A huge and inspiring Trans Liberation demonstration in London yesterday, with more than 20,000 people coming together at short notice following the Supreme Court ruling this week that trans women could not be treated as women in law or, more specifically, that “A person with a Gender Recognition Certificate in the female gender does not come within the definition of a ‘woman’ under the Equality Act 2010'. This opens the way to the exclusion of trans women from 'single sex' spaces such as women's toilets (actually it would also apply the other way round to trans men)
The demonstration started in Parliament Square but soon overspilled it as there wasn't room for the growing crowd.
It finished with speeches in a crowded St James Park (the first time I've been in a demo in this Royal Park).
Along the way there was a river of creative signs and chants, plus a little mobile sound system pumping out gabber and drum & bass. Anyone who thinks that the Supreme Court represents any kind of final settlement of this issue can forget it. Things are just getting started...
On the 30th anniversary of its founding, the Association of Autonomous Astronauts will be remembered at the MayDay Rooms in London:
Saturday 26th April 2025, 2pm at MayDay Rooms:
'It’s been three decades since the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (AAA) launched the first independent space exploration programme on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Between 1995 and 2000, AAA organized raves in space, played three-sided football tournaments, built spaceship launchpads in the heart of the city, took part in intergalactic conferences and experienced zero-gravity training flights—all while mounting a radical critique of government, military, and corporate control of space travel.
May Day Rooms holds a significant collection of materials related to the group's activities, and that's why we wanted to once again look up to the stars to celebrate the AAA’s 30th anniversary. We’ll explore how the Autonomous Astronauts' original concerns resonate in today’s world—one shaped by billionaire space tourism, the increasing militarization of space, profit-driven interplanetary colonization, and a general sense of political imagination running on empty.
On the day, founding AAA members—alongside Autonomous Astronauts from France and Italy—will chart pathways into (and out of) the AAA, putting some of the group's initial ideas to the test of time, while Space Watch UK will brief us on recent developments in the UK military space programme.
Expect an exhibition featuring materials from MDR’s Association of Autonomous Astronauts collection, screenings of AAA’s archival video materials alongside a rare showing of Aaron Trinder's„Free Party: A Folk History” documentary, and, of course, a rave in space till late— with music, food and drinks! Prepare for liftoff!'
On the following day there will be 3 sided football in Victoria Park. Both these events are free but you will need to book a ticket as places are limited (Saturday booking; Sunday booking)
I will taking part in this and have contributed some of my AAA material to the archive at MDR.
The Association of Autonomous Astronauts held a series of intergalactic conferences - in Vienna (1996), Bologna (1998) and London (1999). They each included a mixture of talks, activities such as three-sided football matches, and music/parties. Here are the conference posters:
Vienna 1996
The first AAA Intergalactic Conference took place at Public Netbase in Vienna on 21 and 22 June 1996 (see report here).
The back of the fold out poster/brochure included a number of AAA texts: Space Travel by Any Means Necessary, The Dreamtime is Upon Us, Disconauts are Go, Sex in Space, Who Owns Outer Space? and Spatial Practices and Elliptical Action.
AAA speakers included Jason Skeet (Inner City AAA), Patric O'Brien (aka Fabian T., East London AAA) and John Eden (Raido AAA). The party - 'Black Hole Supersonic Practice' - featured Praxis DJ Squad, including Christoph Fringeli (The Jackal)
Bologna 1998
The Bologna Conferenza Intergalattica took place at the Link project on 18th and 19th April 1998. I wrote a conference report at the time in Everybody is a Star! no. 3.
Detail - 'Rave in Space' line up on the Saturday night
inside the Rave In Space, Link, Bologna, 1998
Detail - contact list of AAA groups from back of poster:
London 1999
'Space 1999: ten days that shook the universe' took place from 18th - 27th June 1999. As well as a conference it included many events across different venues as part of a 'festival of independent and community based space exploration'. Events included taking part in the J18 Carnival Against Capital and a Summer Solstice gathering on Parliament Hill. Some Space 1999 texts are available on Internet Archive.
Lots of great work in 'Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen' at Two Temple Place in London (25th January 2025 – 20th April 2025).
Denzil Forrester's Boys in the Hood (1989) is one of his early paintings that 'encapsulate the electric atmosphere of dub parties he attended in London during the 1980s. Based on quick pastel and charcoal sketches made in clubs and dancehalls, they were created to convey "the energy of the crowd, the movement, the action," and the liberating power of music. Forrester's work serves as an evocative archive of Black working-class nightlife in Britain, as well as the Windrush generation's expression and preservation of their diasporic roots through Jamaican Dub culture' (text from exhibition).
'I grew up in Stoke Newington and Hackney, and a lot of the paintings...are to do with the nightclubs in the Dalston area, mainly Jah Shaka sound system; mainly the dub reggae sound systems in the early days... I used to go to the London nightclubs and make drawings to the length of a record, which is about 3 or 4 minutes.
So I'll have A1 paper, it's dark, and I can't really see what I'm doing, so I'm going for the movement, the action, the expression of the people. I'll make the drawings, and take them to the studio and use them for making the big paintings in the studio... London was a very active, vibrant, colourful place then. It was cheaper and freer to live there then too. You could squat a house. So I was in a squat for about 5 to 6 years in Clissold Road. It was easier because an artist could have lots of space. And there was an energy there. Particularly the dub nightclubs. Jah Shaka, the Rastafarians, basically they'd dress up, they'd dance and play their monosystems, and I wanted to capture that energy'.
Dan Hancox has written a great piece on 'Debunking the weird myths about London's 24-hour party people' in which he takes to task some dubious claims made in the Times and elsewhere that London nightlife is in terminal decline. He rightly critiques some very dubious data, such as relying on Google Maps to show venues with late night licenses.
Specifically he skewers a map included in the Times article 'UK’s worst night out? Costly, crime-ridden London' (27 September 2024) which purports to show venues open after 2 am on Saturday nights. Using his local knowledge of Peckham’s Rye Lane he shows that in addition to three venues shown on map (Tola, the Prince of Peckham, and the Bussey Building) there are many other places: 'My raver alarm immediately went off. Just from going out dancing in Peckham, I know that this is rubbish. That list is missing the Carpet Shop (open till 4am), Peckham Audio (4am), Peckham Levels (4am, albeit occasionally) and Four Quarters (3am). There are also at least five pubs I can think of around Rye Lane which open until 1am on a Saturday night, new audiophile bar Jumbi is open until 2am' etc. etc.
As Dan points out this 'London Declinism mingles with the fog of racist myths' that London is a hotbed of random violence overseen by a muslim mayor implementing sharia law! Sometimes these kind of articles are really just snotty refusals to recognise that London actually exists beyond the centre of town - see for instance Bloomsbury resident Will Lloyd's 'Sadiq Khan’s silent city' (New Statesman, 24 March 2024) which begrudgingly admits that he 'could walk north to the Lexington (open until around 3am, but it smells), or south into London’s warm, unwashed armpit'.
There is also a well meaning but in my view wrong-headed left wing version of the argument highlighting that many venues are being squeezed out by property development and other pressures (true) and suggesting that there is no longer any grass roots/'underground' clubbing because its all been taken over by corporate giants (false).
Of course there are peaks and troughs, periods when everybody seems to be out clubbing and times when it is a bit more based around niche subcultures. But we also have to beware observer bias. We all have our peak periods for partying, the worse thing is to imagine that because you are personally not going out as much as you used to do that it is not happening any more, or that it's not as good or real or whatever as it used to be. People have been out dancing in London for hundreds, probably thousands of years and it is not stopping any time soon (see for instance this great account of London dancing from 1902).
Things do change but not necessarily for the worst. The demise of some of the old school high street nightclubs that hungover from the pre-rave period, some of them with long histories of racist and sexist door policies, is not necessarily a bad thing. Dance music no longer always requires specialist DJs or sound rigs, great as it is to have them. There is a more diffuse nightlife in which a pub can quickly become a dancefloor, or people can summon one up anywhere playing music from their phones through speakers. These nights might never show up on Resident Advisor or be documented anywhere but they are happening all around us in London and anywhere else with a pulse. My South London local for instance - a pub that used to be pretty much empty much of the week - is full most nights, sometimes people are watching sport, sometimes listening to a folk session, and sometimes it erupts into dancing. And of course as Dan points out there are countless actual club nights, gigs and other events of all sizes happening all the time.
Historically in London it is pub and restaurant backrooms, railway arches and other places off the mainstream nightlife map that have spawned new music scenes. Think about the emergence of the new jazz scene in the last ten years where places like Buster Mantis (a Jamaican bar/restaurant) and Matchstick Piehouse (a community arts/music space) hosted the Steam Down nights in Deptford, many of whose alumni are now internationally known. I suspect that such places are not even on the radar of many of those decrying the death of London nightlife.
Art Not Evidence posters in Camberwell, South London, July 2024
'Art Not Evidence is a growing coalition of lawyers, journalists, artists, academics, youth workers, music industry professionals and human rights campaigners working together to fight the criminalisation of rap music in UK courts'. Here's their statement:
'In recent years, courtrooms across the country have gained an alarming new soundtrack. Prosecutors — with increasing frequency — put lyrics, music videos, and audio recordings in front of juries to help secure criminal convictions. In many cases, these creative expressions have no connection to the serious crimes alleged, and are used to paint a misleading and prejudicial picture, conflating art with evidence.
Specifically, police and prosecutors use the act of writing, performing, or even engaging with rap music to suggest motive, intention, or propensity for criminal behaviour. This is particularly prevalent in controversial "joint enterprise" and conspiracy cases, in which music, lyrics, and videos are used to drag multiple people into criminal charges, often under sweeping definitions of “gang” activity. This practice disproportionately affects young Black men and boys from under-resourced, marginalised communities. It is an agent of institutional racism.
Rap music, including the drill sub-genre, is one of the most popular forms of music across the country, and a significant cultural force, producing Glastonbury and Wireless headliners, multiple industry award winners, and enjoying an artistic influence that extends into film, literature, television, and the visual arts.
Yet, despite being known for its storytelling, symbolism, figurative language, and hyperbole, police and prosecutors invite judge and jury to take rap music literally, as direct evidence of criminal intent or behaviour.
Research produced by journalists and university academics have identified over 100 cases in the UK since 2005 in which rap music was used as evidence. The majority of these cases involved multiple defendants, making use of the doctrine of joint enterprise. In the last three years alone, at least 240 people have had their fate in court decided, at least in part, by their taste in music.
This is an urgent issue, and one which demands an urgent response.
The indiscriminate use of creative expression as evidence in court risks miscarriages of justice, perpetuates harmful racist stereotypes, and contributes to a racially discriminatory criminal justice system that stifles creativity and freedom of expression. We applaud law reform campaigns in the USA, including the enactment of legislation in California, and urge judges, lawyers and legislators in the UK to follow suit.
We call for police and prosecutors to stop relying on irrelevant, unreliable, and highly prejudicial evidence in pursuit of convictions; for defence lawyers to challenge prosecutors; and for judges to exclude such evidence.
We propose legal reform to limit the admissibility of creative expression as evidence in the criminal courts.
We seek justice, and your support, in our mission to achieve it'.
A couple of flyers for London parties I believe I went to in 1995 (sometimes it's a bit hazy) . The first one I think a free party somewhere on 8 April 1995, 'The Cave Club' summer party featuring Institute of Goa and Chiba sound system. Not sure where in 'central London' this was.
The second one is an Institute of Goa Halloween Party, I think in October 1995, at 240 Amhurst Road. I can make out some DJ/performer names there - Liberator DJs, Aztek (ex-Spiral Tribe), Brides Make Acid...
Although the name might suggest a pyschedelic/goa trance vibe, something that was emerging as a distinct sub genre at this time with clubs like Return to the Source, I think that 'Institute of Goa' was more on the harder edged London free party techno/hard trance tip. I beleive it was run by a guy called Chico who also DJ'd as Whirling Dervish. I'm pretty sure I also went to a night they put at Labyrinth (ex Four Aces) in Dalston Lane, or maybe that was something else. They also seemed to have taken part in the Deptford Urban Free Festival which I went to in 1995, on the Innervisions sound system.
Thanks to Blackmass Plastics for recalling that the venue at 240 Amhurst Road was a club called Trends at this time. Events there included in October 1994 an 'All Hail Discordia' all-nighter put on by Sublminal Revolutions (which I believe was run by Lisa Lovebucket and Lovely Jon), during the Anarchy in the UK Festival in London.
Later the spelling changed to Trenz, as mentioned for instance in this listing for Undergrowth there from Muzik magazine, April 1999:
Must admit I've got a bit confused about identifying this location. 240 Amhurst Road E8 was the address of the longstanding pub The Amhurst Arms. It has had various incarnations this century including De Bysto, Oro and most recently The Hand of Glory.
But down the road in a separate building 240a Amhurst Road N16 was a hall that was the headquarters of the Hackney Spiritualist Church in the 1900s and then the Hackney Jewish Lads Brigade. In the 1960s it became the Regency Club, notoriously associated with the Kray Twins, then later became Willows, an African Caribbean Club. So I assume it was this building, rather than the Amhurst Arms, that became Trends/Trenz. Apparently it's now been converted to flats. This was presumably also the location in 1970s of Phebes 'Reggae, soul and funky club' famous for its Jah Shaka sessions as well as its own Phebes Hi-Fi (thanks to John Eden for info about this) - but again there's some confusion as address is given as 240 not 240a, though elsewhere I have seen Phebes address given as 240a!
Flyer archive Phat Media has one for a 1993 event there which names the venue as The Jungle Club, so maybe it was know as that for a while too.
The club was the scene of a fatal shooting in 1997, as reported in Birmingham Mail:
Reading other people's end of year lists is like listening to people talking about their dreams - occasionally interesting but mostly very much not. So this round up of musicking and political activity from (mostly) London 2023 is really for my own benefit and to document a few things which might otherwise vanish from the historical record or at least my memory.
Best gig of the year for me was Kneecap at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, a giant mosh pit in a sold out gig for Belfast Irish language rappers. Just up the road at the Roundhouse in December, Lankum were also excellent. Irish hegemony in my music tastes for the first time since the 1990s. Love the Roundhouse (also saw Big Moon there in May and a couple of years ago Laura Marling), not so keen on the cavernous Ally Pally where I saw Sleaford Mods with John Grant, but a good gig.
On a jazzier tip, loved Ezra Collective at Hammersmith Apollo in February, and Laura Misch's mellow cloud bath performance at the Peckham Old Waiting Room. Nearby at the Ivy House pub SE15, The Goose is Out continued to curate some excellent folk nights including Martin Carthy and Stick in the Wheel. They also put on a monthly singaround session where people take it in turns to stand and sing one song at a time; I sang there earlier in the year and also at Archie Shuttler's Open Mic at the Old Nun's Head. Strummed the banjo and mandolin a bit.
In terms of my own music making the highlight was taking part in the Wavelength Orchestra event on the beach in Gravesend in June, an improvisational performance where assorted musicians sustained notes based on the duration of waves (although it was low tide and they were more like ripples). I took along my old Wasp synth, my dad's bagpipe chanter and my grandad's harmonica to add to the mix.
Went out for my birthday to a Mungo's Hi Fi night at the Fox & Firkin in Lewisham, checked out my local Planet Wax record shop and bar in New Cross. Enjoyed giving a Peckham anti fascist history walk for around 30 people in October, and chatting about my own history on Controlled Weirdness' 'Tales from a disappearing city' podcast.
I always appreciate the unexpected random encounters with music in the city, like coming across an Italian hip hop collective (Hip Hopera Foundation) performing in Beckenham Place Park or bumping into morris dancers by my local pub. Loved dodging the rising tide on the Thames shore for a dark 'Noise TAZ' in the summer.
Politically I am not a super activist at the moment but do try and get myself out there in times of emergency - and with climate change, war, anti-migrant racism and transphobic 'culture wars' it feels like that is most of the time at present. Or as Benjamin put it, 'The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule'.
The year started with ongoing strikes from NHS, rail workers and teachers, I popped down to various picket lines and protests. It has been hard to keep track of the endless state onslaught against refugees, including the 'Illegal Migration Act' which criminalised seeking asylum. Protest too becoming increasingly criminalised with climate emergency activists being locked up for months or even years just for walking in the road or doing a banner drop. My most sustained activity was turning up regularly to defend a drag event at the Honor Oak pub in South London from far right opposition (which I wrote about at Datacide). I got increasingly fed up with anti-trans nonsense from fellow old lefties and said so. The end of the year dominated by the massacre of October 7th and the seemingly never ending massacre in Gaza ever since - highlighted by both Kneecap and Lankum at their gigs.
Perhaps it remains true, as Frederic Jameson said, that 'it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism', but the neo-liberal capitalist utopia of a world united and pacified by globalised markets has vanished too. It is not hard to imagine a kind of end of capitalism as we know it, at least as a global system, replaced by endless ethno-nationalist violence and conflict for shrinking resources like water and arable land. Harder sometimes to hold onto a politics of hope for a better world, but what is the alternative?
'South London Loves Trans People' - at the Honor Oak pub in May
Stop the Migration Bill protest at Westminster with speakers on Fire Brigades Union fire engine (13 March 2023)
Refugee solidarity on London anti-racist demo, 18 March 2023
Gaza ceasefire demo blockades Carnaby Street, 23 December 2023
Anyway here's a slice of London's musical/radical soundscape as experienced by me in 2023:
Seen and heard in film above:
1. Striking Lewisham teachers, January 2023.
2. Ezra Collective perform Space is the Place, Hammersmith Apollo, February 2023.
3./4./5. Extinction Rebellion demo in London, April 22 2023.
6. Martin Carthy singing High Germany at Goose is Out folk club at the Ivy House SE15, April 2023
7. Wavelength Orchestra in Gravesend (OK not actually London) on beach next to St Andrews Art Centre, June 2023
8./9. Dancing in the streets in Honor Oak, defending drag event from far right opposition, 24 June 2023
10. Stick in the Wheel at at Goose is Out folk club at the Ivy House SE15, June 2023
11. Torquon on Thames Beach, Noise TAZ, 19 August 2023
13 Leslie, Hilly fields, September 2023 (pop up electronic performance in the park)
14. Blanc Sceol, Deptford Creekside Discovery Centre, September 2023 (acid sounds on self made acoustic instruments as part of 'Thorness and Green Man' autumn equinox performance with artist Victoria Rance)
15 Cyka Psyko - Sardinian rapper with Hip Hopera Foundation, Beckenham Place Park, 24 September 2023
16. Laura Misch in Peckham 21 October 2023
17. Palestine demo, Battersea, 11 November 2023
18. Kneecap, Electric Ballroom, 29 November 2023
19. Sleaford Mods cover West End Girls at Ally Pally 2 December 3034
20. Lankum singing The Pogues' Old Main Drag to remember Shane MacGowan at the Roundhouse, 13 December 2023.
21. Palestine demo, Carnaby Street, 23 December 2023
London Club Listings from a local paper in October 1988 (Westminster and Pimlico News) in the midst of the acid house upheaval. KISS FM crew 'know how to make a rave swing' at Second Base at Dingwalls 'but steer well away from acid'. Meanwhile at Memphis/Legends DJs Rajan and Tim Archer 'do not play acid' but do mix in some Chicago House with their P-funk and r'n'b. Cafe de Paris offers 'salsa, soul and Balearic beats for a packed dancefloor of sloanes, trendies and those who know the doormen'. ACID! very definitely promised though at Asylum at the Harp Club (later the Venue) in New Cross with 'total mayhem, surprises and visuals'. Not sure of the exact music policy at The Rok at Brixton's Fridge but there's 'delecatable deejays' and 'dishy dancers'.
('Top Twenty' chart here is just a pop listing from HMV, not representative of club sounds from the time).
1983/84 saw a series of anti-capitalist 'Stop the City' actions focused on the financial centre of London and other cities too, including Leeds and Birmingham. In London, momentum built with large protests in September 1983 and March 1984 (I've written about the March one here). A fairly half hearted one in May 1984 didn't amount to much, but a more serious attempt to organise and mobilise led up to the action on September 27 1984. By this point though the police had got used to this mode of protest and had developed their own tactics for dealing with it - largely mass preventative arrest. 470 people were arrested, most of them later released without charge. A high proportion of people came from the anarcho-punk scene, but there was advice to dress in more casual clothes to avoid being singled out by the police. I did so, not sure I would have passed for a city gent but I didn't get nicked!
There were occasional short lived breakaways from police lines, as reported below: 'There was a small rampage not far from the Stock Exchange where windows were smashed and cars jumped on and later Barclays Bank off Cheapside had windows broken'. I recall somebody stepping up on the window sill of a bank and kicking the window in. Other than these brief moments there was a lot of wandering around aimlessly.
Dave M, who helped organise the London events as part of London Greenpeace, summarised the day as follows:
'On Sept 27th, maybe 2000 came - mostly anarchists and unemployed, as well as some peace and animal rights campaigners. Police repression was well organised and strong. It was impossible to gather at the City centre (St Paul's and the Bank of England, used previously, were cordoned off). Individuals and isolated small groups who were 'looking for the demo' were threatened with arrest, and soon left, disillusioned. Anyone looking like a punk was particularly harassed. 470 were arrested and held hostage (only 35 were charged) to break up the collective strength.
However, many people who'd organised into independent groups were able to do quick actions all over the place (graffiti, smashing bank windows, a quick occupation etc). 2 or 3 times 3-400 people came together for a march into the centre… Hundreds who were dressed up smart continued to float about (giving out leaflets, passing messages, doing actions...). But generally the City became a no-go area almost for us. Many demonstrators therefore decided to go to Oxford Street, and Soho in central London and were able to make quite a few effective protests at various banks, offices and stores etc.' (A Brief Account of the Stop the City Protests)
Report from Green Anarchist, November 1984
There was quite a lot of soul searching afterwards. The following chronology from anarcho zine Socialist Opportunist (October 1994) ends up asking 'People put months of planning into all this. Was it worth it?'
The general consensus was that it was 'time for us to move on, having learnt from Stop the City' as expressed in this response written on the day:
(there a couple of other responses in the same issue, full copy of which can be read at the excellent Sparrows Nest Archive).
Press coverage
Evening Standard calls for police to move in on the organisers
Guardian: 'Police swamp City's 2,000 anarchists'
Benefit Gig
The night before there was a benefit gig for the Stop the City Bust Fund in Camberwell at Dickie Dirts, featuring among others Conflict, Subhumans and Stalag17. The venue was an old Odeon cinema that for a while had been a Dickie Dirts jeans warehouse before being squatted. I think there may have been some Stop the City planning meetings in the same venue.
There's a little confusion about the Conflict/Subhumans gig, the flyer is clear that it was the night before Stop the City though some people (mis?)remember it as being on the night of the protest.
Earlier that Summer Subhumans had recorded a song Rats about Stop the City, having taken part in the previous London actions. As lead singer Dick recalls:
"We're talking about thousands of people — a lot of them punk rockers, hippies, alternative types — all turning up, dressed up, making a lot of noise... bells, whistles and drums, that sort of thing. It was an angry party atmosphere, and it was just really refreshing. It was one of the first protests I'd been to that wasn't a CND march, and it felt slightly more relevant, more 'everyday' than a protest for nuclear disarmament. That was a one-subject protest, but this was against the exploitation of people across the world by the people who press all the buttons and control all the money — it was about the very hold that money and profit and greed have got on society in general. It felt more urgent to be there. I went up there on my own, and met up with lots of people. I remember the band Karma Sutra from Luton were there. At one point, people were being violently thrust around by the cops, and I overheard one of them say, 'If you act like rats, you'll get treated like this... ', which became a line in the song and is the reason the song's called 'Rats' , which may not be an obvious name for a song about protesting against capitalism" (quoted in 'Silence Is No Reaction: Forty Years of Subhumans' by Ian Glasper).
The lyrics of the song do capture the feeling of those days (maybe especially the line 'Co-ordination was not so good, But everyone did just what they could'!):
A sense of enterprise is here, The attitudes that conquer fear
Stability, togetherness, The feeling cannot be suppressed
Hand in hand we had our say, United we stand but so did they
Hands in handcuffs dragged away, To cheers of hate and victory!
We fought the city but no-one cared, They passed it off as just a game
The city won't stop til attitudes change, Rats in the cellars of the stock exchange
Co-ordination was not so good, But everyone did just what they could
Unarmed with inexperience, We had to use our common sense
If you act like rats you get treated like this, Said a policeman like we didn't exist
When the force of law has lost it's head, The law of force is what you get
We fought their calculations, Money gained from third world nations
All that money spent on war, Could be used to feed their poor
The papers played the whole thing down, Said there was nothing to worry about
The rats have all gone underground, But we'll be back again next time round
London based 1990s label Prolekult was influential in popularising the hard/acid trance sound, but its visual imagery really stood out with record labels each featuring radical left icons. Their first release in 1993, Sourmash's Passport to Paradise, set the tone with Karl Marx.
From there it was an eclectic mix of the good, the not so good and the ugly of radical politics depending on your particular perspective... Let's just say I don't think all of this lot would have got along!
Bertolt Brecht
Che Guevera
Lenin
Andreas Baader of the Red Army Fraction
Wasn't sure of who this was - but reliably informed on twitter that its Russian revolutionary artists Mayakovsky, Malyutin and Cheremnykh in 1919
'No Justice, No Peace, Resist the CJB' (Criminal Justice Bill) - image from 1990 Poll Tax Riot
Rosa Luxemburg
Leon Trotksy
Helen Steele and Dave Morris - the much spied upon McLibel Two
Huey P. Newton of the Black Panther Party
'Welcome to the future: let me breathe'
Malcolm X
Mexico Olympics 1968
Stephen Lawrence
Zapatistas
Harvey Milk
Aung San Suu Kyi
The Clash
Crass
'Chairman Gonzalo' of the Shining Path in prison in Peru
Guy Debord - Down with the Society of the Spectacle
Tony Blair and John Major - Zero Difference
Paris 1968
Anarchist clash with police in Barcelona, before or during the Spanish Revolution (thanks to @semicoda for spotting)
Keith Narey, Bradford Socialist - featured on 1997 release Vuture Shoque by Logique (Kult 23). I had some difficulty identifying him, but @casperpottle on twitter recognised the photo from his local pub, The Brewery Tap in Bradford. He seems to have been a larger than life figure well known in the Campaign for Real Ale as well as Militant who sadly died celebrating Labour's victory in the 1997 general election.
Prolekult was a sub label of Hooj Choons founded by Alex Simons and Red Jerry (Jeremy Dickens) in 1990. They put out a lot of big house tunes, notably Felix's "Don't You Want Me" (1992) co-produced by Red Jerry and Rollo. The thinking behind the Prolekult label, and the labels, is set out in the booklet accompanying the 1997 Prolekulture compilation:
"We started Prolekult up in the spring of '93 as a harder alternative to the more commercial-oriented house we'd been involved with up until then. There was never much of a gameplan involved, just a bunch of preferences and prejudices: a liking for hard, having-it, often Euro-flavoured trance and total indifference to the up-its-own-arse electronic doodling that characterised the UK techno scene at the time.
Sourmash's Pilgrimage To Paradise was a good tune to kick it all off with, emanating as it did from the UK, but packing the punch of a Beltram / F. De Wulf / Orlando Voorn record. Getting off to a start like that, we'd hoped to overcome our sense of musical Europhilia and carry on signing banging home-grown material, but it wasn't to be. Of the twelve tracks included here [on the CD], three quarters were licensed from European labels, reflecting the failure on our part to consistently find the kind of material we were after here in the UK. We're not sure what that says about us, or the UK, or both ...or neither, but we like the vibe surrounding the very up-for-it free party scene that's developed over the past few years and the producers that are now emerging from this sector of the underground are kicking arse. Proper UK acid business.
When it came to adopting a name, logo, etc, for the label, as unreconstructed lefties, we turned to socialist political history for inspiration. "Prolekult" is an adaptation of the Russian word "Proletkult" which was a workers cultural organisation set up in 1907 by the socialist exiles Alexander Bogdanov and Maxim Gorky. The theory went, in simple terms, that at a time when Russia's Tsarist dynasty was at the weakest and most vicious stage in its squalid history, the Bolshevik party was to lead the political opposition, the unions to lead the economic opposition and the Proletkult the cultural opposition. Perhaps the best known work to come out of the Proletkult was the post-revolutionary films of Eisenstein (Strike, Battleship Potemkin), but within a year of his rise to power in 1921 Stalin had effectively stripped the Proletkult of any autonomy, vibrancy or relevance, turning it, as he did all other genuine bases of working class expression, into just another instrument of state power.
Obviously, none of this has much direct relevance to the records we put out as the lack of vocals involved makes overt political statement difficult ("you gotta have house" repeated a few times on Neurodancers' Wippenburg [sic] - the only vocal on the twelve tracks - isn't exactly "Blowing in the Wind" is it?) but it made a change from the cod-futurism to be found on the sleeves and logos of so many techno/trance labels and, in terms of lefty icons over the last two hundred years, we knew we had an extensive reserve of imagery to draw upon. There was also the quiet hope on our part that by using pictures of long-forgotten working class heroes we'd be making our own tiny contribution to the rehabilitation of these political giants who have effectively been written out of our history. We thought that even if the odd person here and there asked "who's that?" then the labels and imagery would have transcended their original role as mere packaging and taken on a higher role as potential consciousness-raisers (man). Unfortunately it soon became apparent that no one gave a toss about which old trot we wheeled out next and after three years and seventeen releases I can safely say that we could put Donald Duck on our next release and no one would bat an eyelid...
...When we first decided to use socialists/revolutionaries etc we had assumed it would all pan out in neat chronological order, beginning with Marx and ending wherever, of course within three or four releases it had all gone. Last minute desperate scrabble to find someone reasonably relevant the night before label copy and image due at the printers etc. and to be frank the odd dubious character go used for expediencies sake". Nevertheless they meant it and included potted biographies in the compilation,,
(if you search prolekult you can listen to all this on soundcloud, spotify and all the usual places)
