Monday, 30 August 2010

The Honeycomb

The last thing I wrote. A very strange story written to look at the ideas of art, individuality and conformity and other ideas using music - though it could have been any artform, really. Only part of the tale I was unsure of was a collection rhyming couplets at the end. May have been a bit too cheesey. So, I've ommited them. I may add them later but I doubt it now. About 3,000 words.

The Honeycomb


“The atmosphere's strange out on the town. Music for pleasure. It's not music no more. Music to dance to, music to move. This is music to march to… it’s a war dance.” (Wardance, Killing Joke).

Max Webster looked at the crowd swaying, hypnotised and pulsating. His window, 73 stories high, gave him an easy view of the moving throng. The bass of the music was audible, just, from up here but really it was the visual experience that he was most aware of. Most enjoying. The people were one, an individual. A cohesive conformity to the regimented beats of the band playing below. This recent signing was becoming a brilliant exercise in unity, popularity, connectivity, marketing and, of course – most importantly – commerce. A101, the band, had become one of the most powerfully popular musical groups in the world and this live show, outside their record label building was showing just how unifying music could be: in a fashion, it was unstoppable. And it was certainly lucrative.

Webster loved the regimentation that music could bring. He liked order. Seeing a mass of people move together, each individually, finding their own place in the beat and yet somehow still one. His appreciation for this power of music impressed upon him in two seemingly contradictory ways that he found equally satisfying. First, the music connected people – it brought them together as one. They may find different interpretations upon the sounds, lyrical meanings and intensities of the beats, melodies and instrumentations, but when the crowd were there - as he analysed them – it was really one essence. Uniformity, conformity – ultimately a hive essence. Like worker bees in a honeycomb of the queen music. No one would deny the individuality of each insect but what is one without the whole? The whole can be captured by the wonder of music.

Second, music was still, in a sense, for the individual. People didn’t like the same music. For the million-strong privileged that spent their hard-earned money (or not) on attending this special A101 concert, there were millions more that detested their music. They may consider it ‘hollow’, ‘vapid’, ‘too commercially-viable’ or to have some other hilarious, nonsensical flaw. That was fine with Webster. It wasn’t A101 that was what made him enjoy music’s power. It was no band in particular. In truth, music didn’t really affect him at all – it was a product that he enjoyed the effects of when he witnessed the effect upon others. So people may dismiss one of the musical collectives amongst the company’s countless bands but he was almost certain that everyone in the whole world appreciated at least one of the musical enterprises his company had released. For one hive does not really ever work alone. It is tied to others hives. The honeycomb may appear separate, distinct, but they all follow the same rules and restrictions in the end. Integrity, independence and individuality are largely very misguided, illusory ideas. So the person that rejects one band as regimented regiments themselves with another. The music is created by the artist and people then implant their own interpretation upon it. As if it is a part of them and they are a part of the music. Music then had two uses, to give people a feeling of togetherness and a feeling of personality. In both cases the reality for Webster was the same: a healthy drone culture. He nodded in a satisfied manner to himself.

At a different tempo and timing, the crowd bobbed in a satisfied manner to itself.


“Your 22:00 appointment is here, Mr Webster.”
Max pressed the intercom and confirmed admittance. There may be a party going on outside but business rarely stops. Especially for a man as industrious and dedicated as Max Webster.
There was a heavy knock on the door and Max declared ‘enter’. In came a man, early thirties, scruffy-looking in a denim jacket, a lumberjack shirt and leather-like trousers. Max Webster looked him up-and-down and felt indifference. The person could have come in some ridiculous, futuristic metal-and-wire get-up and Max would have felt equally lacking in emotion. Musicians, ‘artists’, all had different understandings of their aesthetics. Fine. He was not to deal with the package, just the packaging. The purchase.
“Hello, sir.” Said the visitor, polite enough.
Max walked forward, extended his arm and introduced himself.
“Were you upheld much by the commotion outside?”
“Commotion is right,” responded the visitor, “an impressive show. I’m not late am I?”
“No, no. Do you like the band?”
“Not really my cup of tea, if I’m honest. A bit too… (At this point, the visitor made a noise that can be likened to a bin-truck reversing). I am more of a traditional man myself – Dylan before electric guitars, if you get what I mean.”
Max nodded once to acknowledge he knew what the man meant.
“So, this is a preliminary meeting to ascertain a contract. I listened to your music. It sounds like something we would be happy to release and support.”
“Well, that’s very exciting.”
“I’m glad we’re in agreement.”
They were not really in agreement.
At this point, the man began to express the important of his music to Max and Max let the man speak. The visitor spoke of his personal experiences, how they had impressed upon him, how music was his creative outlet and that while he hoped that other people could connect and relate to his music it was really an important, personal outlet. He just hoped that through the company’s assistance this personal outlet could become more collective. A way to be appreciated and to hopefully appreciate others.
Webster let the man speak. He was not a man of the musician’s manifesto. He had his own purpose. Dispatch. Profit. Though, of course, there was one binding thought in both men’s consciousness - connectivity. It was just that their understanding of it was worlds apart. After the man finished his impassioned statement, Max nodded again. He said he understood and that he was glad that he would be able to assist the man spread his message. He confirmed that he, too, was hoping that the appreciation would be a many-way-street.
The meeting progressed swimmingly. Agreements were made, contracts were written up and a final date-signing was established. A simple arrangement.

Sometimes these meetings can be complete chores. All sorts of different people want to release music. Some are desperate for fame, some for wealth. All they really want is acknowledgement. Some are immature enough to want it on particular terms. It matters not to Max. He does not understand these people that arrive as if there is a war between music and industry. If you produce a product then you want to make the deal. Max doesn’t resent people if they think he is watering down an art-form. However, he does tire of the resentment sometimes directed at him. Not because he feels it’s a personal indictment upon him but because he has never impressed an attitude to the enterprises he has funded. ‘Do what thou wilt’ is Max Webster’s attitude. He felt far too busy working on the selling and the success. If people wanted to behave moronically, get drugged-up and ‘kick against the pricks’ that was their business. If people wanted to be puritan, passionate and successful that was acceptable. This was not an emotional business. It was more ordered than that.


After the meeting, at around quarter to 11, Max decided to enjoy himself with a bit of philosophising about the honeycomb. At a press of a button, the large window became covered with a grand projector screen that covered the whole glass. The barely-audible bass hum, which was due to finish shortly, also became completely muted. On the projector appeared countless more screens, each one hexagonal to go with the theme, the vision, Max had for his concept. On each one another record label of the company. Subsidiary after subsidiary after subsidiary of different music companies wrapped together in one tight conglomerate. He loved the vision of screen next to screen linking all the different groups of music, genres, styles and ethos. Something that people understand as so contradictory actually being so simple: All is one. Obviously, music varies but it is still music. And, obviously, music is personal. But we are all people. People are such contradictory animals – their desire to be themselves and to be part of the whole. Most of them are not even aware of their psychotic-like natures. Over in the far corner of the vast screen there was a cluster for freakish, industrial, noise types. Next to them, irrelevantly, though links could be made if someone wanted, were musicians involved in urban, hip-hop styled sounds. How similar? To Max, the same. Each owned. Controlled. All these different products that can be melded into one thing – a gift for others. A way of bringing people under one beat. A singular drone. Music as freedom. Freedom to live as part of the hive – the honeycomb of existence. This is what Max enjoyed. The way people can feel so distinct and individual, even though they wrap themselves in an identity of others. Music puts people into one, tight unit. Like the bees flow through two different plants and move at their very own beat, they are all so homogenous. They are contented with their own buzz within the honeycomb.

This thinking reminded Max of Einstein and his thoughts on marching and war. He pulled the quote in front of him from a collection of quotes in his drawer:

"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

He laughed at Einstein’s position. His appreciation for the quote was, of sorts, one of agreement but he felt none of the disdain of the great scientific thinker. On the contrary, he felt the empowering nature of music and its relation to the all-important rank and file. Order. War was not something the company was involved in. There are, of course, many music labels and companies with fingers in many pies. Some of those pies are wretched, corrupt, despicable and violent. However, the only real off-shoot of Webster’s companies, he felt, was conformity. As for war, it was a dirty business but it was not his business. However, the ‘army-model’ sentiment was not something he saw as uncomfortable for society. Indeed, he admired army order. People marching rank and file, getting on with things. How could people object to that? That was the primary purpose of life – to keep moving forward. Productivity, advance, progress. This wasn’t conservatism, this wasn’t radicalism. This was not a political agenda so much as an apolitical agenda, or an anti-political agenda. This was why so many different groups could swarm together into his hive. As long as they believe they got to serve their individuality and their inter-connectedness then the status quo could be maintained. That casual tension between things moving forward and remaining stationary. That tension was indeed held together by people having the sufficient spinal cord and the belief that their large brain was being satisfied. And the large brain was being satisfied. It’s illusion of individuality was being fulfilled and, better yet, its need for acceptance, classification and un-individuality was being satisfied. Einstein may have felt contempt for the automaton-like nature that people felt but Max knew the man was intelligent enough to see its beautiful practicality.

Max was no fool. He did not make the mistake of thinking that music was the only form of control. He did not even consider the most important form of control. It was not relevant what part of ‘artistic-expression’ was the most satiating to people’s regimentation. However, it was undeniably important. The written word was obviously important too. It was probably a more powerful way of impressing ideas to help them become their own ‘individuals’ with their own ways to fit in and break out of the hive. And other media were all equally vital. Hives within hives. Honeycomb connected to more honeycomb. Another insect metaphor could be a spider web – another description that Max did not mind. Both ideas produced an idea of stickiness, an interweaving that left people both trapped and yet, somehow, free. This is what he saw when he looked at his masses of hexagonal screens all upon one screen. He saw the interconnections of his companies and he saw the interconnectedness with everything else. He saw the conformity. He saw the one heartbeat. He saw the hive mind. He saw himself as a part of a large, multi-queen that had the power over people to make them settle into a rigidity that kept them incapacitated and satisfied. He thought again of the crowd outside. Their rhythmic pulsating. Their unity in the music. It was music to dance to. It was music to move. To keep steady motions going. And as people showed their rhythmic unity, they flowed that into their every movement. During their entire lives they would work united and keep pace. Like an army, like drones they would continue to feed that system that Max Webster loved. Order… The order of the hive. The order of the honeycomb.

But life is not all as Max Webster sees it.

Everything is whole and everything is separate. Max Webster may enjoy these tensions and contradictions and he is entitled to his view. And his world is insulated and it is all bound within his honeycomb and he is right to feel safe. He is right to feel that the productivity will continue and the order will continue. That is the world he has created for himself and his hold is intense. But his world is not all the world.

No. Life is not all as Max Webster sees it.

A one-thousand-and-eighty-two mile distance away from Max Webster, there is a man, seated on a hillside. He is oblivious to Max as Max is oblivious to him. He is in another country, he speaks another language and he lives another life. His life is simple. He lives in a mountain village and he cares nothing for the world that Max has idolised and helped to construct as a linear perfection. The man considers his life free and song is an expression of that freedom. The man lives his simple life and never contemplates such bizarre concepts as rigidity, conformity and order. As the man is seated, breaking as he chooses, he often sings a song. The translation goes like this:

“I have been here a while, a decade, two or three,
Working in this field, with this drum between my knee,
And people may take from my labour, but they may not take from me,
Because I will always play here, with my drum and my ditty.”

And the man will sing this song, even though his labour’s not really taken. And his words may not be particularly profound or beautiful and his drumming may not be technically interesting or impressive but it is all he needs. And it has no relevance to the intense uniformity of Max Webster’s hive.


And somewhere else there is another musical manifestation. A much more urban environment, in a basement, a woman is experimenting with heavy bass vibrations. It is improvised and wild and cathartic. And it is something that Webster would be very happy to package and promote to help people feel this catharsis. There is a market for these oddball types, as can be seen in his honeycomb. But the woman does not care. She does not know of Max Webster and his theories. She does not want to be part of his world. The music she makes is deeply personal to her. Any intentional repetition would weaken its essence. It is about a moment. Her moment. Most people would not consider her soundscapes music at all. However, its vitality to her is paramount. These are not things that Max Webster will ever be able to grasp. He will not have to. And neither will this woman ever have to grasp Max’ concept. They are separate worlds.


And elsewhere there is a collective. A mass of instruments that work together in unity and conformity, producing beautiful, harmonic and quite traditional arrangements. And some may aspire to some sort of musical acknowledgement and may encounter Webster in a particular circumstance but not in this one. Here, these people work together to experiment within the traditions. It is written down but it is to be owned by the collective and the collective alone. And they will do nothing with it but play it with each other. Here, the reasons are each their own. Here, the reasons are never the reasons of Max Webster.

And so it continues across the globe. There is a hive. A honeycomb. And Max sees everything within his honeycomb exactly as it is. But the world is not just the hives of his activities – of his productivity and order. Even within it there is a greater vibrancy than he recognises. He just does not have to recognise it. But it is certainly there. For music can be one of the most powerful, creative and personal things an individual can have – both within the hive and without. It is one of the best reasons to believe that people have souls. It can course through your life’s blood, completely expressive. And it can be looked at in a staid manner like Max and even be admired for it. Or it can be something so much more. Ultimately, with interpretation, it doesn’t matter what purpose the music has. As long as it has purpose.

Quick note:
The name Max Webster was a name plucked at random. I think it came from Max Weber (somewhat fitting because of his ideas around ‘disenchantment’ with modernity) and then thinking how a spider’s web was a slightly related metaphor and so how the editing of the name would be appropriate. However, I googled the name only to be surprised that it was a Canadian progressive rock band!


I have, as yet, never heard their music, though I imagine it’s something I’d enjoy and I do intend to check the band out. The coincidence is surprising and I wouldn’t be surprised if I have seen the name because apparently there is a Rush connection and I do like my Rush.

So, quickly to clarify, the use is not at all meant to be to pick holes in the band because, as I have already said, I have not checked them out to judge one way or the other and I expect to appreciate. Also, as the band started in 1973, I put Max Webster on the 73rd floor and, as they ended in 1982, I put the first alternative to the character’s ideas that many miles apart. Weird the things that crop up when one writes!

Further note: Have since listened. An unusual, quite new-wave/punk type sound in places. Not bad!

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