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When a Fashionista Meets a Damned Punk: Whisky, Art and Punk- Glenfiddich Artist in Residence
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text by Chen Hui-Chiao
In middle of summer last year, I met someone I seemed to already know; perhaps from distant memory, a dream, or the old soul within, though more like likely the message came from my subconscious belief in a variety of myth. I heard a voice and it said Go, do it, make the step, you must break through to reach the absolute, then you will be instantly enlightened! There seemed to be an inexplicable force guiding me forward. Perhaps in life there is no such thing as a purely coincidental meeting. In a three month period I not only encountered a similar soul, my way illuminated by thistles and silver dust, the experience also brought about the development of a special cultural connection and affection for the people, things and objects of a small Scottish town.
This year I returned to the tranquil home of the “water of life,” once again smelling that fresh, sticky rich scent that makes people miss home; the endless purple heather and thistles, fields of barley, the starry sky, herds of cows and flocks of sheep, rocks and castles carved in hard-to-decipher symbols. Things here were the same, as orderly, flat and tame as ever. As my mind wandered, I unwittingly distanced myself from the friend I was with. Memory burst forth and rewound, along with the clouds and shadows outside the window. Before leaving the airport I couldn’t help but look for a second at that “spot” and laugh to myself.
A Surprise Feast
Last March I unexpectedly received a call from the director of MOCA. A voice at the other end shouted “Scotland has chosen you!” “Me, what have they chosen? Didn't I give you the details of some young artists? Why did they choose me?” “Later they asked for some more information and….decided on you!” I never thought that after deciding to close the IT Park bar I would be invited, out of the blue, to take up a three-month residency at Glenfiddich distillery.
I was busy with work and my English is limited so it took time to make a decision. I also asked a friend who claims to be able to predict the future whether I should go or not. He said “It's bad, something will happen.” When I asked what he said “Trouble.”
This made me hesitate. Another country and I wouldn't have been worried, but this was the home of William Wallace from the film “Braveheart,” a hero of his people whose friendship was as strong as steel and who bravely pursued freedom until his death. There was also Mary Queen of Scots, who had a tragic and romantic life. What kind of damnable place was this exactly? In the end, I decided to follow my inner voice and enlisted the help of a friend whose English is good to accompany me and get to the bottom of things.
I set off for 21st Century Scotland with visions of 13th Century Scotland in my mind. On the way, I was worried about being stopped by customs because I was carrying six cartons of cigarettes, but things went so smoothly I didn’t even notice I had passed through customs. Looking for the waiting room, my eyes came first upon a back clad figure in a yellow luminous vest, looking very much like a Taipei street cleaner, sitting in relaxed pose on a chair. I thought to myself “The workers here are leisurely.” I carried my luggage past the man and just as I wondered to myself what kind of person would be sent to pick us up, I heard a voice call out “Miss Chen”. I turned around to find that the voice came from the man I had just passed, the one with long hair and tattoos on each arm. “Hi, I am Andy Fairgrieve, nice to meet you.” My first reaction was to hope I had heard wrong. How could I last the next three months depending on this man? It takes about an hour to get from Aberdeen Airport to Dufftown. As we drove he explained the origins of the program but all I took in was that he was a drummer, trying hard to enjoy the beautiful scenery outside and disguise my resistance. In any case, I had already said that I couldn't speak English!
I left behind the chaos of Taipei and came to a place so beautiful it made me uneasy and induced insomnia. A night owl like me was in a place where night was short and the day long. Darkness fell after 10 pm each night and daybreak came at 3am. It was so peaceful that it made me want to light a fierce flame in my inner emptiness. Looking out over the scenery – the barrel factory, the stone warehouse, the old furnace under a traditional tower roof, the distillery and the strong smell – it has a distinctively last century feeling. After settling in for a few days I found the man we had met to be very much like William Wallace. I was secretly happy, thinking to myself that this man isn't a drummer. Ha-ha, it seems like this trip will be interesting (however, the words “there be will a problem” kept coming into my head, making me rein in my usually forthright and bullying nature).
Indeed, you can't judge a person by his or her appearance. Since 2002, Glenfiddich has provided a hefty scholarship, travel expenses and accommodation, from May to August each year, with a curator Claudia Zeiske empowered to invite eight artists from around the world to take up residence and create art. From contacts before taking up residence, to activities and miscellaneous matters during the period of residency, helping artists find material to organizing their gallery exhibition, meeting arrivals and seeing off artists on their departure, this rebellious and coarse-looking fellow handled everything himself. He not only acted quickly to fulfill our every wish, he also operated in a highly efficiently and orderly way and was modest and polite. All the artists working with him not only admired his professional attitude, they also liked him a lot. For four months he had to put up with the moods of people of different cultures, even unreasonable trivial requests. In his place I would certainly have gone crazy well before the end, but he seemed to have so much stamina, especially in the face of yours truly who most of the time communicated with him using sign language!
About “Water of life”
The Celtic term “Uisge Beatha” can be traced back to the Middle Ages and comes from alchemists who discovered the technique for distilling whisky when refining gold. They called this clear liquid with the ability to stimulate passion “Aqua-Vitae” in Latin. It was also called “spirits” because the essence of grain was believed to be like the soul that lies at the center of life. This unusual liquid seemed to possess the power to make a silent traveler talk, make a person braver, encourage the exchange of messages, cause people to talk to themselves or simply mess up their minds. This liquid of time, clear and golden in appearance was seemingly able to establish an unbroken relationship between an individual’s inner world and the world in which they reside.
In a magical process of transformation, fermentation and distillation turn the green-yellow malt juice into a crystal-clear liquid in the cooling vat. It is more pure than any well water and feels colder to the touch than ice. However, in when tasted it makes one’s teeth tremble, burns the throat and the warm feeling goes all the way to the belly, then to the finger tips, the feet and finally the head. I feel tired and excited, because some things are not right. Perhaps only people with some understanding of the liquid can drink this water of life. It is an ancient thing with an ancient feeling. It is, perhaps an inner feeling, one of emptiness that exists in the make up of countless individual situations mixed together. Feeling, yes, feeling is perhaps a one kind of unusual physical aging process. The more you try to break down the elements of which it is constituted, the harder it is to grasp the things you took for granted in the beginning...
Scotland is in the north of Great Britain and divided into the Lowlands and Highlands. Below a line from Greenock to the west of Glasgow and Dundee, river valleys, plains and hills make up the Lowlands. To the north are the Highlands, mountain ranges and lakes formed in the Ice Age. The River Spey is in the Highlands and is the area where distilleries are most heavily concentrated. There are 120 distilleries making over 150 types of whisky. The Glenfiddich Distillery is located in Dufftown, Aberdeen. In this town of just 2,000 people there are seven distilleries, three of which, Glenfiddich, Balvenie and Kininvie, belong to the Grant family.
Glenfiddich, in its unique designed triangular bottle representing water, barely and air, was William Grant (1839-1923) established in the summer of 1886. “Glen” is a Scottish valley, whereas “Fiddich” means deer in the local language. To this day, it is the only Highland distillery with its own water source (Robbie Dhu spring water), grows its own barley, makes its own oak barrels and copper distilling vats. Water, yeast and barley are the three key raw materials in the making of whisky, a process that involves mashing, fermentation, distillation, maturation and then bottling and sale. I became quite well versed in the complexity of the whisky making process. The size and shape of the copper distilling vats has a key effect on the whisky produced. Scottish whisky has to be distilled twice, with only the middle part, the cream of the distilled liquid used. The size of the vats has a direct impact on the flavor of the whisky. Most of those in Scotland are copper and operate in pairs. The bigger the vats, the weaker the flavor of the whisky they produce and vice versa. Generally, a long-necked still (wash still) first distills the fermented mixture of malted barley water and yeast to produce a alcoholic liquid known as lowwines/feints with a strength of between 18 and 36 percent volume. This liquid is then re-distilled through short-necked stills (spirt stills) to produce the potable spirit. (This spirit by law must be kept in an oak barrel for three years before it can be called whisky). The oak barrel, in which the whisky is aged, has an even more important influence on the texture of the final product. Whisky has many colors, from deep brown to opal, the color being directly related to the length of time the whisky is aged in oak barrels. This is why bottles have the year of bottling on them. Usually, the longer the whisky is aged the deeper the color will be. The Balvine distillery uses a special peat and the flavor of the whisky can differ greatly depending on whether the malt is peat smoked during drying or not. After over a century of production this family business still has the only one highland single malt Scotch whisky made and matured completely in its on distillery using its own water source.
During my three month stay I was delighted to be given the opportunity to experience this wild untamed land first hand, but I also learned much, from a part of the British Isles steeped in legend. I studied the “water of life” keenly and became acquainted with the century old heritage and entrepreneurial courage of a local family business, led by Peter Gordon (b.1959), a fifth generation descendent of William Grant, but a man who I found both amusing and approachable. When the details and orientation of the original plan for an artist's village were being discussed it was pointed out that all of the operations at the distillery ran on fixed rails and that many of the employees had worked there from the age of 15 or 16. The hope was therefore expressed that the introduction of artistic creativity would help to highlight new forms and symbols and in so doing breathe new life into the never changing mechanical operations of the distillery. Friends asked Gordon whether he did not in fact hope the resident artists would bring something concrete to the plant or whether they would be asked to include elements related to the plant in their art? To such questions Peter Gordon responded: “Surely any such expectation run counter to the spirit of independence and freedom that is supposed to characterize art” When sponsoring any artistic or cultural event one cannot expect it to serve as just a symbol to burnish the image of a company. Projecting one's self awareness onto “creative waiting” involves searching for new forms but is also about creating ourselves. I was amazed that his vision of greater space and imagination for art was broader than even that of an artist such as myself.
Andy Fairgrieve (b.1962) noted that whisky, art and music are all about the realization of creative force, whereas experience provides us with our view of the world, crafting our ideas and values. What spurs people onwards is the non-individualistic “idea of development.” This is the relationship between art, industry and whisky, a field of study intimately involved with “relationships.” At the very least, for Fairgrieve it represents two people communicating; the mutual dependence of the plant and the town or the exchange and interaction of local and international culture. Of course, this is also the relationship between the existence and changes one time and another. But what surprised me even more, was that this journey opened up a world to me that I had never before considered the need to understand. – the world of Punk!
A Punk Musician's Travel's in the New Millennium
In addition to being the general coordinator of Glenfiddich's artist's village program and a plant employee, I discovered that Andy Fairgrieve was also the brains behind the punk band Filthpact and the group's drummer. In his spare time, Fairgreive and the band toured. If not for him playing those two roles and agreeing to allow me to tag along as the group went on a concert tour of the UK, it is unlikely I would have made the trip back this year. It was really this time that I finally came to understand the fearless spirit of punk, especially the Cramond-Punk Picnics near Edinburgh. We had to get there before the tide shifted and so a group of us found ourselves weighed down by a large, heavy power generator and other basic apparatus needed for the group’s performance. We carried the stuff through the waves, over several kilometers of embankment walkway and then over hill and dale before we finally reached the location of the band's latest gig. After the performance we had to rush to get away before the tide came in. Sometimes as many as 20 groups play outdoor concerts such as this, but to begin with I had my doubts that many people would make the effort to reach such a remote place. In the past I had seen the band play at various pubs and derelict buildings, and the same group of fans always made an appearance, which I could understand. As the crowds failed to appear I started to worry for them and then, as the time of the performance drew closer, several hundred people suddenly turned up. A black group of people under the blue sky and white clouds, screaming and shaking to the noise of the concert. This was the second year in a row I had witnessed the fighting spirit of punk. Despite the fact that it was sometimes difficult to distinguish between those on the stage and the audience, many amusing scenes stick in my memory. Both performers and participants were very determined and disciplined, a act that somewhat went against the rotten image I had of punk bands I had gleaned from fashion magazines; spiky hair, studded jackets, spitting on their fans and so on...
Andy Fairgrieve first became interested in punk music in 1976 when an older friend gave him the record “Damned Damned Damned,” the first release from the British punk group The Damned. For me with such a limited outlook, it proved especially difficult to grasp the meaning of such words with my scanty knowledge of English and lack of understanding of music, especially punk music. Andy had to patiently explain everything to me, but I listened intently, observed everything around me and followed their lead, after the rapid beating of his drumsticks, traveling with a group of strangers whose music I could barely understand.
Although Punk magazine was published in New York several years before the punk movement took hold in the UK, punk was ultimately defined by the music and attitude of such UK groups as The Damned, The Clash and The Sex Pistols, although many of the groups in this first wave gradually established themselves as part of the orthodox music industry. Punk was then replaced by New Wave music and such groups as Spandau Ballet and Ultravox and some critics went as far as to declare punk dead and buried. In fact, it did not disappear, continuing in the shape of several highly political underground groups such as Crass, Conflict, Citizen Fish and Oi Polloi etc. who continued to voice their discontent with certain political leaders. Indeed, it was this determination to oppose the pop music trends created by mainstream music media that established a foundation for the continuation of punk culture – a certain DIY spirit and a refusal to accept the injunctions of God or a manager. This is the true spirit of independence and an attempt to realize true self expression.
Independent bands are unwilling to be part of the mainstream market for music and as such online self-management has become enabled realization of punk, just as young people from different generations rising up in opposition to state control is also part of the punk legacy. In other words, punk is far more than a genre of music or noise.[1] It is the spirit of revolt and awakening. It is always possible that the mainstream will continue to swallow up and undermine these bands, but as long as people stand up in opposition, their proud flag will continue to fly. Indeed, the ideas punk represents will spread even further, just as the new age traveler movement in the new era has been influenced by punk. As a result, the musical style associated with punk has become of only secondary importance.
Punks believe that every individual should follow his or her own path and style in life, even if that runs counter to the standards of “normal society.” One of the basic principles of punk music is the independence of the group. This can be seen in the way they arrange their own tour dates and performances, release their own records and come together to form a global community of people with shared ideas - individuals working together to promote self sufficiency and develop the ability to exist independently of the mainstream music industry. “This is extremely important. If we made our living through music then perhaps we would, to a certain extent, have to compromise, but we all have other jobs and that allows us to strike a balance between life and independent music. We are not special, because we do not make punk music to be “heroes” or to seek the blind adulation of others.”
In 2005, the band played 13 gigs in 11 countries in just 16 days. The group members spent night and day together for weeks and sometimes do so for several months at a stretch. Like a military barracks there was no privacy, a new place every day and sometimes they even camped outdoors. For them, it was almost as if they were free to do whatever they wanted, the only restriction being the physical ability to cope. I though that it would be no problem for me to tour with these guys, so I was surprised to find that my constitution simply couldn’t handle it. There were problems with something as every-day as going to the bathroom. They were able to stop the van at the side of the road but for me we had to find a motorway rest stop. On more than a few occasions I came very close to the limits of my ability to “hold it”... and gradually it became evident that my original idea of traveling with the band was not going to work!
Postscript
Your Gods, Heroes, Your Jesus.
Your Savior, Saint, Sal-fucking vation.
Has no place here,
This is the work of men [2]
Are you taking over or are you taking orders?
Are you going backwards or are you going forward?[3]
When any creative form exhausts itself, constantly panders to market values and becomes part of a trend towards triviality, what follows is unavoidable withering and abandonment. Punk music was born as a direct challenge to mainstream rock & roll and although it is perhaps unable to directly change how politics operates in a capitalist system, it is also true that any social movement, persuasion or protests all stem from popular participation. In other words, whether a song, a painting or a poem and whether related to sense of vision, hearing or even smell and taste, all forms have the ability to force a reassessment of our beliefs and values.
To begin with I found it impossible to understand whisky, punk and art, which on the surface it seemed to me were contradictory and completely unrelated. How could they figure so prominently in the life of one person and how could Andy Fairgrieve be so industrious in seeking to make all three work for him? Sometimes I looked on him as the epitome of Sisyphus, doomed to spend eternity pushing a rock up a mountain, faced with seemingly endless industry and repetition. Only recently have I come to realize that this is not just about will and determination, rather it is more to do with inspiration and a powerful sense of self-confidence. Without the ability to face desperation and make the painful monotony of the rolling stone part of one’s own rebellion, we are singularly unable to develop the courage needed to transcend the boredom of daily life and it is this courage that gives us balance in hopelessness.
Perhaps worries and being unsatisfied are the source of all creation. People live surrounded by contradictions and life itself is often a spiritual war for the soul, whereas creation involves sitting down and judging oneself. It is impossible to truly know what lies behind the goals other people pursue. Whether we steer our boat against the current, work like robots in a factory or strive every day to express difficult ideas with unfathomable words; whether an artist or a marginalized individual claiming no affiliations, both play with decorative phrases that seem to belong to the realm of philosophical discussion. Maybe once we are secure in our current situation we lose the courage to be creative and thereby our position. Only those individuals determined to open their eyes and infused with the power of love and a mighty will can be true artists. Our fate is to push-on between life and death, facing our own freedom and responsibility because The Future is Unwritten.[4] Today, as I reflect on the experience I think that had I believed the words of the medium I visited, I would have missed an experience that has been unbelievably rich and invaluable.
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[1] See “The philosophy of punk: more than noise! By Craig O'hara” and “Sound and Fury: Can Rock & Roll Change the World? By Chang Tieh-chih” published by Cite.
[2] From the first CD released by Filthpact in 2004: No Jesus
[3] From the first single by the Clash released in 1977: White Riot
[4] From The Clash - The Future is Unwritten. |
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