#but it was also a good satire of the yuppies of that era as well as the idea of the afterlife and ghosts and all that. which was different!

[carcarrot]

old man yells at cloud about constant sequels

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums, I finally explain the deal with that record you’ve seen in the background of these videos, with those dudes working in the office. These dudes used to be in the Human League! Oh, and they really hate fascism. Full transcript of the video after the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be looking at the debut album of Heaven 17: 1981’s Penthouse & Pavement. While you may not be familiar with Heaven 17, chances are pretty good that if you know your Western pop, you’ve heard of the Human League! Before forming Heaven 17, Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware were members of the Human League--and they were also the band’s creative core. But they had a very different artistic vision, and one that doesn’t exactly prefigure the success of hits like “Don’t You Want Me.”

Music: “Being Boiled”

Between its plodding electronics and inscrutable lyricism, “Being Boiled” is pretty far from a pop hit. When Marsh and Ware left the Human League, they were keen to continue pursuing this sort of underground, experimental, quasi-industrial direction. Initially, the two of them formed the British Electronic Foundation, or “B.E.F.” It was chiefly a production company that worked with other artists, though they also released some instrumental music under this name. With the recruitment of vocalist Glenn Gregory, who Marsh and Ware had initially intended to front the Human League in the first place, they were set to get right back into the groove of what they had been up to before.

Music: “Fascist Groove Thang”

“Fascist Groove Thang” is the opening track of Penthouse & Pavement, and was one of its chief singles. While it’s much less ambiguous than “Being Boiled,” and much easier to dance to, it’s still got a lot of that subversive, underground charm--enough to get banned by the BBC, anyway. I know they always say that history rhymes, but it’s one of those songs from this era that really feels like it belongs more in our time than the one it came from. I like to think that its unforgettable chorus sounds more like a chant you might hear at a protest march, as opposed to something that belongs in a proper song. “Fascist Groove Thang” is actually based on an instrumental track by BEF, which was simply called “Groove Thang” before being reworked into this political anthem. Both versions are indeed pretty groovy, thanks in large part to the bass guitar work of session musician John Wilson. Compared to their work with the Human League, Penthouse & Pavement has an overall richer sonic palate, with more of those traditional instruments, as well as backing vocals. You’ll hear a lot of those on the album’s title track:

Music: “Penthouse & Pavement”

Penthouse & Pavement’s title track is the longest track on the album, clocking in at over six minutes. Between that, the lush instrumentation, and the honour of being the title track, it certainly feels like an anti-capitalist epic, dramatizing and dignifying the inner thoughts of a common wage-slave. The first side of the album, dubbed the “Pavement Side,” is where you’ll find both of these tracks, and it seems to deal chiefly with working-class struggles, as well as having a bigger emphasis on that bass-heavy groove, musically. Naturally, then, the flip is the “Penthouse Side,” it’s more melodic, and it seems to focus more on the lives of the rich and famous...though it isn’t quite that straightforward.

Music: “We’re Going To Live For a Very Long Time”

“We’re Going To Live For a Very Long Time” is perhaps the clearest expression of the idea of the upper classes living in their own protected bubble, shielded from plebeian woes. There’s a religious dimension to it, in that the narrator manages to live without worries because of their assuredness that Heaven awaits them when they die...but, as the title reminds us, they’re also confident that Earth will be good to them, as well. In case you were worried this message might not be ironic, the song actually stops abruptly in the middle of its final refrain, providing a sudden end for that narrator--as well as closing out the entire LP with a bang, since this is the final track! The idea of the wealthy actively taunting those beneath them is also central to the most rhythmic track of the Penthouse Side, “The Height of the Fighting.”

Music: “The Height of the Fighting”

In “The Height of the Fighting,” that march-like chanting takes center stage again, but it feels very different here. Rather than embodying a sort of grassroots resistance to the consolidation of power, “The Height of the Fighting” seems to be the voice of authority and power coming downwards, fitting the theme of the Penthouse Side. The song’s assertions, like “if you can’t take it, fake it” and “they sent you to it, do it” could be interpreted as pithy, meaningless sayings--perhaps throwaway lyrics, taking up space on a single aimed squarely at the dance floor. However, if you know the context of the Penthouse Side, it’s hard not to see them as representations of the worthless advice the rich often give the poor. Get a job. Get a side hustle. Work harder. Eat out less. And so on. Much like the implicit messages about class in popular culture, “The Height of the Fighting” might seem disposable, but the thrust of what it’s saying is actually deeply warped. Another complex, and perhaps conflicted, track on the Penthouse Side is “Let’s All Make a Bomb”:

Music: “Let’s All Make a Bomb”

Songs against nuclear war were commonplace in Cold War-era music, but “Let’s All Make a Bomb” isn’t quite a typical example. At first, its slow pace and despondent melody make us think we’re getting the usual fare. But the return of that swelling, chant-like refrain style, as well as a closer inspection of the lyrics, reveal otherwise. As the title might imply, “Let’s All Make a Bomb” asks us what kind of character is actually crazy enough to *want* nuclear war, and the character Heaven 17 have chosen is a hedonistic libertine, who sees the end of the world as one big party. The atomic bomb is not a thing to be feared, but “a brand new toy, to idolize.” As dark as that is, the fact that it’s also part of the Penthouse Side, and ostensibly a representation of what those who hold influence and power believe, adds a whole new level of horror to it.

While I love album art, and my interest in it is the main reason I started collecting vintage vinyl, I think [the cover of Penthouse & Pavement just might be my favourite of all time. Penthouse & Pavement’s cover portrays the three members of Heaven 17 as though they were businessmen, co-opting motives like glass-paneled skyscrapers and the deal-making handshake straight from the 1980s corporate visual lexicon. They've even got cities they're allegedly based out of, one of which is their native Sheffield, England. If you look closely, there are a few hints that they’re actually a music band and not a firm, such as the reel-to-reel tape player in the upper right-hand corner, and the fact that in the lower left-hand corner, Martyn Ware is writing music in front of a keyboard. At the bottom, we also find the logo of B.E.F., which brings this grand “joke” full circle. As the “British Electronic Foundation,” they had also billed themselves as a faceless organisation, adopting a name that sounds more at home on a utility bill than an album cover. Here, the trio have done it again, in a bit of ruthless satire towards the rising “yuppie” culture of the 80s. Incidentally, the cover art is a traditional painting, credited to one Ray Smith. It wasn't unusual to commission paintings for album art at the time, but it does tickle me knowing a human being physically painted Heaven 17 as office workers. If the original ever came up for auction, I'd probably shell out for it. It would look great in my office!

Anyway, it’s also worth mentioning how the title “Penthouse & Pavement” adds to that corporate theme. The X-and-Y format recalls the names of many real-life firms and companies, such as Ernst & Young. A “penthouse” is an apartment located very high up in a tall, urban building. Such apartments are usually expensive, and are hence occupied by well-off tenants. “Pavement,” in this context, probably refers to what Americans call the “sidewalk,” the paved pathways where the less fortunate among us might walk past those penthouses, without ever getting too close. Each side functions as an ideal symbol of the kind of people it represents, and the physical gap between them is a visceral representation of economic inequality. The title is also quite pleasingly alliterative!

While Penthouse & Pavement maintains a certain underground integrity, which is consistent with Marsh and Ware’s track record as part of the Human League, it’s still much more of a pop record than anything they had done before. Heaven 17 never went quite as pop as the Human League did without them, and they certainly never saw the same level of mainstream success, but they did pursue an increasingly pop direction with their next several releases. Their 1983 followup, The Luxury Gap, delivers less of that hard-hitting critique of capital, but did produce some of their best-known singles, namely, “Temptation” and “Let Me Go.”

Music: “Let Me Go”

My favourite track on Penthouse & Pavement is “Geisha Boys & Temple Girls.” I like this track’s overall mysterious, otherworldly vibe--it’s not terribly easy to pin down what it’s really about, or what sort of mood it’s meant to convey. The intro to this song sounds more like Karlheinz Stockhausen than something you would hear in pop, and I love how strident and abrasive it is. Given its place as the opening track of the Penthouse Side, and its opening line, “look ahead, on the screen,” I’m tempted to interpret it as a representation of a fictional romance in television or film. It’s dramatic, unpredictable, exotic, and also completely fake and divorced from how people behave in the real world. The idea that entertainments and diversions are part of what shelters the rich from the consequences of their actions is another one of those things that makes this album continue to feel relevant. That’s all I have for today--thanks for listening!

Music: “Geisha Boys & Temple Girls”

[whiskyhorse]

8

I’ve never entirely understood why magicians use bad second-hand poetry when they could use first class second-hand poetry or write their own shitty poetry.  Admittedly, there are more examples of the latter than the former (see: Andrew Chumbley).  The assumption often seems to be that if it’s old then it’s good, but that is patently un-true.  If millions of dead people prove the validity of a thing then we would still be saying that leukaemia is un-treatable 1.

Most living traditions produce new material.  Capoeira has a wealth of old songs, but young capoeiristas still write new ones.  An inspired song has as much (or more) power as an inherited one.  It’s all about what the words are imbued with.  I doubt that there is much traditional poetry in Chumbley’s work. The core material may come from an older tradition, but the voice is too consistent across his published work for it to come from other sources.  He either created it whole cloth or he gussied it up.  People find it potent nevertheless.

The bones of the work and what it is intended to mete are more important.  In Britain poets held the power to kill or maim with satire alone. That is a tradition that continued well into the Christian era.  As an example, see this Welsh englyn attributed to Gwerful Mechain (c. 1460-1502, trans. Katie Gramich), which calls on no god or power beyond the poetic form:

I’w gwr am ei churo Dager drwy goler dy gallon – ar osgo I asgwrn dy ddwyfron; Dy lin a dyr, dy law’n don A’th gleddau I’th goluddion

To her husband for beating her A dagger through your heart’s stone - on a slant To reach your breast bone; May your knees break, your hands shrivel And your sword plunge in your guts to make you snivel

(I am making a few assumptions here and skipping over the importance of the poetic form used, but I wanted to reference Gwerful.  Also - if you compare the internal meter of the original englyn to the translation you can see that Gwerful was a much better poet than her translator, but there’s not much one can do about that short of learning old Welsh)

I see some useful bone structure in the Headless Rite.  The formula for invocation is clear just underneath its skin.  Aiden Wachter uses a similar progression in Six Ways: State intention, call in the power required, identify the desirable traits of that power, then acquire or borrow them as one’s own (p.18).  However, although the stated intention of the Rite in the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) is for exorcism it plainly has a more complex application.

Previously I’ve touched on parallels between the Headless Rite and the Song of Amergin.  The main things I identify as being different between them are that 1) the Song calls up Eire, whereas the Rite calls on a(n unknown) god/s. 2) The Song dispenses with a lot of the early stages and proceeds directly to identifying with the land.  Arguably that may be due to editorial interference, but personal experience indicates that those stages are not necessary.  Especially if a relationship already exists.

A lot of people use the Headless Rite, or its Thelemic equivalent, as part of a daily practice. I’ve read they do this because the Rite confers dominance over spirits and may align the magician with a particular current.  Certainly it has been used to augment a variety of other practices, particularly deity obsession (Stratton-Kent).  The flexibility of the formula is confirmed by the Song, in my mind.  I suspect that it’s far older than the Headless Rite’s stated purpose in the PGM.

I see the sense of using praise or boast poetry as a daily practice.  However is it necessary, or even desirable, to use such a dramatic martial formula every day unless you have regular goetic practice?  To bombastically acclaim one’s dominance on a daily basis?  It’s a bit like a yuppie in the 1980s yelling, ‘You’re a TIGER!’ at the mirror every morning.

As I think about using this as part of a daily practice I ask what purpose it should serve.  Let’s say I want it to align me with a particular current of being, re-affirm who/what I am and build a core strength for later dealing with spirits.  Fine. The Headless Rite would align me with an unknown deity or deities (at minimum it seems to reference Osiris and Yahweh) through use of some barbarous names we no longer remember the origin, meaning or use of.  That doesn’t really suit.

I could adapt the Headless Rite.  I am tempted to adapt it for use alongside kaula/tantra.  It would be fun making the syncretism work.  However that’s something I’ll probably come back to because right now I don’t want to focus on deities and spirits.  I want to strengthen myself and my practice.

So I went back to thinking about other work that exists in the same realm.  Work that could support a useful trance and be imbued with the same principles I work with.  I thought for a long time.  I considered Sufi verses and other options, but I kept coming back to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

I have used Whitman’s poetry in a similar way to the Song of Amergin before.  In particular I’ve used I sing the body electric.  It works if used with a correct method.  Whitman’s poetry also has a broader scope than either the Rite or Song of Amergin. In Song of Myself he is singing up an ecstatic vision of what we could be, what he sees that we are underneath the eidolons that clothe us.  It’s a much better fit for what I am and how my magic is arrayed.  It also fits the formula for invocation.

In fact, Leaves of Grass is interesting beyond invocation.  When Chumbley wrote Azoetia and Dragon Book of Essex he tried to create a living grimoire – something bigger than its pages.  Whitman did the same, but, I think, more successfully from an ecstatic point of view.  Leaves of Grass opens by defining Whitman’s intention (“One’s self I sing”), then by charging the book with its purpose (“Then falter not, O book, to fulfil your destiny”). He casts aside materialism in EIDOLONS, summons up and addresses his audience with the purposes he tasks them with, and, in SHUT NOT YOUR DOORS, he opens the gates for the book to do its work.  Walt Whitman may not have written Leaves of Grass to be a work of magic, but because it is structured like an inspired text it can act as one nevertheless.

The content of Song of Myself invokes some very particular states.  Take 43:

“I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over, My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern… Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis or waiting dead-like til my spirit arouses me, Looking forth on pavement and land, or outside of pavement and land, Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits.”

Or 48,

“I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one that one’s self is”

Or 41,

“Magnifying and applying come I, Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson, Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a lead, the crucifix engraved, With Odin and the hideous faced Mexitli and every idol and image, Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more”

To me, that is bold magic and better suited to daily practice where one is building relationships and one’s own self.    

The main problem with Song of Myself is that it is bloody long.  However it’s broken into 52 sub-sections.  That allows for using the poetry flexibly as a more reflective and prolonged invocationary practice.  Whitman’s use of (sort of) free verse also allows editing to focus on sections that fit what is desired.  Consider – charging a pentacle can be done (in part) through choosing sections of Bible verse that help evoke a particular quality.  Something similar can be done here with invocation.  Whitman wrote Leaves of Grass to inspire and to inform an alternative way of being in the world.  This is entirely appropriate to its purpose.

I’ve gone on long enough, so I won’t get into the pros and cons of adapting supportive aspects of the Headless Rite like the barbarous names and paper crown.

1 Read The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee