COWMAN ON COWMAN

Q: What are you all about?

A: Cowman emerged as a response to the bullshit in music. My band (birdbath) couldn’t get their shit together so I figured, “I can do something on my own.” Taking cues from early Touch and Go drum machine bands like Big Black and Flour I started making beats, playing distorted bass over the top and attempting to do vocals, recording it all onto a four-track. It is all really lo-fi and an early philosophy I wanted to stick to was not to overwork material, just come up with a beat, play a riff over it a couple of times to get a feel for it, record it, then jot down some words and record them. Only if I was really dissatisfied with the results would I scrap a song or re-record.

Q: What’s with the persona/costume

A: Again to do with my disillusionment with UK bands at the time I started. I was fed up of seeing bands that just tried to be cool, and had clearly not thought about what their band-name meant or thought about having some kind of stage gimmick. Steve Albini with Big Black used to set off firecrackers before a show, Faust did all kinds of crazy things before, during and after shows. Hanatarash destroyed a venue with a bulldozer. I wanted to create something different rather than just another bunch of losers with guitars playing loud music. So I got a cheap boiler suit, some welding goggles and some hazard tape and there was Cowman. A friend found a cow’s pelvis in a field that we made into a kind of helmet that I wore for a while, but it was so uncomfortable I gave it up. Recently I gave up on the goggles, as I was sick of not being able to see at shows.

The name came from a few places, first I am a vegan, and vegan shit can stink out a place, so when a flatmate said, ‘dude, you stink like a cow, man’ the name stuck. I also like the Simpsons connection, ‘don’t have a cow, man’ and the reference to a little known song by U.S. Maple “When a man says ow.” As a vegan it is a reference to the fact that people are animals, like saying a cow is like a man – you eat beef, but would you eat man beef? Kind of confrontational. Most people don’t get it though.

Q: What’s with the music?

A: I like loud, distorted bass sounds, and so that it what I have tried to create. I have recorded about 7 albums worth of material, with the first effort ‘cowman’ now unavailable. That had a mixture of material where I was experimenting with synths and different drum sounds, and some of it is poor quality. The first proper album, ‘The Joy Of Not Being Sold Anything’ I am still quite happy with. It came about as I was living in London and had been working on material for a project I was working on with a friend called Midnight Moth. That was about recording an album in 24 straight hours. We had already recorded two fairly successful albums, however we got stuck with ‘artistic differences’ on the third, fell out big time (I haven’t spoken to him since) and put all my creative juices into this Cowman album. In response to my Midnight Moth partner selling cds with my playing on them without either my consent or my feeling that the material was good enough to sell was to put together an album to give away free. The golden inspiration was seeing the fresh Banksy graffiti on a London billboard giving me the title and cover of the album. Nice. Next was the pun titled ‘gina,’ get it? Cowmangina. Ha ha. This is probably my favourite album as I managed to get a really high pitched, electronic sounding bass/guitar sound that reminded me of Big Black. It is also pretty dark too. After that was “Apocalypse Cow” (not the best pun I know) which was a lot more experimental and disjointed – there is some synth stuff, live drums, improvised stuff and some of my favourite songs like bubblegum bum rape and senigalia on there, my first release on ingue records. The last album was the crushingly intense “palpating the rumen” Around 70 minutes of relentless high impact music. I was trying to create an album as tight as Big Black’s “Songs About Fucking” and succeeded in making an album twice the length. In hindsight I should have cut some of the material, but at the time I wanted an evil beast, and that is what I ended up with, similar in some ways to ‘gina.’ That was in 2009, and since then I have recorded a covers album and an experimental concept album (one track is on soundcloud), no release date for either yet, maybe 2013. 

Q:Tour?

A:I find playing live a real headache, too many gadgets to keep track of – this is the problem with being solo, however it is hugely rewarding so I may be tempted into playing if I get the right offer. The problem is the state of music in the UK at the moment is so deflated that a noise-rock act like me is no longer a draw even as a novelty. With bands like Aids Wolf breaking up and Doomsday Student only playing the Supersonic Festival in Birmingham and London it says to me that traditional touring routes are off, only major cities need apply. Last time I played Bristol I was seen by about 10 people which gets a bit depressing, and if the promoter is losing money then so are the bands. Live music is a decent income stream if you are in the right band and you are promoted properly. Unfortunately being unsigned or ‘novelty’ does not get you good support slots or get you a good booking agent. But we’ll see after I have finished my studies.

Q:Studies?

A: I’m currently working of a thesis about the writers PaulBowles and William S. Burroughs. When that is done I may have some more time for music…

A Nice Little Earner

UK dentists, in 2009, earned an average of £89,062 a year. Take home. Do they earn this? the last check up I had it took around 3 minutes for the dentist to look at my teeth, a service that cost me £16. I worked out the numbers, roughly against that amount (not taking into account expenses, but also more lucrative procedures such as implants, bridges, extractions etc.), it works out at about £2000 a day, which is 10,000 a week, a staggering £400,000 a year (working only 40 weeks). No wonder it is a profession attractive to business minded parents. But this is precisely the problem. It cannot be counted a 'caring' profession when it is so lucrative, as it inevitably attracts people who are interested in making money rather than making people well. A business minded person would not be considering what is in the interest of the patient, but rather what would earn the dentist the most money, hence the large number of unnecessary treatments, misdiagnoses and the array of additional services (such as the visit to the hygienist, usually costing £30 plus, which only recently has been added as a private service, in the past, and officially still, the dentist should perform at least a scale and polish, though now a patient has to demand this as dentists can save themselves time by not doing it, though ethically this means patients teeth care is worse). I have had numerous bad dentists over the years and am so sick of the service it makes me sick. People are right to be scared of dentists - as chances are they will have worse teeth and less money as a result of visiting one. I have had root filling done badly in 1992 causing an infection leading to an unpleasant hospital operation called an apisectomy. I still have an infection 20 YEARS LATER despite numerous check-ups (£16+ a time), an unnecessary extraction that cost £200 (another dentist would have charged £400 - both nhs) and a private root filling that cost £700, all to no avail. See why I place dentists up there with Estate Agents and Bank Managers. see here: BBC NEWS 2009
General Practitioners get my goat too. They're on at least £60,000 a year take home (why it's less than dentists I don't know, they seem to do loads more work). Okay, there are some good G.P.s out there, but increasingly their job is simply Google-ing your symptoms and then prescribing the appropriate drug (the brand on which depends on which company sponsors that particular doctor see here). G.P.s are also G.P.'s because they couldn't specialise at Uni - most med students, particularly the brightest and the best specialise in order to become surgeons or specialists in a field - so yes I am implying that G.P.s are the inferior med students. Hence the high numbers of misdiagnosed patients. It is again also the case, because of the law of interests, that it is never in a doctor or drug company's interest to cure a patient, as their income stream would instantly disappear. And new 'illnesses' like depression, ADHD etc. have essentially been constructed to sell more drugs and give G.P.s more work to do. Now I have suffered depression, and have had close friends suffer it too, and I have never seen a worse attempt at a cure than Prozac. And the UK government want to put these people on £300,000 a year, with more power over surgery spending? The drug companies must be rubbing their blood covered hands with glee. For more see here.
After seeing Schneidlomat's blog post about therapists in the US, I figured I should add my thoughts about said profession here. In my not extensive experience I have found 'councelors' (there is some confusion over what defines a councelor, therapist and psychotherapist - usually it is how long they spent in college) a somewhat strange breed. The question I ask myself is what makes someone become a councelor - and my cynical modern mind leads me to think in terms of 'it seems like an easy job - I'm a people person who likes talking to people - I can't think of anything else to do.' In common with dentists it is never in a councelor's interest to 'cure' the patient as this will cut off a source of revenue, what they need is to keep you interested in seeing them, as regularly as possible. It is also their job to listen to you and talk to you but it is not their job to either care or be your friend. This can often be a problem, as depression can stem from loneliness (more common than you'd think, especially in large cities - people who have lots of friends can feel very lonely too - some friendships can be very complex and unhelpful to mental health). Now I don't have an answer I just think it is worth thinking about some of these issues before seeking 'professional' help. I can also remember Psychology undergraduates who should never be councelors telling me that that was precisely the career path they saw for themselves. Again most people see Psychology as a 'soft' subject taken by undergrads who have no clear direction in life - not the best type of person to help you sort your life out. Perhaps it is better to try speaking to close friends or relations you already trust, or writing your feelings down. And cheaper.

Unfortunately most forward thinking countries have gone via the Health Insurance, total privatisation option, and while in the UK most would not wish to lose the NHS, it seems it has already gone. Just visited a Doctor in St Gallen. Fantastic service, wonderfully clean waiting and consulting rooms, waited 30 seconds before being seen by a really nice, friendly, relaxed doctor who put me at ease and got to the bottom of my problem very quickly, and as it was a common treatment could prescribe and supply medication in house. Medication was given to me at reception, the bill would be posted to my address! I love that. The trust that exists in sending bills to people that no longer exists in the UK. Returning to the hell that is UK dentistry you now have to pay for your check up or treatment BEFORE YOU HAVE HAD IT. This is insane - they have your address on record but still there is no trust, they want your cash or debit card payment UPFRONT, so if you are dissatisfied with the service - tough. Maybe it is because many people have tried to get away without paying but society cannot work like this. If I am going to buy a car I don't go to the garage, talk to the salesman and give him a load of money before I've even seen it or given it a test drive. I don't go to the supermarket ad give a load of money to the cashier and then collect my food (unless I buy online like a lazy, agoraphobic idiot). And if the dentist's don't trust me to pay for my treatment, why should I trust them to give me a good service - this thing works both ways. I'll miss St Gallen. When the UK does lose the NHS the private care provided will be like dentistry is already, upfront, overcharged poor service, and probably not far off the massive increases in charges made by water companies with no improvement in infrastructure or the private train system where ticket prices are a lottery and there is no guarantee you'll get anywhere. While the private systems in Switzerland are expensive, the work and work well. There is pride and trust in a system that works, and the taxes seem fair, along with wage levels being sufficient to pay for health insurance etc. Unfortunately in the UK wage levels are already insufficient to pay for NHS care, so a private system would in all likelihood be disastrous.