History is made at night

Our latest questionnaire has been completed by Jeff, who works in the wine trade in California, something that sounds very enticing on a gre...

We have already discussed Yuri Gagarin's first song in space . A couple of years later, a woman's voice joined the ranks of space si...

From Golden Gate Xpress , 22 September 2007: People overflowed into the street and crowded around the westbound bus stop at Haight St. and F...

A couple of interesting posts focusing on different aspects of dancing in Indian cultures. Richard at Rough in Here... has become an enthus...

I’ve been reading Chroma, by Derek Jarman (1994), I believe the last of his books published during his lifetime. It's a meditation on co...

Before the soundclash, before reggae, before hip hop, there was the song duel: ‘In Alaska and in Greenland all disputes except murder are se...

“Disco was the only time we were equal. No one cared whether you were black or white – no one even knew. We were using the culture and the c...

'Blues dance is walking on the edge of Babylon and claiming cultural space. Black youth articulate their experiences and forge alternati...

Conversation in my house tonight: "Did you hear that DJ Andy Kershaw got convicted yesterday" Rose (my daughter), in all seriousn...

In late 19th century and early 20th century Japan, thousands of young women workers were recruited from villlages to work in the cotton and ...

There is a style of 1970s/80s US radical feminist writing that takes 'man-made language' to task, disavowing the patriarchal voice w...

We’ve previously noted how the word ‘rave’ was used in the late 40s and 50s for late night jazz parties in London and elsewhere. Moving int...

Some more on Brixton mid-90s speedcore night, Dead by Dawn, following my previous post . John Eden has pointed me in the direction of Contr...

Occasionally I pick up my mandolin (yes really) and sing. Earlier this year at the (now evicted) Camberwell Squat Centre , I played a few so...

Dead by Dawn was a techno and speedcore club in Brixton , South London that ran from 26 February 1994 until 6 April 1996. In itself this wa...

Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) is a kind of even-more druggy The Monkees with breasts, in which a young female band...

In the later 1960s, the Stonewall Inn was one of the few gay bars in New York where the management allowed dancing: there was a jukebox pump...

Nobody writes letters anymore, so outside of birthdays and Christmas I never receive anything worth opening in the post. But last week was t...

A sunnyish Sunday afternoon in East London last weekend for the Brick Lane Music Festival, with lots of free music across local bars and cl...

Funny Marina Hyde article in The Guardian today about islamists and pop music. In Schmoozing with Terrorists, published this week, journali...