Justine Picardie’s If the Spirit Moves You (2001) is a book about bereavement, specifically the author’s struggle to come to terms with the death of her sister, Ruth, in 1997. Like many in her position, Justine longs for a sign that the departed is still somehow present – a longing that takes her on a journey through the realms of contemporary spiritualism.
It is a moving book in its own terms, but it also caused me to reflect on the relationship between death and silence, life and sound.
Picardie writes that “When someone dies, they do not always disappear out of your life. You have a relationship with them: a relationship that changes, that begins to accommodate their silence”. This silence of the grave is at the heart of bereavement, the recognition not only that the dead are no longer physically present but that we can no longer hear their voice. Death cuts short the song and dance of our lives – Victor Jara’s widow (Joan Jara) called her biography of the Chilean folk singer, murdered by the military in 1973, ‘Victor- an Unfinished Song’.
So it is not surprising that the search for evidence of life after death has so often focused on the will to hear voices from beyond the grave, a pursuit that has gone hand in hand with the development of recording technology. Oliver Lodge, an early 20th century scientist (he invented the spark plug) and Psychic researcher, wrote that 'the dead live in etheric wavelengths which operate at much higher frequencies than ours'. No less than Thomas Edison, the inventor of the phonograph, talked of inventing a machine to record the voices of the dead ‘if we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be affected or moved or manipulated by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument when made available ought to record something’.
Then there was the Russian Dr Konstantin Raudive who believed he could record the voices of the dead ‘by attaching a micro-phone to a detuned radio’ or by leaving a tape recorder running in an empty room. In her quest, Justine Picardie meets current day enthusiasts for EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) such as Judith Chisholm and Dale Palmer. The latter has moved on to digital approaches, through projects like the Global Association of Instrumental Transcommunication and the Noetics Institute, hoping to develop software to make the voices of the dead audible. Inevitably, computers are the new frontline for those hoping to communicate with other realms – some have claimed that spirits have subtly left messages on PC screens.
Ulimately Picardie comes to the conclusion that it's all just apophenia - seeing patterns and meaning where none exist. But as her friend David Toop says to her at one point ‘Well, of course I don’t believe in it, but that’s not the point – what’s interesting is that these voices have significance to people who are looking for somehting’.
Radio Peter
The book put me in mind of an event I attended back in 2002 organised by the International Necronautical Society. The Second First Committee Hearings: Transmission, Death, Technology were held at the Cubitt Gallery in Islington and featured a talk by John Cussans on EVP which included reference to supposed radio stations broadcasting from the other side, set up by dead spiritualists:
'Friedrich Jurgensen... was a Swedish film producer I think, also an ornithologist, and I think as far as I can tell Jurgensen's was some of the first work in the nineteen-sixties... in fact it was using magnetic tape, and picking up on the white noise on magnetic tapes. Jurgensen had been taping bird calls, as an ornithologist will, and when he got the tapes home and listened to them he heard these voices in the white noise between... he thought he heard, well he picked up, he tuned into these voices, and eventually found, you know, decoded them, and interestingly enough also it was his mother that was speaking to Jurgensen, calling his name. And Jurgensen wrote a book... Radio Contact with the Dead in 1967. And that was the first work on EVP.
...EVP is Electric Voice Phenomena. The other technological term is ITC: Instrumental Transcommunication. And, yes, Raudive read Jurgensen's book, and that's what inspired him to do more and more research into the field. And it was Raudive who first encountered something called Radio Peter, which is the first documented claim that there are actually sending stations, radiotechnology, on the other side; that the people who are involved in ITC research, when they die they all meet up on the other side... ...and set up radio stations on the other side. And Radio Peter is that radio station'.
Raudive wrote that 'The astonishing conception that "other-worldly" transmitting stations exist emerges quite clearly from many of the voices' statements. Information received indicates that there are various groups of voice-entities who operate their own stations' (quoted in Haunted media: electronic presence from telegraphy to television by Jeffrey Sconce, 2000). In addition to Radio Peter, Raudive claimed to be in contact with another station called Studio Kelpe.
If only it were true, we could have some great listening when the present generation of London pirate radio operators pass on - 'big shout going out to the afterlife massive, hold tight the recently departed crew'.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Prohibition and the Pleasure Principle
The Pleasure Principle by Kane Race (Sydney Alumni Magazine, Summer 2009) is an excellent article on the absurdities of drugs prohibition, in the context of policing of queer parties in Australia. It's starting point is a police raid on on the Azure Party in Summer 2007
part of the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney.
Race argues that: 'Dance parties have long been a central element of gay community life in Sydney, and recreational drugs have played a significant part in the formation of self and community. To thwart these events by seizing upon this aspect is to deprive a whole subculture of one of its most significant community-building rituals'.
More generally he discusses how he enforcement of prohibition results in a situation where:
'casual intimidation of ordinary citizens is, if not already normalised, then rapidly becoming so – at youth events, in migrant and racially marked suburbs, and in the recreational precincts and public transport arteries of numerous states and nations. What’s striking is how the status of certain substances as “illicit” provides an occasion for the state to engage in what could be described as a disciplinary performance of moral sovereignty. This performance bears little relation to the actual dangers ofdrug consumption – in fact, it often exacerbates those dangers...
The state allows many forms of dangerous recreation, such as hang-gliding, football and mountaineering. And then of course there are those legal, revenue-raising drugs like alcohol (much more likely to be associated with violent crime and aggression than club drugs, incidentally). We would be horrified if the state tried to make these activities as dangerous as possible in order to discourage people from trying them. But this is exactly what is allowed in the attempted enforcement of drug prohibition, which in its present form precludes quality control, puts the drug market in the hands of organised criminals, and threatens users.
The illicit drug user has become a special and symbolic figure for the contemporary state. Their consumption practices resemble the licensed (legal) pleasures of the market, but can also be made to represent their excess. In times of governmental stress, the state jumps at the chance to stage a drama between immoral consumers and the supposedly moral state. But this drama seems more like high-profile posturing on the part of the police, designed to reassure middle-class voters that the state is tough on law and order, and driven more by the state’s desire to be seen to be “doing something” than any considered response to the issues at hand. Indeed, the persistence of these policing practices despite the evidence accumulated against them suggests that their counter-productivity is beside the point. For the point is the public spectacle of detection and humiliation, the making-suspect of populations, and the desire to create a demand for authority in the sphere of consumption. The state confirms its image of itself and its moral constituency in these forcible attempts to expose its other'.
part of the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney.
Race argues that: 'Dance parties have long been a central element of gay community life in Sydney, and recreational drugs have played a significant part in the formation of self and community. To thwart these events by seizing upon this aspect is to deprive a whole subculture of one of its most significant community-building rituals'.
More generally he discusses how he enforcement of prohibition results in a situation where:
'casual intimidation of ordinary citizens is, if not already normalised, then rapidly becoming so – at youth events, in migrant and racially marked suburbs, and in the recreational precincts and public transport arteries of numerous states and nations. What’s striking is how the status of certain substances as “illicit” provides an occasion for the state to engage in what could be described as a disciplinary performance of moral sovereignty. This performance bears little relation to the actual dangers ofdrug consumption – in fact, it often exacerbates those dangers...
The state allows many forms of dangerous recreation, such as hang-gliding, football and mountaineering. And then of course there are those legal, revenue-raising drugs like alcohol (much more likely to be associated with violent crime and aggression than club drugs, incidentally). We would be horrified if the state tried to make these activities as dangerous as possible in order to discourage people from trying them. But this is exactly what is allowed in the attempted enforcement of drug prohibition, which in its present form precludes quality control, puts the drug market in the hands of organised criminals, and threatens users.
The illicit drug user has become a special and symbolic figure for the contemporary state. Their consumption practices resemble the licensed (legal) pleasures of the market, but can also be made to represent their excess. In times of governmental stress, the state jumps at the chance to stage a drama between immoral consumers and the supposedly moral state. But this drama seems more like high-profile posturing on the part of the police, designed to reassure middle-class voters that the state is tough on law and order, and driven more by the state’s desire to be seen to be “doing something” than any considered response to the issues at hand. Indeed, the persistence of these policing practices despite the evidence accumulated against them suggests that their counter-productivity is beside the point. For the point is the public spectacle of detection and humiliation, the making-suspect of populations, and the desire to create a demand for authority in the sphere of consumption. The state confirms its image of itself and its moral constituency in these forcible attempts to expose its other'.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Kate McGarrigle
Sad to hear that Kate McGarrigle has died, here's some nice footage from way back in 1977 of Kate & Anna singing 'Foolish You'. It's from their 1975 debut album which I have listened to a million times and could listen to a million times more.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Paris - city of sleep?
Interesting article in New York Times (10 Janyuary 2010) on decline in Paris nightlife:
'...Despite its reputation as the bustling spiritual home of the bohemian, the city has in recent years grown ever less mirthful and ever more staid and bourgeois, club owners say. Faced with mounting noise complaints, fines and closings, many Parisian bars and concert halls are struggling to stay afloat. D.J.’s and musicians have also been abandoning the French capital, forcing a startling conclusion upon the city’s night life professionals: Paris may soon be dead at night.
“The generalized law of silence that is battering down upon our events and our living spaces is soon to relegate the City of Lights to the rank of European capital of sleep,” a group of music promoters wrote in an online petition, to be submitted to the mayor of Paris and several government ministries on Jan. 31. The more than 14,000 signatories call for, above all else, more tolerance from residents and officials: it would be “dangerous hypocrisy,” the document says, “to let people think that the Parisian night could or should thrive without disturbing the perfect tranquillity of a single resident.” A headline in the newspaper Le Monde last month deemed Paris the “European capital of boredom.”
....A sampling of the city’s problems: densely packed, mixed-zoned neighborhoods; a lack of late-night transportation (the last metro leaves at 2 a.m. on the weekends, 1 a.m. during the week); and an unwieldy tangle of rules and regulations on bars and nightclubs, applied with uncommon zeal by a “repressive” police force.
Club owners say the central issue is the city’s accelerating gentrification. Real estate values have more than doubled here in the past 10 years, and residents increasingly demand peace and quiet, the club owners say... The police have lately, for instance, begun enforcing a long-overlooked law requiring establishments to hold a “night authorization” permit in order to stay open past 2 a.m., an annual license that club owners say is difficult to obtain.
(full article here)
'...Despite its reputation as the bustling spiritual home of the bohemian, the city has in recent years grown ever less mirthful and ever more staid and bourgeois, club owners say. Faced with mounting noise complaints, fines and closings, many Parisian bars and concert halls are struggling to stay afloat. D.J.’s and musicians have also been abandoning the French capital, forcing a startling conclusion upon the city’s night life professionals: Paris may soon be dead at night.
“The generalized law of silence that is battering down upon our events and our living spaces is soon to relegate the City of Lights to the rank of European capital of sleep,” a group of music promoters wrote in an online petition, to be submitted to the mayor of Paris and several government ministries on Jan. 31. The more than 14,000 signatories call for, above all else, more tolerance from residents and officials: it would be “dangerous hypocrisy,” the document says, “to let people think that the Parisian night could or should thrive without disturbing the perfect tranquillity of a single resident.” A headline in the newspaper Le Monde last month deemed Paris the “European capital of boredom.”
....A sampling of the city’s problems: densely packed, mixed-zoned neighborhoods; a lack of late-night transportation (the last metro leaves at 2 a.m. on the weekends, 1 a.m. during the week); and an unwieldy tangle of rules and regulations on bars and nightclubs, applied with uncommon zeal by a “repressive” police force.
Club owners say the central issue is the city’s accelerating gentrification. Real estate values have more than doubled here in the past 10 years, and residents increasingly demand peace and quiet, the club owners say... The police have lately, for instance, begun enforcing a long-overlooked law requiring establishments to hold a “night authorization” permit in order to stay open past 2 a.m., an annual license that club owners say is difficult to obtain.
(full article here)
Monday, January 18, 2010
High on Hope
The links section of this site is badly in need of updating, but I have at least managed to get the new addresses for Datacide and Expletive Undeleted right. The latter includes an interesting interview with Piers Sanderson, who has made High on Hope - what promises to be an excellent film about the Hardcore Uproar acid house warehouse parties in and around Blackburn in the late 1980s/early 90s. There's more about the film at the High on Hope website.
Here's the trailer for the film, which will be released once funds for use of music on the soundtrack have been sorted out. Look out for the great bit at the end where someone shouts 'listen, the old bill have took the fuckin' desks, the bastards'. Someone should sample that.
Here's the trailer for the film, which will be released once funds for use of music on the soundtrack have been sorted out. Look out for the great bit at the end where someone shouts 'listen, the old bill have took the fuckin' desks, the bastards'. Someone should sample that.
High On Hope - Trailer from piers on Vimeo.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Haiti: all the tears and all the bodies
In today's Observer, Arcade Fire's Régine Chassagne, whose family fled Haiti to escape the Duvalier dictatorship, writes about the earthquake: 'Somewhere in my heart, it's the end of the world. These days, nothing is funny. I am mourning people I know. People I don't know. People who are still trapped under rubble and won't be rescued in time. I can't help it. Everybody I talk to says the same thing: time has stopped. Simultaneously, time is at work. Sneakily passing through the cracks, taking the lives of survivors away, one by one'.
She urges people to donate to Partners in Health, which provides free health care to people in Haiti.
Here's Arcade Fire's song Haiti, set to film shot there a couple of years ago by CryptoBioMayhem:
Haïti, mon pays,
wounded mother I'll never see.
Ma famille set me free.
Throw my ashes into the sea.
Mes cousins jamais nés
hantent les nuits de Duvalier.
Rien n'arrete nos esprits.
Guns can't kill what soldiers can't see.
In the forest we lie hiding,
unmarked graves where flowers grow.
Hear the soldiers angry yelling,
in the river we will go.
Tous les morts-nés forment une armée,
soon we will reclaim the earth.
All the tears and all the bodies
bring about our second birth.
Haïti, never free,
n'aie pas peur de sonner l'alarme.
Tes enfants sont partis,
In those days their blood was still warm
She urges people to donate to Partners in Health, which provides free health care to people in Haiti.
Here's Arcade Fire's song Haiti, set to film shot there a couple of years ago by CryptoBioMayhem:
Haïti, mon pays,
wounded mother I'll never see.
Ma famille set me free.
Throw my ashes into the sea.
Mes cousins jamais nés
hantent les nuits de Duvalier.
Rien n'arrete nos esprits.
Guns can't kill what soldiers can't see.
In the forest we lie hiding,
unmarked graves where flowers grow.
Hear the soldiers angry yelling,
in the river we will go.
Tous les morts-nés forment une armée,
soon we will reclaim the earth.
All the tears and all the bodies
bring about our second birth.
Haïti, never free,
n'aie pas peur de sonner l'alarme.
Tes enfants sont partis,
In those days their blood was still warm
Friday, January 15, 2010
Teddy Pendergrass and the Birth of Disco
Sad to hear of the death of Teddy Pendergrass this week, aged 59. Among his many musical achievements was a critical role in the birth of disco. In 'Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco', Peter Shapiro argues that The Love I Lost by Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes (Philadelphia International records, 1973) - with Pendergrass on lead vocals - was the first disco record proper:'Along with the Temptations 'Law of the Land', 'The Love I Lost' marks the birth of disco as a genre of music; it is the beginning of the codification of disco as a style rather than the taste of whatever DJ happened to be playing at that time. This was hardly the fault, or the intention, of Gamble, Huff, and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. It was just that they had hit upon the epitome of dance music: the hissing hi-hats, the thumping bass sound, the surging momentum, the uplifiting horns, the strings taking flight, lead singer Teddy Pendergrass's over-the-top gospel passion working as sandpaper against the honeyed backing vocals... While drummer Earl Young basically created the next two decades of dance music with his snare pattern and hi-hat work on 'The Love I Lost' it was perhaps Pendergrass taking gospel sermonizing to new levels of excess that really marked disco as a separate entity from soul'.
See also: Guardian Obituary.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The xx at The Vinyl Factory, Soho
xx: A Sculpture of the Album at the Vinyl Factory (the gallery space under the excellent Phonica record shop in Soho's Poland Street) was a '3D physical interpretation' of The xx's debut album. It was put together by the music video director Saam Farahmand, who described it as 'a physical music video, a looping shrine to the album that you cannot compress, send or turn off'.
Essentially it was a triangle of three audio-visual units in the middle of a dark room, with each of the units featuring video footage of a member of the band performing. The music was split between the three speakers/band members, so that the guitar sound for instance came out of the unit showing the guitarist playing. The effect was something like standing in the middle of the band in a live performance, and obviously the mix between the instruments varied as you moved around in relation to the three sound sources.
There was nothing technologically astounding about if - after all the possibility of 'surround sound' has been in existence since the launch of Quadraphonic sound in the early 1970s. But with music ubiquitous as background sound, it did create a space for paying attention to the music. The xx were a good choice for this approach, with their understated sound and softly-sung vocals drawing the listener in.
Sorry folks, it was only from the 8th to 12th January so you've missed it!
Essentially it was a triangle of three audio-visual units in the middle of a dark room, with each of the units featuring video footage of a member of the band performing. The music was split between the three speakers/band members, so that the guitar sound for instance came out of the unit showing the guitarist playing. The effect was something like standing in the middle of the band in a live performance, and obviously the mix between the instruments varied as you moved around in relation to the three sound sources.
There was nothing technologically astounding about if - after all the possibility of 'surround sound' has been in existence since the launch of Quadraphonic sound in the early 1970s. But with music ubiquitous as background sound, it did create a space for paying attention to the music. The xx were a good choice for this approach, with their understated sound and softly-sung vocals drawing the listener in.
Sorry folks, it was only from the 8th to 12th January so you've missed it!
Monday, January 11, 2010
Irish dancing in London, 1902
An interesting early 20th century photograph of people out dancing in London (click on photo to enlarge). It comes from Living London by GR Sims, published in 1902, with the caption 'Learning Irish reels (Athenaeum Hall, Tottenham Court Rd.)' The dances were organised by the Gaelic League, which promoted Irish culture. The Athenaeum Hall incidentally was used for lots of radical meetings - William Morris was among those who spoke there.
From Moving Here: 'Living London records that the Gaelic League 'holds meetings for practice every Monday evening, when jigs, three-part and four-part reels, "heel and toe", "cover the buckle", and other complicated steps are taught to novices or practiced by experts'. As this photograph reveals, traditional Irish dancing around 1900 did not necessarily involve the wearing of 'traditional' Irish costume. This evolved during the 20th century as a colourful and distinctive Irish dancing dress. It is said that a group of London-based Irish, visiting Macroom feis (festival) in August 1900 were the first to wear the kilt - an interesting example of how malleable Irish culture could be. Dance halls in towns and cities in England were an important social venue where Irish people could meet'.
From Moving Here: 'Living London records that the Gaelic League 'holds meetings for practice every Monday evening, when jigs, three-part and four-part reels, "heel and toe", "cover the buckle", and other complicated steps are taught to novices or practiced by experts'. As this photograph reveals, traditional Irish dancing around 1900 did not necessarily involve the wearing of 'traditional' Irish costume. This evolved during the 20th century as a colourful and distinctive Irish dancing dress. It is said that a group of London-based Irish, visiting Macroom feis (festival) in August 1900 were the first to wear the kilt - an interesting example of how malleable Irish culture could be. Dance halls in towns and cities in England were an important social venue where Irish people could meet'.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
The Battle of Arlingford Road: a Brixton Party raided in 1993
Some documents relating to a fateful party in Brixton in 1993. Some people I know were at this one, it was just a typical Brixon squat party in a house, with the usual mix of people from all over Europe. Some of them may have had circus skills, but the notion that police were attacked by a gang of crazed jugglers, as reported in the national and local press, was absurd. And it was no joke for those arrested, some of whom were remanded in prison - although I believe they were all later acquitted. A friend of mine who wasn't event at the party who went down to see what was going on got bitten by a police dog and nicked. A defence campaign was launched, with benefit gigs in various places including France. I went to a benefit gig in Camberwell, in a squat behind the Joyners Arms, where RDF played - it raised £900 towards a total of more than £5000 in one week so that some people were able to get bail.
Crock That! Police Pelted by Jugglers (Daily Mirror 20 May 1993):
Circus jugglers pelted police with crockery when their fireworks party went off with too much of a bang. Officers were called to break up the bash after neighbours complained of the noise. But when they arrived, the Big Top revellers bombarded them with a hail of plates and cups. Thirteen people were arreseted and nine officers hurt.
Circus performers from all over Europe were at the party in Brixton, South London, to say farewell to a colleague. In bizarre private shows, a fire-eater wolfed down flames in the back garden and jugglers showed off their skills. But when the music carried on until the early hours, accompanied by fireworks going off, neighbours dialled the law.
A PC who turned up was half dragged inside, then had the door slammed in his face. Reinforcements rushed to the scene – and crockery, sticks and stones rained down from upstairs windows. One party goer said: ‘People panicked when the police turned up’.
Officers eventually forced their way in through the back door and arrested all those inside, The injured officers suffered cuts and bruises. But none needed hospital attention.
Eight cops injured by Circus Revellers (South London Press 21 May 1993):
Police officers were pelted with plates, cups, and sticks, after being called to break up a wild party of circus performers. Eight officers needed treatment to minor injuries following a fracas at the squat in Arlingford Road, Brixton, early on Wednesday. The revellers, many German and French, were celebrating the departure of a colleague, but as the party got louder and fireworks were let off police were called. Two officers who arrived on the scene were half dragged inside before having a door slammed in their faces. They called for back up and when the reinforcements arrived they came under fire. Eventually police stormed the building from the rear making 12 arrests. Eight party goers also suffered minor injuries. A total of 11 people including three women were remanded in custody at Camberwell Magistrates Court yesterday and another man was bailed until the same date. All were charged with violent disorder.
Arlingford Road Defence Campaign Leaflet, 1993:
POLICE ATTACK SQUATTERS AGAIN
Around the beginning of March this year, an empty house. No. 1 Arlingford Road, in Brixton, South London, was squatted. It provided a home for about 10 people and was used as a community centre for European and local people.
On Tuesday 18th May a small party took place in the house for the departure of a friend. It wasn't a rave, there were no bands or sound systems, just a nice atmosphere and a small tape deck. At point a neighbour asked the partygoers to turn the music down, which was then done.
At around 2 am in the morning, two cops turned up. They were being aggressive and abusive, and threatened that if they weren't let in the people on the door would be arrested. The law was quoted to the cops that they had no right to force their way in without a warrant. At this point other police arrived and started hitting the people on the door with truncheons and trying to pull them outside. Several people were injured, one person later needed stitches for a head wound from this attack. Because of their violent behaviour, the door was shut on the police.
BEATEN UP
As a result a large number of riot police turned up, and started to smash windows at the front of the house, while a group of 15 officers broke into the house round the back. There were then about 12 people left in the house, who were panicking and trying to hide. The police went systematically through the house, beating people up, and pushed people (some of who had handcuffs on) down stairs. At no time was there any resistance to the police. Everyone was arrested, and people who had escaped onto the street were attacked with police dogs, and nicked at random. The beatings carried on in the police vans and in the cells, and people were also racially abused. The injuries received from the beatings were severe: broken fingers, jaws twisted, bad bruising, and cuts which needed stitching. Two of the defendants were later admitted to hospital
FITTED UP
All of those arrested were remanded in the police station for two days, mostly charged with Violent Disorder (Section 2 of the Public Order Act), which carries a maximum sentence of 5 Years in prison. In court two days later, three people were released, and eleven remanded in prison. Of the three let out, two were on minor charges, and one on Violent Disorder. All those remanded in custody were of foreign nationality (French, German, Italian). After nine days in custody, all the imprisoned defendants appeared at Camberwell Magistrates Court on the 27th May, for a bail hearing. Three people were refused bail and remanded back to prison because of other outstanding charges from another illegal eviction. The other eight were granted bail on heavy conditions :
- a £1000 security for each person, to be handed over to the court in cash before they could be released;
- all passports and ID to be surrendered to the authorities;
- a curfew between 8pm and 6am;
- to sign on at Brixton Police Station EVERY DAY;
- a ban from being in the SW2 area.
In court there was enough money to release four of the eleven. Since then due to money being raised through benefits and other means in Britain and Europe, three more have been bailed. Four remain inside.
POLICE AND MEDIA LIES
All this because they were partying together. They never threw stones, broke any windows or fought with the police. This is the story the police gave to the press, which was cheerfully reprinted by the Daily Mirror, South London Press and others, and appeared on the TV on South East News.
COPS "N' SQUATTERS
This raid is the latest event in a campaign of harassment of squats by London police over the last couple of years. Included in this were violent raids on squat parties at the Hell House in Borough, the squatted Bank in Peckham (both in 1991 ), the Nevil Arms squatted pub in Hackney, and a squat gig in Mile End, both in February '92. The attack comes on top of dawn raids on at least four squatted houses in Brixton in recent months on trumped up warrants.
WHAT'S BEHIND IT ALL?
Its only natural that cops should hate anyone they can identify as a squatter (although there's plenty of squatters who wouldn't stand out in a crowd). You don't need a degree in politics to know that property is the cornerstone of this society, property is power, and the "need to own" is what keeps us in line - particularly the need to pay for a home. "I'd like to go on strike but I've got to pay the rent/mortgage," imagine trying to explain the concept of homelessness to someone from a "primitive” society; in our world, the mortgage rate is the god we go in fear of (well, maybe not all of us). Now , when there just aren't enough homes to go round, politics doesn't come into it -what choice have you got? But even if there were enough homes, squatting frees you a bit, squatting a centre frees you a bit more, and brings people together - it also makes you more noticeable.
The average cop probably doesn't think it through - s/he just sees the lack of interest in consumer durables, the "scruffiness", the lack of discipline, lack of competitive spirit - and hates it. But one of the cops' bosses big fears is that one day there will be a squatter epidemic - a permanent rent strike, communally run venues, a loss of confidence in the city, property becomes worthless; Norman Lamont shits himself on the telly (OK now he's out of a job maybe he already is!). [Nicked from 'Squats and Cops].
HELP NEEDED
The defence campaign still needs money for bail to release these innocent people. Despite all the gigs that have been held, £4000 needs to be raised. Anyone who can organise, or play any part in any benefit gigs, or send any donations, please get in touch with us at the address below. Please circulate/reprint/pass on this information.
WRITE TO THE PRISONERS
The following people are still inside. Send them letters and cards to they know they aren't forgotten.
GK, PD2944, Holloway Prison, Parkhurst Road, London, N7, UK.
ND, KW3260, Feltham Young Offenders Institution, Bedfont Road, Feltham, Middlesex, TW13 4ND, UK.
XR, EN2645, Belmarsh Prison, Western Way, London SE28 OEB,UK.
JFF, EN2643, Belmarsh Prison, Western Way, London, SE28 OEB,UK.
FOR MORE INFO, DONATIONS, OFFERS OF HELP ETC, CONTACT:
ARLINGFORD ROAD DEFENCE CAMPAIGN, 121 RAILTON ROAD, LONDON, SE24 OLR.
(nb I have not reprinted the names of those remanded in case they don't want it all over the internet).
Updated March 2010: comment by Ginkogirl at Urban75: 'I lived across the road. It sounds amusing when you read it as a news story but it was a pretty awful situation. The police basically had a grudge match against a bunch of noisy, but basically harmless kids. I saw a police dog being set on a woman who was bitten several times - she wasn't even in the house, she was one of a group of local squatters who turned up to witness and help if they could. Another policeman dragged a woman up the street to a van - by her hair, she was screaming and crying in pain.No, not very nice.My upstairs neighbour was with me and when we shouted and remonstrated with police because of their appalling behaviour (we were loud but polite) we were threatened with arrest. I had a kid indoors so couldn't do more - I wanted to get my camera but was afraid that I might be arrested if I started taking photographs.The behaviour of the police was so bad that weeks later when I got a letter from a solicitor representing the people in the house, I gave a full statement and later appeared in court as a witness for the defence. The police side of the story was worthy of the Booker Prize, let's say. I'm delighted to say that all were acquitted.There's a lot more to the story (there always is!), but that's the bare bones. I didn't really know the squatters, just to say hello to, and I asked them to be a bit quieter sometimes - which they always did'.
Crock That! Police Pelted by Jugglers (Daily Mirror 20 May 1993):
Circus jugglers pelted police with crockery when their fireworks party went off with too much of a bang. Officers were called to break up the bash after neighbours complained of the noise. But when they arrived, the Big Top revellers bombarded them with a hail of plates and cups. Thirteen people were arreseted and nine officers hurt.
Circus performers from all over Europe were at the party in Brixton, South London, to say farewell to a colleague. In bizarre private shows, a fire-eater wolfed down flames in the back garden and jugglers showed off their skills. But when the music carried on until the early hours, accompanied by fireworks going off, neighbours dialled the law.
A PC who turned up was half dragged inside, then had the door slammed in his face. Reinforcements rushed to the scene – and crockery, sticks and stones rained down from upstairs windows. One party goer said: ‘People panicked when the police turned up’.
Officers eventually forced their way in through the back door and arrested all those inside, The injured officers suffered cuts and bruises. But none needed hospital attention.
Eight cops injured by Circus Revellers (South London Press 21 May 1993):
Police officers were pelted with plates, cups, and sticks, after being called to break up a wild party of circus performers. Eight officers needed treatment to minor injuries following a fracas at the squat in Arlingford Road, Brixton, early on Wednesday. The revellers, many German and French, were celebrating the departure of a colleague, but as the party got louder and fireworks were let off police were called. Two officers who arrived on the scene were half dragged inside before having a door slammed in their faces. They called for back up and when the reinforcements arrived they came under fire. Eventually police stormed the building from the rear making 12 arrests. Eight party goers also suffered minor injuries. A total of 11 people including three women were remanded in custody at Camberwell Magistrates Court yesterday and another man was bailed until the same date. All were charged with violent disorder.
Arlingford Road Defence Campaign Leaflet, 1993:
POLICE ATTACK SQUATTERS AGAIN
Around the beginning of March this year, an empty house. No. 1 Arlingford Road, in Brixton, South London, was squatted. It provided a home for about 10 people and was used as a community centre for European and local people.
On Tuesday 18th May a small party took place in the house for the departure of a friend. It wasn't a rave, there were no bands or sound systems, just a nice atmosphere and a small tape deck. At point a neighbour asked the partygoers to turn the music down, which was then done.
At around 2 am in the morning, two cops turned up. They were being aggressive and abusive, and threatened that if they weren't let in the people on the door would be arrested. The law was quoted to the cops that they had no right to force their way in without a warrant. At this point other police arrived and started hitting the people on the door with truncheons and trying to pull them outside. Several people were injured, one person later needed stitches for a head wound from this attack. Because of their violent behaviour, the door was shut on the police.
BEATEN UP
As a result a large number of riot police turned up, and started to smash windows at the front of the house, while a group of 15 officers broke into the house round the back. There were then about 12 people left in the house, who were panicking and trying to hide. The police went systematically through the house, beating people up, and pushed people (some of who had handcuffs on) down stairs. At no time was there any resistance to the police. Everyone was arrested, and people who had escaped onto the street were attacked with police dogs, and nicked at random. The beatings carried on in the police vans and in the cells, and people were also racially abused. The injuries received from the beatings were severe: broken fingers, jaws twisted, bad bruising, and cuts which needed stitching. Two of the defendants were later admitted to hospital
FITTED UP
All of those arrested were remanded in the police station for two days, mostly charged with Violent Disorder (Section 2 of the Public Order Act), which carries a maximum sentence of 5 Years in prison. In court two days later, three people were released, and eleven remanded in prison. Of the three let out, two were on minor charges, and one on Violent Disorder. All those remanded in custody were of foreign nationality (French, German, Italian). After nine days in custody, all the imprisoned defendants appeared at Camberwell Magistrates Court on the 27th May, for a bail hearing. Three people were refused bail and remanded back to prison because of other outstanding charges from another illegal eviction. The other eight were granted bail on heavy conditions :
- a £1000 security for each person, to be handed over to the court in cash before they could be released;
- all passports and ID to be surrendered to the authorities;
- a curfew between 8pm and 6am;
- to sign on at Brixton Police Station EVERY DAY;
- a ban from being in the SW2 area.
In court there was enough money to release four of the eleven. Since then due to money being raised through benefits and other means in Britain and Europe, three more have been bailed. Four remain inside.
POLICE AND MEDIA LIES
All this because they were partying together. They never threw stones, broke any windows or fought with the police. This is the story the police gave to the press, which was cheerfully reprinted by the Daily Mirror, South London Press and others, and appeared on the TV on South East News.
COPS "N' SQUATTERS
This raid is the latest event in a campaign of harassment of squats by London police over the last couple of years. Included in this were violent raids on squat parties at the Hell House in Borough, the squatted Bank in Peckham (both in 1991 ), the Nevil Arms squatted pub in Hackney, and a squat gig in Mile End, both in February '92. The attack comes on top of dawn raids on at least four squatted houses in Brixton in recent months on trumped up warrants.
WHAT'S BEHIND IT ALL?
Its only natural that cops should hate anyone they can identify as a squatter (although there's plenty of squatters who wouldn't stand out in a crowd). You don't need a degree in politics to know that property is the cornerstone of this society, property is power, and the "need to own" is what keeps us in line - particularly the need to pay for a home. "I'd like to go on strike but I've got to pay the rent/mortgage," imagine trying to explain the concept of homelessness to someone from a "primitive” society; in our world, the mortgage rate is the god we go in fear of (well, maybe not all of us). Now , when there just aren't enough homes to go round, politics doesn't come into it -what choice have you got? But even if there were enough homes, squatting frees you a bit, squatting a centre frees you a bit more, and brings people together - it also makes you more noticeable.
The average cop probably doesn't think it through - s/he just sees the lack of interest in consumer durables, the "scruffiness", the lack of discipline, lack of competitive spirit - and hates it. But one of the cops' bosses big fears is that one day there will be a squatter epidemic - a permanent rent strike, communally run venues, a loss of confidence in the city, property becomes worthless; Norman Lamont shits himself on the telly (OK now he's out of a job maybe he already is!). [Nicked from 'Squats and Cops].
HELP NEEDED
The defence campaign still needs money for bail to release these innocent people. Despite all the gigs that have been held, £4000 needs to be raised. Anyone who can organise, or play any part in any benefit gigs, or send any donations, please get in touch with us at the address below. Please circulate/reprint/pass on this information.
WRITE TO THE PRISONERS
The following people are still inside. Send them letters and cards to they know they aren't forgotten.
GK, PD2944, Holloway Prison, Parkhurst Road, London, N7, UK.
ND, KW3260, Feltham Young Offenders Institution, Bedfont Road, Feltham, Middlesex, TW13 4ND, UK.
XR, EN2645, Belmarsh Prison, Western Way, London SE28 OEB,UK.
JFF, EN2643, Belmarsh Prison, Western Way, London, SE28 OEB,UK.
FOR MORE INFO, DONATIONS, OFFERS OF HELP ETC, CONTACT:
ARLINGFORD ROAD DEFENCE CAMPAIGN, 121 RAILTON ROAD, LONDON, SE24 OLR.
(nb I have not reprinted the names of those remanded in case they don't want it all over the internet).
Updated March 2010: comment by Ginkogirl at Urban75: 'I lived across the road. It sounds amusing when you read it as a news story but it was a pretty awful situation. The police basically had a grudge match against a bunch of noisy, but basically harmless kids. I saw a police dog being set on a woman who was bitten several times - she wasn't even in the house, she was one of a group of local squatters who turned up to witness and help if they could. Another policeman dragged a woman up the street to a van - by her hair, she was screaming and crying in pain.No, not very nice.My upstairs neighbour was with me and when we shouted and remonstrated with police because of their appalling behaviour (we were loud but polite) we were threatened with arrest. I had a kid indoors so couldn't do more - I wanted to get my camera but was afraid that I might be arrested if I started taking photographs.The behaviour of the police was so bad that weeks later when I got a letter from a solicitor representing the people in the house, I gave a full statement and later appeared in court as a witness for the defence. The police side of the story was worthy of the Booker Prize, let's say. I'm delighted to say that all were acquitted.There's a lot more to the story (there always is!), but that's the bare bones. I didn't really know the squatters, just to say hello to, and I asked them to be a bit quieter sometimes - which they always did'.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Scrap the Licensing Act
Singing and making music is a universal part of human existence, found in all known societies. What could be more absurd than having to have the permission of the state to participate in it - but such is the position in England and Wales. As explained by Hamish Birchall at Live Music Forum:
'We campaign against the Licensing Act 2003, which came into effect on 24 November 2005. This legislation regulates not only the sale of alcohol in England and Wales but also the provision of entertainment, including live music. It claims to regulate live music on the grounds of public safety, prevention of crime, disorder and public nuisance, and the protection of children from harm. But this legislation is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It effectively criminalises most live performances without state authorisation. In doing so it devalues music-making, encourages petty and harmful enforcement by local authorities which in turn discourages local participation in this overwhelmingly beneficial activity.
Under the Act the mere provision of live music, even by one unamplified musician, may be a criminal offence for which the maximum penalty is a £20,000 fine and six months in prison. Even providing a piano in a bar for the public to play is a potential criminal offence - no-one need play a note. The Act favoured canned entertainment over live music: in 2005 all bars were granted automatic permission to have recorded music, which allows DJs, but the long-standing exemption for one or two live musicians was abolished. The Act kept an exemption for broadcast entertainment. This means anyone can provide MTV or Sky football broadcasts anywhere on giant screens without an authorisation under this legislation. But even putting on a small, private concert without a licence under the Act would be a criminal offence if money was being raised for good causes. Obtaining the 'necessary authorisation' may be an expensive and time-consuming process.
The Act applies to 'any place', which includes your home, garden, public streets and parks, although there are exemptions including places of public religious worship, military bases, royal palaces, and - bizarrely - moving vehicles.The government used to defend this absurd and unjust regime on the grounds that it was necessary to control public safety, noise, crime and disorder at live music events. But separate legislation addresses all these risks, and for most small-scale performances is perfectly adequate.
The government now appears to accept this argument in principle, and has promised a public consultation this spring on further exemptions for what they call 'low risk' events. But campaigning must continue if the government is to honour this promise, and amend the Act so that small, low risk gigs are exempt, and live music is accorded the respect it deserves'.
Is this absurd act actually being applied? The answer is yes, though different local authorities seem to be applying it in different ways. In St Albans, Hertfordshire, for instance the Council is taking a particularly draconian line:.
'If facilities for entertainment are provided a licence is required. Facilities for entertainment include dance floor, pub piano, karaoke machine and other musical instrument.'[St Albans Statement of Licensing Policy, revised 7th January 2008, p6, para 2.2.1]
Other councils seem to be allowing pianos without a licence as 'incidental music'.
I am glad to say that I have personally performed in, and indeed organised, a number of musical events without any kind of licence since this law came in. Let's all get out there and make some noise!
'We campaign against the Licensing Act 2003, which came into effect on 24 November 2005. This legislation regulates not only the sale of alcohol in England and Wales but also the provision of entertainment, including live music. It claims to regulate live music on the grounds of public safety, prevention of crime, disorder and public nuisance, and the protection of children from harm. But this legislation is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It effectively criminalises most live performances without state authorisation. In doing so it devalues music-making, encourages petty and harmful enforcement by local authorities which in turn discourages local participation in this overwhelmingly beneficial activity.
Under the Act the mere provision of live music, even by one unamplified musician, may be a criminal offence for which the maximum penalty is a £20,000 fine and six months in prison. Even providing a piano in a bar for the public to play is a potential criminal offence - no-one need play a note. The Act favoured canned entertainment over live music: in 2005 all bars were granted automatic permission to have recorded music, which allows DJs, but the long-standing exemption for one or two live musicians was abolished. The Act kept an exemption for broadcast entertainment. This means anyone can provide MTV or Sky football broadcasts anywhere on giant screens without an authorisation under this legislation. But even putting on a small, private concert without a licence under the Act would be a criminal offence if money was being raised for good causes. Obtaining the 'necessary authorisation' may be an expensive and time-consuming process.
The Act applies to 'any place', which includes your home, garden, public streets and parks, although there are exemptions including places of public religious worship, military bases, royal palaces, and - bizarrely - moving vehicles.The government used to defend this absurd and unjust regime on the grounds that it was necessary to control public safety, noise, crime and disorder at live music events. But separate legislation addresses all these risks, and for most small-scale performances is perfectly adequate.
The government now appears to accept this argument in principle, and has promised a public consultation this spring on further exemptions for what they call 'low risk' events. But campaigning must continue if the government is to honour this promise, and amend the Act so that small, low risk gigs are exempt, and live music is accorded the respect it deserves'.
Is this absurd act actually being applied? The answer is yes, though different local authorities seem to be applying it in different ways. In St Albans, Hertfordshire, for instance the Council is taking a particularly draconian line:.
'If facilities for entertainment are provided a licence is required. Facilities for entertainment include dance floor, pub piano, karaoke machine and other musical instrument.'[St Albans Statement of Licensing Policy, revised 7th January 2008, p6, para 2.2.1]
Other councils seem to be allowing pianos without a licence as 'incidental music'.
I am glad to say that I have personally performed in, and indeed organised, a number of musical events without any kind of licence since this law came in. Let's all get out there and make some noise!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saving London Venues: the Half Moon and the Foundry
Campaigns are currently being waged to save two iconic London venues.
The Half Moon in Putney (South West London) has been hosting live music regularly since 1963. Since that time it has seen performances by, among others, The Rolling Stones, U2, The Small Faces, Ralph McTell, Badly Drawn Boy, Richard Thompson, Kate Bush, Kasabian, The Wombats, Newton Faulkner and Mr Hudson. The current tenant has been ordered by the brewery (Youngs) to quit the pub by the end of January 2010 and there are fears that the venue could be turned into a gastro pub. Following a public campaign, Youngs are now saying they are sympathetic to music remaining in the pub but it seems that the new tenant could decide otherwise. See Save the Half Moon on Facebook for latest news.
The Foundry in Shoreditch is a relative newcomer and a different kind of venue. Not so much a music pub like the Half Moon , more of a bar with art/performance/music and various other parties and happenings. It has a squat bar ambience of the kind found in places like Berlin or Rome but rarely in London, although it is not actually squatted. Anyway it is facing demolition and replacement by a hotel - almost a text book case in the urban regeneration cycle whereby hipsters take over run down properties for low or no rent, make an area trendy, and then are displaced by corporate operators cashing in on the value they have added. The Save the Foundry campaign is urging people to comment on the planning application for the hotel - the deadline is 4th January.
The Half Moon in Putney (South West London) has been hosting live music regularly since 1963. Since that time it has seen performances by, among others, The Rolling Stones, U2, The Small Faces, Ralph McTell, Badly Drawn Boy, Richard Thompson, Kate Bush, Kasabian, The Wombats, Newton Faulkner and Mr Hudson. The current tenant has been ordered by the brewery (Youngs) to quit the pub by the end of January 2010 and there are fears that the venue could be turned into a gastro pub. Following a public campaign, Youngs are now saying they are sympathetic to music remaining in the pub but it seems that the new tenant could decide otherwise. See Save the Half Moon on Facebook for latest news.
The Foundry in Shoreditch is a relative newcomer and a different kind of venue. Not so much a music pub like the Half Moon , more of a bar with art/performance/music and various other parties and happenings. It has a squat bar ambience of the kind found in places like Berlin or Rome but rarely in London, although it is not actually squatted. Anyway it is facing demolition and replacement by a hotel - almost a text book case in the urban regeneration cycle whereby hipsters take over run down properties for low or no rent, make an area trendy, and then are displaced by corporate operators cashing in on the value they have added. The Save the Foundry campaign is urging people to comment on the planning application for the hotel - the deadline is 4th January.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Deities of Music & Dance (1): Saraswati
The existence of gods, goddesses, spirits and saints of music and dance in religions and mythologies across the world is testament to the fundamental human impulse to sing, make meaningful sound and move to rhythm. Although priests of various persuasions have often feared and sought to control the power of music and dance, they have never succeeded in banishing it - not even from the stories and legends of their own religions.So, a short series on some of these musical and dancing deities start with Saraswati, an Indian goddess associated with knowledge, music and the arts. She is usually shown holding a stringed instrument called a Veena. While Saraswati is mostly a figure in Hinduism, she is also acknowledged by Buddhists. Musicians and others often recite a mantra known as the Saraswati Vandana Mantra, which goes: 'May Goddess Saraswati, who is fair like the jasmine-colored moon, and whose pure white garland is like frosty dew drops; who is adorned in radiant white attire, on whose beautiful arm rests the veena, and whose throne is a white lotus; who is surrounded and respected by the Gods, protect me. May you fully remove my lethargy, sluggishness, and ignorance'.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Thimbleberry Festival Under Attack
Following the cancellation of this year's Big Green Gathering thanks to official pressure, another festival is under attack.
On Friday 11th December 2009 Andy Norman, host and organiser of Thimbleberry Music Festival in County Durham, UK appeared in court facing the charge that he "did permit the use of cannabis on his premises". The charge relates to alleged use by the festival-goers of cannabis at the last September festival. He has not entered a plea and is due back in court on the 5th February 2010 to face committal to Crown Court.
The charge is being brought under Section 8 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. An amendment to this Act passed by the Government in 2001 made it a criminal offence for people to knowingly allow premises they own, manage, or have responsibility for, to be used by any other person for the adminstration or use of any controlled drugs.
A conviction would doubtless be used as a pretext not to grant a licence for the festival next year, and would also set a very dubious precedent. People inhale at pretty much all festivals, so presumably the police could charge anybody organising or hosting a festival with this offence.
There is a facebook group in support of the festival.
On Friday 11th December 2009 Andy Norman, host and organiser of Thimbleberry Music Festival in County Durham, UK appeared in court facing the charge that he "did permit the use of cannabis on his premises". The charge relates to alleged use by the festival-goers of cannabis at the last September festival. He has not entered a plea and is due back in court on the 5th February 2010 to face committal to Crown Court.
The charge is being brought under Section 8 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. An amendment to this Act passed by the Government in 2001 made it a criminal offence for people to knowingly allow premises they own, manage, or have responsibility for, to be used by any other person for the adminstration or use of any controlled drugs.
A conviction would doubtless be used as a pretext not to grant a licence for the festival next year, and would also set a very dubious precedent. People inhale at pretty much all festivals, so presumably the police could charge anybody organising or hosting a festival with this offence.
There is a facebook group in support of the festival.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Dinah McNicol and Torpedo Town
A man was convicted this week of the murder of 18 year old Dinah McNicol (pictured) in 1991. Peter Tobin is now known to have killed at least three young women, including Dinah whose body was found in his garden in Margate in 2007.All three cases are equally tragic, but Dinah's particularly touched a chord because she was killed while hitchhiking back from the Torpedo Town Festival, held at Bramshott Common near Liphook in Hampshire from 7th–9th August 1991. This free festival on Ministry of Defence land, with Spiral Tribe and Sweat sound systems, attracted some 12,000 people and is fondly remembered by many who were there. For some it was life changing in a postive way, as Steve Spiral describes:
'We pulled onsite and I was blown away, as I said I had been to quite a few of the big 89 parties like Energy but this was totally different, Crustys in knackered trucks mixed with ravers in flash cars and the vibe was amazing. I remember... the Brainstrom cafe which was an old 51 seater coach parked up on the edge of the area that was space set aside for the rave, which I think was owned by Rob who later became know for Universe and Club UK. There was an old generator that was revving so high that it was billowing out black smoke this was because it was not powerful enough to run all of the equipment plugged in to it. As all of my mates were good friend with the whole Spiral crew I was introduced to the lot of them as their mad friend who had come back from Tenerife for a few days, they were all so down to earth not like Rave promoters egotistical and full of them selves but just normal people who wanted to party for the fun of it and not for the money and recognition. This party changed my life and my perception of what a party should be, no police, no security being moody, and great people who just wanted to get on one and have fun, and all for free. I didn't want to go home, I had found my calling. I did go home though and explained to my folks that I had decided not to go back to Tenerife'.
So sad that for Dinah this was to be her last weekend. Though you can only hope she had a good time, that is little compensation for her friends and family.
See also: Tobin victim Dinah McNicol: Bright, kind lover of rave music (Guardian 16.12.09); picture of Torpedo Town 1991 from The Acid House.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Beijing Coma
Ma Jian's Beijing Coma (2008) is a fictionalised account of the events leading up to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China, and its aftermath. The novelist travelled from Hong Kong to visit the Square and support the movement at the time, and his rendering of the story is undoubtedly on the side of the protestors.
It is not a particularly uplifting book. The description of the massacre itself - and indeed of earlier atrocities in the Cultural Revolution period - is, as you might expect, very harrowing. But there is also an honest treatment of divisions with the protest movement. The narrator's judgement is presumably also the author's: 'When the guns were pointing at our heads, we were still wasting time squabbling among ourselves. We were courageous but inexperienced, and had little understanding of Chinese history'.
Although the Square where the demonstrators camped out was ultimately to be a killing zone, there is also a sense that within it a zone of freedom was temporarily created where thousands of (mainly) young people were able to escape the rigid controls of living in a police state: 'Tiananmen Square was the heart of our nation, a vast open space where millions of tiny cells could gather together and forget themselves and, more importantly, forget the thick, oppressive walls that enclosed them'.
The author describes moments of festivity - in a sense Tiananmen Square was that generation's Woodstock as well as its Wounded Knee: 'The Square was blanketed in dawn fog. Everything was quiet. The nights were much livelier. Boys would sit back to back drinking beer. Couples would huddle in quiet corners humming love songs to one another, then sneak off into empty tents to make love. It was like a huge party'.
When the Goddess of Democracy statue was raised in the square 'Students from the Academy of Music stood up and sang 'The Blood-stained spirit' and Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'. Barechested boys from the Dance Academy performed a Shaanxi Province folk dance, beating drums tied to their waist'. In another episode, two characters get married in the Square: 'Someone put a tape in the cassette player and told the newly-wed couple to dance....The crowd of children and adults began to dance too. The air and sunlight seemed to move to the rhythm. As the crowd spread out, the paved terrace began to shake. 'This is the season of love... You can smell the love in the air, Everyone needs to fall in love....' Soon everyone on the Square was dancing. Tens of thousands of people were singing, clapping and stamping their feet. The Goddess of Democracy's upheld arms looking like a flock of white doves soaring into the blue sky'
Another feature of the movement was that protestors continued to sing socialist songs, in particular the Internationale. As the soldiers gathered to crush the protest. 'The broadcast station played a tape of the Internationale. The sound was louder and cracklier than usual. Everyone in the square sang along. The announcements blaring from the government speakers on the lamp posts had become louder too, and the echoes added to the din'. The author is aware of the contradictions of this: 'The national anthem blared out again from the loudspeakers on the Monument. 'Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves! With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall'. As we sang along, we began to relax a little. It occurred to me that most of the people who'd been shot by the Party since 1949 had shouted 'Long live the Communist Party!' when the bullets were fired. I wondered whether I, too, was going to die singing the national anthem beneath the national flag'.
This caused me to reflect too - to what extent can the language and symbols of the 19th and 20th century socialist movement still be used by those who aspire to a better world? Can the red flag, the Internationale, the hammer and sickle be reclaimed or have they been tarnished beyond repair by the butchers of China, Cambodia and the USSR? I am not sure.
It is not a particularly uplifting book. The description of the massacre itself - and indeed of earlier atrocities in the Cultural Revolution period - is, as you might expect, very harrowing. But there is also an honest treatment of divisions with the protest movement. The narrator's judgement is presumably also the author's: 'When the guns were pointing at our heads, we were still wasting time squabbling among ourselves. We were courageous but inexperienced, and had little understanding of Chinese history'.
Although the Square where the demonstrators camped out was ultimately to be a killing zone, there is also a sense that within it a zone of freedom was temporarily created where thousands of (mainly) young people were able to escape the rigid controls of living in a police state: 'Tiananmen Square was the heart of our nation, a vast open space where millions of tiny cells could gather together and forget themselves and, more importantly, forget the thick, oppressive walls that enclosed them'.
The author describes moments of festivity - in a sense Tiananmen Square was that generation's Woodstock as well as its Wounded Knee: 'The Square was blanketed in dawn fog. Everything was quiet. The nights were much livelier. Boys would sit back to back drinking beer. Couples would huddle in quiet corners humming love songs to one another, then sneak off into empty tents to make love. It was like a huge party'.
When the Goddess of Democracy statue was raised in the square 'Students from the Academy of Music stood up and sang 'The Blood-stained spirit' and Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'. Barechested boys from the Dance Academy performed a Shaanxi Province folk dance, beating drums tied to their waist'. In another episode, two characters get married in the Square: 'Someone put a tape in the cassette player and told the newly-wed couple to dance....The crowd of children and adults began to dance too. The air and sunlight seemed to move to the rhythm. As the crowd spread out, the paved terrace began to shake. 'This is the season of love... You can smell the love in the air, Everyone needs to fall in love....' Soon everyone on the Square was dancing. Tens of thousands of people were singing, clapping and stamping their feet. The Goddess of Democracy's upheld arms looking like a flock of white doves soaring into the blue sky'
Another feature of the movement was that protestors continued to sing socialist songs, in particular the Internationale. As the soldiers gathered to crush the protest. 'The broadcast station played a tape of the Internationale. The sound was louder and cracklier than usual. Everyone in the square sang along. The announcements blaring from the government speakers on the lamp posts had become louder too, and the echoes added to the din'. The author is aware of the contradictions of this: 'The national anthem blared out again from the loudspeakers on the Monument. 'Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves! With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall'. As we sang along, we began to relax a little. It occurred to me that most of the people who'd been shot by the Party since 1949 had shouted 'Long live the Communist Party!' when the bullets were fired. I wondered whether I, too, was going to die singing the national anthem beneath the national flag'.
This caused me to reflect too - to what extent can the language and symbols of the 19th and 20th century socialist movement still be used by those who aspire to a better world? Can the red flag, the Internationale, the hammer and sickle be reclaimed or have they been tarnished beyond repair by the butchers of China, Cambodia and the USSR? I am not sure.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Trafalgar Square
I was in Trafalgar Square on Friday night, where there was a fairly surreal assemblage of sights and happenings. There was the big Christmas tree with carol singers; a giant Menorah for the Jewish festival of Chanukah (right in the above picture); the World Wildlife Fund's London Ice Bear - a melting sculpture to highlight global warming...
... and the Climate Camp with similar concerns, while world leaders convene in Copenhagen. There didn't seem to be a lot going on and it was much smaller than the Camp on Blackheath over the summer. I guess the temperature had something to do with that, and the fact that a lot of activists have headed to Denmark.
It all put me in mind of the history of this place as a focus for all kinds of collective celebration and protests in London, from the Bloody Sunday demonstrations of 1887 to the poll tax riot in 1990, from dancing in the fountains on the anti-Criminal Justice Act demo (May 1994) to dancing outside the national gallery on the Reclaim the Streets 'March for Social Justice' demo (organised with the striking Liverpool dockers) in April 1997 - pictured below:
Hymns, rebel songs, slogans, speeches, sirens, smashing glass - if only those Trafalgar Square stone lions could tell of all they have heard.Friday, December 11, 2009
Oscar Wilde on Socialist Songs
In 1889, Oscar Wilde wrote an article called 'Poetical Socialists' for the Pall Mall Gazette (February 15), reviewing a book of socialist songs, Edward Carpenter's Chants of Labour.
Mr. Stopford Brooke said some time ago that Socialism and the socialistic spirit would give our poets nobler and loftier themes for song, would widen their sympathies and enlarge the horizon of their vision and would touch, with the fire and fervour of a new faith, lips that had else been silent, hearts that but for this fresh gospel had been cold. What Art gains from contemporary events is always a fascinating problem and a problem that is not easy to solve. It is, however, certain that Socialism starts well equipped. She has her poets and her painters, her art lecturers and her cunning designers, her powerful orators and her clever writers. If she fails it will not be for lack of expression. If she succeeds her triumph will not be a triumph of mere brute force.
The first thing that strikes one, as one looks over the list of contributors to Mr. Edward Carpenter's Chants of Labour, is the curious variety of their several occupations, the wide differences of social position that exist between them, and the strange medley of men whom a common passion has for the moment united. The editor is a 'Science lecturer'; he is followed by a draper and a porter; then we have two late Eton masters and then two bootmakers; and these are, in their turn, succeeded by an ex-Lord Mayor of Dublin, a bookbinder, a photographer, a steel-worker and an authoress. On one page we have a journalist, a draughtsman and a music-teacher: and on another a Civil servant, a machine fitter, a medical student, a cabinet-maker and a minister of the Church of Scotland.
Certainly, it is no ordinary movement that can bind together in close brotherhood men of such dissimilar pursuits, and when we mention that Mr.William Morris is one of the singers, and that Mr. Walter Crane has designed the cover and frontispiece of the book, we cannot but feel that, as we pointed out before, Socialism starts well equipped.
As for the songs themselves, some of them, to quote from the editor's preface, are 'purely revolutionary, others are Christian in tone; there are some that might be called merely material in their tendency, while many are of a highly ideal and visionary character.' This is, on the whole, very promising. It shows that Socialism is not going to allow herself to be trammelled by any hard and fast creed or to be stereotyped into an iron formula. She welcomes many and multiform natures. She rejects none and has room for all. She has the attraction of a wonderful personality and touches the heart of one and the brain of another, and draws this man by his hatred of injustice, and his neighbour by his faith in the future, and a third, it may be, by his love of art or by his wild worship of a lost and buried past. And all of this is well. For, to make men Socialists is nothing, but to make Socialism human is a great thing.
They are not of any very high literary value, these poems that have been so dexterously set to music. They are meant to be sung, not to be read. They are rough, direct and vigorous, and the tunes are stirring and familiar. Indeed, almost any mob could warble them with ease. The transpositions that have been made are rather amusing. 'Twas in Trafalgar Square is set to the tune of 'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay; Up, Ye People! a very revolutionary song by Mr. John Gregory, boot-maker, with a refrain of
Up, ye People! or down into your graves!
Cowards ever will be slaves!
is to be sung to the tune of Rule, Britannia! The old melody of The Vicar of Bray is to accompany the new Ballade of Law and Order -which, however, is not a ballade at all - and to the air of Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen the democracy of the future is to thunder forth one of Mr. T. D. Sullivan's most powerful and pathetic lyrics. It is clear that the Socialists intend to carry on the musical education of the people simultaneously with their education in political science and, here as elsewhere, they seem to be entirely free from any narrow bias or formal prejudice. Mendelssohn is followed by Moody and Sankey; the Wacht am Rhein stands side by side with the Marseillaise; Lillibulero, a chorus from Norma, John Brown and an air from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony are all equally delightful to them. They sing the National Anthem in Shelley's version and chant William Morris's Voice of Toil to the flowing numbers of Ye Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon.
Victor Hugo talks somewhere of the terrible cry of 'Le Tigre Populaire,' but it is evident from Mr.Carpenter's book that should the Revolution ever break out in England we shall have no inarticulate roar but, rather, pleasant glees and graceful part-songs. The change is certainly for the better. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning - at least, inaccurate historians say he did; but it is for the building up of an eternal city that the Socialists of our day are making music, and they have complete confidence in the art instincts of the people.
They say that the people are brutal
That their instincts of beauty are dead
Were it so, shame on those who condemn them
To the desperate struggle for bread.
But they lie in their throats when they say it,
For the people are tender at heart,
And a wellspring of beauty lies hidden
Beneath their life's fever and smart,
is a stanza from one of the poems in this volume, and the feeling expressed in these words is paramount everywhere. The Reformation gained much from the use of popular hymn-tunes, and the Socialists seem determined to gain by similar means a similar hold upon the people. However, they must not be too sanguine about the result. The walls of Thebes rose up to the sound of music, and Thebes was a very dull city indeed.
Chants of Labour: A Song-Book of the People. With Music. Edited by Edward Carpenter. With Designs by Walter Crane. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)
Mr. Stopford Brooke said some time ago that Socialism and the socialistic spirit would give our poets nobler and loftier themes for song, would widen their sympathies and enlarge the horizon of their vision and would touch, with the fire and fervour of a new faith, lips that had else been silent, hearts that but for this fresh gospel had been cold. What Art gains from contemporary events is always a fascinating problem and a problem that is not easy to solve. It is, however, certain that Socialism starts well equipped. She has her poets and her painters, her art lecturers and her cunning designers, her powerful orators and her clever writers. If she fails it will not be for lack of expression. If she succeeds her triumph will not be a triumph of mere brute force.
The first thing that strikes one, as one looks over the list of contributors to Mr. Edward Carpenter's Chants of Labour, is the curious variety of their several occupations, the wide differences of social position that exist between them, and the strange medley of men whom a common passion has for the moment united. The editor is a 'Science lecturer'; he is followed by a draper and a porter; then we have two late Eton masters and then two bootmakers; and these are, in their turn, succeeded by an ex-Lord Mayor of Dublin, a bookbinder, a photographer, a steel-worker and an authoress. On one page we have a journalist, a draughtsman and a music-teacher: and on another a Civil servant, a machine fitter, a medical student, a cabinet-maker and a minister of the Church of Scotland.
Certainly, it is no ordinary movement that can bind together in close brotherhood men of such dissimilar pursuits, and when we mention that Mr.William Morris is one of the singers, and that Mr. Walter Crane has designed the cover and frontispiece of the book, we cannot but feel that, as we pointed out before, Socialism starts well equipped.
As for the songs themselves, some of them, to quote from the editor's preface, are 'purely revolutionary, others are Christian in tone; there are some that might be called merely material in their tendency, while many are of a highly ideal and visionary character.' This is, on the whole, very promising. It shows that Socialism is not going to allow herself to be trammelled by any hard and fast creed or to be stereotyped into an iron formula. She welcomes many and multiform natures. She rejects none and has room for all. She has the attraction of a wonderful personality and touches the heart of one and the brain of another, and draws this man by his hatred of injustice, and his neighbour by his faith in the future, and a third, it may be, by his love of art or by his wild worship of a lost and buried past. And all of this is well. For, to make men Socialists is nothing, but to make Socialism human is a great thing.
They are not of any very high literary value, these poems that have been so dexterously set to music. They are meant to be sung, not to be read. They are rough, direct and vigorous, and the tunes are stirring and familiar. Indeed, almost any mob could warble them with ease. The transpositions that have been made are rather amusing. 'Twas in Trafalgar Square is set to the tune of 'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay; Up, Ye People! a very revolutionary song by Mr. John Gregory, boot-maker, with a refrain of
Up, ye People! or down into your graves!
Cowards ever will be slaves!
is to be sung to the tune of Rule, Britannia! The old melody of The Vicar of Bray is to accompany the new Ballade of Law and Order -which, however, is not a ballade at all - and to the air of Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen the democracy of the future is to thunder forth one of Mr. T. D. Sullivan's most powerful and pathetic lyrics. It is clear that the Socialists intend to carry on the musical education of the people simultaneously with their education in political science and, here as elsewhere, they seem to be entirely free from any narrow bias or formal prejudice. Mendelssohn is followed by Moody and Sankey; the Wacht am Rhein stands side by side with the Marseillaise; Lillibulero, a chorus from Norma, John Brown and an air from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony are all equally delightful to them. They sing the National Anthem in Shelley's version and chant William Morris's Voice of Toil to the flowing numbers of Ye Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon.
Victor Hugo talks somewhere of the terrible cry of 'Le Tigre Populaire,' but it is evident from Mr.Carpenter's book that should the Revolution ever break out in England we shall have no inarticulate roar but, rather, pleasant glees and graceful part-songs. The change is certainly for the better. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning - at least, inaccurate historians say he did; but it is for the building up of an eternal city that the Socialists of our day are making music, and they have complete confidence in the art instincts of the people.
They say that the people are brutal
That their instincts of beauty are dead
Were it so, shame on those who condemn them
To the desperate struggle for bread.
But they lie in their throats when they say it,
For the people are tender at heart,
And a wellspring of beauty lies hidden
Beneath their life's fever and smart,
is a stanza from one of the poems in this volume, and the feeling expressed in these words is paramount everywhere. The Reformation gained much from the use of popular hymn-tunes, and the Socialists seem determined to gain by similar means a similar hold upon the people. However, they must not be too sanguine about the result. The walls of Thebes rose up to the sound of music, and Thebes was a very dull city indeed.
Chants of Labour: A Song-Book of the People. With Music. Edited by Edward Carpenter. With Designs by Walter Crane. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Loud bass music ‘killed student’
Loud bass music ‘killed student’, Metro 9th December, 2009
A student collapsed at a freshers’ party and died after complaining the loud bass music was ‘getting to his heart’, an inquest heard yesterdayTom Reid, 19, was taken ill in a crowded London club after standing close to the speakers and telling a friend: ‘The bass is affecting me.’ There was no trace of alcohol or drugs in his body and his heart was in good condition.
A coroner recorded a verdict of natural causes, saying the straight-As student was killed by sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS), a heart disorder which kills 12 young people a week.
Cardiac experts said the bass could have triggered SADS if Mr Reid had underlying, yet unknown, genetic problems. On September 27, he had gone to Koko nightclub in Camden, north London, for the party, dubbed Night Of Mayhem. His friend Alisha Riseley told the inquest they were pushed towards the speakers. She added: ‘Tom said he felt like the bass was getting to his heart and we went to stand at the back.’ He told her: ‘My heart feels funny. I think the bass is affecting me. Oh God, I feel very weird. My heart is beating so fast'.
A sad story, don't think we should make too much of it - sometimes everyday things affect people in very serious ways (e.g. peanut allergies). It's not strictly true that bass killed him - a heart disorder killed him, for which the music may have been a trigger. There is some evidence that infrasound (very low bass frequencies) can cause discomfort or worse - see this Basswatch summary. These are generally too low to be used musically though, even if Throbbing Gristle apparently experimented with them using an industrial tone generator.
A student collapsed at a freshers’ party and died after complaining the loud bass music was ‘getting to his heart’, an inquest heard yesterdayTom Reid, 19, was taken ill in a crowded London club after standing close to the speakers and telling a friend: ‘The bass is affecting me.’ There was no trace of alcohol or drugs in his body and his heart was in good condition.
A coroner recorded a verdict of natural causes, saying the straight-As student was killed by sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS), a heart disorder which kills 12 young people a week.
Cardiac experts said the bass could have triggered SADS if Mr Reid had underlying, yet unknown, genetic problems. On September 27, he had gone to Koko nightclub in Camden, north London, for the party, dubbed Night Of Mayhem. His friend Alisha Riseley told the inquest they were pushed towards the speakers. She added: ‘Tom said he felt like the bass was getting to his heart and we went to stand at the back.’ He told her: ‘My heart feels funny. I think the bass is affecting me. Oh God, I feel very weird. My heart is beating so fast'.
A sad story, don't think we should make too much of it - sometimes everyday things affect people in very serious ways (e.g. peanut allergies). It's not strictly true that bass killed him - a heart disorder killed him, for which the music may have been a trigger. There is some evidence that infrasound (very low bass frequencies) can cause discomfort or worse - see this Basswatch summary. These are generally too low to be used musically though, even if Throbbing Gristle apparently experimented with them using an industrial tone generator.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Islamists and Music
Interesting article by Robert Fisk in the Independent at the weekend (5 Dec 09) on Islamism and music:
'But music and Islam have a dodgy relationship. In Saudi Universities – and here I thank Jonas Otterbeck, Independent reader extraordinaire of Malmo University in Sweden – the most sanctimonious of students have assaulted music enthusiasts; when a professor at King Saud University, Hamzah Muzeini, condemned this brutality in the daily Al-Watan newspaper, he was convicted by a Sharia court – a ruling later overturned by King Abdullah. Yet according to journalist Rabah al-Quwai'i, some sheikhs encourage youths to burn instruments and books in public. In Saudi, I should add, Christmas carols – like all Christian religious services – are banned, except for the all-purpose "Jingle Bells". Father Christmas, I suppose, wasn't really a Christian.
It's not difficult to understand the objections to modern music and pop. Hamdi Hassan, a member of the Egyptian Assembly for the Muslim Brotherhood, complained about Ruby's first video and "the gyration of other pop stars". Incredibly, of all issues raised by the Brotherhood in the Assembly between 2000 and 2005, 80 per cent involved cultural and media issues – so much for the injustices of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan!
In my own country of choice, Lebanon, the Ministry of Defence monitors music, according to musician Mohamed Hamza. In November, 1999, Marcel Khalife was charged with blasphemy before the Beirut courts, an outrageous infringement of cultural liberty supported by the Sunni Grand Mufti, Mohamed Kabbani. Khalife had set a verse by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish to music in his album Arabic Coffeepot, but Darwish's poem contained lines from the Koran (part of verse four of Sura 12, for the uninitiated) and protesters argued that Khalife had defiled the Koran by singing it as part of a commercial song. Shiite clerics – to their great credit – defended the song-writer. He was acquitted, the Beirut judge adding that Khalife had "chanted the poem in gravity and composure that reveal a deep perception of the humanism expressed in the poem ornamented with the holy phrase." Phew.
But when Amar Hassan wanted to sing about love as well as politics in the Palestinian city of Ramallah in 2005, he was threatened before a Nablus court and his concert broken up by gunfire and the explosion of stun guns. The conflict, as Otterbeck realised in his thesis, has deep roots: between secular nationalistic music and Islamist music. In Algeria, the Islamic Armed Group made their point in lethal fashion, assassinating Berber singer Matoub Lounès'.
Full article here.
'But music and Islam have a dodgy relationship. In Saudi Universities – and here I thank Jonas Otterbeck, Independent reader extraordinaire of Malmo University in Sweden – the most sanctimonious of students have assaulted music enthusiasts; when a professor at King Saud University, Hamzah Muzeini, condemned this brutality in the daily Al-Watan newspaper, he was convicted by a Sharia court – a ruling later overturned by King Abdullah. Yet according to journalist Rabah al-Quwai'i, some sheikhs encourage youths to burn instruments and books in public. In Saudi, I should add, Christmas carols – like all Christian religious services – are banned, except for the all-purpose "Jingle Bells". Father Christmas, I suppose, wasn't really a Christian.
It's not difficult to understand the objections to modern music and pop. Hamdi Hassan, a member of the Egyptian Assembly for the Muslim Brotherhood, complained about Ruby's first video and "the gyration of other pop stars". Incredibly, of all issues raised by the Brotherhood in the Assembly between 2000 and 2005, 80 per cent involved cultural and media issues – so much for the injustices of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan!
In my own country of choice, Lebanon, the Ministry of Defence monitors music, according to musician Mohamed Hamza. In November, 1999, Marcel Khalife was charged with blasphemy before the Beirut courts, an outrageous infringement of cultural liberty supported by the Sunni Grand Mufti, Mohamed Kabbani. Khalife had set a verse by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish to music in his album Arabic Coffeepot, but Darwish's poem contained lines from the Koran (part of verse four of Sura 12, for the uninitiated) and protesters argued that Khalife had defiled the Koran by singing it as part of a commercial song. Shiite clerics – to their great credit – defended the song-writer. He was acquitted, the Beirut judge adding that Khalife had "chanted the poem in gravity and composure that reveal a deep perception of the humanism expressed in the poem ornamented with the holy phrase." Phew.
But when Amar Hassan wanted to sing about love as well as politics in the Palestinian city of Ramallah in 2005, he was threatened before a Nablus court and his concert broken up by gunfire and the explosion of stun guns. The conflict, as Otterbeck realised in his thesis, has deep roots: between secular nationalistic music and Islamist music. In Algeria, the Islamic Armed Group made their point in lethal fashion, assassinating Berber singer Matoub Lounès'.
Full article here.
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