Saturday 21 August 2010
The Times They Are A-Crippling: Brighton Musician Takes Centre Stage With Caroline Lucas MP
Kit Ashton sees his art as beyond that of someone who exists just to feed & profit the corporate music business machine.
Billy Bragg picked up on it by inscribing the words Capitalism is Killing Music on his 1988 release, Workers Playtime.
Bragg's comment caused somewhat of a backlash. At the time one punter responded:
"How exactly does capitalism 'kill' music? Or, to rephrase this, how would Bragg's beloved socialism make music flourish? The answer is, it wouldn't.
The very system that Bragg detests makes music flourish! Capitalism allows the market for various types of music – Bragg's included -- to exist. Private enterprise allows bands to form, recording studios to record, and record companies to produce music -- of all types.
"What would Bragg's system allow? Centralised production of music? How would that work, exactly? Centralized production of music ultimately means music allowed by the state.
"If Bragg's music was deemed "inappropriate" by the state, isn't his music 'killed'?
Contrariwise, isn't there a niche for his (or anyone's) music in the capitalist free market?"
Well, some twenty-two years later it's Bragg who has been deemed right.
The music business is all but dead on its knees, and young artists like Kit Aston have grabbed the reigns out of the hands of the suited corporate men and taken back their calling as an art form. One where they can promote & distribute their art themselves.
With that in mind Kit has organised an evening entitled: Music and Freedom: Imagining Beyond Consumer Capitalism of which he promises:
".. will be a truly unique event involving performances from well known Brighton artists that either have something directly to say about the subject or whose work somehow represents hopefulness, human freedom, and self-expression; plus short video clips or 'soap box' style speeches from individuals and representatives of interesting community groups, including Caroline Lucas MP."
Indeed, Kit welcomes us to the modern world – one where bankers and footballers take home millions, as a billion people struggle and starve, and the rest of us in-between muddle on in the face of cuts, eco-gloom and confusion... in the words of Marvin Gaye: "What's Goin' On...?"
Kit adds: "One thing's for sure - we can't go on like this forever! Human greed and over-consumption threaten us all in the long run.
"Surely there's a better way to do things - surely humanity deserves (and needs) to get to a better place than this... but what does that look like and how do we get there?
I hope this event will provoke some creative thought and dialogue, and encourage some positive action."
Artists:
Chris T-T + Kit Ashton + Thomas White (ESP, Brakes) + The Agitator + The Cloggs (jazz fusion) + Carrie Tree + 'Work In Progress' (street dance) + Zen Bullets (video) + CoMA Sussex (contemporary classical, performing Louis Andriessen's 'Worker's Union') + more TBC.
Speakers:
Caroline Lucas MP + Mark Fisher (author: 'Capitalist Realism - Is There No Alternative?') + Dougald Hine (The Dark Mountain Project) + Ralph Brown (actor) + Doly Garcia (Transition Brighton and Hove) + The NeoFuturist Collective + Brighton Solidarity Federation + Jasper Chalcraft (Anthropologist, University of Sussex) + more TBC.
Music and Freedom: Imagining Beyond Consumer Capitalism @ Concorde 2 on Wednesday 15th September. See www.kitashton.com or www.concorde2.co.uk for more info.
by: Mike Cobley
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Left Field Musicians Elvis Costello & Kit Ashton
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