07. Life Is Largely Violence, Filth & Death (oh... and drink) by Richard Grayson
Read by Richard Grayson
I’ve no idea what “Life” is but the character in Richard Grayson’s “Life Is Largely Violence, Filth & Death” does.
The protagonist finds life a terrifying prospect that he wants nothing to do with. In response to this existential threat he has monetised his skills to protect himself from all the violence, filth and death in the world.
You can see him now in his spotless penthouse apartment, martini in hand, looking out (never in) at a world built for and by his consumption.
…and oh my lord, where did he get those box fresh, non-brand, perfectly fitted, hand made trainers?
Who is Richard Grayson?
Richard Grayson is an artist, curator and writer. He writes rather well which is why I invited him to remember this work we made together thirty five years ago.
In 1986 David Barratt and I were in a studio in Deptford recording a set of spoken word/music projects under the working title Grayson Industries. David had somehow managed to convince a production company that what the world really needed was a record of musical/text works that combined the subjects of power structures, telephones Freud, masculinity, language, money and Little Anthony and the Imperials, within shimmering cutting-edge electronically generated sonic cathedrals. And remarkably he persuaded them we were the right people to deliver this if they paid for the recording time.
Most of the texts had been developed before we went into the studio, but Life is Largely Violence Filth and Death was written red-eyed at a formica table by the coffee machine in the laughably named relaxation area.
It had been a long night - we had a limited time and a lot to do so David was driving it all through, with sound engineer Rupert Coulson sleeping when he could curled up under the consul - but despite...because.. of this exhausted alchoholised fog, this text seemed to arrive entire, channelled.
I had been supporting my video/performance work as a Euro-Bond Support Dealer in the Nomura International Bank. It was the time of The Big Bang, where Margaret Thatcher’s deregulation of the City had transformed finance, bringing in hyper-driven young men (and few women) with loud voices and louder braces all determined to make their fortune from these new flows of international invisible electronic money.
As a temp I wasn't making this money myself but I was sat next to it, had conversations with it, occasionally went out drinking with it.
This antic gleeful acquisitiveness, this Darwinian testosterone drive was both horrifying and horrifyingly seductive: an atomised frenzy of desire and possibility were bring new spaces and forces into being where old models and controls became So Yesterday.
Life is Largely Violence Filth and Death was an incantation of some of these forces.
Although this was made some 35 years ago it still seems to have currency, as these emergent energies foreshadow our electric universes of consumption and commodification that digital capital would generate, where everything - material, immaterial, an object or an event - is endlessly reformed, commodified and transformed..... into status, into an experience, happiness, medication...a life….
And, of course, trainers.
LIFE IS LARGELY VIOLENCE, FILTH AND DEATH
Life...
Is largely violence, filth and death he said
...oh and drink.
But we...
(we as nice people)
Take this soap and place it in an area of our choice.
We are given what we want
Every day.
We're cute
We're clean
There are no stains on us
(but we don't feel we're safe necessarily)
Life is violence, filth and death and soap
So...
We take this liquid
(all the sugar changed to alcohol)
It's ecumenical while we put it down a hole
And find
It brings out the shine
Beautifully
Cells now fluffy fresh and clean
No stains on us
(and we are perfectly aware of what we are doing)
Life...
Is largely violence, filth and death and noise.
So we take this noise
We modulate it
Tie it into small knots
Feed it into a hole
Vibrate our way down some inner canal
(a boating holiday in the brain)
Life is violence, filth and death and soap and alcohol and windows..
And washing machines
And floorboards
And holes
And cars
And double car garages
And trainers.
The original recording:
More about Richard Grayson: HERE