Showing posts with label 2000s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2000s. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Punk and firefighters' strikes in 1977 and 2002

Good luck to firefighters on strike today in England and Wales in their pensions dispute, and to those in the London fire stations facing closure next week by Boris Johnson's cuts.



There's still a couple of days left on BBC IPlayer to watch 'Never Mind the Baubles: Xmas '77 with the Sex Pistols', Julien Temple's remarkable documentary about the Pistols last gigs in the UK. In 1977, firefighters were on all out strike over pay, walking out on 14 November for a 30% pay claim. The government mobilised the army to operate a strikebreaking fire service, and as Christmas approached firefighters and their families were facing great hardship. The Sex Pistols meanwhile were being banned from venues all over the country.

Huddersfield, December 25 1977

On Christmas Day 1977, the Pistols played two gigs in Ivanhoe's nightclub, Huddersfield. The first was a party for the striking firefighters' families, with the band handing out Xmas presents including t-shirts, albums and skateboards. The gig ended up with a cake fight and kids pogoing in their 'Never Mind the Bollocks' t-shirts. In the evening the band played a regular gig for adults. Temple was there on the day and filmed both sets, their last on British soil before heading off to the USA where they split up in January 1978.

The Pistols weren't the only band to play a benefit gig. The picture below is of popular pub rock band The Pirates at Hammersmith Fire Station in 1977, who also played for the strikers. Drummer Frank Farley's dad had been station officer at Hammersmith.

picture by 'Mick' at flickr
25 years later in November 2002, firefighters staged a series of strikes in another pay dispute. Another old punk, Joe Strummer, played a benefit gig for them at Acton Town Hall and was joined on stage by ex-Clash guitarist Mick Jones - the first  and only time they had played together since Jones left The Clash in 1983. The following month Strummer died.

Strange how these iconic moments in the history of punk and its aftermath coincided with these waves of firefighters' struggles.


Wednesday, February 20, 2013

A shrine to a pirate

On Redcross Way SE1 (near to London Bridge station), the site of a paupers' graveyard was discovered during construction of the Jubilee line on the London underground in the 1990s. Crossbones has become a remarkable unofficial shrine where people gather on the 23rd of every month to remember the outcast dead buried there, and also their more recently departed loved ones.


Going past last week I noticed a notice in memory of Jason Fisher (1979-2011), aka Angryness and Brimstone - evidently a pirate radio stalwart from South London and Kent. The notice also says 'Pirate Radio is Good for Your Mind'.


'Brimstone' was particularly associated with Essence FM, broadcasting in Kent from the early noughties (FM 105.1 - 105.0, 2000-2007). According to farstep in a discussion at Radionecks, Essence 'used to broadcast from Thanet (usually from tower block flats in Margate or Ramsgate) used to be a great little station playing UKG, DnB, Happy Hardcore, House etc. ... anyway was nice to hear it when it was about and to date its been the only one that was audible in Thanet/Kent which is a bit sad to say the least as we need something on round here. There was briefly Sweet FM which went on for one night from a farm in Ramsgate but sounds to me they got dobbed up and never returned. Friend of mine did a set on Rival FM but I dont think that lasted long either so Essence was really the only driving force around these parts'

This prompted an interesting reply:  'Hi everyone, I'm "Brimstone's" dad. First of all I like to say how much I and family and friends miss him. I believe he started Essence FM in around 2000 with Frantic and Mr Woo was also involved and this went on till about 2005. He built rigs at one time then did repairs then designed and built link boxes and audio limiters of high quality. He left radio behind and then he was into computers and built his own website. He was quite well known in the pirate world around London, Essex and Kent. He did pirate radio proud. He was a genius...  I am writing a book on his life and collecting any info about his radio days if anyone feels they have a story please let me know'.

Radiocommunications Agency press release (31 January 2003) descirbes Fisher's arrest at the top of an aerial:
'Two pirate operators were convicted at Camberwell Magistrates Court on 27th January 2003 for offences under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949. Jason Fisher of Priestwood House, Drummond Road, Rotherhithe, London, SE16 and Michael Pruce of Philip Walk, Peckham, London, SE15, both 23, were each given 18 months conditional discharges and ordered to pay £150 costs after being found guilty of participating in the running of a pirate radio station calling itself Essence FM.

28 September last, the two defendants were caught at the top of a 180ft-cell phone aerial with tools and radio transmitting apparatus. When questioned they stated they were enjoying the aerial views. However, they subsequently admitted the offences when interviewed. The court ordered the seized equipment be forfeited'.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Revolution as resonance



Following on from Negri and Hardt's recent reference to 'low frequency' communication between struggles, here's another example of bass as radical metaphor:

'Revolutionary movements do not spread by contamination but by resonance. Something that is constituted here resonates with the shock wave emitted by something constituted over there. A body that resonates does so according to its own mode. A insurrection is not like a plague or a forest fire – a linear process which spreads from place to place after an initial spark. It rather takes the shape of a music, whose focal points, though dispersed in time and space, succeed in imposing the rhythm of their ownvibrations, always taking on more density' (The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection, 2007)

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Dancing Questionnaire (25): Mark, New York

Mark is 38 years old and works as an Advertising Executive in New York, following an odyssey from Tamworth and London via Sheffield.

Can you remember your first experience of dancing?

I think the very earliest was bopping around to Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’ with my grandma at a family wedding reception near Walsall, but the one that really stands out is headbanging to AC/DC’s ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ at a primary school disco in Tamworth, Staffs, where I grew up. I’d seen some older kids doing it at the previous year’s event - my first taste of youth rebellion aged 8! I remembered the names of the bands on the patches sewed onto their sleeveless denim jackets and over the next twelve months become an entry-level rocker, renting albums from the local record library and getting my own cut-off denim with patches and studs. Then eventually it was me and my mates’ turn to headbang at the disco when the token metal record was played. The DJ cut it off before the end as the teachers were concerned about potential brain damage.

What's the most interesting/significant thing that has happened to you while dancing?

Building a deeper relationship with music. I’ve devoted much of my life to music in all its forms and through dancing I enjoy exploring its qualities more deeply, amongst the thrills and spills. I remember dancing in Manchester in 1996 in the Village to ‘The Love I Lost’ by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes and suddenly realizing that the dance music I enjoyed most had a particular combination of uplifting-ness and melancholy which then set the course ahead for many years.



You. Dancing. The Best of times...

New York 2007-2010. People say dancing in New York’s not what it was. Sure, over-zealous regulation has harmed the vibrancy and scale of the club scene but this has been replaced by an amazing DIY attitude for the past decade or so. This manifests in all-night semi-legal dance parties in lofts and warehouses mainly in Brooklyn often featuring an eclectic mix of music, DJs, performance and participation. There’s a real sense of excitement for me around something genuinely underground, unpredictable, community based and musically eclectic which has totally revitalized my love of dancing. It’s as if dance music has resumed its role in the city as outsiders’ music, which is how I’ve always most enjoyed it.

You. Dancing. The Worst of times...

When I first moved to London in the late 90s I found it hard to find a scene that satisfied me. DnB was too hard and fast, House had got too cheesy, Big Beat was too beery and everything was too segmented and focused on one style of music. Maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough though at the time.

Can you give a quick tour of the different dancing scenes/times/places you've frequented?

I started dancing regularly in 1987 at an under 18s discos in Tamworth at a club called the Embassy. It wasn’t really my scene though and things didn’t really take off until I discovered ‘indie’ music via John Peel and then started to make regular trips to Birmingham to indie disco nights and 60s psychedelic nights like the Sensateria at the Institute, as well as the odd hardcore rave. University in Sheffield in 1992 meant a headlong rush into house, techno, garage and funk with the poly-sexual scene around Vague [Leeds], Flesh [Manchester] and Sheffield’s Trash providing a little spice around the slightly-cheesy uniformity of the post-acid house scene up north at the time.


A move to London in the late 90s meant a hotch-potch of east-London fare – reggae, DnB, ragga, hip hop, a bit of house and the electroclash scene around Nag Nag Nag. Carnival weekend was always the highlight of the year, and I had a brief involvement with a north London pirate station. But gradually dancing died away. In 2005 the move to New York reignited it all again.

When and where did you last dance?

To a Robert Owens DJ set at Dalston Superstore, London last November.

You're on your death bed. What piece of music would make you leap up for one final dance?

‘I Want Your Love’ by Chic. The perfect combination of yearning, hope and melancholy that characterizes much of my favorite music to dance to.

All questionnaires welcome, just answer the same questions - or even make up a few of your own - and send to transpontine@btinternet.com (see previous questionnaires).

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Dancing Questionnaire (24): Coz, Dublin

Today is St Patrick's Day, and by complete coincidence the latest respondent to the Dancing Questionnaire is Dublin-based Coz who describes himself as '39, Male, Community Radio DJ (on Near FM), Community Worker and Anti-fascist dance lover'.

Can you remember your first experience of dancing?

No, but I can recall my earliest memory of dancing. One of my paternal uncle's had a friend who was a huge Elvis fan and was known on the local club circuit (in Barnsley) for paying tribute to the King. We were fortunate as kids in the famlily to get much closer to the King than those occupying Clubland ever could have and having a mother and father who liked to sing and party in equal measure ensured we were ever present at family get togethers. Naturally, Trevor (The King) would take the stage (front room) at some point and receive the Holy Spirit (Elvis), writhing in contorted ecstasy while he moaned and groaned his way through a repertiore of The King classics. Invariably the kids in the room, who were not yet old enough to be inhbited by the presence of others were implored to provide rhythmic accompaniament by various mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles. So, there I'd be, trying for all I was worth to swing my pre-pubescent hips to the Blue Suede Shoes, Jailhouse Rock and Moody Blue... and I've been swinging em ever since.

What's the most interesting/significant thing that has happened to you while dancing?

Hmm, probably too many to settle on as definitive, but certainly one that will live with me until I die (or develop memory loss) was during a Henry McCullough gig (relatively unknown to me at the time) at the Menagerie in Belfast... just about to swagger onto the dancefloor I was stunned then hugely gratified to see him leap of the stage and whack somone with his guitar who was apparently pissing him off (I knew the protagonist and can certainly vouch for his annoying temperament). It all happened in slo-mo and the ensuing collapse of the PA and the swift ejection of the suitably chastised all added to the surreal moment... and I swear Henry still had his slippers on. Quite remarkable and all I could say to my mate for the rest of the night was, “Now that's fucking rock n roll fella!”

You. Dancing. The Best of times...

Turning 16 in 1989, leaving school and embarking on my first year at college (studying shit you'd never get to study at school) and accompanied by the very 'OST' of an emerging Manchester sound blaring out of the stacks at the Baths Hall in Scunthorpe. For the next 3-4 years I mouched my way across the dancefloors of some pretty grim northern pubs, clubs and parties while the Stone Roses, Charlatans, Happy Mondays, Soup Dragons, Blur, The Farm, EMF, et al made every one of them shine like beacons in what were invariably violent, grubby, and dirty-drug soaked nights out. Hot on their heels came Britpop, personified by the arrogance and egotism of Luke Haines (Auteurs), Brett Anderson (Suede) and Liam Gallagher. Sure, they were mostly aresholes then (and some still are) but my God did they make you feel like there was more to life! And of course, there was and still is. Being young, embarking on life's meandering path and all accompanied by some fantastic anthems... well, I couldn't help but dance.

You. Dancing. The Worst of times...

If I can't dance to it I'm just not dancing... unfortunately that basic standard doesn't apply to a lot of others. The worst offenders? Clearly the pill popping, 2 left feet owning and chequed shirt wearing white (invariably) boys from the estates, whom you'd think would be saved by the simplicity of repetitive beats. But not for some lads (and lasses)... the dance scene undoubtedly brought some Halcyon moments (and still does), but these were often accompanied by some less savoury sites of wide-eyed astonishment. Unfortunatley I joined them on far to many occassions.

Can you give a quick tour of the different dancing scenes/times/places you've frequented?

As a young teen it revolved primarily around the informal self made nights that we created either at people's houses or off the beaten tracks of our estates (local woods were always popular, where you could build a fire from the pallets of the nearby Asda and drink/sniff glue/smoke blow without worrying about being seen by all and sundry). Music was provided through 8-12 battery ghetto blasters and was usually hard rock in them days (ACDC/Maiden/Crue/RATT/G'n'R), with a liberal dosing of punk (Clash/Pistols/Tenpole Tudor/Jam/Stiffs) and something a little bit more commercial (Housemartins/Smiths/New Order/Erasure)... and we pretty must just threw oursleves around whichever house/field/wood we were occupying at the time. Once the doors of pubs and clubs were thrown open to me (at far too early and age it must be said) I entered the world of commercial dross in most cases (chart topping hits and the like) and where girls played second fiddle to the music. Still. I managed to stumble upon the odd decent 'alternative' night/club for a dismal northern town, who regaled me with new and unkown sounds (Joy Division/Wire/Chumbawamba/CRASS/Cure/Television Personalities) that at the very least didn't seem to require any particular knowldege or skill related to fancy footwork. Again, throwing myself around a lot seemed to be the order of the night (or day).

Cue 'baggy' and Acid House and all of a sudden everyone's getting on the nouveau retro bandwagon and suddenly you not only needed to look good on the dancefloor but you needed to know the moves to... needless to say I just kept throwing myself around a lot. It didn't seem to matter... 25 years on and such club nights as Bop Yestrum in Belfast prove that you can play whatever the fuck you like and the primary desire for most people is to just throw themselves about a lot.... while I could always generally find a beat to bop to, the only one I could never get and will probably always regret was the smooth moves of the Northern Soul scene... making a bit of a comeback as a slight post-script to the Acid Jazz scene in Belfast in the mid 90s I was always envious of those old enough to have made sojourns across the country to the Weekenders/All Nighters around legendary places like Wigan Casino. Nothing delights me more than watching the effortless shuffles of those adept at moving to a classic Northern Soul number.

And in the 15 odd years since I've gravitated from one alternative disco/club/shebeen to the next... and pretty much still do. Too cynical to ever become truly immersed in a scene/place I've always thought of my dancing experiences as like brief flirtations, where I get to dip my toe in and feel the beat for a while, but I'll never make a mistress of ya! And having lived in Ireland for the last 20 years many of those 'alt' nights/places have included experiences you wouldn't just tell anybody about... particularly the Rozzers! These days, most dancing takes place at any gig I'm fortunate enough to get at where the cool factor hasn't induced everybody into a steady sway at best. No Means No being a more recent example of how gigs should be enjoyed by a crowd.

When and where did you last dance?

Funky Seomra (pictured below) at the RDS in Dublin – a regular monthly night of dancing with a strong emphasis on the absence of alcohol and the rewards of physical expression. Daunted on arrival, but soon realising it was really a night for 'alt festival' goers without the tents, field, cider, rain/wind/sun/, cheap burgers but still plenty of 'free spirits' trying to commune with their inner child. Despite my inherent cynicism I embraced it whole heartedly and danced my ass off to some real classics (Yeke Yeke/Insomnia/Blue Monday)... so much so I might just do it all again on Paddys Day, which will be a significant achievement in Dublin when drinking till you die appears to be a minimum expectation.



You're on your death bed. What piece of music would make you leap up for one final dance?

Soooo many, but truth be told it'd be a toss up between RATMs Killing in the Name Of and System of a Downs BYOB and Band of Horse's Funeral . I reckon that in most cases I feel like trashing whatevers around me when 2 of these songs are on and given I'd be on my deathbed I might just get away with it on this occasion! The thirds seems apt...


All questionnaires welcome, just answer the same questions - or even make up a few of your own - and send to transpontine@btinternet.com (see previous questionnaires).

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Dancehall and church hall

Robert Beckford's 'Jesus Dub: theology, music and social change' (London: Routledge, 2006) offers a 'dialogue between the cultural production of dancehall and theology of the church hall', drawing on his own experiences in African Caribbean Christianity and of sound system culture.

In respect of the latter, Beckford recalls his first encounter with dub courtesy of Coventry's Conquering Lion sound system in the 1970s:

'What immediately struck me when I entered the converted class-room masquerading as an urban dance floor was the sheer intensity of the event. It was corked full of young people and the events were conducted in pitch dark. It was also boiling hot due in part to the reggae dance floor chic of wearing winter coats with matching headwear. However, overpowering all of my senses was what Julian Henriques terms sonic dominance of the sound system. There was a throbbing, pulsing bass line ricocheting through the bricks, mortar, flesh and bones. The sonic power was tamed in part by the DJ's improvised poetic narration or 'toasting' over the dub track. Playing on the turntable was a dub version of MPLA by a reggae artist called 'Tappa Zukie' (David Sinclair). As the DJ 'toasted', the silhouetted bodies moved in unison to the bass line: the heat, darkness and body sweat adding to the sheer pleasure of this Black teen spirit... These rituals of orality, physicality and communality were also acts of pleasure and healing'.

Beckford is also good on the sound systems as means of cultural production: 'Sound systems consist of far more than just turntables and speakers. Such is their size and complexity that they require a crew of people to run them' (operators, selectors, DJs, drivers etc), and 'this is an important point of departure from the current trend in mainstream popular DJ culture where DJs travel with records and play on sets already pre-prepared and with which they have no relationship... As well as being a community, the sound sysyem's division of labour provides an opportunity for artistic development'.

If the theological aspects of the book sound like a turn-off I recommend sticking with it. Beckford attempts the ambitious task of 'dubbing' pentecostalist Christianity with a bit of help from 'Black liberation theologies of the Black Atlantic' (James H Cone, Gutierrez etc.) as well as Paul Gilroy, Deleuze and Guattari.

If you think it's stretching it a bit to describe Jesus as 'a dubbist involved in taking apart and reconstructing. human life and transforming unjust social structures and practices', you should at least be open to having some of your prejudices challenged. It certainly gave me pause for thought and made me a bit more sceptical of the assumption that proliferating black churches are simply a sign of political quietism if not reaction, even more so of the assumption that the leisure choices of white middle class urbanites (arthouse cinemas, restaurants) should always be given precedence*.

(*Obviously I'm referring here to the typical local liberal campaign that goes 'omg that long derelict building is being turned into an African church we must start a campaign to turn it into something we like instead'. I don't dispute that some churches are money making rackets with dubious practices in relation to child 'possession' etc. but that's hardly the whole story!)


Thursday, June 30, 2011

Camberwell Street Art

The pictures on the Camberwell Snooker Club in South London (junction of Camberwell New Rd and Camberwell Passage) are a bit past their best, peeling and graffiti'd over in turn. But something of their grandeur remains. Seemingly this is the work of the 'WCA Free University of Stencil Art'













Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Rockingham Estate Street Art

These murals are on the Rockingham Estate, near the Elephant and Castle in South London. They were done in 2009 by Morganico with local youth (click on images to enlarge).




















Monday, May 23, 2011

Dancing Questionnaire 22: Jamie Potter

Jamie Potter (http://twitter.com/jamiepotter) gives us the low down on 21st century nights out in Hull, Leicester and Leeds.

1. Can you remember your first experience of dancing?

I have a strange relationship with dancing. I bought my first decks when I was 15 but I was about the only person in my school/town who had any interest in dance music so parties and club visits were non-existent. When I first started going out drinking there were small dancefloors in some of the bars with cheesy DJs playing horrible cheesy music. I was generally reluctant to dance as I was scared of looking like an idiot, though if I saw an attractive girl on the dancefloor I was occasionally tempted into some awkward shuffling that barely registered as 'dancing'.

My first 'proper' dancing experience will have been at either Spiders or Welly in Hull, I can't remember which. Both are rock/indie clubs catering to very young crowds. As I said, I was mainly into dance music but I also liked a lot of rock music and most of my friends were into it, so it was a scene I felt comfortable in. Some and friends and I, while in sixth form, got a train over one night and I remember actually dancing to the likes of Rage Against the Machine and At The Drive In.

2. What’s the most interesting/significant thing that has happened to you while out dancing?

At Gatecrasher Summer Soundsystem in 2008 somebody died after taking drugs in one of the tents we'd been dancing in at the time. I think they had a heart attack. We weren't aware of it until a few hours later when word got around the campsite, at which point we were all chilling out by our tents. I wasn't taking drugs that weekend, I don't really like or need them, but everybody I was there with was on something or other, so the news hit home a bit and led to some glum faces. Though, of course, a few hours later normal service had been resumed.

3. You. Dancing. The best of times…

Getting lost in the music, there's only the here and now, the world doesn't exist beyond the four walls (or railway tunnel...) and the range of the speakers. Tapping into the groove of the music that transcends individual tracks, like a pulse, with this record pulling you to this side and the next record tugging you in the opposite direction. Warmth, sweat, skin on skin, jostling and bumping. Timeless.

4. You. Dancing. The worst of times…

Listening to the DJ play the same record he did last week and the week before that and the crowd responding like it's the first time they've ever heard Living On A Prayer and you neck bottles of artificially flavoured alcohol packed with sugar because the other option is being alone in your room mixing together some minimal techno and you hope for a beautiful girl to come and rescue you, but it doesn't happen. In the morning you vow to give up on these crap nights but the other option is being alone in your room mixing together some minimal techno...

5. Can you give a quick tour of the different dancing scenes/times/places you’ve frequented?

As previously mentioned my first dancing experiences were among the rock and indie clubs in Hull when I was 17 or 18. The party scene in my home town was pretty non-existent with house parties an excuse to drink rather than dance. I remember DJing at a friend's house party, my only house 'gig' back then, and I was essentially playing background music.

Things changed when I started university and I began going to my first 'proper' nightclubs. These were often to see drum and bass/hip hop/breakbeat nights, usually in small, sweaty venues like the old Po Na Na or Charlotte in Leicester. Such gigs were nearly always dominated by white males, despite the cultural mix of Leicester. The large number of music technology students also contributed to the crowds at these gigs.

At the same time, I was also going to the cheesy student nights with my wider circle of friends, who tended to be fairly disinterested in dance music, especially the house and techno I love. These nights were always bigger, drink fuelled and soundtracked by chart hits and classic cheese like the Baywatch theme. There would be an even mix of girls and guys in what I could only really term a cattle market - people on the prowl for members of the opposite sex. I couldn't stand these nights out and only went along because my social life would be non-existent otherwise and I tended to depend on copious amounts of drink to get me through them.

Further in to my uni life I started working at some cool bars in Leicester, often finishing in the early hours of the morning and hitting one of a couple of late night bars until 7 or 8 in the morning. Both were fairly small places, frequented by bar staff with a nice community feel. One, the Basement, played funk, ska and soul and was a refreshing change to all the crap elsewhere. The other, Esko, started as a members only space and soon grew into a hot, underground club pulling in some of the finest drum and bass and dubstep DJs.

Working a bar every weekend often meant I missed a lot of the big gigs elsewhere. In my final year at university I started DJing out a bit more getting a set at a tiny bar in Leicester called The Hub which had a great DIY feel and regular bunch of customers. House parties, again, were danceless affairs despite asking for my services as a DJ. Around this time I started falling out with the scene. Drugs were integral and it was very cliquey. If you weren't quaffing MDMA it was hard to integrate and I found most of the people boring. I'm personally very political and found the lack of politics, the rape jokes, materialism, sexism and so on really uncomfortable. Similarly, the clubs and gigs seemed to be dominated by faddish music (tropical etc.) and were all about getting off your tits, dropping tune after tune, which I like in moderation, but I was yearning for more nuanced music and sets from techno DJs and the like.

Since then and finishing university I've been floating around following jobs or postgrad degrees and haven't really settled down yet. Subsequently the dancing has had a hit too, being few and far between.

6. When and where did you last dance?

Aside from a shuffling my hips while mixing in my bedroom, it was unfortunately a while ago now, at the Brudenell in Leeds for Jeremiah Jae, Tokimonsta, Teebs and Daedelus.




I went along with a friend who usually listens to folk, indie and punk/riot grrl so it was an eye opening experience for her and it was nice to be the one who drew her out of her comfort zone, to share some new music and experiences with her. I distinctly remember she asked during the warm-up set, while we were sat drinking, how on earth you dance to such music. But as soon as Jeremiah Jae took to the decks and the crowd swelled she just started dancing without any kind of prompt or 'education', it just came naturally. Great night!

7. You’re on your death bed. What piece of music would make your leap up for one final dance?

That's a tricky one to answer. I have many favourite pieces of music for dancing to, but with something like techno, which is some of the music I listen to and mix the most, they're not records that I'd immediately jump up and dance to. Rather, I find with a lot of techno and other electronic music that the urge to dance follows on from all the music that has come previously in the set. There has to be a groove, so to speak. So I may hear a track that I absolutely love, but if I haven't been 'warmed up', if I'm not in that dancing trance, then I might not feel that immediate urge. Saying that, I remember walking past a tent at a festival and hearing Vitalic's performing Pony live and I just left my friends and ran into the tent.

To get back to the question though, there is music that does make me jump right up and that's usually hip-hop/funk kind of stuff. So, death bed track? That would probably have to be Hip Hop by Dead Prez. Soon as I hear that bassline, my mood perks up.



All questionnaires welcome, just answer the same questions - or even make up a few of your own - and send to transpontine@btinternet.com (see previous questionnaires).

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Scientist: Dub from Obeah-Myal to Outer Space

For those who never stop complaining that there isn't enough dub in dubstep comes news that Tectonic Recordings are releasing a whole album of remixes by Jamaican dub producer Hopeton Brown, AKA Scientist. 'Scientist Launches Dubstep Into Outer Space' is out next month,and features remixes of tracks by Shackleton, Kode9 and King Midas Sound among others (full track listing at Resident Advisor News).

Scientist first came on to my radar during my Autonomous Astronaut search for interesting space-themed music, in particular his 1981 masterpieces Dub Landing and Scientist Meets the Space Invaders. Brown was only 21 when these came out, having served a teenage apprenticeship at King Tubby's Dromilly Road studio in Kingston. Thirty years later he is still in dispute with record companies about the royalties for these and other early albums (see this interview at United Reggae). With his evident interest in extraterrestial adventures, Scientist can be claimed for the reggae wing of the 'Afrofuturist' current, with their 'projections of Africanized technology, of dreadlocks as antennae, of blackness into space and the future' (Wayne Marshall, Trading in Futures: from Rastas in Space to Dreadlocked Aliens and Back, Woofah #4, 2010).

But Robert Beckford has also linked Scientist to the African-Caribbean past:

'What I find most interesting at this juncture in the development of the genre is that Brown, who made his name at the Randy's studio, used the self-description 'scientist'. Those familiar with Caribbean religious cultures will know that this is a designation for an indigenous healer or Obeah-Myal practitioners... Brown infers that dubbing, in this culture at least, is a holistic enterprise involving mind, body and spirit'.

Beckford sees dub as healing, part of 'the pharmacosm of sound in African cultures', and further that 'dub as an act of deconstruction' involving 'taking out and bringing in' sonic elements draws on 'healing practices in Jamaican folk culture'. He describes 'the Obeah-Myal complex' as an 'African religious survival' practiced by the slaves and their descendants in Jamaica: 'Obeah involved the deployment of malignant spirits on adversaries through a variety of tactics and techniques. To combat Obeah, Myal, the good medicine, was sought. Myal medicine provided protection against the bad spirits and returned the individual and community to equilibrium' (Robert Beckford, Jesus Dub: Theology, Music and Social Change, Routledge, 2006).

A similar point has been made by Lloyd Bradley, who Beckford quotes: 'It's an ancient African medicine that splits the body up into seven centres or 'selves' - sexual, digestive, heart, brain etc. - and by prescribing various herbs and potions would, as practitioners always describe it, 'bring forward or push back' different centres: remixing, as it were, a person's physical or mental state into something very different... In the same way by adjusting the controls at the mixing desk, a tune... can be reinvented' (Lloyd Bradley, Bass Culture: when Reggae was King, Pluto, 2001).

Anyway here's some medicine:


Sunday, July 11, 2010

Remembering Live8, July 2005

Five years ago this month world leaders at the G8 summit were promising to 'Make Povery History', something seemingly forgotten today as the demand to 'Make Poverty Compulsory' to pay for the global crisis takes precedence.

On 2 July 2005, there were big Live8 concerts in various parts of the world in support of the anti-poverty campaign. I went to the London one where, among others, Madonna, REM, Elton John, U2 and The Killers played. To say I saw any of these would be an exaggeration, more accurate to say I caught a glimpse in what was one of the most alienating musical spectacles I have ever got caught up in.

It was a free concert, but the site was completely enclosed by a massive fence. This was frustrating on the way in, when people had to queue for at least an hour to get through one entrance in a huge boundary, but was even more annoying on the way out. We left early, but were refused exit from most of the marked exits having been told that these would only open at the end. We had to go all the way back to where we came in (in the north of Hyde Park, quite a walk) to get out. It felt very claustrophobic. As I discussed in relation to a similar experience at another festival, this kind of crowd control for free events is a relatively new development. Up until at least the mid-1990s, big free festivals in parks were invariably open access and attracted huge crowds. If things got too crowded, people regulated themselves by spreading out over a larger area or going home.

Inside Hyde Park, it felt very much like the crowd were there to be extras for the TV show. The volume was low for a gig/festival, which destroyed any musical atmosphere, and the screens were out of sync with the sound. Bizarrely people only seemed to get animated when there was a camera pointing at them, perhaps because they felt so remote from the event. Every time the camera swept over the crowd people went mad and started cheering.

A gathering of 250,000 people demanding the abolition of poverty would be pretty amazing, even if the politics of the organisers were dubious. But it didn't feel like that - rather it was an assembly of atomised individuals self-consciously taking part (participating is too strong a word) in a media event. We'd only been there half an hour when we heard the couple next to us say - 'we've done it now - lets take some photos to show people we were here, and go home. We can get a t-shirt on the way out'. That summed up the event, along with having one of the richest people in the world, Bill Gates, talking about abolishing poverty from the stage. He got a cheer as a celebrity, with my lone boo seemingly unheard. Nothing surprizing, but depressing nevertheless.

Five years later, making poverty history remains as remote as ever.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Dancing Questionnaire 21: John Eden

Happy summer solstice, June 21st and here's the 21st completed Dancing Questionnaire from John Eden of Uncarved, Woofah and many other adventures.

1. Can you remember your first experience of dancing?

I can't really, unless you count doing the hokey cokey at parties or 'music and movement' at school as a child. I have rubbish co-ordination, so never had much confidence for physical things like football or dancing.

We did have some school discos when I was about 10, but I seem to remember running about with mates rather than dancing. It was a nerd's life from then until my mid teens.

I found it a lot easier to hang out at parties talking bollocks in the kitchen or arguing over whose tape got played on the stereo (which I think is how many people ended up being DJs 'in the olden days' - a love of music and a fear of making an arse of yourself dancing).

I eventually overcame most of my reservations about getting on down with a combination of teenage drinking and going to places where nobody seemed to mind if you were gyrating like a short-circuiting C3PO. I'm never going to win any medals for my dance skills, but it's been an incredibly important part of my life.

2. What's the most interesting/significant thing that has happened to you while out dancing?

Er, I dunno. None of the significant things in my life have happened whilst I've been dancing. This is probably because I try to get completely lost in it all and remove myself from the outside world.

I guess I'm often 'working through' stuff in the back of my head without realising it, and then having a chuckle at myself for being so serious and then realising that whatever it was just didn't matter all that much anyway. I'm also a fan of those little conspiratorial smiles with complete strangers.

More concretely, the plan to do the fanzine which became WOOFAH hatched out of several nights on the Plastic People dancefloor at the sadly missed BASH - an incredible reggae/grime/dubstep night run by Kevin Martin (The Bug) and Loefah (DMZ).

On a less positive note, someone was once sick into the hood of my hooded top whilst I was dancing, which seemed quite significant at the time.

Oh and the first Gulf War broke out while I was dancing to Psychic TV at the Zap Club in Brighton, which killed the mood somewhat.

3. You. Dancing. The best of times

Reclaiming the Streets on the Westway [film below from 1996 - one of my favourite days too, Neil]. Fatboy Slim playing all night in the small room at The End. Watching the sun come out from behind the clouds at the Big Chill. Any of The Bug's sets at BASH.

There's a lot I can't remember, the hundreds of amazing nights out with friends that are little chapters in the larger story of a social relationship... it's never just about the dancing, it's the mad conversations, getting ready, random things happening on the way home, the whole night.



4. You. Dancing. The worst of times...

I got really drunk at drum 'n' bass night PM Scientists (Farringdon, circa 1997) and fell over the MC whilst he was in full flow. That didn't go down very well.

Seeing bouncers pound some poor guy's head against a wall in Cyprus. Moody junglists telling people off for dancing 'in my space'. Euro-crusties killing the vibe with a two hour acid techno set in someone's kitchen.

Homophobic MCs on my favourite soundsystem (which to be fair to them they sorted out sharpish),

Casualties. Realising that, tonight John, YOU are the casualty.

I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to every single person whose feet I have trodden on, or whose drink I have spilled in the course of my adventures over the years.

5. Can you give a quick tour of the different dancing scenes/times/places you've frequented?

Mid 80s - Flailing around ripped to the gills on cider at various punky gigs.

1988 - first acid house moment, first time in a nightclub.

Late 80s/early 90s - lots of gigs/clubs by aciiiieeeed converts like Psychic TV, the Shamen, Megadog, the odd squat party here and there. Oh and The Torture Garden fetish nights, which were a bit of an eye-opener. Also some goth/indie nights (I blame my housemates). This covers the first few years of me moving to London so I was going out a lot.

Mid 90s - the Tribal Gathering festivals. A brief flirtation with the early stages of Goa trance with Return to the Source at the Brixton Fridge. Then drum 'n' bass, plus things like Dead by Dawn at the 121 Centre.

Late 90s: falling headlong into Big Beat and an increasingly all-consuming obsession with all things dub, culminating in some truly inspirational moments under the influence of soundsystems like Jah Shaka, Iration Steppas, Abashanti and Jah Tubbys.

Early to mid 2000s: I went to a few nights organised by folk on the UK-Dance.org discussion list. Since then the only game in town has been BASH, really. I've occasionally enjoyed grime/dubstep nights like Dirty Canvas, FWD and the squatted 'House Party' events. For a while my main source of dancing was at kids' discos... cha cha slide..
.
Late 2000s: A few years ago I got tired of regularly being the oldest bloke in the room at dubstep/grime nights. Since then I've gravitated more towards smaller reggae/rocksteady/ska clubs like Tighten Up and Musical Fever . These attract an impressively diverse age range and are always great - everyone is serious about the music, but generally not at the expense of having a good time.

6. When and where did you last dance?

I had a drunken stagger recently at a mate's birthday party in Camden (this mate, in fact). Jah Shaka at the Dome in Tufnell Park was the last time I had a proper session. That was back in May and did me a power of good.

7. You're on your death bed. What piece of music would make your leap up for one final dance?

I would probably attempt to nod my head to Hopeton Lewis' 'Take It Easy', but throwing off the respirator and waving my zimmer frame in the air like I just don't care is probably reserved for 'Drop Top Caddy' by Aphrodite and Mickey Finn.

All questionnaires welcome, just answer the same questions - or even make up a few of your own - and send to transpontine@btinternet.com (see previous questionnaires).

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Datacide Roman Holiday - Electrode09

Looking through some pictures I realized that I never got round to posting on my trip to Rome last year to take part in Electrode09 - Independent Electronic Music Festival. As it was one of the highlights for me of the last year, I do want to document it. So hot off the press and nearly a year late (it took place on 12-13 June 2009) here's my report.


(flyer - click to enlarge).

The venue was the very impressive Forte Prenestino Occupied Social Centre, a former military base left abandoned until it was squatted in 1986 (bit of history here). It's a huge site, with two big outdoor arenas, and lots of rooms coming off various tunnels seemingly built into a hillside. The food and drink were excellent - unlike in any squat I have been to in in the UK, there was a selection of very nice wine! (in fact the venue has hosted whole Critical Wine events).




The scene before the party started:

My contribution was to take part in a panel of Datacide magazine contributors talking on aspects of 'Cultura Elettronica e Controcultura', based on the similar event held in Berlin in Autumn 2008. As usual at these kinds of events, most people don't turn up until late for the music so it was a more select audience for the talks, but still worth doing. Christoph Fringeli talked on Hedonism and Revolution, Hans Christian Psaar on Kindertotenlieder for rave culture, and Alexis Wolton on Tortuga towerblocks: pirate signals in the 90s (yes, the Nightingale Estate in Hackney was mentioned in the city of the Tiber). My talk developed ideas from my article on dance music history I wrote for Datacide, but looking more specifically at the Hardcore Continuum debate and some its deeper historical roots (will post the talk sometime).



The music was mainly on a techno/minimal tip, it was OK but for my taste there were too many live sets consisting of a bloke fiddling around with a lap top and twiddling nobs, though Antipop Consortium at least had some presence. Personally unless there's something to see or the music's really good, I would generally rather have a no nonsense DJ set.

We were reliably informed by our London in exile translator that there was another squat where happy hardcore was to be had, and she was about to promote Rome's first UK Funky night. As it was, the only bit of that which got aired over the weekend was when I played a bit of Perempay with Maxwell D from the stage, in order to illustrate the convergence of reggae MC, soca and disco/house strands with their respective social histories of carnival and contestation. Or something.
Anyway I had a dance obviously, seem to remember bouncing up and down to some Thomas Heckmann.
Electrode2010 is taking place soon at the same venue (June 11-12), so if you're in that part of the world you might want to check it out.

Monday, March 29, 2010

South East of the Thames Border Infection Mix

Last week I took part in Border Infection, an event at Goldsmiths in New Cross themed around borders, migration and creativity. My contribution was to lead a radical history walk/talk around New Cross and Deptford. In the evening there was a party at the Amersham Arms, with the highlight a great DJ set by Ges-E and Osmani Soundz from Nasha records (Eastern-flavoured bassism). I also played a set, in effect a soundtrack after the fact to the walk, featuring music linked to the area - specifically stuff that could be placed on a loose South London bass continuum from 70s reggae to current UK funky. Here's my selection:

South East of the Thames Border Infection Mix - Neil Transpontine (download full mix here)

1. TT Ross - Imagine: released on Dennis Harris's Lovers Rock in 1978, the label that named a whole genre of soulful reggae. The label was based in Harris's studio at 13 Upper Brockley Road, SE4.

2. Johnny Osbourne -13 Dead: this and the next four tracks all relate to the 1981 New Cross Fire, when 13 young black people died in a house fire at 439 New Cross Road.

3. Sir Collins and His Mind Sweepers - New Cross Fire: Sir Collins - or Charlie Collins -was involved in the famous Four Aces club in Dalston. His son was DJing at the New Cross party and died in the fire. I have added a sample from a BBC news report in January 1981.

4. Roy Rankin & Raymond Naptali - New Cross Fire (1981): I have added a sample of Sybil Phoenix discussing racism in late 1970s and the setting up of the Moonshot Club in New Cross, youth club for young black people and scene of mass meetings in the aftermath of the fire.

5. Linton Kwesi Johnson -New Craas Massahkah.

6. Benjamin Zephaniah - 13 Dead and Nothing Said.

7. Mad Professor & Jah Shaka - Gautrey Road Style. The Mad Professor had his Ariwa studio at 42 Gautrey Road, SE15 in the 1980s. Jah Shaka was based in New Cross.

8. Brown Sugar - I'm in love with a Dreadlocks - another release on the Lovers Rock label from 1977, written by John Kpiaye, guitarist at Dennis Harris's studio, with Dennis Bovell as sound engineer. Brown Sugar included singers Kofi (later a solo artist) and Caron Wheeler (later of Soul II Soul).

9. Brinsley Forde - Can't tek no more of that - the sound of the closing scene of the great reggae sound system film Babylon, shot around Deptford and Brixton in 1979.

10. Dizzee Rascal - Can't tek no more - he's from East rather than South East London, even if his career took off via a Deptford studio, but since this track from last year's Tongue'n'Cheek album samples Babylon it's on the list.

11. Southside Allstars - Southside Riddim - this and the following two rap tracks offer a gritty realist take on South East London life, doing their bit to undermine gentrification by reminding everybody that the area has gangs and violence as well as estate agents!

12. Tinie Tempah - South East of the Thames

13. Blak Twang - Dettwork South East

14. Controlled Weirdness vs. Excentral Tempest -South London Bass/South East: my mix combining South London Bass by DJ Controlled Weirdness with South East, a rap by Excentral Tempest (now Kate Tempest).

15. Kyla - Do you Mind: a bit of an obvious funky anthem I know, this comes via Digital Holdings, the New Cross studio used by producers Crazy Cousinz. There's a continuity between Lovers Rock and UK Funky I think, expressing the soulful current of London bass culture as the flipside to the dread, beat an' blood current.

16. Leslee Lyrix - a short extract from the 1983 Ghettotone vs. Saxon sound system clash at Lewisham Boys Club, featuring Leslee Lyrix as Ghettotone MC. In his other guise as Dr William (Les) Henry he has published an essential book about sound system culture, What the Deejay Said: A Critique from the Street. Overlaid on this are samples from a short film, Voice for the Voiceless, made by some Goldsmiths students in 2008, with Les Henry and Les Back discussing the significance of sound systems and specifically nights in the Crypt at St Pauls in Deptford. I had a small role in this film, mainly supplying them with the soundtrack after a drink with the film makers in the New Cross Inn.




Voice for the Voiceless Uploaded by nickstreet83.

[the sound quality on the mix is variable, some of it ripped from vinyl and cassette and then thrown together on Audacity, but hope you'll agree that the content is all good... Also posted at Transpontine. Previous Agitdisco mix here]

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Absurd rave trial drags on in Italy

So you went to a party when you were a student four years ago - and now you're having to sit in a court room facing prosecution as a result. This is the absurd situation in Italy, where the court room in Varese was packed out last month for the latest hearing for 113 defendants charged in relation to a party held at Caldè near Lake Maggiore in June 2006.

Around 500 people, many of them students, attended an unauthorised 'rave party' held in and around old furnace buildings on private land near the shores of the lake. The police set up roadblocks and stopped people as they were leaving the party, as a result of which the 113 were charged with complicity in aggravated invasion (trespass) of the land.

Local papers have queried the use of the court room associated with Mafia trials, noting that in 'this case this case, however, the defendants are normal young people of Varese and surroundings. The trial has been adjourned again until June 2010.

Source: VarezieNotizie, 26 February 2010 ; Varese Laghi 25 February 2010.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

My Agit Disco mix

Stefan Szczelkun asked me to put together a selection for his Agit Disco series of mixes of political music. You can read my effort at his site as well as previous mixes by the likes of Simon Ford, Stewart Home and Tom Vague. I recommend that you spend some time browsing the whole site and its related blog.

The mix might not win any prizes for DJing, for a start there is no consistent sound as it covers everything from folk to techno via punk. But I can guarantee that there's some stuff here that you won't have heard before - some of it from old cassette tapes of stuff that has never been released.



Tracklisting:

1. UK Decay – For my Country (1980)
2. Karma Sutra – Wake the Red King (1985)
3. No Defences - Keep Running (1985)
4. Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl (1993)
5. Chumbawamba – Fitzwilliam (1985)
6. Hot Ash - Bloody Sunday – This is a Rebel Song (1991)
7. Planxty – Arthur McBride (1973)
8. Half a Person – The Last of England (2006)
9. McCarthy – The Procession of Popular Capitalism (1987)
10. Joe Smooth – Promised Land (1987)
11. Atmosfear – Dancing in Outer Space (1979)
12. Roteraketen – Here to Go (1999)
13. Metatron – Men Who Hate the Law (1993)
14. Lochi – London Acid City (1996)
15. Galliano – Travels the Road (Junglist Dub Mix) (1994)
16. Roy Rankin & Raymond Naptali - New Cross Fire (1981)
17. Afrikan Boy – Lidl (2006)
18. 99 Posse – Salario Garantito (1992)
18. The Ballistic Brothers – London Hooligan Soul (1995)

Introduction

I’ve spent many years cogitating on the politics of music and the music of politics so wasn’t quite sure where to start with an Agitdisco mix. So I’ve decided to loosely follow an autobiographical thread of tracks that I associate with politically significant moments in my life.

UK Decay – For my Country (1980)

I grew up in Luton, where UK Decay were the best of the first wave punk bands. ‘For My Country’ is an anti-war song clearly influenced by the First World War poets (Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est in particular). I was at school when this came out and getting involved in politics for the first time, helping to set up Luton Peace Campaign which became the local branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, resurgent in the face of plans to locate Cruise nuclear missiles in Britain.

Karma Sutra – Wake the Red King (1985) download

In the mid-1980s I was very involved in the anarcho-punk scene in Luton. Political songs were ten a penny in this milieu, but I guess more significantly the singers (mostly) really meant it – there was no real separation between ‘entertainers’ and ‘activists’. The people going to gigs, forming bands, doing zines, were the same people going hunt sabbing and on Stop the City. At that time I seemed to spend large parts of my life in the back of a van, between gigs, demos and animal rights actions.

The main local band in this scene was Karma Sutra. For a little while I took my Wasp synthesiser down to their practices but it didn’t really work out, so I never played with them live. However, this demo tape version of their track Wake the Red King has my rumbling synth tone at the beginning. The title refers to Alice in Wonderland, I can’t make out all the lyrics but it sounds like the kind of situationist-influenced diatribe they specialised in – they later released an album, Daydreams of a Production Line Worker.

No Defences – Keep Running (1985) download

When people think about anarcho-punk they often have in mind lots of identikit sub-Crass/Conflict thrash punk bands. There was plenty of that – and some of it was really good – but there was also quite a lot of musical diversity, from more melodic humourists like Blyth Power to mutant funksters like Slave Dance. One of the most interesting bands on the whole scene were No Defences, who as far as I know never released a record apart from a track on a compilation album. They were mesmerising live, delivering monotone litanies of abuse and rage over sophisticated time signatures. I saw them at squat gigs in London (including at the Ambulance Station, Old Kent Road), and they came to Luton to play at a hunt sabs benefit gig we put on at Luton Library Theatre, also featuring Chumbawamba. This track was recorded that night (30.5.1985). – ‘we don’t live anywhere, no sense of being in the world…’

Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl (1993)

I was lucky enough to see some of the great post-punk women-led bands live, including The Slits, The Raincoats, Essential Logic, Au Pairs and the Delta 5. The feminism and sexual politics of that time have had a life long influence on me. Ten years later, these bands started getting their critical dues again with the birth of the Riot Grrrl and Queercore scenes. I used to go and see my late friend Katy Watson (of Shocking Pink and Bad Attitude feminist zines) DJing at London queercore clubs including Up to the Elbow and Sick of it All. Bikini Kill were the key US Riot Grrrl band: ‘when she talks I hear the revolution…’.

Chumbawamba – Fitzwilliam (1985)

I was living in Kent when the 1984-5 miners strike started and helped set up a Miners Support Group linked to strikers at the three local pits (now all closed). I was also in Ramsgate in 1985 on the day the Kent miners voted to return to work, ending the strike. It was an intense year for me of pickets, demonstrations, collections and many, many arguments. Chumbawamba played an important role in swinging the anarcho-punk scene behind the strike – initially some people had the ludicrous line of ‘why should I support meat eating men working in an environmentally unsound industry?’. Fitzwilliam describes the end of the strike in a Yorkshire mining village – ‘it won’t be the same in Fitzwilliam again…’ This song was released on ‘Dig This – A Tribute to the Great Strike’. Some years later, I was involved in the Poll Tax Prisoners Support Group (Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign) and we threw a party at our Brixton flat for a couple of people acquitted of charges relating to the 1990 poll tax riot – one of them an ex-miner from that part of Yorkshire.

Hot Ash - Bloody Sunday - This is a Rebel Song (1991)

I went to Derry in 1992 and took part in the demonstration to mark the 20th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when 13 people were killed by British troops. This song, from the 1991 Hot Ash album Who Fears to Speak, is about that event. At the start of this track there is a recording of the Jim O’Neill/Robert Allsopp Memorial Flute Band from New Lodge Road in Belfast. I was involved in the Troops Out Movement and prisoner support at this time and went on lots of Irish marches in London and Belfast. There were always flute bands on the march, giving rise to one of my pet theories (which may have no basis whatsoever) that there is a connection between the popularity of bass drum-led republican and loyalist flute bands in N.Ireland and Scotland and the popularity of bass drum-led variants of electronic dance music in these places (e.g happy hardcore and gabber in the late 1990s).

Planxty – Arthur McBride (1973)

Around this time I started to learn to play the mandolin, and began taking part in music sessions in pubs playing mainly Irish and some Scottish tunes. This was a new kind of collective music making for me, more fluid and inclusive than a band format, with less of a boundary between performers and audience – but with each session having its own unwritten rules of operation. The first song I sang on my own, at a party near Elephant and Castle, was the anti-recruiting song Arthur McBride. I learnt it from the version recorded by Planxty on their 1973 debut album. I saw Planxty play in Dublin in 1994, at a big May Day festival to mark the 100th anniversary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

Half a Person – The Last of England (2006) - download

… from here it was a step to writing my own songs. This is a demo version of a little anti-nationalist ditty I have performed a few times, most recently in my ‘Half a Person’ guise at a benefit last year for the Visteon workers at Rampart Social Centre.

McCarthy - The Procession of Popular Capitalism (1987)

I enjoyed the indie-pop jingly jangly guitar scene in the second half of the 1980s and had some great nights at the Camden Falcon, a music pub at its heart. There was little in the way of explicit politics, although the cultivation of a ‘twee’ subjectivity also represented a refusal of ‘adult’ roles of worker/housewife/consumer and (for boys) of macho posturing. Bands like Talulah Gosh were later cited as an influence on the Riot Grrrl scene. McCarthy weren't really part of that scene but they had a similar sound combined with the much more overtly political lyrics of Malcolm Eden. This song is a typically Brechtian tale of penniless pickpockets and wealthy ‘Captains of Industry’, the latter singing ‘This is your country too! Join our procession, that's marching onwards to war’.

Joe Smooth – Promised Land (1987)

In the early 1990s I started going to squat raves and then to a whole range of techno and house clubs. This turned my conception of music and politics upside down, along with other aspects of my life. As a result I have come to see the political significance of a musical event as arising from the relations between people rather than the content of a song or performance. So, for instance, a crowd dancing together in a field to a commercial pop record might be more subversive than an audience in a concert hall listening to socialist songs. Dancefloors and festivals can be important for the constitution of communities and political subjects, almost regardless of the soundtrack. Promised Land is a Chicago house classic that combines this affirmation of community with a hope for a better world, articulated in the religious language frequently used in Black American music: ‘Brothers, Sisters, One Day we will be free. From Fighting, Violence, People Crying in the Streets’. I once heard Chicago legend Marshall Jefferson play this track at a club in Shoreditch.

Atmosfear – Dancing in Outer Space (1979)

I was involved in the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (AAA) from 1995 to 2000. My node of the network was Disconaut AAA, and I was particularly interested in the way space had been used as a speculative playground in jazz, disco and funk, a zone into which could be projected utopian visions of life beyond gravi-capital, racism and poverty (think Sun Ra's Space is the Place or George Clinton's Mothership mythos). Atmosfear's Dancing in Outer Space is a lesser known UK disco/jazz funk classic – this is a Masters at Work remix of the track.

Roteraketen – Here to Go (1999) download

The AAA put out a Rave In Space compilation, and I contributed to this track on it with Jason Skeet (DJ Aphasic). Actually my contribution was mainly supplying the sample and the name. Rote Raketen (red rockets) was the name of a communist cabaret troupe in 1920s Germany. The sample is from Yuri Gagarin's first space flight. I have an ambivalent attitude to the US and Soviet space programmes, undoubtedly rooted in Cold War industrial militarism, but also representing a period of optimism in the possibility of the continual expansion of human subjectivity. One day community-based spaced exploration will be a reality!

Metatron – Men Who Hate the Law (1993)

I was involved with various projects at the 121 Centre in Brixton in the 1990s, and regularly attended the Dead by Dawn nights in the basement playing some of the hardest techno and breakcore to be heard anywhere. Again it was the crowd, the conversations and the antagonistic sonic attitude that constituted the music’s political dimension rather than any lyrical content. Praxis records was the driving force behind the night, this track is from Christoph Fringelli’s Metatron EP, Speed and Politics.

Lochi – London Acid City (1996)

There was a cycle of struggles in the 1990s UK that encompassed the anti-road movement (Twyford Down, Claremont Road, Newbury…), squat parties and Reclaim the Streets. The soundtrack was often a particular variant of hard trance/acid techno associated with the Liberator DJs and Stay Up Forever records. This track was the scene’s ultimate anthem, I believe it was the first record played on the famous Reclaim the Streets party on the M41 motorway in London in 1996. I took part in the party and later was involved in the RTS street party in Brixton in 1998.

Galliano – Travels the Road, Junglist Dub Mix (1994)

The various radical movements of the early 1990s coalesced in the campaign against the government’s Criminal Justice Act in 1994, which brought in new police powers to deal with protests and raves. The high point was a huge demonstration/party/riot in London’s Hyde Park, which I documented in a Practical History pamphlet at the time, ‘The Battle for Hyde Park: Radicals, Ruffians and Ravers, 1855-1994’. This track is from an anti-CJA compilation album called Taking Liberties.

Roy Rankin & Raymond Naptali - New Cross Fire (1981)

In the last few years I have been doing a lot of research into the radical history of South East London. This has included helping put on the Lewisham '77 series of events commemorating the 30th anniversary of the anti-National Front demonstrations, and marking the wider history of racism and resistance in the area. A key historical event was the New Cross Fire in 1981, in which 13 young people died. This is one of a number of reggae tracks about the fire, demonstrating how sound system culture functioned at the time as a means of alternative commentary on current events.

Afrikan Boy – Lidl (2006)

… today that alternative commentary is still alive in grime. I was involved for a while in No Borders and became very aware of the experience of those living at the sharp end of the regime of immigration raids, detention centres and forced deportations. Afrikan Boy, from Nigeria via Woolwich, gives voice to that experience on this track, as well as shoplifting adventures in Lidl and Asda!

99 Posse – Salario Garantito (1992)

I have been influenced a lot over the years by radical ideas and practice from Italy and have visited a few times, most recently last year when I took part in the Electrode festival at the Forte Prenestino social centre in Rome. I first visited in the early 1990s, when I went to the Parco Lambro festival in Milan and visited Radio Sherwood in Padua. 99 Posse are an Italian reggae band named after the Officina 99 social centre in Naples; the title of this song relates to the autonomist demand for a guaranteed income for all, working and unemployed. It comes from a compilation tape called Senza Rabbia Non Essere Felice (Without anger, no happiness) put out in around 1992 by the Centro di Communicazione Antagonista in Bologna.

The Ballistic Brothers – London Hooligan Soul (1995)

Released in 1995, this is a look back over 20 years by the Junior Boys Own posse. It’s their history rather than mine, but there are several points where it overlaps with my own… house music, Ibiza, ‘old bill cracking miners heads’, ‘The Jam at Wembley’, ‘A poll tax riot going on’.