4 Geese have 1% of the monthly listeners these artists have. The point I am alluding to is: HOW CAN CAMERON WINTER BE THE VOICE OF A GENERATION IF NO ONE LISTENS TO HIS MUSIC?5

Will Page (former Chief Economist for Spotify, who now works for PRS) said in an interview with Music Radar a few years ago that more music was being released per day in 2024, than the entire year of 1989.6 When there was less music being produced, it was easier to have these unifying figures in music like Dylan or Young, simply because there was less fresh music to listen to. Now, listener taste is so diverse it’s hard to say who the voice of a generation genuinely is. Is it who the critics say it is, or is it what is popular or some magical combination of the two? This is not to say that that popular music was always lauded by the critics, but those terms to my modern and cucked mind would have felt like they were more meaningful and less forced when they referred to people who actually felt like they had a mass movement behind them. Especially in relation to Geese , who have half jokingly been called a psyop because of their use of advanced marketing techniques to generate online hype. No shade towards Geese for doing this, it seems like if you want your band to cut through the sheer quantity of music that is being produced, you have to do something akin to this. All this demonstrates is how hard it is -even for talented musicians- to sound as signal through the noise.

It’s not fair to imply that Empire is flat out wrong when she describes Winter as “the voice of a generation”, by virtue of the fact that Geese in relative terms aren’t actually that successful on the premise of them not having that many Spotify streams. As amusing as the argument is, I can’t just say that the things. that are popular, are the things that have generational influence, because historically speaking, the most influential artists weren’t necessarily the most popular. There is however an implicit clause within Empire’s claim: she is referring to the subset of a generation who are looking for the marker of journalistic validation in relation to their music tastes. They are people who long for the nostalgia of a rock movement that produces ‘voices of a generation’ and the historic validating relationship between ‘the greats’ and reputable journalists as kingmakers. It is very much my perception that to some extent young alternative music fans desire to be part of a movement of music that resembles its golden age (some time in the 20th century), and therefore they accept the perceived symbiosis between the aforementioned kingmakers and artists that yielded this interrelation. Meanwhile, members of this generation who don’t give a fuck about these notions are probably happily listening to Chase Atlantic on Adderall and Xan as they look for a vibey and hedonistic soundtrack to justify their toxic relationship.7 Maybe the aforementioned historic interconnection is to some extent a fabrication based on perception rather than genuine historical sense. It’s easy to look back with rose tinted glasses, particularly to a time you weren’t even born. With that said, it does feel like we live in an era where grand narratives about artists feel forced and overblown, specifically because the state of the modern music industry is far removed from its epoch. How then, can the old tokens remain relevant to the new generation and strange state in which we now exist?

Clavicular could be described as an ultra aestheticist, what I mean by this is that everything in society is based on appearance. People may tell you otherwise- but this is a cold hard fact. Taller men are treated better, more handsome men are treated better, hotter women are treated better, having a bigger penis is better, having a positive cantal tilt is better, being really ripped is essential. All of this aligns with two key principles, ascending and mogging. Ascending is effectively the act of effectively Looksmaxxing (facial surgery, lowering body fat percentage, having a surgery to increase height, penis size etc). Mogging comes from Alpha Male of Group- effectively that you mog people by being better, taller, sexier, more attractive etc. Some people may naturally mog (lets say Robert Pattinson), but other people may need to ascend, thought they may never reach R Pats level of mog. A third related notion; descending- would be something akin to getting a facial injury or having your legs eaten by rats, or something like that.

Now we have his premise, and have cleared up some of the lingo; what kind of a figure do we have in Clavicular? A 20 year old self diagnosed autistic who by his own admission spent too much time on Looksmaxxing forums during the pandemic and cannot talk to people normally- again, by his own admission- without taking substances. He had a seizure not too long ago on stream because of an overdose of some drug or other. Putting aside the dangers of how he takes drugs, what of his initial premise and why it resonates? People feel that society is unfair. Young people for example, face mounting student debt, working dead end jobs, or struggling to get a job- and yet ostensibly all around us are pretty people who seem to be doing well for themselves just on the premise of how they look. What is the point in getting a degree, when the beautiful are just going to cut corners?

Many young men (and women) look up to Clavicular, because he in some senses is a hero who speaks to this hidden-in-plain-sight truth, and has ascended: He was a regular(ish) guy from a middle class background, who dropped out of university, who has gone on to become incredibly rich, get lots of attention (and sex) from girls and has fame and status. There is a bizarre dichotomy that Clavicular and other Looksmaxxing influencers embody: they simultaneously disdain the aesthetic system as it exists (how unfair they feel the world is) but instead of rejecting it or fighting against it, they conform to this world view through ascension. They therefore conform to a world view, they themselves see as unfavourable. Instead of fighting against the forces of capital that create these inequalities, they become part of the apparatus that upholds it.

Clavicular for example, believes in religion for its societal benefits, but isn’t so forthright about whether he believes in god. Logically speaking, a pure materialist ideology- which Looksmaxxing is- should discount religion offhand. Whilst religion historically largely emphasised population control and therefore has a materialist component; these were top down diktats from the metaphysical world of god beyond this one, where all things would be judged and all actions in this lesser material world would have eternal consequences. It’s too easy for Clav to sing the praises of the husk of societal control, but if Clavicular cared about the kernel of religion (its metaphysic), then he would be forced to confront the notion that his narcissism could be viewed as sinful: “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!” (Romans 1:25). Beyond his narcissism, Christianity tends to not be so hot on promiscuity- which according to Clav is only sub-optimal if you are a woman. To my mind he is forgoing the pretence of many of his religious Manosphere counterparts and openly saying the metaphysical (and therefore true moral centre of religion) is inconsequential. In many ways Clavicular represents the final form of American Christianity: the values of capitalist excess and mass control come first and the biblical justification comes thereafter. Morality is presented as front and centre, but it’s genuinely at best an afterthought in the war for societal coercion, capital acquisition and American military hegemony.

Returning to Clav’s initial premise, if we should continue to promote the values of capitalism above everything else; then yes, Clavicular is correct, you should get that facial enhancement surgery and forgo the degree in Philosophy- because everything can be reduced to the physical, even the metaphysical. Fuck learning and cultivation of the inner-self. If you get that face enhancement surgery you will ascend, if your legs get eaten by rats you will descend. So long as it means you can perpetuate your personal worth, it can be considered virtuous. It’s actually a rather ingenious all-simplifying ideology, because it perfectly explains the absurdity and metaphysical nihilism of modern capitalism. All that matters is mogging, to make yourself look better, so you are earn more and increase your status - often at the expense of your peers who cannot afford to ascend, nor naturally mog. Ironically, there is a Nietzschean streak to this- Nietzsche famously being a great lover of Christianity- it’s the Übermensch rising above slave morality (or the matrix as Nietzsche would now be forced to call it). The Looksmaxxing Übermensch pertain to be undertaking a noble crusade to spread their red pill ideology- but what they are actually doing is perpetuating forever capitalism and the curb stomping of the human soul: At the top of the pyramid are the visible elect who have ascended, and below are an unhappy lot who are constantly told they are not enough and that they must work harder to become something more than they are if they want to get anywhere in life, who will constantly feel emasculated by failing to reach goals they are indoctrinated to believe they must reach and promised a life of luxury that they are tricked into thinking is genuinely attainable should they ascend; But the words of the Fat White Family “Polygamy is only for the chief.” Only a fraction of a fraction can ever truly attain the lifestyle, the rest will be condemned to a life of the sigma-grindset, only to ultimately grind themselves into the ground in dissatisfaction and debt.

So is Clavicular to blame for spreading this ideology? He is, but he deserves our sympathy. He’s a young and confused man who is having a mental health crisis in front of the whole world, and is able to make good money from it in doing so. And as we have established at this point: if you can make money from something, it must be virtuous- no matter the cost. Whilst it’s easy to blame someone like Clavicular for the worlds ills, a more inconvenient truth is; ‘we’ are to some extent complicit in the creation of these figures. Clavicular would not exist as a phenomena without an audience. For all the pain our old systems are causing, we still hold onto them in favour of a new and unknown path. We stomach the weirder and increasingly more confusing turns as we insist on continuing on our current trajectory of omni-capital, as human essence flakes away in the heat caused by its atomic blast. Why is Clavicular? He is because we continue to perpetuate notions of a world that is atomistic and without community, a world that is a zero sum game, a world that wrongly or rightly is perceived to have left men behind- but has failed to properly educate people as to why the notion of masculinity is a load of bullshit in the first place. A world without the beauty of imperfection- a world where there is nothing that cannot be corrupted by our desire to constantly alter and improve; If you can make people believe they are ugly, you can make them believe they need to pay to be beautiful, and making money from such things is a godly virtue.

Anyone who has smoked in this way will remember the thoughts of ‘I’ll stop when.’ For me, at that time it was: ‘I’ll stop when I finish university.’ Will I fuck. I persisted in the death cult of tobacco smoking for several years, until I was liberated from that particular vice by a book written by chain-smoking chartered accountant from Putney. Having now resisted the urge to intentionally burn my upper trachea/bronchi for several years, this ‘I’ll quit when’ mentality has become a particularly interesting notion to me. Paraphrasing the chartered accountant from Putney: why postpone freedom? What’s doubly interesting is the fact that people have this mentality pertaining to a heap of other things that are not substance related.

I myself, notice this in relation to my music career. I always think to myself: When I make it, then I’ll be respected/happy/fulfilled. In a previous iteration of these thoughts, the thought structure would be as follows: ‘when I marry Dua Lipa then I’ll be happy/fulfilled/respected/wealthy’ etc. In the case of the latter example, the ontological existence of an entity called Callum Turner has scuppered my plans. Damn you Callum Turner1. I digress. In any case, to my mind, this has the effect of constantly demeriting your current activity in the world. It’s like: ‘yeah, I’m doing x & y, but it’s not z.’ It’s not as if z is a real thing. It’s an imaginary place. A place beyond the real world, where some perfect sequence of events will lead to your fulfilment. It’s your own special way of putting yourself down.

I saw a video Austin Butler saying something to the effect: “everything you dream of is behind the feeling of embarrassment.” Wisdom is found in the strangest of places. Sometimes that strange place is Instagram Reels. Even more strangely; sometimes the vessel is Austin Butler. In any case, I think he’s got a point; even though he’s likely talking about asking out beautiful women- which I am sure is an arduous and painstaking trial for him. What I think Ol’ Elvis A. Butler is getting at is that we miss a lot of chances because we feel unworthy. We can get into this mental state that asserts that worthiness is just around the corner, but right now, it’s alien; oh, and by the way, right now- you’re a piece of shit and all your attempts are vein and worthless! It’s avoidance intrinsically linked to feeling insecure about our plight in the world. I for example, think I feel it because I’m looking for certain markers; whether it’s Dua Lipa, or rock stardom, or the regard of my respected peers and a vast and adoring crowd, that if I don’t meet those virtually unattainable markers, I must be a terrible person and epic failure. I may actually already have all the things I want; but I view it as inconsequential because it doesn’t fit the very tight, self prescribed narrative I have of what constitutes success. It’s not headlining Glastonbury, so it’s not validation. I don’t have a record deal, so I’m not a successful musician. Again, it only serves to demerit everything. The fact is: I do play gigs to crowds of people all the time, even if they are smaller. I do have people who love and respect me. I get to make music all the time and no higher ups at the label who think they know better than me and interfere with my ‘vision’ (for want of a better word). Loving and enriching family and friends who support me in my pursuits. All these things are worthy and admirable. Fuck the self prescribed prison of unworthiness, all this stuff is cool as fuck.

In recent conversations I’ve had with people about careers, one theme that re-occurs is that when asked what would we do if had our way to solve our malaise and frustration, our answer is often: doing the same thing but bigger or for more money. Same house, same family, same job. A part of me actually believes that the life we live corresponds to our innermost desire; that life is arranged in accordance with that inner state2 (as above so below). This explains -at least to some extent- why often our desired super-careers live in the uncanny valley: basically this, but with a couple of extra trinkets.

In this way the money/validation/status thing is actually kind of secondary to the lives we have already- which are already fulfilling - we just haven’t got the sense to recognise how blessed we are: we’re already living the lives we dream of.

To conclude: your measures of whether or not you are succeeding are fucking shitty. So are those of society. Fuck ‘making it’, just do it- do it now and love every second.

So far, neither of these things has been achieved. It’s certainly a departure from previous seasons- which realistically, it always was going to be, given the departures of various essential characters and the real life death of Angus Cloud. Euphoria used to be about teenagers and their individual personal struggles. There was plot, but at the heart of the show: There was heart. I wouldn’t say it was about ‘love’, in the sense that all the characters in the show ultimately loved each other, but we were taught to empathise with the motivations of each of the characters- even some of the more obviously pernicious ones, like Nate.

If you asked me what motivates the characters this season, I actually wouldn’t be able to tell you. I don’t think this is just because I’ve got Haddock for brains after 22:00 on a Sunday evening; I genuinely think that the presentation of the character’s inner worlds has been left aside in favour of a more maximalist, gory and high stakes plot.

Nate owes money to mobsters, Cassie wants to make money on Only Fans , Jules uses the wealth of her sugar daddy to fund her lavish lifestyle, Rue is forced into drug trafficking to pay back Laurie and Maddy needs money to do: “What she does now on a bigger scale”- which is to manage Only Fans models. Levinson keeps trying to slip in some Jesusy subtext like it’s 1995 and Radiohead are looking for a novel idea for the ‘Just’ video. All well and good, but nothing that could compare to the depth of character motivations in previous seasons. Everything just seems to be about money.

Levinson has stuck to what he thinks are his guns. His safe space in his own mind has always been provocation. That’s what this season is to a large extent; it’s designed to shock people. He’s going hell for leather on gross out components. This week it was Maddy’s turn to do something disgusting; getting on her knees and picking up dog shit. Why? To demonstrate her job working as a manager’s assistant was degrading- just not quite as degrading as being an Only Fans manager (at least, not for her). This follows a litany of controversial moments that Levinson has subjected most of the women in his cast to this season, most notoriously Cassie being treated like a literal dog by Nate and Faye and Rue being forced to eat golf ball sized packets of drugs, stuffed in condoms and swallowed with lubricant. Faye later shits herself and a dog licks the shit off her arse. It’s safe to say in Levinson, we are witnessing the flight of a modern renascence man. Leonardo Da Vinci really missed a trick by not giving the Vitruvian man a hard-on.

Intellectually, I don’t agree with this kind of objectification, but there is something about this all that is kind of fun. It’s like Tarantino style violence; there’s an event horizon where the violence gets so extreme it becomes silly. There’s a dream-like sequence in episode 5 where Cassie becomes a giant in the style of Gorjira or King Kong, and causes havoc in downtown LA. It’s like the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters, if The Marshmallow man had tits and voted for Donald Trump, (her breasts end up getting pressed through one of her OF subscribers office window). Moreover, Jules is commissioned to paint a cock infested version of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte for a film/TV Show. It’s meant to be some brave representation of the transgender experience; but the notion of the whole sequence is so absurd it’s hard to take it seriously. Whilst we are told that this season is meant to be gritty- and I actually think the plot is well enough written that it keeps you guessing- some aspects of the show completely take you out of the moment. It’s not entirely unwelcome, because it’s pretty amusing. In this way season 3 is kind of light on its feet. It’s nasty, absurd, unapologetic and violent (so far this season, Nate has had his toe cut off twice and just lost his finger), but it’s all not too serious somehow. It’s entertaining TV.

I can’t help but wonder however, whether or not this is the source of the problem with the show: It’s kept it’s shock value- its even turned on the turbos, but I think it’s lost it’s soul. It’s very much Kierkergaardian in that we are left with the husk of Euphoria, but not it’s kernel*. Whilst its sexualised content got people talking in previous seasons, the thing that fans of the show loved was the realistic components of those inner worlds I mentioned earlier, the style was just a bonus. Now, we are without the inner world of the old Euphoria, and in it’s place is a great flick, with some cool new characters (Alamo), but it ain’t Euphoria. It’s just a bunch of sugar pills the DEA has tricked us into buying, rather than the hard drug we all crave.

*I’ve neglected to mention that a huge component of Euphorias previous seasons was Labrinth’s soundtrack. I can’t overstate how different the show feels, solely because his music no longer serves as it’s backdrop. Not to mention the new 70’s saturated style the show has adopted which is a total departure from the aesthetic of previous seasons.

One domain where I have employed this device successfully, by which I mean: learning how to develop a skill to the point where it becomes second nature, is in the production of my own music. A few years ago I didn’t know my arm from my arse in the realm of writing and producing music; now I am able to work on several EP’s for my bands, (and another musician I am working with) at the same time. It used to take months to record and mix one song, but having become accustomed to regularly producing and releasing songs, it suddenly becomes quite a fluid act: it is second nature.

An interesting feature of getting into producing your own music is seeing how interacts with good songwriting, which to my mind at least, was not necessarily an intuitive relation. You have your idea about how a song should sound, but that sound has to exist within a space; it has to enter the physical world. For example, keyboards and guitar will always fight within the mid-range of the frequency spectrum. If you have a really massive, distorted chordal part on guitar and a massive synth also, they will inevitably fight and therefore, one will have to back down (or you have to be really good at mixing). This has the side effect of making you ask: What am I actually trying to achieve here with this sound? Do I need both parts? Can I achieve with only the synth the part what I am trying to achieve with both the guitar and the synth? How can I arrange this differently? Asking questions like this make you a better musician to my mind.

Another factor that is important to mention is propensity, by which I mean: making enough songs, and regularly enough that you start to develop these skills. Brian Eno describes something like; “two things are good for creativity: budgets and deadlines”. Obviously, my broke ass doesn’t need to worry too much about budgets, I do everything on a shoe string (except for my initial investment in studio monitors etc), but deadlines are critical. I know many a brilliant musician who is frigid about getting stuff out there because it isn’t perfect by there own estimation, and they are perfectionists. Without a deadline, they enable their procrastination forever. If they had one, and they stuck to it, they would be forced to let the song go out into the ether and start work on the next. Specifically in relation to the idea of perfection itself, I always try to remember that no one cares as much as you do about your art. Furthermore, If you do get good at producing music, you will hear many songs which are extremely popular, who’s production you may well dislike! The success of these songs was not magically prevented by your determination of whether it was good or not (which implies perfection/imperfection respectively). Effectively; all bets are off on the subject of ‘good mixes/productions’, you are only gravitating towards what you think sounds right. Your ideas about perfection exist only in your own head, it is personal, it is axiomatic and ultimately: It is neurotic. Just do what you can within the confines of your deadline.

If you get in this groove, music production is kind of like the stock market: your last song might not have been as well ‘produced’ the one before it, but overall you are making progress. It is a conversation with yourself about trying to improve, not every song has to be perfect, it just has to propel you towards your next attempt.

I am specifically adopting this approach in regard to writing. I am just going to try and stick to the deadline of writing two articles a week and see what happens. Is this article as funny as my last one? Could I have squeezed in a joke about a fade out/ cocaine budget (Matty Healy et al Tape Notes 2023)? Is it as good as my last article? Perhaps not. The point is, gradually I may reach levels of competency I cannot currently even fathom. I know this, because to some extent the approach for getting stuff out there is universal (or at least I think it is). If I at one point I couldn’t imagine taking only a matter of hours to mix a song, then why can’t the same hold true (in a different way), for writing?

Someone very dear to me once said: “tiredness can be mood altering in the extreme.” I definitely felt that today as the day wore on. As the suburban sun was superseded by overcast weather. It’s strange how at one moment one can feel so contented, but later, one can feel dejected. One can feel that they are not doing enough, despite the fact they are physically and psychologically exhausted. It’s difficult to accept this sometimes. I can be very hard on myself. Yes, is it perhaps the case that I shouldn’t have run an impromptu half marathon at 21:00 yesterday evening? Should I have rescheduled the production work I was meant to do with my friend? The answer to both is: probably not. But sometimes you’ve just got to say fuck it and go for it. In the former case; to enjoy youth, to have fun, to explore and let loose and in the second instance, recognising that I probably was too tired to do that work today and that that is OK.

It’s often the thoughts of where I should be, what I should be doing and what I could be doing that torture me. It’s sad really. I have so much and yet, these thoughts take me out of the beauty of the present moment. But I’ve always been like this, I’ve always been tightly strung to some extent. As I grow older, I am learning to accept things as they are and to do my best (and to have fun.) Sometimes it’s a balancing act between these principles, but it’s important to have a healthy mix of the three. When things don’t go to plan, when you press the fuck it button, and you live with the consequences, that’s called living. Life isn’t something that fits neatly in a box. You can’t have a perfect plan for every day. In the words of Neman’s T-Shirt at the end of Bad Santa (where he rides away on a bicycle having kicked a bully in the crotch): “Shit happens when you party naked.” Life is partying naked. Shit happening is just the day today. All I can be grateful for is the modest life I have, where I am able to pursue my dreams day after day, night after night, without knowing hunger, thirst or fear of homelessness; at least for now.

It’s 19:38. A few hours after I first attempted to write this article. I ended up deleting most of that first draft, it was too melancholic and today ultimately was too nicer day for melancholy. The mattress has been moved away from the window, the last flickering of daylight hanging around like it’s up to no good. The window is open. I can hear the birds as they sing during their bedtime ablutions. I’ve just had a bath. I’ve watched a few more episodes of Girls. I’m writing this, thinking about all the ways I can broaden my horizons. And try to remember to not take anything too seriously (though we will see what tomorrow has in store).

Our friend James, He talks about Infinite Jest in relation to his ‘failure’ as a musician up until his early thirties. He says, even if he started now (at the time he was describing), he wouldn’t be able to accomplish that feat by the time David Foster Wallace did. And DFW did it with the handicap of the unironic use of bandanas. Like James from LCD Soundsystem, I’m a musician. I guess I’m pretty good at it at this point, or at least I feel competent enough to write what I consider a decent song without too much effort. I can also produce to a reasonable extent. In terms of the wider recognition in relation to my obvious to anyone who bothers to pay attention level of genius (stable genius, I might add), I would say that I haven’t really reached the heights I expected. And that’s OK, it really is. It’s just I have that tedious desire to be recognised, to want to make a mark. It’s funny because I’m also acutely aware of the prevailing existential meaninglessness of leaving a mark. You leave one, or you don’t, the end result is the folding of the mortal coil.

Even in the case of DFW, he effectively had it all. He was a revered young writer who wrote a masterwork and had the respect and adulation of a generation of intellectuals, journalists and beyond; and he killed himself. Why would he do such a thing, when he was in a position most aspiring young people would dream of? I actually think the answer to all this is quite boring. The creative act in and of itself has to be enough to keep you happy. Josh Homme once said in an episode of guitar moves: “If you expect anything from music, you expect too much.” If you look beyond for recognition, for money or for the attention of women (or men), you end up shooting yourself in the foot, because all that stuff is actually meaningless bullshit your brain has invented as a magical cure all: That if you get the regard of the masses, it will solve your problems. Time and time again, it’s been proven otherwise: the suicide of many such artists and the like.

This is not to say I knew what happened in DFW’s life that lead him to the point of suicide. Not to say that the singular reason he ended his own life was because he expected too much in relation to what the creative act would give him, only to say, that someone like me, who thinks with one part of his brain that mass adulation will make me happy- is entertaining a misguided premise.

I think these inner feelings I have about music and about writing, and about creativity in general and whether or not there’s one medium that’s going to yield me the adulation I crave, or the financial stability I seek going into my 30’s, I think they take me away from the beauty of just doing something because you are effectively compelled to do it and because you love it. Everything else is just a castle in the sand. To paraphrase Mono Neon: “forget ideas of being a great musician, just live music”. This also goes for the “subversive” and revolutionary acts within the medium assertion: Fuck it completely, it’s something that only exists in my head. Maybe it exists in the heads of other neurotic self defeatists, but it’s of absolutely no use to you in relation to the expansion of your creative horizons. Think instead, if so an such can do it, so can you.

I don’t know where this leaves us in relation to our initial premise. I originally wanted to have a kvetch about how I can never finish this story I’ve had in my head for a long time, and that I can only write it in a certain mercurial-if-I’m-lucky headspace. And maybe the conclusion is instead of trying to write this story and forcing myself in a box, I should just start with a smaller first step and see where it takes me. To paraphrase another great philosopher (but inferior bass player) Ludwig Wittgenstein, the best way of answering a question is to dissolve it altogether. I’ll just post this on a corner of the internet, and leave the masterwork to another day. As far as leaving a mark in the meaningless goes- Infinite Jest is a noteable one. Rest In Peace.