'Festivals are collective phenomena and serve purposes rooted in group life. Systems of reciprocity and of shared responsibility ensure the continuity of and participation in the festival through the distribution of prestige and production. Most festivals provide the opportunity for individual religious devotion or individual performance, and this opportunity is a primary motive for the occasion. Other unstated but important purposes of festivals are the expression of group identity through ancestor worship or memorialization, the performance of highly valued skills and talents, or the articulation of the group's heritage.
Rarely do such events use the term festival, employing instead a name related to the stated purposes or core symbols of the event: Mardi Gras (Catholic), Sukkot (Jewish), Holi (Hindu), Shalako (Zuni), Adae (Ghanaian), Calus (Romanian), Namahage (Japanese), Cowboy Reunion (American), and Feast of Fools (French). Those events that do have festival in their titles are generally contemporary modern constructions, employing festival characteristics but serving the commercial, ideological, or political purposes of self-interested authorities or entrepreneurs' (Beverly J. Stoeltje, 'Festival' in Folklore, Cultural Performances and Popular Entertainments, ed. Richard Bauman. New York, 1992).
Interesting point, but 'authenticity' isn't everything. John Eden reviews Bestival, arguing 'Whilst I agree with History is made at night’s comments on the commercial festival boom I would never really have been up for imposing something like Stonehenge Free Festival on children. I’ll take corporate sponsorship over hells angels, drug hoovers, and police brutality any day. They can discover all of that for themselves when they get older, ha ha'.
And indeed despite my earlier comments on festivals, we shouldn't fall for the myth of the earlier 'free festivals' as some kind of communism in one field contradiction-free utopia. There was certainly plenty of buying and selling , with the corollary of the threat of violence to preserve market share, and the violence of cops preventing Stonehenge festival in the mid-1980s was prefigured by the earlier violence of biker gangs - who, for instance, beat up punks at Stonehenge in 1980. As Penny Rimbaud from Crass recalled:
'Our presence at Stonehenge attracted several hundred punks to whom the festival scene was a novelty, they, in turn, attracted interest from various factions to whom punk was equally new. The atmosphere seemed relaxed and as dusk fell, thousands of people gathered around the stage to listen to the night's music. suddenly, for no apparent reason, a group of bikers stormed the stage saying that they were not going to tolerate punks at 'Their festival'. What followed was one of the most violent and frightening experiences of our lives. Bikers armed with bottles, chains and clubs, stalked around the site viciously attacking any punk that they set eyes on. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape to; all night we attempted to protect ourselves and other terrified punks from their mindless violence. There were screams of terror as people were dragged off into the darkness to be given lessons on peace and love; it was hopeless trying to save anyone because, in the blackness of the night, they were impossible to find. Meanwhile, the predominantly hippy gathering, lost in the soft blur of their stoned reality, remained oblivious of our fate'.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Black Rock Free Party
A big free party took place last weekend in Brighton in the aftermath of Brighton LGBT Pride:
The Black Rock Rave, which many see as the unofficial Pride after party, took place at Black Rock on Saturday and carried on into the early hours of Sunday. Thousands of people descended on the site after the event was publicised on Facebook as being a 'night of mayhem' and a 'massive mash up'. One reveller needed medical attention as the party wound down at 3am.
Sussex Police said there were no serious incidents and no arrests were made. Party-goer George Hall said: “It was one of the best nights of my life, there must have been about 4,000 people there throughout the night and the next morning.”
A police spokesman said: “The last sound system was dismantled at 3am. We had minimal complaints about the noise although our environmental health officers did attend. It is illegal because you do need a license to hold an event like this but we patrolled from outside. There were no arrests, there was a minor scuffle but that sorted itself out. People see it as an extension of the Pride party.”
The Black Rock Rave has become a traditional part of the Pride celebrations for many people.
Last month The Argus revealed that all-night raves have returned to Sussex.
Hundreds of people have begun descending on Brighton and Hove at weekends for the outdoor parties.
Source: Argus, 2 August 2009.
Nice piece here on Positive Sound System and the history of free parties in the Brighton area.
The Black Rock Rave, which many see as the unofficial Pride after party, took place at Black Rock on Saturday and carried on into the early hours of Sunday. Thousands of people descended on the site after the event was publicised on Facebook as being a 'night of mayhem' and a 'massive mash up'. One reveller needed medical attention as the party wound down at 3am.
Sussex Police said there were no serious incidents and no arrests were made. Party-goer George Hall said: “It was one of the best nights of my life, there must have been about 4,000 people there throughout the night and the next morning.”
A police spokesman said: “The last sound system was dismantled at 3am. We had minimal complaints about the noise although our environmental health officers did attend. It is illegal because you do need a license to hold an event like this but we patrolled from outside. There were no arrests, there was a minor scuffle but that sorted itself out. People see it as an extension of the Pride party.”
The Black Rock Rave has become a traditional part of the Pride celebrations for many people.
Last month The Argus revealed that all-night raves have returned to Sussex.
Hundreds of people have begun descending on Brighton and Hove at weekends for the outdoor parties.
Source: Argus, 2 August 2009.
Nice piece here on Positive Sound System and the history of free parties in the Brighton area.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous
Revolution as dance? The following text is from a 1970 leaflet from the San Francisco area situationist-influenced group, Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous:
'The dance of revolution is a continuous project, floating free, perpetually changing, always focused. The music it moves to is pure energy, weaving three interdependent melodies: participation, founded on the passion of play; communication, founded on the passion of love; and realization, founded on the passion to create. Refusing the value of appearances, the dance makes itself invisible to those who see only appearances; the spectacle of the commodity cannot defend itself. The dance can never be a closed system, it never mystifies itself; rather, it realizes itself in its own supersession, in the sublime movement of subversion, where a pirouette returns to itself not as itself, not as it was born, but changed, reconceived in a limitless perspective. Subversion devalues each fragmented element in the hierarchy of appearances; each isolated commodity — whether it be inanimate objects or objectified human beings selling themselves in the marketplace — is projected into the significance of the WHOLE, all possible connections are made as we dance closer to the totality of our lives. Subversion is the only language, the only gesture, that bears within it its own critique. Its force is pleasure seeking itself. In the language of subversion we begin to sing, our whole lives begin to move in the rhythm of the song: thus we create the dance: thus the revolution becomes our daily life'.
Monday, August 03, 2009
London Funky MC murdered
Terrible news about the murder at the weekend of 19-year-old London MC Charmz (Carl Beatson Asiedu), apparently stabbed outside Club Life, Goding Street in Vauxhall. He had just performing at the Summer Vybz night at the South London club as part of the duo Kid n Play. Carl grew up in Norbury (South London) and was a student at De Montford University in Leicester.
His friend Shadestar says: 'It sickens me and upsets me to say that this most probably UNFORTUNATELY wouldn't be the last time an event like this takes place in the streets of London. It's SAD and PATHETIC! If YOU think carrying a knife around for WHATEVER reason is OK, then YOU are part of the knife culture in London and it NEEDS to come to an END!' Sadly he's right, only last week there were stabbings in Peckham outside the R'n'B Nitespot which left two people critically injured.
Here's Charmz performing his UK Funky track 'Buy Out da Bar':
His friend Shadestar says: 'It sickens me and upsets me to say that this most probably UNFORTUNATELY wouldn't be the last time an event like this takes place in the streets of London. It's SAD and PATHETIC! If YOU think carrying a knife around for WHATEVER reason is OK, then YOU are part of the knife culture in London and it NEEDS to come to an END!' Sadly he's right, only last week there were stabbings in Peckham outside the R'n'B Nitespot which left two people critically injured.
Here's Charmz performing his UK Funky track 'Buy Out da Bar':
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Big Green Gathering Cancelled
The following article from Schnews (27 July 2009) describes the cancelation of this week's Big Green Gathering festival. I am reproducing it here because it describes in detail the extent of police powers under the Licencing Act 2005 to dictate how festivals are run - and the barriers to getting permission for anything vaguely alternative:
The Big Green Gathering, a fixture in the alternative calendar, was due to return after two years this week. 15–20,000 people were expected to turn up on Wednesday (29th) to the site near Cheddar, Somerset, for Europe’s largest green event - a five-day festival promoting sustainability and renewable energy, with everything from allotments to alternative media. Hundreds of staff and volunteers are already on site, and its cancellation comes just days before gates were due to open. Organisers, most of whom work for nothing, are gutted. One told SchNEWS “We are so disappointed not to be having this year’s gathering – it means so much to so many people”.
A last-minute injunction by Mendip District Council, supported by Avon and Somerset Police, put the ki-bosh on the entire event - citing the potential for ‘crime and disorder’ and safety concerns. This was despite the fact that the festival had actually been granted a licence on the 30th of June. According to Avon and Somerset police’s website “[We] went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure this event took place.” This is of course utter bollocks. The injunction was due to be heard in the High Court in London on Monday (27th). However, before that could happen the BGG organisers surrendered the festival licence on Sunday morning. As soon as this was done a police commander at the meeting was overheard saying into his radio “Operation Fortress is go”. Police have already set up roadblocks and promised to turn festival-goers back.
Chief Inspector Paul Richards, festival liaison, later confirmed to one of the festival organisers that “This is political”, adding that the decision had been made over his head at county level. One of SchNEWS’ sources on site said that the police were frank about the fact that the closure had been planned for two weeks. “This was a blatant act of political sabotage – the Big Green Gathering is now completely bankrupt, they knew that we were going to be closed down and yet they carried on allowing us to spend money hand over fist on infrastructure”.
The BGG collapsed financially in 2007 under the weight of increased security costs. The new licensing act added an extra £120k to their costs, leaving them with a loss of £80k. Security accounted for a third of their overall overheads and the road marshalling bill rose from £5k to over £23k. In spite of these setbacks, they managed to scrape themselves back off the floor with shareholder cash and some potentially dubious corporate involvement. Every effort had been made by the gathering’s organisers to accommodate the increasingly niggling demands of police and licensing authorities. The procedure lasted over six months – just check out www.mendip.gov.uk/CommitteeMeeting.asp?id=SX9452-A782D404 for the minutes of meetings held between organisers and the authorities. Demands included a steel fence, watchtowers and perimeter patrols, having the horsedrawn field inside a ‘secure compound’ and wristbands for twelve undercover police.
At a multi-agency meeting on Thursday, police took those wristbands in order to maintain the pretence that the festival stood a chance of going ahead. A catalogue of other obstacles were also continually placed in the organiser’s path. All of the businesses associated with the BGG came under scrutiny, licensing authorities contacted South West ambulances, the Fire Brigade and the fencing contractors and asked them to get payment up front from the BGG. Needless to say this caused huge problems. Under the terms of the Licensing Act 2005, police can insist on certain security firms being used by organisers. This of course leads to a totally unhealthy hand-in-glove relationship, open to abuse. Stuart Security were forced on the BGG by police, and on Wednesday last week, they suddenly announced that they wanted 60% of their fee up front. Even though the BGG scraped the cash together, the company still wanted out. So the BGG hired another firm – against police wishes. The fact that Stuart Security rely on police approval for lucrative contracts at Glastonbury Festival, the Royal Bath & West Show, WOMAD, Reading Festival, and Glade Festival has, of course, no bearing on the matter.
The last issue at stake was road closures. Mendip District Council had insisted on road closures as part of the licensing requirements. A festival organiser contacted the highways agency to process this fairly routine request. The decision was passed to junior management who reportedly came under intense pressure not to grant the closure. As the road closures were not secured, the council were able to claim that the BGG was in breach of licence. A nice little legal stitch-up that according to one QC meant the BGG stood fuck-all chance of fighting the injunction. Of course, now that “Operation Fortress” is in full swing, there are road-blocks throughout the area. The BGG is itself a limited company and could have fought the injunction - risking no more than bankruptcy - but in a nasty twist two individuals were also named, meaning that should proceedings have gone ahead against the festival then Mendip Council would have had a claim on their assets to settle court costs. Police also threatened to place the farmer on the injunction, risking his entire livelihood.
Anyone who has ever been to the Big Green will know that the atmosphere is more like a village fete than any of the mainstream events. There is virtually no aggro. It’s more about chai and gong-massages than Stella and fisticuffs. All power is 12V solar and the amplification is correspondingly quiet. Music stops at midnight. Compare that to the 24 hr Technomuntfucks that go on with state blessing across the country. Of course it would be cynical to suggest that the BGG represents an alternative that the authorities fear. It’s a gathering place for eco-activists, where the likes of Plane Stupid and No-Borders hang out and exchange ideas while trying to avoid being button-holed by 9-11 truthers.
It’s clear now that the state views events like the Big Green in the same light as Climate Camp and the anti-G20 protests. The BGG saga is showing that there may no longer be any ‘safe’ legal spaces for us to gather. The third way of quasi-legal free-ish festivals is looking like a dead-end.
It’s clear that the Big Green has been singled out – and any gathering promoting those values or trying to organise in a grass-roots way will probably suffer the same fate once they get to a certain size. As corporate-branded Glasto has become a fixture on the mainstream calendar, like Ascot or Wimbledon, many have turned towards smaller more ‘grass-roots’ festivals. Niche festivals have bloomed across the British landscape. No matter what your bent, be it faerie wings or S&M, there’s probably a muddy weekend in a field for you. Of course this isn’t the first time that Britain’s had a thriving festival scene. See previous SchNEWS’ for how the free festival scene came under ruthless attack from the forces of Babylon (or just skin up for an old hippy and listen to them bang on about the glories of the White Goddess Fayre or Torpedo Town). Some have tried to go down the quasi-legal route, such as Strawberry Fair and even Glastonbury, until the aptly named Mean Fiddler intervened in 2002.
Unfortunately the corporate dollar is never far behind. Witness how Glastonbury went from a fence-jumping free-for-all where the festival organisers built the infrastructure, but the fly-pitchers, buskers and random naked lunatics made it a real festie rather than a fenced in, heavily policed corporate theme park. The Big Green was an exceptional festival, which managed to leap through the legal process while being crew-heavy and retaining a lot of the free-festival atmosphere (Not all of course - we still had to put up with plod wandering around site). It was a unique gathering place for fringe movements, from eco-activists to crop-circle nutters.
We’re not just banging on about festivals being free because we miss the good ‘ol days – there’s a huge difference between being a punter who has a whole experience laid on for them (e.g. Glasto’s themed areas with helpful stewards pointing you in the direction of the consumer delights), and being part of a festival/free party where everyone’s responsible for the entertainment, and even infrastructure like welfare. A crowd that feels it owns an event behaves differently to one that feels it has paid to have an experience. The fact that undercover police now feel free to operate and arrest people, without any back-up, for cannabis use or nudity (See SchNEWS 684 and 603) at festivals has a lot do with the sheep-like behaviour of punters - a mentality that our masters are keen to see enforced. In the SchNEWS office we’re hearing rumours that people aren’t going to be put off – alternative sites are being looked at and people are heading to the West Country anyway. In the words of one participant “Things are just getting interesting”. Time for the Big Black Barney?
The Big Green Gathering, a fixture in the alternative calendar, was due to return after two years this week. 15–20,000 people were expected to turn up on Wednesday (29th) to the site near Cheddar, Somerset, for Europe’s largest green event - a five-day festival promoting sustainability and renewable energy, with everything from allotments to alternative media. Hundreds of staff and volunteers are already on site, and its cancellation comes just days before gates were due to open. Organisers, most of whom work for nothing, are gutted. One told SchNEWS “We are so disappointed not to be having this year’s gathering – it means so much to so many people”.
A last-minute injunction by Mendip District Council, supported by Avon and Somerset Police, put the ki-bosh on the entire event - citing the potential for ‘crime and disorder’ and safety concerns. This was despite the fact that the festival had actually been granted a licence on the 30th of June. According to Avon and Somerset police’s website “[We] went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure this event took place.” This is of course utter bollocks. The injunction was due to be heard in the High Court in London on Monday (27th). However, before that could happen the BGG organisers surrendered the festival licence on Sunday morning. As soon as this was done a police commander at the meeting was overheard saying into his radio “Operation Fortress is go”. Police have already set up roadblocks and promised to turn festival-goers back.
Chief Inspector Paul Richards, festival liaison, later confirmed to one of the festival organisers that “This is political”, adding that the decision had been made over his head at county level. One of SchNEWS’ sources on site said that the police were frank about the fact that the closure had been planned for two weeks. “This was a blatant act of political sabotage – the Big Green Gathering is now completely bankrupt, they knew that we were going to be closed down and yet they carried on allowing us to spend money hand over fist on infrastructure”.
The BGG collapsed financially in 2007 under the weight of increased security costs. The new licensing act added an extra £120k to their costs, leaving them with a loss of £80k. Security accounted for a third of their overall overheads and the road marshalling bill rose from £5k to over £23k. In spite of these setbacks, they managed to scrape themselves back off the floor with shareholder cash and some potentially dubious corporate involvement. Every effort had been made by the gathering’s organisers to accommodate the increasingly niggling demands of police and licensing authorities. The procedure lasted over six months – just check out www.mendip.gov.uk/CommitteeMeeting.asp?id=SX9452-A782D404 for the minutes of meetings held between organisers and the authorities. Demands included a steel fence, watchtowers and perimeter patrols, having the horsedrawn field inside a ‘secure compound’ and wristbands for twelve undercover police.
At a multi-agency meeting on Thursday, police took those wristbands in order to maintain the pretence that the festival stood a chance of going ahead. A catalogue of other obstacles were also continually placed in the organiser’s path. All of the businesses associated with the BGG came under scrutiny, licensing authorities contacted South West ambulances, the Fire Brigade and the fencing contractors and asked them to get payment up front from the BGG. Needless to say this caused huge problems. Under the terms of the Licensing Act 2005, police can insist on certain security firms being used by organisers. This of course leads to a totally unhealthy hand-in-glove relationship, open to abuse. Stuart Security were forced on the BGG by police, and on Wednesday last week, they suddenly announced that they wanted 60% of their fee up front. Even though the BGG scraped the cash together, the company still wanted out. So the BGG hired another firm – against police wishes. The fact that Stuart Security rely on police approval for lucrative contracts at Glastonbury Festival, the Royal Bath & West Show, WOMAD, Reading Festival, and Glade Festival has, of course, no bearing on the matter.
The last issue at stake was road closures. Mendip District Council had insisted on road closures as part of the licensing requirements. A festival organiser contacted the highways agency to process this fairly routine request. The decision was passed to junior management who reportedly came under intense pressure not to grant the closure. As the road closures were not secured, the council were able to claim that the BGG was in breach of licence. A nice little legal stitch-up that according to one QC meant the BGG stood fuck-all chance of fighting the injunction. Of course, now that “Operation Fortress” is in full swing, there are road-blocks throughout the area. The BGG is itself a limited company and could have fought the injunction - risking no more than bankruptcy - but in a nasty twist two individuals were also named, meaning that should proceedings have gone ahead against the festival then Mendip Council would have had a claim on their assets to settle court costs. Police also threatened to place the farmer on the injunction, risking his entire livelihood.
Anyone who has ever been to the Big Green will know that the atmosphere is more like a village fete than any of the mainstream events. There is virtually no aggro. It’s more about chai and gong-massages than Stella and fisticuffs. All power is 12V solar and the amplification is correspondingly quiet. Music stops at midnight. Compare that to the 24 hr Technomuntfucks that go on with state blessing across the country. Of course it would be cynical to suggest that the BGG represents an alternative that the authorities fear. It’s a gathering place for eco-activists, where the likes of Plane Stupid and No-Borders hang out and exchange ideas while trying to avoid being button-holed by 9-11 truthers.
It’s clear now that the state views events like the Big Green in the same light as Climate Camp and the anti-G20 protests. The BGG saga is showing that there may no longer be any ‘safe’ legal spaces for us to gather. The third way of quasi-legal free-ish festivals is looking like a dead-end.
It’s clear that the Big Green has been singled out – and any gathering promoting those values or trying to organise in a grass-roots way will probably suffer the same fate once they get to a certain size. As corporate-branded Glasto has become a fixture on the mainstream calendar, like Ascot or Wimbledon, many have turned towards smaller more ‘grass-roots’ festivals. Niche festivals have bloomed across the British landscape. No matter what your bent, be it faerie wings or S&M, there’s probably a muddy weekend in a field for you. Of course this isn’t the first time that Britain’s had a thriving festival scene. See previous SchNEWS’ for how the free festival scene came under ruthless attack from the forces of Babylon (or just skin up for an old hippy and listen to them bang on about the glories of the White Goddess Fayre or Torpedo Town). Some have tried to go down the quasi-legal route, such as Strawberry Fair and even Glastonbury, until the aptly named Mean Fiddler intervened in 2002.
Unfortunately the corporate dollar is never far behind. Witness how Glastonbury went from a fence-jumping free-for-all where the festival organisers built the infrastructure, but the fly-pitchers, buskers and random naked lunatics made it a real festie rather than a fenced in, heavily policed corporate theme park. The Big Green was an exceptional festival, which managed to leap through the legal process while being crew-heavy and retaining a lot of the free-festival atmosphere (Not all of course - we still had to put up with plod wandering around site). It was a unique gathering place for fringe movements, from eco-activists to crop-circle nutters.
We’re not just banging on about festivals being free because we miss the good ‘ol days – there’s a huge difference between being a punter who has a whole experience laid on for them (e.g. Glasto’s themed areas with helpful stewards pointing you in the direction of the consumer delights), and being part of a festival/free party where everyone’s responsible for the entertainment, and even infrastructure like welfare. A crowd that feels it owns an event behaves differently to one that feels it has paid to have an experience. The fact that undercover police now feel free to operate and arrest people, without any back-up, for cannabis use or nudity (See SchNEWS 684 and 603) at festivals has a lot do with the sheep-like behaviour of punters - a mentality that our masters are keen to see enforced. In the SchNEWS office we’re hearing rumours that people aren’t going to be put off – alternative sites are being looked at and people are heading to the West Country anyway. In the words of one participant “Things are just getting interesting”. Time for the Big Black Barney?
Friday, July 31, 2009
Ibiza on the roof: sex, naked dancing and squatting
Ludicrous/hilarious anti-squatter story in today's Sun - it's got the lot 'scroungers', 'crusties' and 'drug-fuelled orgies':
A GROUP of squatters have sparked fury by taking over an empty tower block and staging SEX SESSIONS on its roof. Crusty couples have been seen performing sex acts in broad daylight after carrying a sofa to the top of the five-storey building. Others were seen having full sex and dancing naked on the flat roof. Wild parties have kept neighbours up at night and there are claims of widespread drug-taking. Residents at a posh high-rise next door say they can no longer use their balconies in case kids see the sordid scenes...
The Sun also published a slightly different version of the same story yesterday with some more choice quotes:
SEX mad squatters have outraged residents at block of flats by having wild romps — on the ROOF. More than 250 horny crusties have enjoyed months of drug-fuelled orgies in full view of shocked residents. Fed-up homeowners claim the scroungers have caused havoc since occupying the building after the G20 summit in April. They have now begun a campaign to get the saucy tenants evicted from Poplar, East London — even calling for the building to be demolished.
Neighbour Jo Graham, 27, said: "When they go up on the roof they are there for everyone to see. "You normally hear them first, shouting and playing loud music and then when you look some of them are totally naked and dancing around and others are obviously having sex on the roof. Sometimes there are as many as 50 or 60 people on the roof and of course it's dangerous, especially if they are on drugs. Hopefully this eyesore will be demolished as soon as possible."
Local MP Jim Fitzpatrick added: "There's no proper solution apart from demolition." However the kinky squatters claim they want to stay — likening the flats to famed party island Ibiza. One jobless crusty, who only wanted to be known as Jon, said: "More and more people are coming because they hear about how much fun we have here. The more the merrier. The parties will continue until we are left with no choice but to go. It's like Ibiza up there on the roof. It's just party, party, party".
A GROUP of squatters have sparked fury by taking over an empty tower block and staging SEX SESSIONS on its roof. Crusty couples have been seen performing sex acts in broad daylight after carrying a sofa to the top of the five-storey building. Others were seen having full sex and dancing naked on the flat roof. Wild parties have kept neighbours up at night and there are claims of widespread drug-taking. Residents at a posh high-rise next door say they can no longer use their balconies in case kids see the sordid scenes...
The Sun also published a slightly different version of the same story yesterday with some more choice quotes:
SEX mad squatters have outraged residents at block of flats by having wild romps — on the ROOF. More than 250 horny crusties have enjoyed months of drug-fuelled orgies in full view of shocked residents. Fed-up homeowners claim the scroungers have caused havoc since occupying the building after the G20 summit in April. They have now begun a campaign to get the saucy tenants evicted from Poplar, East London — even calling for the building to be demolished.
Neighbour Jo Graham, 27, said: "When they go up on the roof they are there for everyone to see. "You normally hear them first, shouting and playing loud music and then when you look some of them are totally naked and dancing around and others are obviously having sex on the roof. Sometimes there are as many as 50 or 60 people on the roof and of course it's dangerous, especially if they are on drugs. Hopefully this eyesore will be demolished as soon as possible."
Local MP Jim Fitzpatrick added: "There's no proper solution apart from demolition." However the kinky squatters claim they want to stay — likening the flats to famed party island Ibiza. One jobless crusty, who only wanted to be known as Jon, said: "More and more people are coming because they hear about how much fun we have here. The more the merrier. The parties will continue until we are left with no choice but to go. It's like Ibiza up there on the roof. It's just party, party, party".
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Crisis Music?
Well yes, I'm a bit slow off the mark in posting up these pictures from the demonstrations around the G20 summit of world leaders in London at the beginning of April. Not having much original to say about it all my intention was just to document some of the diverse musical forms on the protests, a project that seemed a bit facile after Ian Tomlinson was killed by the police on 1st April.
Still here they are. Most of the photos are from Put People First March for Jobs, Justice and Climate, a diverse demonstration of at least 35,000 people in central London on Saturday 28th March:
A mobile sound system with pretty impressive mixing desk, the guy on the left was rapping through a headset microphone
Jambalaya, New Orleans style marching band
Belgian workers on the London demo
More marching brass
This mobile sound system was stopped by the police from joining the crowd outside the Bank of England - until it started playing gabba and suddetly the police line parted! (probably only to widen the cordon mind).
Still here they are. Most of the photos are from Put People First March for Jobs, Justice and Climate, a diverse demonstration of at least 35,000 people in central London on Saturday 28th March:
A mobile sound system with pretty impressive mixing desk, the guy on the left was rapping through a headset microphone
Jambalaya, New Orleans style marching band
Belgian workers on the London demo
More marching brass
Old school brass band with the RMT (railworkers union)
Then on April 1st I headed into the City for the G20 Meltdown protest at the Bank of England, where my main concern was avoiding being surrounded by police and prevented from coming or going for several hours (ye olde 'Kettling' technique). Apparently Billy Bragg, Kate Nash and Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly did a few acoustic numbers for the crowed, but I didn't see them or Enter Shikari's Roughton 'Rou' Reynolds who was apparently there.
This mobile sound system was stopped by the police from joining the crowd outside the Bank of England - until it started playing gabba and suddetly the police line parted! (probably only to widen the cordon mind). Didn't find either of the actions particularly inspiring, but for all their limitations I guess I feel that some kind of movement is better than none. The long history of deep capitalist crises demonstrates that without a strong counter-movement the cost of recovery will be paid by those of us enduring pay cuts, job losses and reductions in public services - if not worse.
For some really deep history of the current crisis, take a look at David Graeber's 'Debt: the first five thousand years' in the new issue of Mute magazine (also available online at their site)
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Merce Cunningham RIP
"I don't work through images or ideas. I work through the body... If the dancer dances, which is not the same as having theories about dancing or wishing to dance or trying to dance, everything is there. When I dance, it means: this is what I am doing".
"You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls."
(South Londonists might also be interested in Merce Cunningham in New Cross)
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
In Gear (1967)
Look at Life: In Gear is a 1967 news clip from the Rank Organisation offering a quick tour of the fashion boutiques of Kings Rd, Soho and Carnaby Street in 'Swinging London' - although the narrator actually states: 'They say London swings. It doesn't. Not even the Kings Road, Chelsea. But here and there among the conformist fat crowds is a lean cat or two, looking like it might swing given some encouragement'.
Places featured including Granny Takes a Trip (pictured), I was Lord Kitchener’s Valet (‘one way of saying no to authority is to parody it ... buy uniforms of the past to affront the uniformity of the present’) and Biba, all seemingly offering ‘an escape from the H-Bomb, television and other horrors of the workaday world'. Not only that but the ‘soft, music-loud caverns of the avant-garde can be misleading for they are the work cells of revolution’ – though the revolution in question is not a reference to the social/political turmoils of the period but to a shift in the fashion industry, with boutiques generating style rather than simply offering diluted versions of haute couture originals.
Places featured including Granny Takes a Trip (pictured), I was Lord Kitchener’s Valet (‘one way of saying no to authority is to parody it ... buy uniforms of the past to affront the uniformity of the present’) and Biba, all seemingly offering ‘an escape from the H-Bomb, television and other horrors of the workaday world'. Not only that but the ‘soft, music-loud caverns of the avant-garde can be misleading for they are the work cells of revolution’ – though the revolution in question is not a reference to the social/political turmoils of the period but to a shift in the fashion industry, with boutiques generating style rather than simply offering diluted versions of haute couture originals.
There's also some footage of people dancing - ‘the in-scene of London is one big fancy dress ball… a super charade of happy happenings... what gear the cats are wearing is one story where they wear it is another'. Frustratingly it is not clear exactly which clubs are featured in the film out of those mentioned as ‘the in gaffes where they go’ - including Tiles, Bag o’Nails, Samantha's, Georgie's and the Saddle Room.
(full transcript at V&A website)
(full transcript at V&A website)Monday, July 27, 2009
The commercial festival boom
Some reflections after my trip last weekend to Latitude festival...
25 years ago the British state mounted a huge and brutal police operation to clamp down on the Stonehenge Free Festival. 15 years ago it passed legislation designed to outlaw autonomous dance music festivals in the aftermath of Castlemorton.
The point was never to crush festivals entirely, but rather to make sure that they could only take place when approved, regulated and controlled by the state. Nevertheless it did feel as if the fact of thousands of people gathering together for days on end for music and dancing was something that was fundamentally alien to the ruling culture, at least to the cultural life of the ruling Conservative government.
Even officially sanctioned festivals retained some kind of oppositional edge under the Tories. Glastonbury in the 1980s mainly raised funds for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Lesbian and Gay Pride, which attracted huge numbers to free festivals in London parks, was already being criticised by some queer activists for apolitical hedonism, but this was an era when there was still an unequal age of consent and the government was passing its absurd anti-gay Clause 28. You certainly couldn't imagine government ministers approving, let alone attending either of them.
In the past few years, summer music festivals have become a huge phenomenon in the UK with seemingly countless weekend gatherings for all kinds of music taste. Hundreds of thousands of people must spend at least a couple of nights camping out at a festival. If you add in people who attend non camping festivals such as Notting Hill Carnival you are talking about millions of people every year.
So in a cultural sense the 80s/90s festival crowd has conquered. And indeed its the post-punk/raving generations who are now taking their kids to the more family friendly festivals like Latitude.
Equally of course, the festival scene has been conquered by commerce and administration. Many of the festivals are big business concerns with corporate sponsorship. The biggest player is Festival Republic Ltd which now runs Latitude, Reading and Leeds festivals, as well as being contracted to manage Glastonbury. This started out as Vince Power's Mean Fiddler Group, which grew from running London's The Mean Fiddler music venue in the early 1980s to putting on the Irish-themed Fleadh festivals in London before expanding ceaselessly to run 27 venues and many festivals. Vince Power sold up to in 2005, with Live Nation - a California-based multinational music events company - now the major sharefolder in the renamed Festival Republic.
Festivals have inevitably become more middle class as high entrance fees at most festivals prohibit the attendance of the kind of people who were the backbone of the earlier festival scene. In the 1980s at Glastonbury for instance there was a tacit understanding that thousands of people who couldn't afford tickets would be able to sneak into the site for free, now most festivals are surrounded by high fences and heavy security.
If Thatcher's government denounced festival goers as Medieval Brigands and passed homophobic laws, today's politicians feel festivals are safe enough territory. At Latitude there was several Labour politicians present (notably Ed Miliband, Minister for Climate Change) while the Prime Minister's wife was at LGBT Pride this year.
Despite all the commercialization and regulation of state approved festivals there are obviously worse ways of spending a summer weekend than staying out surrounded by music. But whether the desire for some kind of carnivalesque-lite collective experience has any kind of wider political significance at all I'm not so sure. Does the road to realizing human species being pass through a marquee in a field in Suffolk? Maybe not, but I am sure that in some policy think tank even now, somebody is sweating over how to assemble some kind of Gramscian popular historic bloc that can appeal to the festival public alongside more familiar political demographics like White Van Man and Ford Mondeo Man.
See also: If it's called a festival, is it one?
25 years ago the British state mounted a huge and brutal police operation to clamp down on the Stonehenge Free Festival. 15 years ago it passed legislation designed to outlaw autonomous dance music festivals in the aftermath of Castlemorton.
The point was never to crush festivals entirely, but rather to make sure that they could only take place when approved, regulated and controlled by the state. Nevertheless it did feel as if the fact of thousands of people gathering together for days on end for music and dancing was something that was fundamentally alien to the ruling culture, at least to the cultural life of the ruling Conservative government.
Even officially sanctioned festivals retained some kind of oppositional edge under the Tories. Glastonbury in the 1980s mainly raised funds for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Lesbian and Gay Pride, which attracted huge numbers to free festivals in London parks, was already being criticised by some queer activists for apolitical hedonism, but this was an era when there was still an unequal age of consent and the government was passing its absurd anti-gay Clause 28. You certainly couldn't imagine government ministers approving, let alone attending either of them.
In the past few years, summer music festivals have become a huge phenomenon in the UK with seemingly countless weekend gatherings for all kinds of music taste. Hundreds of thousands of people must spend at least a couple of nights camping out at a festival. If you add in people who attend non camping festivals such as Notting Hill Carnival you are talking about millions of people every year.
So in a cultural sense the 80s/90s festival crowd has conquered. And indeed its the post-punk/raving generations who are now taking their kids to the more family friendly festivals like Latitude.
Equally of course, the festival scene has been conquered by commerce and administration. Many of the festivals are big business concerns with corporate sponsorship. The biggest player is Festival Republic Ltd which now runs Latitude, Reading and Leeds festivals, as well as being contracted to manage Glastonbury. This started out as Vince Power's Mean Fiddler Group, which grew from running London's The Mean Fiddler music venue in the early 1980s to putting on the Irish-themed Fleadh festivals in London before expanding ceaselessly to run 27 venues and many festivals. Vince Power sold up to in 2005, with Live Nation - a California-based multinational music events company - now the major sharefolder in the renamed Festival Republic.
Festivals have inevitably become more middle class as high entrance fees at most festivals prohibit the attendance of the kind of people who were the backbone of the earlier festival scene. In the 1980s at Glastonbury for instance there was a tacit understanding that thousands of people who couldn't afford tickets would be able to sneak into the site for free, now most festivals are surrounded by high fences and heavy security.
If Thatcher's government denounced festival goers as Medieval Brigands and passed homophobic laws, today's politicians feel festivals are safe enough territory. At Latitude there was several Labour politicians present (notably Ed Miliband, Minister for Climate Change) while the Prime Minister's wife was at LGBT Pride this year.
Despite all the commercialization and regulation of state approved festivals there are obviously worse ways of spending a summer weekend than staying out surrounded by music. But whether the desire for some kind of carnivalesque-lite collective experience has any kind of wider political significance at all I'm not so sure. Does the road to realizing human species being pass through a marquee in a field in Suffolk? Maybe not, but I am sure that in some policy think tank even now, somebody is sweating over how to assemble some kind of Gramscian popular historic bloc that can appeal to the festival public alongside more familiar political demographics like White Van Man and Ford Mondeo Man.
See also: If it's called a festival, is it one?
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Calvin Harris at Somerset House
It was all hands in the air at Somerset House last week (20 July) for Calvin Harris, inciting a Monday night outdoor crowd to jump around: 'London.... are you ready to go off?'.
I know Calvin Harris is everywhere with his electro-dance-pop, but what's not to like? He played Acceptable in the 80s, I Created Disco (complete with its fake sample suggesting that disco was created in some post-WW2 laboratory experiment) and new melancholic/euphoric anthem I'm not Alone. No Dance Wiv Me unfortunately in the absence of Dizzee Rascal.
The Evening Standard review of the gig wasn't far off in comparing it to KLF's Stadium House, he chucks all of dance music history into the blender - I'm Not Alone for instance has a bit of a Strings of Life flavour at one point.
Support was Mr Hudson, currently going Supernova with a bit of help from Kanye West (inevitably Calvin Harris has remixed it).
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Latitude 2009
I spent last weekend at the Latitude festival, near Southwold in Suffolk. Musical highlights included Emmy the Great's sweet songs about (near?) unplanned pregnancy and fatal car crashes, dancing to Camera Obscura's Hey Lloyd I'm ready to be heartbroken, an answer song twenty years after Lloyd Cole first posed the question; and most especially The Pet Shop Boys.
Their's was an all singing, dancing , costume changing performance - complete with Gilbert and George style background movies, acrobatics and construction workers moving the set around. At one point Neil Tennant left the stage in a dinner jacket after a few subdued ballads like Jealousy then marched back out in a crown and robe for a mash up of Domino Dancing and a Hi-NRG cover of Coldplay's Viva La Vida, all followed up with encores of West End Girls and Being Boring (which always make me cry). Certainly made a change from watching blokes with guitars.
I also took in Ladyhawke, Regina Spektor, Lykke Li, Pretenders, White Lies, Airborne Toxic Event, Doves, Patrick Wolf, Squeeze, Little Boots and Mika - to say I actually saw all of these would be an exaggeration, the last three were in crowded marquees where listening from the edge was as close as we could get. There would have been some more but we got fed up of the rain on the third day and left early.
Latitude has a wider arts festival shtick, with film and literature as well as music but I didn't have time for too much of that. There were also fairy tale movies in the woods, ballet dancers by the lake...
...the Disco Shed (basically decks in a shed, people dancing outside)...
... and everywhere the english summer sunshine and showers outfit of shorts and wellies, with occasional fancy dress flourishes (a group of blue painted smurfs wandering through the crowd for instance). Oh and the inevitable Michael Jackson memorial in the woods.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Norbert Rondel and La Discotheque
Interesting obituary in The Guardian this week for Norbert Rondel (1927-2009), another of those dodgy figures straddling crime and nightlife in 1960s/70s London. A Jewish refugee from Berlin, he was, among other things a professional wrestler, South London used car salesman, landlord's heavy for Peter Rachman, prisoner, chess player, (alleged) conspirator in the famous 1975 Spaghetti House robbery and doorman at La Discotheque in Wardour Street.
Of the latter place - a 1960s mod hang out - Jon Waters has given an account at Modculture:
"I made my way up the stairs to 'La Discotheque' and gave the nod to the bouncer whilst dropping some cash into his hand. We had sussed out some time ago that we could gain entrance for half price and made full use of the facility. The obligatory stamp went on the back of my hand and I was in.
The door opened releasing a hot fug of fetid air mixed with cigarette smoke. The place was heaving as sweating bodies jostled for space to dance. Junior Walker's 'Shake & Fingerpop' was pumping out and I could feel my heart jump into overdrive. Locating the rest of the firm was easy. 'Haggis' and 'Big Roy' were giving it some on the floor. It looked like Haggis had pulled for the night. Roy was in a world of his own on the dancefloor, dancing by himself, if that were possible in view of the close proximity of the bodies all around him. Roy was unbelievable. He would dance all night with hardly a break but never take any gear. The energy he possessed was beyond belief.
Terry was busy doing some business somewhere and Mac was sitting in a corner. He was completely stoned, staring at his clenched fists on his lap and chewing like crazy.I couldn't get any sense out of him. By now the combination of the music and the dexys were really kicking in so I fought my way out to the others on the floor and let the music wash over me. James Brown 'Night Train', Betty Everett 'Getting Mighty Crowded', The Impressions 'You Been Cheating', Otis 'Mr.Pitiful' and Pickett's 'Midnight Hour'...pure heaven!
Terry reappeared after a while. He had taken a few too many and his mouth had gone into overdrive. He talked a lot of bollocks when he wasn't high but Christ! He was really giving my earhole some grief! I spotted a girl I knew from Borehamwood and using her as an excuse I escaped. We danced and for a while and she let slip details of a party tomorrow night. A result! Sundays were dead and we were not first choice on most people's party lists (probably due to the amount of suede and leather coats that tended to go missing when we were in attendence).
More 'dexys' were consumed. Every now and again a few more envelopes were distributed which meant occasional trips to the building site. Still the music pumped out. The Supremes 'Back in my Arms Again', Jnr.Walker 'Shotgun', Eddie Floyd 'Things Get Better', Toys 'Lovers Concerto', James Brown 'Papas Got a Brand New Bag', Marvin Gaye 'I'll be Doggone'. Gradually the night wore on'.
La Discotheque is often credited as being the first London disco, in the sense of 'being the first club to only play recorded music in London'Mod: Clean Living Under Very Difficult Circumstances - A Very British Phenomenon by Terry Rawlings and Richard Barnes).
Of the latter place - a 1960s mod hang out - Jon Waters has given an account at Modculture:
"I made my way up the stairs to 'La Discotheque' and gave the nod to the bouncer whilst dropping some cash into his hand. We had sussed out some time ago that we could gain entrance for half price and made full use of the facility. The obligatory stamp went on the back of my hand and I was in.
The door opened releasing a hot fug of fetid air mixed with cigarette smoke. The place was heaving as sweating bodies jostled for space to dance. Junior Walker's 'Shake & Fingerpop' was pumping out and I could feel my heart jump into overdrive. Locating the rest of the firm was easy. 'Haggis' and 'Big Roy' were giving it some on the floor. It looked like Haggis had pulled for the night. Roy was in a world of his own on the dancefloor, dancing by himself, if that were possible in view of the close proximity of the bodies all around him. Roy was unbelievable. He would dance all night with hardly a break but never take any gear. The energy he possessed was beyond belief.
Terry was busy doing some business somewhere and Mac was sitting in a corner. He was completely stoned, staring at his clenched fists on his lap and chewing like crazy.I couldn't get any sense out of him. By now the combination of the music and the dexys were really kicking in so I fought my way out to the others on the floor and let the music wash over me. James Brown 'Night Train', Betty Everett 'Getting Mighty Crowded', The Impressions 'You Been Cheating', Otis 'Mr.Pitiful' and Pickett's 'Midnight Hour'...pure heaven!
Terry reappeared after a while. He had taken a few too many and his mouth had gone into overdrive. He talked a lot of bollocks when he wasn't high but Christ! He was really giving my earhole some grief! I spotted a girl I knew from Borehamwood and using her as an excuse I escaped. We danced and for a while and she let slip details of a party tomorrow night. A result! Sundays were dead and we were not first choice on most people's party lists (probably due to the amount of suede and leather coats that tended to go missing when we were in attendence).
More 'dexys' were consumed. Every now and again a few more envelopes were distributed which meant occasional trips to the building site. Still the music pumped out. The Supremes 'Back in my Arms Again', Jnr.Walker 'Shotgun', Eddie Floyd 'Things Get Better', Toys 'Lovers Concerto', James Brown 'Papas Got a Brand New Bag', Marvin Gaye 'I'll be Doggone'. Gradually the night wore on'.
La Discotheque is often credited as being the first London disco, in the sense of 'being the first club to only play recorded music in London'Mod: Clean Living Under Very Difficult Circumstances - A Very British Phenomenon by Terry Rawlings and Richard Barnes).
Monday, July 20, 2009
Police Helicopter sent to Devon Birthday Party
Police closed down a birthday party at Sowton, Devon on 11 July, on the basis that it has been described as an all-night party on facebook. Accotding to BBC News, 17 July 2009:
Andrew Poole, who was celebrating his 30th birthday, claimed police riot vans turned up before any music was played. But police said it had been advertised on the internet as an all-night party. Mr Poole, a coach driver from Sowton, said 15 family and friends had come to the event, where they were watched by a police helicopter for about 15 minutes.
He said before they had turned on the music, four police cars and a riot van arrived and demanded the barbecue was shut down and everyone leave. The event was closed down under section 63 of the Criminal justice and Public Order Act 1994. "We were nowhere near anyone, we weren't even playing any music," he said. "What effectively the police did was come in and stop 15 people eating burgers."
According to This is Exeter his mother also criticised the police action:
Mrs Poole said: “Four cars drove down a private lane to a private field. The police helicopter was over them and all it watched them do was put up a gazebo and light a barbecue... It was a small event with no more than 10 people there when it was raided. My son had put information up on Facebook and had 17 people confirmed they were coming. If that means it is a rave, I would like to know where they get their numbers from?”
Andrew Poole, who was celebrating his 30th birthday, claimed police riot vans turned up before any music was played. But police said it had been advertised on the internet as an all-night party. Mr Poole, a coach driver from Sowton, said 15 family and friends had come to the event, where they were watched by a police helicopter for about 15 minutes.
He said before they had turned on the music, four police cars and a riot van arrived and demanded the barbecue was shut down and everyone leave. The event was closed down under section 63 of the Criminal justice and Public Order Act 1994. "We were nowhere near anyone, we weren't even playing any music," he said. "What effectively the police did was come in and stop 15 people eating burgers."
According to This is Exeter his mother also criticised the police action:
Mrs Poole said: “Four cars drove down a private lane to a private field. The police helicopter was over them and all it watched them do was put up a gazebo and light a barbecue... It was a small event with no more than 10 people there when it was raided. My son had put information up on Facebook and had 17 people confirmed they were coming. If that means it is a rave, I would like to know where they get their numbers from?”
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Drinking Bans
Robbed by the Police: Alcohol confiscation and the hyperregulation of public space is a good new report by The Manifesto Club highlighting the proliferation of 'Alcohol Control Zones' in England and their use to stop people drinking in public:
'across the country, police officers and community support officers (CSOs) have been confiscating alcohol from members of the public who are doing absolutely nothing wrong. Between 2004–6, 3802 people received on-the-spot fines for drinking in public. Overall, we estimate that there will be 20,000 confiscations in July and August this year'.
In Brighton for instance, people have had alcohol confiscated: sitting talking on the beach or in a park; walking quietly through town with friends; when they have not yet opened their alcohol; and when they are about to return home to drink their alcohol. The following accounts are by two people from Brighton:
‘A group of us were hanging out in a pedestrianised street in Brighton celebrating a birthday with a few drinks … . The community police officers came round, and emptied everyone’s drinks into the drains. None of us were causing a disturbance or hassling anyone - indeed there were a couple of excellent buskers on the street and a few people dancing Latin-style.’
‘I was at a street festival event with my girlfriend; I had a few cans of lager with me, and was drinking one as we were walking. There were lots of other people, mostly in large groups, also enjoying the early summer evening with a few drinks. Perhaps because there was only two of us, a couple of police officers felt empowered to approach and order me to empty the can's contents into the grass. They both stood over me while I did this. As the police set off to harass other smaller groups or individuals, all around larger groups continued to drink freely and peacefully.’
See also Booze Bans: the new frontier of joyless regulation by Henry Porter; Facebook Group against booze bans
'across the country, police officers and community support officers (CSOs) have been confiscating alcohol from members of the public who are doing absolutely nothing wrong. Between 2004–6, 3802 people received on-the-spot fines for drinking in public. Overall, we estimate that there will be 20,000 confiscations in July and August this year'.
In Brighton for instance, people have had alcohol confiscated: sitting talking on the beach or in a park; walking quietly through town with friends; when they have not yet opened their alcohol; and when they are about to return home to drink their alcohol. The following accounts are by two people from Brighton:
‘A group of us were hanging out in a pedestrianised street in Brighton celebrating a birthday with a few drinks … . The community police officers came round, and emptied everyone’s drinks into the drains. None of us were causing a disturbance or hassling anyone - indeed there were a couple of excellent buskers on the street and a few people dancing Latin-style.’
‘I was at a street festival event with my girlfriend; I had a few cans of lager with me, and was drinking one as we were walking. There were lots of other people, mostly in large groups, also enjoying the early summer evening with a few drinks. Perhaps because there was only two of us, a couple of police officers felt empowered to approach and order me to empty the can's contents into the grass. They both stood over me while I did this. As the police set off to harass other smaller groups or individuals, all around larger groups continued to drink freely and peacefully.’
See also Booze Bans: the new frontier of joyless regulation by Henry Porter; Facebook Group against booze bans
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Marx Cartoons
Yesterday's Telegraph reports that a Manga introduction to Marx's Capital has recently been published in Japan - cover below (for more about this publication see this).
Something that has been around for while is Jesse Drew's Manifestoon, an animation of the Communist Manifesto, a subversive detournement of Disney and other cartoons. According to Drew: 'Manifestoon is an homage to the latent subversiveness of cartoons. Though American cartoons are usually thought of as conveying consumerist and individualistic ideologies, as an avid fan of cartoons as a child, these ideas were secondary to a more important lesson--that of the "trickster" nature of many cartoon characters as they mocked, outwitted, and ultimately defeated their stronger, more powerful adversaries. In the classic cartoon, brute strength and heavy artillery are no match for wit and humor, and justice always prevails. For me, it was a natural process to link my own childhood concept of subversion with an established, more articulate version of subversiveness'.
Something that has been around for while is Jesse Drew's Manifestoon, an animation of the Communist Manifesto, a subversive detournement of Disney and other cartoons. According to Drew: 'Manifestoon is an homage to the latent subversiveness of cartoons. Though American cartoons are usually thought of as conveying consumerist and individualistic ideologies, as an avid fan of cartoons as a child, these ideas were secondary to a more important lesson--that of the "trickster" nature of many cartoon characters as they mocked, outwitted, and ultimately defeated their stronger, more powerful adversaries. In the classic cartoon, brute strength and heavy artillery are no match for wit and humor, and justice always prevails. For me, it was a natural process to link my own childhood concept of subversion with an established, more articulate version of subversiveness'.Jesse Drew has also been involved in Free Radio and lots of other interesting stuff.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Moonwalking
It's taken my brain a while to make the connection between two of the recent themes at this site - the 1969 Moon landing and the death of Michael Jackson, Moonwalker.
In relation to Jackson, it's his popularisation of the Moonwalk dance that has been the centre of the various flashmobs since his death. For instance at the recent Fusion festival in Germany, there was this mass Moonwalk (well yes I know most people seem to be just shuffling backwards, rather than creating the illusion of stepping forward at the same time, but they are trying):
Contrary to popular mythology, this dance was not invented by Jackson. The backslide (as it was known) has long been in the repertoire of dancers as the following film makes clear with examples from dancers including Fred Astaire, Bill Bailey, Cab Calloway (in white suit at 1:49), Sammy Davis Jr. and many others. The earliest example features Daniel L. Haynes in King Vidor's film Hallelujah in 1929 (at about 2:36 in this video), but doubtless it goes back further than that. It has also featured in the mime routines of the likes of Marcel Marceau and Lindsay Kemp.
It was after Jackson started using these moves in 1983 to accompany his song Billie Jean that the move became known as the Moonwalk. According to Jeffrey Daniel, the dancer/choreographer who taught Jackson the moves, it was Jacko himself who called it the Moonwalk, mistaking the backslide for another dance move with that name (the actual Moonwalk step according to Daniel 'makes it look like you're on the moon and it's less gravity than you would have on earth'). By this act of creative misrecongition, Jackson linked the dance directly with the dreams of his generation - it was after all in the 1969 summer of Apollo 11 that the Jackson 5 recorded their first album and made their first TV appearance.
It is interesting that what caught people's imagination in relation to the actual moon landing was less the scientific achievement of a vehicle taking people from earth to its satellite and back again than the simple human act of walking on the moon. After all the first words spoken by Neil Armstrong in 1969 where precisely 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'. And the Apollo 11 astronauts left behind a plaque with the inscription reading: 'Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind.'
What would it feel like to take that most fundamental of biped actions in space? Jackson's Moonwalking answer is that it is something thrilling, a step beyond normal human motion. Other musicians have also pondered the significance of lunar steps, or used them as a metaphor. In Walking on the Moon by The Police it's the lover's feeling of weightlessness that prompts the comparison: 'Giant steps are what you take, Walking on the moon... Walking back from your house, Walking on the moon, Feet they hardly touch the ground, Walking on the moon' (there's a nice jazz version of this song by Philippe Kahn).
Walk on the Moon by New York indie band Asobi Seksu picks up on that other space meme - not elation but the isolation of the lonely traveller in a monochrome world 'swimming in gray'. Then from the hippy musical Hair (1967), there's the psychedelic dimension of 'Walking in Space' - a trip in every sense - 'My body Is walking in space, My soul is in orbit, With God face to face, Floating, flipping, Flying, tripping...Tripping from Mainline to Moonville... On a rocket to The Fourth Dimension, Total self awareness The intention' etc. etc.
Arthur Russell's This is How We Walk on the Moon, featured in an earlier post, seems to envisage the moon walk as an optimistic struggle, moving forward one step at a time: 'Each step is moving, it's moving me up, moving, it's moving me up, Every step is moving me up... This is how we walk on the moon'. A metaphor for a personal struggle against adversity or perhaps for something wider - moving on up. There are also instrumental pieces like Moon Boots by ORS (1977).
The imagining of walking in space (and dancing in space, sex in space...), beyond the limits of gravicapital, was part of the project of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts, of which more to come.
In relation to Jackson, it's his popularisation of the Moonwalk dance that has been the centre of the various flashmobs since his death. For instance at the recent Fusion festival in Germany, there was this mass Moonwalk (well yes I know most people seem to be just shuffling backwards, rather than creating the illusion of stepping forward at the same time, but they are trying):
Contrary to popular mythology, this dance was not invented by Jackson. The backslide (as it was known) has long been in the repertoire of dancers as the following film makes clear with examples from dancers including Fred Astaire, Bill Bailey, Cab Calloway (in white suit at 1:49), Sammy Davis Jr. and many others. The earliest example features Daniel L. Haynes in King Vidor's film Hallelujah in 1929 (at about 2:36 in this video), but doubtless it goes back further than that. It has also featured in the mime routines of the likes of Marcel Marceau and Lindsay Kemp.
It was after Jackson started using these moves in 1983 to accompany his song Billie Jean that the move became known as the Moonwalk. According to Jeffrey Daniel, the dancer/choreographer who taught Jackson the moves, it was Jacko himself who called it the Moonwalk, mistaking the backslide for another dance move with that name (the actual Moonwalk step according to Daniel 'makes it look like you're on the moon and it's less gravity than you would have on earth'). By this act of creative misrecongition, Jackson linked the dance directly with the dreams of his generation - it was after all in the 1969 summer of Apollo 11 that the Jackson 5 recorded their first album and made their first TV appearance.
It is interesting that what caught people's imagination in relation to the actual moon landing was less the scientific achievement of a vehicle taking people from earth to its satellite and back again than the simple human act of walking on the moon. After all the first words spoken by Neil Armstrong in 1969 where precisely 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'. And the Apollo 11 astronauts left behind a plaque with the inscription reading: 'Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind.'
What would it feel like to take that most fundamental of biped actions in space? Jackson's Moonwalking answer is that it is something thrilling, a step beyond normal human motion. Other musicians have also pondered the significance of lunar steps, or used them as a metaphor. In Walking on the Moon by The Police it's the lover's feeling of weightlessness that prompts the comparison: 'Giant steps are what you take, Walking on the moon... Walking back from your house, Walking on the moon, Feet they hardly touch the ground, Walking on the moon' (there's a nice jazz version of this song by Philippe Kahn).
Walk on the Moon by New York indie band Asobi Seksu picks up on that other space meme - not elation but the isolation of the lonely traveller in a monochrome world 'swimming in gray'. Then from the hippy musical Hair (1967), there's the psychedelic dimension of 'Walking in Space' - a trip in every sense - 'My body Is walking in space, My soul is in orbit, With God face to face, Floating, flipping, Flying, tripping...Tripping from Mainline to Moonville... On a rocket to The Fourth Dimension, Total self awareness The intention' etc. etc.
Arthur Russell's This is How We Walk on the Moon, featured in an earlier post, seems to envisage the moon walk as an optimistic struggle, moving forward one step at a time: 'Each step is moving, it's moving me up, moving, it's moving me up, Every step is moving me up... This is how we walk on the moon'. A metaphor for a personal struggle against adversity or perhaps for something wider - moving on up. There are also instrumental pieces like Moon Boots by ORS (1977).
The imagining of walking in space (and dancing in space, sex in space...), beyond the limits of gravicapital, was part of the project of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts, of which more to come.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams
I first became aware of the line 'We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams' when it was quoted on the cover of Sasha and John Digweed's Renaissance mix in 1994; it seemed to chime with the epic grandiosity of the album, embodied in its cover design and 3 CDs worth of finely mixed Italian and UK progressive house.
The words are also uttered by Gene Wilder in the film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (not sure if they are in Roald Dahl's original novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). This line has been sampled by Aphex Twin and 808 State among others.
The source of the line though is a poem by a short lived Victorian London-Irish poet, Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844 – 1881). I didn't get round to reading it in full until this week when I picked up an anthology including it on Deptford market (Palgrave's Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in English Language, 1928 editon).
The Ode, from O'Shaughnessy's collection Music and Moonlight, is remarkable in a number of ways. As well as the music makers quote, the first stanza also bequeathed the phrase 'movers and shakers' to the English language:
We are the music makers,
The words are also uttered by Gene Wilder in the film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (not sure if they are in Roald Dahl's original novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). This line has been sampled by Aphex Twin and 808 State among others.
The source of the line though is a poem by a short lived Victorian London-Irish poet, Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844 – 1881). I didn't get round to reading it in full until this week when I picked up an anthology including it on Deptford market (Palgrave's Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in English Language, 1928 editon).
The Ode, from O'Shaughnessy's collection Music and Moonlight, is remarkable in a number of ways. As well as the music makers quote, the first stanza also bequeathed the phrase 'movers and shakers' to the English language:
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems
The poem presents a romantic image of music makers and poets as marginal figures ('world-losers'), but whose visionary creations prefigure and maybe even cause great social change. 'We, in the ages lying, In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself in our mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying, To the old of the new world's worth'. In this sense, music is powerful: 'One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure, Can trample a kingdom down'.
The final stanza suggests the possibility of renewal through contact with the dreams and music of other cultures:
Great hail! we cry to the comers
The poem presents a romantic image of music makers and poets as marginal figures ('world-losers'), but whose visionary creations prefigure and maybe even cause great social change. 'We, in the ages lying, In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself in our mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying, To the old of the new world's worth'. In this sense, music is powerful: 'One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure, Can trample a kingdom down'.
The final stanza suggests the possibility of renewal through contact with the dreams and music of other cultures:
Great hail! we cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more
I know it's fanciful, but this can almost be read as a prophecy of what has actually come to pass with the impact of music made by people of African descent in the US, Caribbean, UK and elsewhere.
I know it's fanciful, but this can almost be read as a prophecy of what has actually come to pass with the impact of music made by people of African descent in the US, Caribbean, UK and elsewhere.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Tango for Peace
Yesterday was the 4th anniversary of the jihadist bombs in London, which killed 52 people. One response was TangoCommute:
'To mark the 4th anniversary of the 7th July terrorist attack on London, TangoCommute aims to transform the sense of separation between people into one of connectivity with a public display of passion for peace. Participants have an opportunity to make a modest contribution to understanding conflict and building peace through the embrace of the dance; silently, free from judgements or statements and including all members of society.
This year on 7th of July, from 6 to 7 pm, dance couples will spread across seven of London’s bridges and seven railway stations. Equipped with only headphones and their partners, they will silently dance the tango amidst the commuters'.
They did something similar at Waterloo station last year (pictured), and on Blackfriars Bridge last month. Indeed they want to spread tango love elsewhere: 'TangoCommute - passion for peace is a new dance movement expressing compassion and connectivity during the evening commute in city centres worldwide'.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Rise (No) Festival Picnic
One of the first acts of Conservative London Mayor Boris Johnson after his election was to scrap the explicit anti-racist message of the Rise Festival, held on and off in London parks between 1996 and 2008, and subsequently to scrap it altogether. This was one of London's largest free music events, attracting around 100,000 people in the last few years in Finsbury Park. Bands/artists who have performed have included Chumbawumba, Run DMC, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Gregory Isaacs, Roy Ayers, Kelis, Jamelia, Saint Etienne, CSS and Jimmy Cliff.
UpRise is a campaign to get the festival reinstated - since it won't be happening this weekend, they are organising a Rise Festival Picnic in the Park instead: “Sunday, July 12th marks one year on since Europe's largest anti-racism event, Rise Festival, last took place...So, on Sunday, July 12th, we want to show Boris how much we loved Rise Festival and all that it stands for. We can't organise any music due to the council's licensing restrictions and the short notice, but what we do ask is for you to join us in Finsbury Park to chill out, chat to like-minded people and generally have a great day basking in the spirit of Rise Festival! Look out for the UpRise: Save Rise Festival banner ...”
It runs from 2 pm to 7 pm -there's no licence so don't expect a stage with bands, it's more of a 'bring what you expect to find' affair, I am sure some DIY music won't go amiss...
(more details of the picnic on facebook)
UpRise is a campaign to get the festival reinstated - since it won't be happening this weekend, they are organising a Rise Festival Picnic in the Park instead: “Sunday, July 12th marks one year on since Europe's largest anti-racism event, Rise Festival, last took place...So, on Sunday, July 12th, we want to show Boris how much we loved Rise Festival and all that it stands for. We can't organise any music due to the council's licensing restrictions and the short notice, but what we do ask is for you to join us in Finsbury Park to chill out, chat to like-minded people and generally have a great day basking in the spirit of Rise Festival! Look out for the UpRise: Save Rise Festival banner ...”
It runs from 2 pm to 7 pm -there's no licence so don't expect a stage with bands, it's more of a 'bring what you expect to find' affair, I am sure some DIY music won't go amiss...
(more details of the picnic on facebook)
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