WYRD MUSIC: Mike Davis

I do not actually see any great difference between what I do with Gonzo Multimedia, and what I do with The Centre for Fortean Zoology and its attendant projects. Indeed, at the Weird Weekend back in August no less than three of the speakers were actually people who are Gonzo artistes, plus another two who have appeared on a number of occasions in the pages of this magazine. Basically, it is all about encouraging a literate and intelligent interest in things which are challenging to the mainstream, because if we never challenge the mainstream then nothing will ever change and society as a whole will never progress.

This coming year, together with my friend and colleague Martin Eve, who is best known as electron composer 4th Eden, we are launching a new umbrella project called 'Wyrd'.  Wyrd is a concept in Anglo-Saxon culture roughly corresponding to fate or personal destiny. Their concept of fate, wyrd, was stronger than that of the Classical Pagans as there was no resisting it. The word is ancestral to Modern English weird, which retains its original meaning only dialectically.

Some of you may remember that about ten years ago I was involved in publishing a magazine with this name, and indeed there  may well be a revival of said magazine. But it is more than that. The company I own, CFZ Publications, exists basically to give a voice to authors who would otherwise be unlikely to get published.  It is about taking the profit motive out of publishing; a concept which has sometimes turned around and bitten me in the bum as people who I thought I was helping have turned round and accused me of trying to profit from their genius. However, although some people have totally missed the point and disappeared into a cloud of their own self-importance, other people have grokked it immediately and remain close friends and collaborators to this very day. Wyrd is an attempt to do something similar but in other artistic media, utilising the new technology and the burgeoning social media to play games with form, and subvert any recognisable business practises.