aleprouswitch

[aleprouswitch]

Last thing I'll say on this topic - one reason I am so fond of Aphex Twin is how Richard has been so connected to his Celtic identity and pays homage to it in many of his compositions. He grew up in Cornwall in a Welsh family and his dad was a coal miner. Richard himself worked in the mines as a teenager to try and save up money for instruments. There were no silver spoons, but there was a loving, supportive family that encouraged him to pursue his dreams to make music, and by God he did it.

Richard's parents have both passed away, and he loved and supported them until the end. Blackbox Life Recorder was dedicated in their memories and his childhood home in Cornwall can be seen in the music video. He wears Welsh and Cornish pride on his sleeve and the love from his family is very tied to it.

#aphex twin #celtic pride

[aleprouswitch]

So, why do people care so much about Cornish identity? Cornwall’s just a part of England right? Another county with some distinct foods and a funny accent, and they moan about the tourists- when they should be grateful for the money.

Except it’s not.

Whilst the rest of England was forming with a character influenced by Germanic and Norse cultures, Cornwall was holding itself separate as an independent Celtic kingdom, with strong links with Wales, Ireland and Brittany- as well as trading with the wider Mediterranean. For a long time, this kingdom included parts of Devon, but eventually the Celtic people were forced back past the Tamar, and at some point started referring to the land as Kernow, rather than Dumnonia (probably).

Even after the Norman conquest, in part because Cornwall came under the control of the Duke of Brittany, Cornwall retained elements of its unique culture, and certainly its language. There are existing works of literature written in the Cornish language (also called Kernewek) during the medieval period. Due to the active tin mining industry and the Stannary courts, they even had a separate legal system.

All of this continued until the start of the Tudor period, when Henry VII, desperate for money for his wars with Scotland, suspended the operation of the Cornish Stannaries, and imposed greater taxes. This ultimately led to the Cornish Rebellion of 1497. An army of as many as 15000 rebels marched towards Somerset, and ultimately to London, where the rebels met with Henry VII’s armies. Unfortunately, the Cornish lost the ensuing battle, and the rebel leaders were captured, killed and quartered, with their quarters being displayed in Cornwall and Devon. From 1497 to 1508, Cornwall was punished with monetary penalties, impoverishing the people, and land was given to the king’s (English) allies.

However, this wasn’t the death of Cornish culture or dreams of independence from England. Until 1548, Glasney college was still producing literature in Cornish- when it was destroyed in the dissolution of the monasteries, during the English reformation. The following year, 1549, the Cornish rose again- this time to demand a prayer book in their own language, which was still the first (and often only) language of most people in the region. The rebellion was also about the ordinary people vs the landowners, as shown by their slogan “kill all the gentlemen”.

Unfortunately, this rebellion failed too, and this time, it wasn’t just the leaders who were killed, but up to 5,500 Cornishmen- which would have been a significant proportion of the adult male population at the time. These factors combined are widely thought to have contributed to the decline of the Cornish language- although it was still widely in use centuries later.

Despite the failings of these rebellions, the Cornish retained a distinct language and their own culture, folklore and festivals. Mining, farming and fishing meant that the region itself wasn’t economically impoverished, as it was today. Even towards the end of the 1700s, there were still people who spoke Cornish fluently as a first language (including Dolly Pentreath, who definitely wasn’t the last Cornish speaker).

However, over time, the tin mines became less profitable, and Cornwall’s economy started to suffer. Especially in the latter part of the 19th century, many Cornish began to emigrate, especially to places like Australia, New Zealand (or Aotearoa), Canada and South America. Cornish miners were skilled, and were able to send pay back home, and along with the Welsh, influenced culture and sport in many of these places. Many mining terms also have their roots in Cornish language and dialect.

Throughout the 20th Century, Cornwall went through an economic decline- to the point where, when the UK was an EU member, Cornwall was receiving funding intended for only the most deprived regions in Europe. It was one of very few places in the UK to receive this funding- due to the levels of poverty and lack of infrastructure.

Part of the decline was also linked to the decline of historic fish stocks, such as mackerel. In the 70s and 80s, there was a mackerel boom- and large fishing trawlers came from as far away as Scandinavia (as well as Scotland and the north of England) to fish in Cornish waters. The traditional way of fishing in Cornwall used small boats and line fishing. The local fishermen couldn’t compete, and ultimately stocks were decimated by the trawlers. Many more families had to give up their traditional way of life. One could draw parallels here with worldwide indigenous struggles over fishing rights.

Despite this, Cornish communities retained their traditional folklore and festivals, many of which are still celebrated to this day. And throughout the 20th Century, efforts were made to preserve the Cornish language. Although there may not be any first language Cornish speakers left, it is now believed that community knowledge of the language was never truly lost.

Cornwall has since become a popular tourist destination. This brings its own problems- many people want to stay in self-catering accommodation and, more recently, air bnbs. This, alongside second homes, has gutted many Cornish communities. The gap between house prices and average wages is one of the largest in the country. Land has become extremely expensive, which hurts already struggling farmers. Roads can’t cope with the level of traffic. The one (1) major hospital can’t cope with the population in the summer. All of last winter, most Cornish households faced a “hosepipe ban” due to lack of water- yet in the summer, campsites and hotels can fill their swimming pools and hot tubs for the benefit of tourists.

Does this benefit Cornwall? Only about 13% of Cornwall’s GDP comes from tourism. The jobs associated with tourism are often poorly paid and may only offer employment for part of the year. People who stay in Air BnBs may not spend that much money in the community, and the money they pay for accommodation often goes to landlords who live upcountry and aren’t Cornish. Many major hotels and caravan sites are also owned by companies that aren’t Cornish, taking money out of the local economy.

Match this with a housing crisis where it’s increasingly difficult to rent properties long term, and buying a flat or house in Cornwall is out of reach of someone on the average salary and it’s easy to see why people are having to leave communities where their family lived for generations. This damages the local culture, and means centuries-old traditions can come under threat.

All of this feeds into the current situation; it feels like middle class families from London see Cornwall as their playground, and moan about tractors on the road, or the lack of services when they visit. People talk about theme park Cornwall- a place that’s built for entertainment of outsiders, not functionality for those who live here. More widely, a lot of people around the UK have never heard of the Cornish language, or view it as something that’s “extinct” or not worth preserving.

The Cornish are one of Britain’s indigenous cultures, alongside Welsh, Gaelic, Scots, Manx and others. And it’s a culture that’s increasingly under threat economically and culturally. We’ve been clinging on to our homes for a long time, and even now it still feels like we might be forced from them (indeed some of us are). So yes, Cornish people can seem excessively defensive about our identity and our culture- but there’s good reason for it!

#cornwall #celtic history #celts have lived in their ancestral homelands for thousands of years #and have been victims of settler colonialism and attempts at forced assimilation or genocide #and yet those who remain have fought hard to retain their languages and cultures #british imperialism happened at home first

[aleprouswitch]

Adding to that last post - wh1te supremacists trying to create a contrived unity of European Identity is incredibly insulting.

As a person of mostly Scottish descent, I really don't want to be lumped in with the English as the "same thing", and God knows that Celtic peoples en masse don't want that due to a prolonged history of oppression, colonialism, famine, cultural genocide, etc.

My Albanian friend would rather drop dead than to be "unified" ethnically with Serbs. Ukrainians do not want to be lumped together with Russians. Basques and Catalonians sure as hell don't want to be lumped in with the Spanish. Sami peoples do not want to be "unified" with Scandinavians!!!

"Defend Europe" goose-stepping clods are doing more to erase cultural individualism among European ethnic groups than anybody else. Immigrants and refugees are not bogeymen threatening "white survival" or some stupid shit. Europeans are not all the same, they do NOT all hold the same cultural customs and values, and making any attempt at doing so is just a drooling bigot's lousy wet dream.

#there's a reason ireland scotland etc. go so hard for palestinian liberation #if these dinguses would use their noggin they'd figure it out

[aleprouswitch]

I've debated whether I should make this post, but here it goes:

A few weeks back, I reported several openly f4scist and neo-n4zi blogs and to my surprise, some of them actually got nuked by Tumblr. Unfortunately, a few are still up and running. I don't want anyone following this blog to interact with these losers, so I'll just discuss the kind of content I saw being posted:

Incredibly disgusting racist and antisemitic cartoon illustrations,

Lots of pictures of their favorite führer smiling, hugging kids, etc.,

Greco-Roman statues. So. Many. Greco. Roman. Statues,

Pictures of Swiss milk maid looking girls with text on top that said things like "I only want to live around white people!" and "Make beautiful white babies",

Pictures of physically attractive white women wearing or standing next to f4scist symbols,

The most batshit insane conspiracy theories, including one guy who sincerely thought the earth was flat,

All these posts about European identity and unity, which is so beyond fucking stupid because it actually erases cultural individualism more than immigrants and refugees ever could (and they actually don't want to!),

Christian Identity hogwash, ie f4scists who think white Europeans are the "real" Israelites, which once again is so fucking stupid because the historical Jesus of Nazareth was a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew,

An extreme dislike of Ben Shapiro - not because of his right-wing propaganda, mind you - but solely because he's Jewish,

Rock Against C0mmunism sk1nh3ads who've been listening to the same shitty bands for 30 years,

NSBM musicians posting their asinine Third R31ch worship jams ("Empire of a Thousand Years" and yet your shit got wrecked in less than twelve years 🤡),

Some sad female f4scists who seriously try to argue that women were treated better under f4scistic regimes, and

Fundamentally unfunny "humor" via stale Pepe memes .

Overall, it's a bunch of sad, pitiful goobers who probably want to blame their shortcomings in life on anybody but themselves.

Many years ago, there was a popular "aesthetic" blogger here who was an open neo-n4zi, and when I made a post about the kind of horrible shit he was posting (with screenshots ), I got anon messages from his pathetic fangirls saying "I hope you get r4ped by N-words". I traced their IP addresses and one of them lived in the Nashville area. All I could do was tell them to go fuck themselves and block them.

Now we have so-called Leftists on Tumblr trying to claim certain noise/industrial bloggers here are "crypto-f4sh" just to ruin reputations while ACTUAL f4scist pieces of shit on this site get ignored. Fuck those kinds of virtue signalers, too. Get your hands dirty and look for the actual n4zi scum on this website and report them instead of harassing people who aren't awful.

#psa #ugh #anons are off because I don't want to read drivel defending these blogs

[aleprouswitch]

A clip from last night.

[aleprouswitch]

The good shots from last night's show - pure noise, pure rage, 100% Chattanoogan.

Leviathans of Black Hollering

Rurnt

Leperwitch

Cooperative Future

Disconcerting Signals

#noise #experimental music #industrial #Chattanooga #power electronics #Leviathans of Black Hollering #rurnt #leperwitch #cooperative future #Disconcerting Signals #my photos

[aleprouswitch]

My first show post-injuries was a fun alien-themed house party where I played with a bunch of dudes that I know really well and respect. I almost blew it when I forgot the 12V power cable for my WASP, but thankfully another performer had a 12V and the day was saved at the last minute. Many more pictures are coming later.

Photo by Jared.

#me #leperwitch #actual leperwitch #noise #industrial #experimental music #power electronics #women in noise

[aleprouswitch]

Okay, so I'll let one of the cats out of the bag today: Women of Noise Night 2024 is going to be a two-night special event at Stove Works here in Chattanooga, the same venue that hosts the regular Chattanooga Noise Night - Friday, September 20th and Saturday, September 21st. So far I've had four artists say yes, so including myself, that makes five performers total. I'm waiting on a response from someone else that I hope will say yes.

One of the performers is a dear friend of mine who used to be on the local scene here but relocated to the Nashville area. She hasn't performed live in several years despite putting out several new albums, and god, I really want to hear this material live. If it wasn't for her, I might not even be a performer myself. She pushed me into performing my material live ages ago, and now look at me...

But anyway, I'm really excited about this happening and really happy that local/regional performers are so enthusiastic about Women of Noise Night splitting into two nights. This is going to be a labor of love and will be so worth it.

#psa #updates coming soon

[aleprouswitch]

I've got a couple of pretty big announcements coming up here in a bit. Stay tuned.

[aleprouswitch]

Sharing this stylish flier for tomorrow's alien-themed house show. This is probably just going to be a goofy improv gig since it will mostly be performers playing for other performers. Got a snazzy stage look prepared, though.

#psa

[aleprouswitch]

I was really shy and awkward but I still got to meet Lydia Lunch!!!!! 💖

#me + mom ❤️

[aleprouswitch]

Just found out that Lydia Lunch is coming back to Chattanooga next Tuesday. I met her last time she came through and performed. This time, I'm going to try and tell her about Women of Noise instead of just stammering like an idiot 😅

She's so big on creative spaces for women and female empowerment that I think she'd like what we're doing.

#please don't let me fudge this #dora shut up

[aleprouswitch]

Today was the second time in less than a month that a woman has told me they were r00fied at a local show - two different shows, two different venues, both times by somebody these women knew.

One reason I hover so much around the noise/experimental music scene where I live is because it's practically the only scene here that's not littered with fucking creeps. There's too much shady shit happening, especially at punk and metal shows.

Most of my close friend group is still trying to cope with someone in the local scene who we loved like a brother and played in bands with was a serial r4pist with incidents spanning back to at least 2017. Sometimes his name still accidentally comes up in conversation at shows or parties and then everyone gets silent for a moment.

I want the women and femme-presenting people who perform music and attend shows just as audience members to be safe no matter what. This shit has to end. Excuses can't keep getting made for somebody because of how good of a musician they are or how much scene clout they have.

#personal #rants #tw roofies

[aleprouswitch]

Listen/purchase: The Moon is Disgusting by That 1 Guy

#that 1 guy #jams #'honey tastes sweeter when you anger the bees' is one of my favorite lyrics ever #almost got that tattooed on me

[aleprouswitch]

That 1 Guy

#that 1 guy

[aleprouswitch]

Pharmakon sweep

#pffft #this is a shitpost

[aleprouswitch]

Let’s Get Weird With Ween

#Ween #jams #spending my whole weekend gardening and being around plants has me feeling like this