Quite a while back, I helped set up a gig for the choir I’m part of – Songlines – on the opening night of the 4th and last Uncivilisation Festival. The choir’s director, Sarah Jewell, really embraced the idea, having already set to music a terrific poem from the 3rd Dark Mountain anthology – Communique, by Dan Grace. Happily, loads of members of the choir took up the idea of a foray into the wilds of Uncivilisation with real enthusiasm.

(Photo by Marmaduke Dando)

The show, which opened up musical proceedings on the beautiful and acoustically perfect Woodland Stage, seemed to go down a storm. We were sporting the wildest reds (partly to stand out in the gloaming, and partly to chime in with the flamenco vibe of Communique), and sang songs that spanned the spiritually yearning, the ribald and secular, and the avowedly ecological and political.

I was hoping to be able to perform one of my tunes, but Sarah suggested an oldie from my more straightforwardly climate campaigning days, (when I dubbed myself The Carbon Town Cryer): ‘None Of Us Are Free’, written by Mann & Weil (of ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin” fame), with help from Brenda Russell, then tweaked just a tad by me. This song was really dropped onto the map when it was covered by the ever-mighty Solomon Burke, the incomparable King of Rock’n’Soul, whose hand I was blessed enough to have shaken back in 2003 when he stood imperiously from his throne, set centre-stage at the Royal Festival Hall, and moved to the edge of the stage to greet his many well-wishers, utterly lifted by his presence and his voice. 

(This is me singing ‘None Of Us Are Free’ at our Uncivilisation warm-up gig at the New Unity Hall in Islington two days before the main show, with great gospel backing from the choir. Thanks for the photo Rikki.)

It felt right to sing ‘none of us are free when one of us is chained’ at Uncivilisation, because although as a movement it’s teeming with poignant and powerful responses to the end of much we need and treasure (countless species) and much that we are probably best seeing the back of (capitalism itself), there is still an apolitical seam running through things. At a really fascinating session called ‘Doin’ Dirt Time‘ the next day in the same space, an interview with two celebrated American artists who gave away all their artworks and possessions and went pretty much feral, conducted by Suzi Gablik, I lamented the fact that rather than turning their back on the commodified and egomaniacal art world and turning instead to a more conscious, movement-connected way of being an artist, they seemed to be walking away from humanity and those attempting to ‘build a new world in the ruins of the old’. There seemed to be some sympathy for my take on their decision, but I know myself well enough to question whether I recognise something very familiar to me in some of Uncivilisation’s output, which is a temptation to abandon today’s struggles borne partly out of pragmatism, partly out of weariness and disappointment, and partly out of a slightly guilty desire to withdraw from humanity itself. I suppose that’s why I’m probing my strong desire to head for the trees with as much gentle objectivity as I can muster. It’s also why I fought the urge to head straight home after the festival with as much resolve as I could muster.

Anyway, we ended our Friday night set with another setting from the DM3 book – ‘Coming Back to Life’ by Steve Thorp, which was borne out of Sarah and I sitting down and seeing what happened when I landed on a guitar riff that seemed to set off an improvisation that fit the vibe of the words. Then Sarah went off and in a thrice had created a piece that was gentle, mysterious and very singalongable in its repeated line ‘what happens is already here’. (Playing plenty of guitar with the choir this year has been a complete delight, I have to say.)

The feedback we received from people at the festival over the next two days was very moving and entirely uplifting. I feel extremely lucky to have landed in this group of people who want to take musical risks, and, increasingly, use their voices to dig into stuff, whether upbeat or down, in a transformatory way that only music can. I also feel lucky to be working with the most instinctively musical person I’ve ever met, who is determined to make that digging mostly musically delicious, (and I don’t begrudge her occasional musical astringency, in fact it’s absolutely needed to balance the feelgood). There’s also a real sense of community in a choir that is priceless, especially when set alongside the more lonesome road of the solo performer. (It occurs to me rereading this that a choir is an example of the kind of community resilience we could really do with more of as we head into the choppy seas of the future.)

Then I managed to find three other folk from the assembled who wanted to continue on to Balcombe, where Reclaim the Power was organising a day of direct action agin the creeping phallocentric frackismo that’s increasingly running the show in these islands, unless we make it politically and practically impossible. It was a real shame that these two events clashed so well, but it was important to me to link Uncivilisation and Reclaim the Power, because I was weary of the assumption that preparing spiritually, creatively and practically for ever more uncertain and loss-filled times means that I’m not also going to put myself on the line in some way to protect what is left of nature and community, and to try to create that ‘new world in the ruins of the etc.’ I was tent-weary (after only 2 nights – I know, such lightweightery), and longing for solitude, but saw it through and made it to the beautifully self-sufficient Reclaim the Power camp late on Sunday night, where I met an old and dear musical compadre from the days of Reclaim the Streets, and all was well from thereonin.

The next dawned with a wild and sarcastic tirade from the ducks in the nearby woods, and soon I was doing daft warm-ups and having my face painted with a scratch band of singers, clowns and players, excited and relieved that there was a troupe to join for the day. They had (re)written various classics with a fracking theme, which I was able to lend some guitar, harmoniacal and vocal assistance to as we made our way to the gates of the camp, where a permanent roadside camp had already, heroically, sprouted. Several people had locked on using arm tubes there, and we were able to keep their spirits up (I hope), a highlight being playing music for a pass the parcel with the amazing Al the Owl. I think we were embodying the spirit of community music: making music for and with all, for a good reason, with a good spirit.

(Photo by Simon Dack) 

So the vibe was good, (especially in the knowledge that on the same day direct actions have been visited upon Cuadrilla, its venomous PR company Bell Pottinger and the local MP Francis Maude), but I have to confess that my desire to have daylong interactions with lines of police seemingly impervious to the various invocations sent their way, have dwindled somewhat. And my up-for-itness when it comes to pushing back their numbers as they symbolically invade our (road-occupying) space isn’t what it might once have been. I tell myself it’s to protect my precious guitar, but that’s a pretext in part.  (Blessed be those who did what they could to hold the line.) So I walked out of the possible kettle, hooked up with old friends and wandered happily through the woods back to camp, where I spent the remains of the afternoon idyllically playing harmonica while my friend dug into his and our back catalogue. I would mention his name, but he was never one for the spotlight, so let his name live on in anonymity. (Play on, sir!)

I think my Monday was as close to an embodiment of acting out of love more than hope as I could muster in the moment. That feels OK.