Alan Moore...meet Brian Eno

sufi

lala
thanks JV
interesting article & will be a good un when it's broadcast
Alan Moore - what a deity, i followed a few links off that blog to some hedgemagicky stuff
 

Woebot

Well-known member
2stepfan said:
More ineresting in the history of modern occultism than in the history of comics IMO.
whats the thing with biroco and alan moore all about 2stepfan?
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
WOEBOT said:
whats the thing with biroco and alan moore all about 2stepfan?
Huh?

Sorry it's a Friday and the in-laws are over?

I'm not aware of any beef between Birocco and Alan Moore. See also...

They just go way back, Moore's a serious occultist and whippet fancier, Biroco was a small-time magus and bookmaker who initiated the 156 current* with the Bablon working, and they did some work together. Principally Moore's contribution to the revived Kaos 14 but some other bits and piece too.


* Supposed to be the new version of the 93 Current that Crowley initiated, also partly via engagement with Babalon. On the Water Pumping rhythm.
 
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Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
Sorry fella, got completely the wrong end of the stick, hence the edit above.

Biroco is kinda modern occult aristocracy (though he'd hate to be described as such) cos of publishing Kaos magazine in the 80s, which some regard as the best occult journal published in the last couple of decades. He's an extremely knowledgable and accomplished occultist who also has a total FU attitude to authority, which is nice. Alan Moore also knows his stuff and they just wound up sharing a circle of friends AFAICT. There's not that many degrees of separation in that culture.
 

sufi

lala
December 15, 2004 Alan Moore interview Brian Eno

David Baillie kindly sent us a detailed report on the BBC taping last night.

You know, I was determined not to start this report with ‘Twenty minutes ago I shook the hand of Alan Moore’, but I really can’t help myself.

In my defence there are few people I would be in awe of if I met them in person, and given that Kurt Cobain and Philip K Dick are both no longer with us, it’s unlikely to ever happen again.

Today’s event was the follow up to last week’s Stewart Lee interview with Alan, and in the spirit of Radio 4’s Chain Reaction he chose to interview Brian Eno.

Dressed more casually this time than last (a black sweatshirt instead of a black suit) Mr Moore entered the studio with Mr Eno and both took their seats and waited patiently for the recording to begin (or rather for someone to shut off the whistling air conditioning so recording could begin).

Alan introduced Brian Peter St. John Le Baptiste de la Salle Eno to the audience, explaining that repeating his own name had led to Brian developing extraordinary breath control. Since Brian had once described himself as a non-musician, and then gone on to revolutionise music, Moore suggested it’s probably just as well he didn’t decide to be a non-serial killer instead.

At this point Alan, obviously looking to ease the burden of his guilty conscience as early as possible in the proceedings, apologised to Brian for something which had occurred some thirty years ago. He told how a young twenty-something Alan Moore had sent a hero of his (Brian Eno, of course) a list of thirty questions, intending to publish the responses in a fanzine. Brian had generously responded with eight pages of very detailed answers… But Moore never got the fanzine out, and so it was all for nothing.
‘You bastard,’ whispered Eno into the mic, as the audience laughed.

Many topics were covered as the two chatted over the following hour, among them the 60s - Moore said he’d never gotten very far from that particular decade and wondered why it was so derided in the modern day. Brian said he thought it was because that whole era was particularly anti-fundamentalist. Moore agreed, saying that fundamentalism embraces simplicity while the 60s were all about the cross breeding of ideas and philosophies, or as he eloquently put it ‘a mongrel orgy’.

Alan asked about the song Babies on Fire, which consists of only two notes, making the observation that you probably couldn’t make a song with any fewer. Brian told us that he thought songwriting was the greatest challenge in modern music. Writing music is no problem, he said, anyone with a cheap synthesiser can hold a note for 45 minutes and have an ambient album at the end of it, but writing an actual song with lyrics is a different matter. ‘What you need’ Alan suggested, ‘is a lyrics generator’. ‘Funny you should say that,’ said Brian, ‘I’m working on one at the moment’. Alan expressed worry at this, suggesting that it sort of made him redundant and ruined his plans for a peaceful retirement. ‘How far along are you with the project?’ he asked.

Brian talked about his recurring dread that art is ultimately pointless, or as his first mother in law said to him ‘Why is someone with a brain like yours wasting it on art?’ Alan agreed that the value of being a scientist is immediately obvious while you have to dig harder if your work is in the arts.

Alan then asked about Brian’s response to a question he was asked on Desert Island Discs (another UK radio programme); ‘Is it true that when asked what luxury item you would take onto the desert island,’ (if you haven’t guessed that’s the premise of the show) ‘you initially said a lifetime supply of drugs, and then reconsidered your answer and decided on a giant man-eating spider in order to keep you alert and force you to think of innovative ways to stay alive?’
‘No that’s not true at all,’ laughed Brian, ‘I stopped at the lifetime supply of hallucinogenic drugs!’
‘Well I know that’s where I would have stopped!’ Alan said, prompting guffaws from the audience, ‘Actually if you took the drugs you’d probably think there was a giant spider on there with you anyway’.

‘That’s sort of messed up my next question actually,’ he continued, ‘can we just pretend you said that, and then I can ask you if you think that we’ve all been afforded our own giant man-eating spider by recent events in global politics’. Which then prompted an intelligent discussion about whether the American and UK governments had been too ambitious in their recent attempts to scare their citizens into ‘obedience’, and the possibility that we’re heading for a massive paradigm shift at the centre of which could be an internet-based democratic revolution.
(I’m obviously paraphrasing tremendously here, as a report which did justice to this section of the interview alone would require not just more space and time than I have but also someone far more familiar with the ideas discussed to write it.)

The young lady co-ordinating the interview for the BBC asked if Brian had cursed when Alan had earlier told him the fanzine story. He couldn’t remember, but there was a murmur of confirmation from the audience. ‘Could you use a milder swear word than bastard, perhaps?’ she asked. Brian leaned towards his mic and growled the word ‘devil,’ then apologised, explaining that he didn’t know any mild swear words. Probably deciding that he really didn’t want ‘devil’ being transmitted as his response to Alan’s confession, Brian replaced it with ‘twit!’, to which Alan replied with ‘It hurts, but I can take it,’ and a shrug.

Other things discussed included; chipping away at the concept of ‘God’ with each new scientific discovery about the universe, Father Ted (which Brian made a guest appearance on, playing the imaginatively named character ‘Father Brian Eno’), the Oblique Strategies cards and postmen. The interview concluded with Alan Moore and Brian Eno doing a spontaneous (and completely unprecedented, I would imagine) impression of British comedy double act Dudley Moore and Peter Cook.

All told, this was one of the most interesting, inspiring and broadly themed interviews I have ever had the privilege of listening to. I only hope that I managed to convey at least some of that with this report.

The majority of the interview will be broadcast on the internet for anyone living too far from a BBC transmitter to get it the old fashioned way.

Did I mention I shook Alan Moore’s hand?




Comments

I thought Moore was too busy worshipping Roman puppets to be writing new books. Looks like I was wrong about the puppets.

Happy holidays, Heidi. Thanks for the bloggins.

Posted by: Jeff Eyamie at December 15, 2004 12:29 PM

Great summary! Thank you!

Does anyone out there have a specific link to Stewart Lee interviewing Moore or Moore interviewing Eno?

I've been searching and searching to no avail... :(

THANKS!!!

Best wishes,
Aaron Weisbrod

Posted by: Aaron Weisbrod at December 15, 2004 02:11 PM

Here's the site:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4

The interviews won't be broadcast, or available on the website, until sometime in late January. They will only be available for about a week.

Posted by: Greg at December 15, 2004 02:28 PM

Heidi or Greg,
Anybody got a transcipt of this interview? Or will one be available sometime? I'd love to read or hear this interview sometime.

Posted by: renderman at December 16, 2004 10:28 AM

It's due on Radio 4 in the new year, and hopefully will be available on the bbc.co.uk/radio4 website for those of you who get our radio for FREE !

We'll keep everyone informed of the airing dates.

Posted by: Adrian Brown at December 17, 2004 06:14 PM

Hi,
Great review!!!!
I translate it and put it on the italian website I create with a lot of friends. I hope there's no problem.....

Ciao
Lorenzo

Posted by: lorenzo at December 27, 2004 03:09 AM

From what I have just read I cannot wait until the show airs in a couple of weeks time. I have been a huge fan of the celebrated Mr Moore since the early 80s and have enjoyed his work in the field of comics immensely, Roll on Jan 27th and Feb 3rd!!

Posted by: David E.Wiggins at January 8, 2005 11:24 AM

i checked the website and Brian Eno interviews Alan Moore on Feb.3rd. From the report it sounds like it will be great.
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/chainreaction

Posted by: Ben Harwood at January 18, 2005 08:57 AM

Sorry I got that wrong. This is the reply I got when I e-mailed the show.
Alan Moore is being interviewed by the comedian Stewart Lee for a new talk show series on BBC Radio 4 called Chain Reaction. Alan discusses how he began writing comics, writing Swamp Thing, From Hell, V for Vendetta and how he feels about having his books turned into films.

The show will air on 27th January at 6.30PM on Radio 4 (92-95FM or you can hear it for seven days after broadcast at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml)

The following week at the same time, Alan will interview Brian Eno.


www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/chainreaction

Posted by: Ben Harwood at January 18, 2005 09:14 AM

There are three sections that didn't make the final edit of the programme here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/chainreaction.shtml

Cheers.

Posted by: Oli at January 28, 2005 04:38 AM

This was good. Pity I came upon this so late, seems I've missed the broadcast by several weeks... but that's what I get for being an artist in Northern California. I'd love to know if there is a derect transcription or recording of this available now? The part with the ideas the reviewer couldn't do justice to, I'll bet it was a marvelous dance of two of the finest minds lose on the planet currently.

Posted by: Paul Nicholson at February 21, 2005 05:25 PM
 

catalog

Well-known member
we don't really have a single thread for just alan moore (which is odd) but i don't wanna start another thread, so I'm just gonna put this here...

it's from an answer he gave in an interview to i-D in 2012, can't find it online so I'm typing it out.

"All conscious entities, certainly all human beings, are kind of amphibious, which means we are leading two lives simultaneously - not in water and air, but we're leading a life in the material world and also leading an existence entirely inside our minds in the immaterial world that is our consciousness.

I tend to think both of these worlds are indisputably real.

I would suggest that there is a membrane between them.

Things can leak through from the conceptual world of our consciousness into the physical world."

He's talking about it in the context of Occupy/Anonymous, who famously adopted the Guy Fawkes mask from V from Vendetta.

But what really struck me reading this particular thing (he's said this literally hundreds of times, and we say it on here, one way or another, all the time) is the bit I've bolded.

Cos it made me think, visually, of masks.
 

luka

Well-known member
I try and strew my poetry with those masks and invite your imagination to animate them
 

luka

Well-known member
They serve as focal points, so the sprites can enter them and make them come alive
 

catalog

Well-known member
Just with all the conversation about porosity on the other thread.

The mask and what it let's through, what it doesn't, how that works, visually.

The blue (why is it blue?) discarded mask all over the pavements. In all sorts of different contortions.
 

luka

Well-known member
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luka

Well-known member
That's a really good link. Love it. Doing those drugs and staring into the green canal has really sorted your brain out.
 
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