Dance Can't Nice - exploring black music spaces at the Horniman Museum

In '696 - Dance Can't Nice' at South London's Horniman Museum,  the artist Naeem Dxvis explores London's Black music spaces with an installation recreating four kinds of spaces - a church, a 1970s front room, a barber's shop and a late 1990s teenage bedroom.

The focus on more private/domestic spaces is in itself a reflection that Black musics and Black people have often been excuded from public music venues and clubs, down to the Metropolitan Police's Form 696 which discouraged grime nights.

'Bedroom - A place that encapsulates the bedroom DJ culture that birthed grime, garage and drum n bass... it has served as a recording studio, a rehearsal and conference room, as radio station and sometimes even the club. Bedrooms like this are also spaces for young people who don't have safe space to perform or showcase their work'

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'Church: The original Black music space that has birthed countless Black British musicians and genres. The church has housed music that creates connected communities'

'I want to evoke a sense of nostalgia and create value for the forgotten. I want to honour our spaces... Each space replicates the imagined and lived utopias of club culture as sanctuary and the everyday domestic and social spaces that infuse the foundation of Black British music' (Naeem Dxvis)

The title of the exhibition comes from a line in General Levy's Incredible ('Dance cyan nice unless we name pon de bill').

 

History is Made at Night in The Wire

Back in December 2013, The Wire magazine featured this blog in its 'Unofficial Channels' column:

(from The Wire, December 2013 -
 nb John Eden is incorrectly described here as the publisher of Datacide, though he is a contributor to it)

The item was based on a short interview with me by Dan Barrow, which I've reproduced below as it sets out some of my thoughts on 'History is Made at Night' in a bit more detail:

How did you come to start the blog? What kind of interests fed into it?

I stated the blog in early 2007. The name came from a byline on a poster for ‘The Last Days of Disco’ - at the time I was unaware of the 1930s film, History is Made at Night.  The origins of it go back to the mid-1990s, when I first started writing about the history of dance music scenes – for a while I had a column in Mixmag on this called Back in the Day, and I also had stuff published in Eternity and Alien Underground zines. I guess every generation thinks they are the first to discover staying up all night dancing, but I was and am fascinated by how people have been doing this for centuries.

The blog also has its roots in the 1990s free party scene, in particular Dead By Dawn techno/speedcore night at the 121 Centre in Brixton. There was a scene of people around it who were thinking and writing about the political/social implications of electronic dance music, with zines like Technet and Alien Underground. So the blog is very much my expression of an ongoing collective project. I still write for Datacide, which also emerged from that same milieu.

The blog's described as being about "The Politics of Dancing and Musicking" - how do you feel dancing and (radical) politics intersect?

In a negative sense, dancing has always been subject to political regulation. As I said at the beginning of the blog there have been ‘rules about when, where and how they can move, rules about who is allowed to dance with who, rules about what dancers can wear and put inside their bodies…’.  Resistance to this regulation has been politically significant, from the 1969 Stonewall riots to the 1990s movement against the ‘anti-rave’ Criminal Justice Act and beyond.

In a positive/constitutive sense, dancing affirms community and can create new social relations between those involved. I took part in Reclaim the Streets, when the fusing of sound systems and protest was taken to a new level in the UK. In more recent movements, such as the student protests of 2010-11, we’ve also seen how sound systems can help fuse together isolated individuals into a social force.

What are your musical interests? I remember reading quite a lot of stuff on the blog about rave, jazz, UK reggae...

I suppose the focus of the blog is less on the music as such than on what happens when people come together around a music. So although I am not a massive jazz fan, I am very interested in the 1940s/50s London jazz scene as it prefigures later bohemian counter-cultures and indeed as far as I know gave birth to the word ‘ravers’! My personal musical involvements have ranged from anarcho-punk, to house and techno, to playing in pub folk sessions.

How do you keep blogging? I ask partly becuase a lot of the blogs from that era have more or less disappeared - Woebot, Beyond The Implode, Sit Down Man, The Impostume...

In starting HIMAN I was partly prompted by that wave of music blogs such as Blissblog and Uncarved (the latter’s John Eden is somebody else I first met through that Dead by Dawn scene). Obviously people’s focus shift sfor various reasons, some of that first generation of music bloggers used their profile to move on into publishing books and articles etc. It’s obviously true that the time I have spent blogging could have been put to use in writing several books, but maybe that desire to monumentalise your writing in an object that sits on your shelves is anachronistic – though I am not averse to it. Actually I have been talking to somebody about publishing a History is Made at Night book, but we shall see. What I still like about blogging is its immediacy - the ability to respond to things in real time. And the fact that unlike with Twitter, you have the space to do more than just express a quick opinion.

The blog goes up and down in terms of the time I can put into it, what keeps it going is that every so often something comes along that make its concerns seem particularly relevant – such as the Form 696 row about policing grime events. Also when people express an interest in it I feel guilty that I haven’t posted for a while and am stung into a burst of action!

I also wanted to ask about the Transpontine blog. What do you feel distinguishes South London as a place, especially musically?

If you start exploring the history of music scenes you can’t help but be struck how certain locations recur as important over the decades (e.g. Soho). As I live in South East London, I’ve tried to document this in relation to my own area at another blog, Transpontine. Deptford and New Cross for instance have been important at various times for reggae sound systems, punk and other scenes. I don’t think it’s necessary to fall back on a supernatural spirit of place to explain this, as Peter Ackroyd sometimes seems to – there are material processes at work. Partly it’s about the mix of people created by migration, location of colleges etc. Partly it’s about them having space to practice and perform – so you need a combination of plentiful/cheap rehearsal studios and pubs, clubs and other venues. As with art scenes, music is sometimes valorised for its contribution to creating a ‘buzz’ for regeneration, but the same process of rising property values threatens to undermine its infrastructure  as pubs and ex-industrial buildings get converted to flats.

More on the Met and Grime

Following on from last week's post on the policing on funky and bashment in London, here's an excellent article by Dan Hancox on the impact of the police clampdown on grime in London's clubs. This is still very much in effect, to give one example quoted by Dan:

'in August 2009 Urban Affair at the Indigo2 was shut down, deemed ‘high risk’ because their 696 paperwork had the dates of birth for two artists missing. The organisers had booked an allstar cast of performers, headlined by Wiley and Tinchy Stryder, forked out for tens of thousands of flyers and a cross-media advertising campaign, and were offering to put on a supplementary £4,500 worth of airport-style security to assuage any safety concerns. Legally, there was even plenty of time to resubmit the form with the missing details included, but the venue, panicked by the Met’s interference, had already taken the decision to cancel. It’s bureaucracy as a weapon: blunt, stupid and pretty terrifying, piles of paperwork used to bury license holders, to browbeat them into just not bothering with grime'.

All of this is having an appreciable impact, so that 'the music’s never been more popular, nor harder to hear in public':

'Thanks to downloadable mixes and internet radio, the London underground has been broadcast to the world in the last few years. But while this democratisation is a good thing, in London itself underground black music has been forced into the private sphere, away from the clubs. Grime was always meant to be club music: inheriting its BPM from garage, it was that bit too fast to simply be the British hip hop. Yet in 2010, the music has been relegated from clubs to be heard mostly through the pale grey beehive of PC speakers, or in the solitary isolation of headphones. In this context, common experience, enthusiasm and debate occurs globally on internet message boards, but not communally, locally, in the bars and clubs of the capital. Grime has been banished from real, physical London'.

The full article was published in Daily Note, 11 February, a free newsheet linked to the Red Bull Music Academy.

Funky & Bashment in police firing line

Thanks to Uncarved for pointing me in the direction of this South London Press story (1 February 2010):

'Strict new operating conditions have been imposed on a popular nightclub that was forced to shut when police learnt a doorman had been targeted for a gangland hit. The Mass nightclub in Brixton had 36 new operating conditions added to its premises licence by councillors after cops called for it to be reviewed. Lambeth’s licensing subcommittee heard the club was closed on December 26 at the request of police. They had received intelligence a doorman was to be shot in retaliation for a brawl in which he was alleged to have been involved at a club in Farringdon, north London.

Sgt Steve Strange said police took the decision to serve a 28-day closure order on Mass the next day because a verbal agreement with the club not to use “a certain security firm” had been broken at a time when tensions between rival gangs were high. He said: “We know there are disputes between gangs, and gangs have affiliations to certain promoters and venues. “We are taking steps to keep warring – and I don’t use the word lightly – factions apart. This has been a problematic club and the main reason is the type of music that is played... ‘bashment’. We know it attracts gang members.”

The club appealed against the closure order in court and a judge agreed it could open for three pre-planned events over the busy festive period, including the annual Torture Garden fetish club New Year’s Eve Ball. Stan Chicksand, owner of Mass, told the committee the club had already agreed with the police not to stage further bashment – a type of reggae dancehall music – or funky house nights...'

What is clear from this report is that the police in London are still 'profiling' events based on the kind of music they play, with funky now very much in the firing line alongside bashment and grime.

This is despite the fact that following outcry over the Metropolitan police's Form 696 - which they ask venues to fill in with details of club night - it has been amended to take out the question about what kind of music would be played (a question about the ethnicity of the crowd has also been removed). The Form does still ask for details of the promoter and DJs, presumably the police have now decided that with this information they can infer the music and crowd for themselves.

Interestingly the focus on funky, bashment and grime doesn't exactly square with the Police's own report on Form 696 presented to the Metropolitan Police Authority's Communities, Equalities and People Committee in September 2009.

The report notes that:

'For the period June and July 2009, 166 crime reports were confirmed as relevant to this report, as being linked to a nightclub or a public house. The 166 reports consisted of 1 Murder, 1 Attempted Murder, 151 GBHs, 3 Threats to Kill, 6 Firearms related offences and 4 Affray or Violent Disorder. From the confirmed sample of 166 crimes, 85 were linked to a venue with a music event at the time...

All events were found to include a variety of music types. For example “Funk, House music, Indie, Pop” is given as a description of the music played on the night. The music types have been broken down by the number of times they appear in the sample:

48 events are described as including RnB.
32 events included House music.
31 events are described as including Commercial or Pop music.
26 events are described as including Funky House.
20 events included disco or dance music.
16 included Hip Hop.
10 events included Indie.
8 included Rock.
5 events included Soul.

Other music type combinations included any of the above and Bashment, SOCA, Afro Beat, Hip Hop, Garage, Jungle, Cheesy Classics, Clubs Classics, Funk, Electro, Old Skool, Drum & Bass, African Reggae, Lovers Rock, Bhangra, Grime, Dubstep, Arabic, Irish, Latin, Salsa, Oldies, Uplifting, Soulful, and Reggae.

From this the report somehow concludes that 'the likely profile of music events where a serious violent or weapon related crime has occurred' would include the music type being 'RandB, House, Funky House and similar'. But in the list above, commercial pop was ahead of funky, and grime and bashment barely feature. Can't recall a cop saying that the problem with a club was that is played chart music, despite by definition it being popular with a lot of people, some of whom must be criminals. Why don't they just come out with it and say that that the music they are targeting is the kind that it is likely to attract large number of young black people? Although the profile of victims and suspects also doesn't support this focus:

'Victim Ethnicity:
White European – 66
Dark European – 5
Black Afro/Caribbean – 39
Asian - 8
Oriental - 2
Arabic – 1 each

Suspect Ethnicity:
White European – 62
Dark European – 12
Black Afro/Caribbean – 54
Asian - 5'.

As discussed here previously, violence around clubs in London is a real phenomenon, but shooting and stabbing people is already against the law. The current position amounts not only to blanket discrimination against particular types of music, but to the deliberate prevention of whole parts of the community socialising on their own terms to their soundtrack of choice. The intent might not be racist, but the effect is. A similar 'preventative approach' is not taken in other contexts - how often is a football match cancelled because it might attract violence, even when everybody knows in advance that it's going to kick off.

Policies like this do actually impact on the evolution of music itself. Since a lot of dance music is produced specifically for clubs, the drying up of opportunities to play out particular sounds leads to people switching their energies elsewhere. It is certainly arguable that the reduction in grime nights in London at police instigation has led to a stalling of the genre, with funky filling the gap. Some grime DJs switched to funky when they couldn't get gigs - now funky too is coming in for attention.

More on Form 696

The row is continuing about the Metropolitan police discouraging grime nights and other black musics, and its use of the now notorious Form 696. The Music Producers Guild has added its weight to the campaign against the form, with MPG chair Mike Howlett saying he feels 'this is a gross infringement of civil liberties and a form of racial discrimination. We also feel that this will deter the staging of live musical events, stifle free expression and possibly penalise certain genres of music and ethnic audiences'. The Voice newspaper has also highlighted the campaign, with an interview with Pete Todd, promoter of grime night, Dirty Canvas.

I've just come across an old story from the South London Press which throws some light on police tactics. In April 2007, the police invited South London club owners to a meeting at the Ministry of Sound to discuss gun crime in clubs. At the meeting Sergeant Mick Meaney of the Met's specialist S019 firearms unit told club owners: 'If you're playing a violin string quartet you're not going to get a steaming gang turn up. These people go to certain places and they are attracted by the music. If the music being played is attracting a certain type of crowd, don't play the music'. (South London Press, 20 April 2007).

That's the problem in a nutshell. As I've said before, gun crime in clubs is a real threat. As I've also said before, the police already have powers to deal with it - and for firearms police to dictate what kind of music Londoners can party to is a highly dubious state of affairs.

Form 696

Form 696 sounds like the name of a Belgian industrial outfit (oh no that was Front 242) but is actually a pernicious example of bureaucracy - to be precise it is a form that the Metropolitan Police (Clubs Focus Desk/Clubs & Vice Unit) in London is 'asking' all licensed premises to fill in for music events. The promoter and the venue are required to list 'all artistes, the acts, sound systems, other promoters performing' (including DJs) with details including name, address, telephone number and date of birth.

It is not actually a legal requirement to complete the form - not that you would know that as it states 'This form must be completed by the licensee in consultation with the promoter'. The reality is that if the police express concerns about a venue's license it is likely that the license will be taken away - so when the form says that ' full co-operation is regarded as demonstrating positive and effective venue management' everybody knows that this is an implied threat. In England and Wales, the Licensing Act 2003 requires venues to have a license from their local council to sell drink and/or allow music and dancing - and councils are obliged to take into consideration the views of the police.

Controversially, the form singles out particular kinds of black music, asking 'Music style to be played/performed (e.g. Bashment, R'n'B, Garage)' . As I said before when discussing the Met's apparent crackdown on grime, this is a bit more complex that 'the man trying to stamp out the kids' music'. People really are being murdered at some club nights - at the seOnelub in October for instance - and it is true that some kind of music nights seem more likely than others to attract this kind of violence. But the police already have the powers to stop people carrying guns and shooting people - so is it really necessary to label entire genres of music as implicitly criminal and to require police approval for the the simple human act of making music and dancing?

Pressure group UK Music (headed by ex-Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey) is seeking a judicial review of the use of the form, arguing that it will discourage venues from putting on music (see article in Independent). A facebook group Stand Up to Form 696 already has over 3000 members and there is also a Scrap 696 petition. You can read the actual form here.