When I saw the great folk singer/guitarist Martin Simpson playing earlier in the summer (at the Goose is Out folk club, the Ivy House by Peckham Rye) he played a song which he said he had pledged to sing at every gig until there was justice for the Grenfell fire dead and their families. The song was 'Palaces of Gold', written by Leon Rosselson and which Simpson has been singing for many years. Rosselson originally wrote it in response to the Aberfan disaster of 1966 when a coal tip slid down to bury a school in Wales, killing 116 children and 28 adults. Although about a specific tragedy there is, as Simpson recognised, a universal aspect to the song. Namely that some lives are deemed to matter more than others, and that disasters like Aberfan and Grenfell wouldn't be allowed to happen to the families of the rich:
Judy Chicago 'Revelations' is a retrospective of the artist's work at London's Serpentine gallery. Her feminist imagery is quite familiar to me, such as 'Rainbow Warrior (for Greenpeace)' which depicts a Goddess figure seemingly protecting the creatures of the sea. It was painted in 1980, five years before Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior ship was blown up by the French state while protesting against a nuclear test.
I hadn't though seen any of film work before, specifically her documentation of a series of performances she staged with others in the landscape in the early 1970s including Northwest Coast Atmospheres (1970-75) and Women and Smoke (1971-72): 'Staged across the Californian desert, the performers, whose naked bodies are painted in vibrant pigments, carry out a series of ritualistic gestures connected to early women-centered activities, such as the kindling of fire and the worship of goddess figures' (exhibition guide). There are some very powerful images of women moving around amidst flares and smoke. .
Exhibition closes 1 September 2024, admission free.
African music in East London A Ghana Independence Day Celebration at the St Louis Club, 46 Commercial Road E1 in 1958 with 'African Cubano Band Leader Jimmy Scott'. Plus at the Cosmopolitan Club (1963?), 9 Artillery Passage, Bishopsgate E1, Deroy Taylor 'West Africa's Leading Guitarist' in a night 'featuring Ghana High Life, Jazz, Cha-Cha and Twist'. Ghanaian music legend Deroy Taylor aka Ebo Taylor had a an international hit in 2010 with 'Love and Death'.
'The twilight jazz at Poplar. Open air dancing at the public recreation ground last night. It will be seen that male partners were shy' (The Star, 17 June 1919)
As one of a series of events linked to the exhibition, the archive hosted 'Anarchy in the East End' featuring Jah Wobble and Suresh Singh (Spizz drummer) , both of whom grew up locally. They were in conversation with Debbie Smith (Curve, Echobelly etc). Interesting talks, with quite a spiritual vibe (Wobble is a longstanding Buddhist, Singh talked of the influence of his parents' Sikh heritage). As a bonus Talvin Singh was in the audience and commented that seeing Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart playing at the Wag Club was a big musical turning point for him.
In 1993 the far right British National Party achieved a breakthrough in the East End of London when one of its members was elected as a councillor on the Isle of Dogs in Tower Hamlets. This was a period of racist murders, including the killing of Stephen Lawrence not far from the BNP HQ in Welling, SE London. The BNP still had a street presence in East London too, selling papers on Brick Lane.
It was also a period of mass opposition to the far right, one of the largest manifestations of this being the 'Unite Against Racism' demonstration called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on 19 March 1994. Around 50,000 people took part in the march through the East End, from Spitalfields to London Fields. This was part of a wider mobilisation that among other things led to the BNP losing their council seat in new elections in 1994.
As has been confirmed in the Undercover Policing Inquiry, anti-racist groups were infiltrated by undercover 'spycops' who dutifully reported on everything that moved. In July 2024, the Inquiry published a series of reports seemingly written by Trevor Morris who had infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party and Anti-Nazi League using the name Bobby Lewis (HN78). This includes an assessment of the SWP/ANL's planning for the TUC march, in the context of which it is mentioned that David Bowie had recently made a donation of $1000 to the ANL. Thus we have the unusual billing at the end of the report where the list of 'Special Branch References' - usually referring to people/organisations of interest to Special Branch - is headed by David Bowie and followed by Anti Fascist Action, the Anti Nazi League, Newham Monitoring Project and several Turkish revolutionary organisations reported to be joining the TUC march.
During the 1970s of course Bowie's brief apparent flirtation with fascist imagery had been one of the instances that prompted the formation of Rock Against Racism, but his subsequent actions show that he decisively moved on from that time. Doubt if he had a Special Branch file (I believe that the letters n/t next to his name stand for 'no trace' in their records), but who knows?
Art Not Evidence posters in Camberwell, South London, July 2024
'Art Not Evidence is a growing coalition of lawyers, journalists, artists, academics, youth workers, music industry professionals and human rights campaigners working together to fight the criminalisation of rap music in UK courts'. Here's their statement:
'In recent years, courtrooms across the country have gained an alarming new soundtrack. Prosecutors — with increasing frequency — put lyrics, music videos, and audio recordings in front of juries to help secure criminal convictions. In many cases, these creative expressions have no connection to the serious crimes alleged, and are used to paint a misleading and prejudicial picture, conflating art with evidence.
Specifically, police and prosecutors use the act of writing, performing, or even engaging with rap music to suggest motive, intention, or propensity for criminal behaviour. This is particularly prevalent in controversial "joint enterprise" and conspiracy cases, in which music, lyrics, and videos are used to drag multiple people into criminal charges, often under sweeping definitions of “gang” activity. This practice disproportionately affects young Black men and boys from under-resourced, marginalised communities. It is an agent of institutional racism.
Rap music, including the drill sub-genre, is one of the most popular forms of music across the country, and a significant cultural force, producing Glastonbury and Wireless headliners, multiple industry award winners, and enjoying an artistic influence that extends into film, literature, television, and the visual arts.
Yet, despite being known for its storytelling, symbolism, figurative language, and hyperbole, police and prosecutors invite judge and jury to take rap music literally, as direct evidence of criminal intent or behaviour.
Research produced by journalists and university academics have identified over 100 cases in the UK since 2005 in which rap music was used as evidence. The majority of these cases involved multiple defendants, making use of the doctrine of joint enterprise. In the last three years alone, at least 240 people have had their fate in court decided, at least in part, by their taste in music.
This is an urgent issue, and one which demands an urgent response.
The indiscriminate use of creative expression as evidence in court risks miscarriages of justice, perpetuates harmful racist stereotypes, and contributes to a racially discriminatory criminal justice system that stifles creativity and freedom of expression. We applaud law reform campaigns in the USA, including the enactment of legislation in California, and urge judges, lawyers and legislators in the UK to follow suit.
We call for police and prosecutors to stop relying on irrelevant, unreliable, and highly prejudicial evidence in pursuit of convictions; for defence lawyers to challenge prosecutors; and for judges to exclude such evidence.
We propose legal reform to limit the admissibility of creative expression as evidence in the criminal courts.
We seek justice, and your support, in our mission to achieve it'.
The Beat the Blues Festival was a one day event at the Alexandra Palace in north London on 15 June 1980, held to mark the 50th birthday of the Morning Star - the daily paper associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain (technically the Morning Star had only been so named since 1966 but its predecessor, The Daily Worker, was founded in 1930).
I was still at school at Luton Sixth Form and went down to London on a coach which I presume was put on by the local branch of the Young Communist League. I had been to a couple of their meetings and done some fly posting against cruise missiles with them in the underpass near their Crawley Green Road HQ in Luton though I never joined up. They only had a handful of active members in the town but they pulled more of a crowd down to the Ally Pally on account of the fantastic line up.
Looking now I can see that I could have checked out folk acts including Dick Gaughan and Leon Rosselson not to mention jazz from Humphrey Littleton and others, and even 'fire defying motorcycle stuntmen'. But for me at the time it was all about the great post punk line up featuring some of the best acts of that time - The Au Pairs, Raincoats, The Slits, The Pop Group, Essential Logic and John Cooper Clarke. It blew me away, The Slits and The Pop Group in particular had an amazing funky energy- drummer Bruce Smith played with both bands that day, while The Pop Group played with two bassists! I was lucky enough to see the Raincoats, the Au Pairs and The Pop Group again in that period, as well as other great post punk heavyweights including The Gang of Four and Delta 5 but for me this day will always stand out as the pinnacle of that scene and one of the musical highlights of my life. Somebody else who was there recallled: 'I'd just turned 15, Metal Box had just come out and was playing over the PA between bands at this outdoor festival- I guess this was the post-punk Woodstock for me!'. All of this for £2.50. The only thing that could have improved it for me would have been if Scritti Politti had played too, sadly not though I remember standing behind their drummer Tom Morley in the crowd.
A ticket for the day signed by John Cooper Clarke (from ivaninblack)
The politics of it were a little contradictory, the CPGB was generally quite staid and sympathetic to the regimes of Eastern Europe where autonomous music scenes were often the target of state repression. In his NME review of the gig, Graham Lock mentions Czechoslovakia 'where musicians from the bands DG307 and The Plastic People of the Universe have been jailed for playing rock'n'roll without a state licence'. While the cream of innovative English bands played on the stage elsewhere there was an 'International City' - 'about ten tents filled with travel brochures for Eastern Europe'. I think there were also brass bands from that part of the world, and lots of stalls indoors from various left groups.
The Pop Group, with their more independent radical left perspective called these contradictions out on the day, 'dedicating 'Forces of Oppression' to "all the Stalinists in the audience" and "For How Much Longer do we Tolerate Mass Murder' to Leonid Brezhnev' (Lock). In fact I recall a thrilling moment when Mark Stewart smashed up a portrait of then Soviet leader Brezhnev on the stage.
Lock describes the festival, or at least the main stage music as 'the result of a tentative alliance between Rough Trade - freewheeling, anti-biz collectivists [...] and the Morning Star'. Elsewhere Dick O'Dell - who I think managed The Slits and The Pop Group at the time, as well as founding Y records which released their stuff - has said that he organised it with Shirley O’Loughlin, manager of The Raincoats and who worked at Rough Trade setting up their booking agency.
There were many iconic photos taken that day, perhaps most famously David Corio's picture of The Slits' Viv Albertine;
The gig was reviewed in issue number 6 of Vague zine:
'June 15 Morning Star 50th anniversary festival at Alexandra Palace, featuring the Slits, the Pop Group, the Raincoats, Essential Logic, the Au-Pairs and John Cooper-Clarke: Alexandra Palace is full of communist propaganda. The punters are a mixture of Rastas, biker types, punks and old age pensioners. I spent 4 hours walking round the stalls, which was fairly interesting because there were stalls selling souvenirs from Russia, Greece, etc. I won’t go into details though because even the Pop Group aren’t into politics like this. Whether left or right it amounts to the same thing, an authoritarian state that subjugates the weak, poor and minorities...
Anyway most people came to hear the music and this particular music says a lot more than we ever could. The gig was behind the palace and started at 3pm. The Au-pairs came on first and did a very exciting set which got some of the crowd going. The Raincoats came on next and all the crowd were dancing and being friendly with each other. Half way through their set an announcement was made: “Somebody got bottled. So if you want this gig to go on, report anyone who looks as if they might get violent.” Big Brother is watching you. Where have you heard remarks like that before? Even this didn’t do it, after that announcement 2 more people got bottled. John Cooper-Clarke was on next, minus musicians, which I think is much better, because that guy has so much stage presence…
The Pop Group were on next and Mark came on stage with a picture of Brezhnev, shouted “We don’t want communism!” and stamped on the picture. They did all the stuff off the second album which got the crowd shouting and Gareth was doing some brilliant disco-dancing… Apparently the Pop Group stole the show and Iggy didn’t have much (anything?) to say about the Slits, which is a shame, but this is the Pop Group’s piece, feeble as it is. The Pop Group have a highly original style of their own, if you didn’t like them at Ally Pally give them a second chance, they deserve it. They also deserve a better article than this. Their lyrics make Crass seem like failed Cockney Rejects (they are aren’t they?) and their funky dance beat is better than the Crusaders. Sorry we couldn’t do them more justice'.
It was also reviewed in the NME (21 June 1980) by Gavin Lock:
There is some good footage of The Pop Group on the day shot by Don Letts on the stage. If you look carefully you can see a cricket match going on in the background elsewhere in the park.
He also captured The Slits, great clip here of them doing 'Man Next Door' on the day with the young Nenah Cherry on the stage with them (in red beret). I think you can see members of other bands standing around on the edge of stage watching them, including Gina from The Raincoats and maybe Jeannette Lee of Public Image Ltd and later Rough Trade.
The Ally Pally itself was seriously damaged by fire just a month later which broke out during a Capital Radio Jazz Festival there, resulting in it being closed for a number of years.
(I used to have a poster for this event on my teenage bedroom wall, can't find that particular image online, anybody have a copy?)
An advert for Beat the Blues festival from The Leveller magazine, May 1980. At that point looks like only John Cooper Clarke was confirmed of the post-punk acts, the advert highlighting jazz and folk artists as well as mentioning Kent miners brass band and Bulgarian puppet theatre. On the same page of magazine an ad for Gang of Four single and for the great Compendium Bookshop in Camden.
On Sunday June 6th 1982, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament held a huge demonstration to coincide with a visit by US President Ronald Reagan. Up tp 250,000 people marched to London's Hyde Park, where the speakers included Labour MP Tony Benn and miners' leader Arthur Scargill. The recent Falklands war had shown up the weakness of the peace movement, which had failed to significantly mobilise against the war. This account of the demonstration was written in a text '1980 to 1984: anarchy on the CND demo':
"At Hyde Park it was the same as usual and anarchists who tried to heckle the speakers were kept miles away from the front of the stage by police. Some of us gathered behind the official platform setting up our free platform with a megaphone to discuss the Reagan visit, the Falklands war and any issue the people wished to raise. Many took advantage of this situation to air their views, as the official platfor was only open to invited speakers, not to anyone who might have something creative or new to suggest. A proposal was made that we move out of Hyde Park where we were wasting our time and take the issues to the London crowds in Oxford Street. This idea was greeted with enthusiasm. About 300 people gathered at the Speakers Corner end of Hyde Park and by now many of us were in defiant mood. Some began breaking across the road over to Oxford Street, there were no stewards this time. There was a lot of confusion with people trying to keep the group together and deciding what to do next. The group pushed on loudly down Oxford Street with more following behind. Fump! Hooray! Everyone cheered as someone let off fireworks and the traffic was blocked. It was some time before the vans started to arrive on the scene. As the police vans slowly pulled up in force those in the front decided to head down a side street to the american embassy it was too late, the police jumped from the vans and charged into the march. About 20 marchers made it into the side street and were able to escape including one who received a nasty gash on the forehead form a truncheon. However 48 were arrested".
An Oxford Street 48 Defence Campaign was set up to support those arrested, and Scottish punk band Political Asylum recorded a track 'Oxford Street 48':
The events were reported in 'Freedom' as 'Anarchists Attacked':
'Around 300 anarchists with a number of flags and banners marched out of Hyde Park. At first the police didn't seem to be interested. One senior officer was heard to assure a constable that 'its alright, they're only going home'. However, when he realised just what was happening his cool tone changed to panic with a shout of 'NO they're not!' and a grab for his radio.
As we moved into Oxford St with shouts of 'Free all Prisoners', 'Smash the Nuclear State' and 'Free Simon Los' (imprisoned for 3yrs for distributing a leaflet in Nottingham) we soon acquired an SPG van as escort. As we drew level with the turning that leads to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Sq, the police attacked Without warning this entirely legal and, though loud, peaceful march was assaulted by van loads of police. The police used were from the SPG and the newly formed, SPG style, quick-response riot units. They jumped out of their vans and waded into the march.
Several anarchists were knocked to the ground in the melee. 48 anarchists were arrested. During the arrests they were beaten up. Several others were rescued by comrades who resisted the assault. In one case it has been reported that two comrades were actually pulled back out of one of the vans. One escaped, the other was recaptured. The arrested have now been released and face a range of charges from insulting behaviour to assault.
Not content with just breaking up the march, the police vans then patrolled the side streets stopping anyone who looked as if they had been on the march. This was particularly unfortunate for the punk comrades with their easily recognisable form of dress. Several more conventionally dressed comrades managed to evade these patrols. There were also reports of police at nearby Underground Stations checking for possible marchers'.
(Freedom, 12 June 1982 - the address for the campaign at 84b Whitechapel High St was/is the Freedom bookshop)
'48 people were arrested when police attacked a march of 500 walking peacefully up Oxford Street on Sunday 6th June after the CND rally. Most are denying the charges, some of which are serious'.
'Wild Combination: a zine inspired by the music of Arthur Russell' is published by Black Lodge Press. I got a copy from the excellent Common Press bookshop in Shoreditch.
'first, I was drawn to raves more for the idea of community than the music itself. You found a flyer, called a number, copied down the directions. It meant surrendering to a void, a cluster of headlights the signal you were in the right place. I never did drugs, but it still felt magical to be in a room with no center, where the only way of orienting yourself was by following a bass line or synth wash. This was a range of faces you didn't see in daytime: vacant and somber, devoted to the rhythm; smiling and platonic, eager to share; rapturously free. Something was always already happening. People walked in casually, and their gait slowly adapted to the sounds around them, and within minutes they looked as though they were trying to punch and kick their way out of an imaginary sack. It didn't matter how you danced'
Hua Hsu, Stay True: a memoir (2023) - writing about Berkeley, Calfornia in the mid/late 1990s
My first student occupation took place shortly after arriving at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC), and it was a short one. As the the anti-apartheid struggle raged in South Africa, Barclays Bank was a frequent target for protest due to its heavy involvement in the South African economy. On October 15th 1981, as part of a national 'Boycott Barclays' day of action called by the Anti-Apartheid Movement, a group of students temporarily occupied the small Barclays bank on the university's campus. According to this report in the student newspaper Incant (November 1981), around 25 people entered the bank at 3:15 pm - shortly before it was due to close - and refused to leave. It seems we stayed there until around 8 pm before leaving to attend a student union meeting, which seems a little half hearted! The bank though was a regular target for graffiti and window breaking over the next few years.
During the rest of that college year the big issue was a rent strike prompted by the high rents charged for university accommodation. The student union set up a large 'rent tent' as the campaign HQ on the lawn in the middle of campus which I recall blowing down on one cold and windy January night. Later there was a portacabin where the union collected rents and held the money in reserve to be paid to the college when a deal was agreed. I noted in my diary (10th February 1982) 'At dinnertime there an open air mass meeting about the Rent Strike. I spoke in favour of escalating the campaign. A call for occupation was defeated but it was agreed to organise dining hall boycotts' to further hit the university's income. The rent strike was called off in May 1982 having achieved a real term reduction in rents.
A picket during the 1981/82 rent strike
In March 1982, 700 students from different Kent colleges marched from the art college up to UKC in a protest against the level of student grants. At the end of the march 'the union provided a soup kitchen and disco' (Incant, March 1982).
Education cuts were the focus of a library sit-in in November 1981, basically staying overnight in the library. A similar event on 8 November 1982 took place during a week of action called by Kent Education Alliance, made of education unions. As well as the 'work in' at UKC there was one at Christchurch college, the teacher training college in Canterbury.
On 23 February 1983 more than 100 colleges responded to the National Union of Students' call for 24 hour occupations as part of its Grants Cuts Campaign. Senate House (University of London), Queen Mary College and University of Sussex were among those taking part. At UKC a 'Special Committee' had been set up following a Union General Meeting to plan an occupation despite the opposition of some local student union officials. Around 150 people occupied the Cornwallis building where 'a disco consul was brought in and films set up' before moving in to the Registry (the main admin. building for the university). An editorial in Incant bemoaned that 'The university's belligerent action of preventing access to the Registry made it necessary to cause a small amount of damage to actually effect entry into the building'. I seem to remember a couple of people climbing on to the roof of the Registry and later one person managed to enter the building through an air vent and then open the door for others to enter. As planned, the occupation only lasted one night.
A more sustained occupation took place a few weeks later led by the Overseas Student Organisation. Overseas students had previously been more or less guaranteed accommodation on campus, but this had been reduced to 48 out of 250 students. Living in the city was not felt to be safe for some black students in particular, with its military barracks and sometimes late night punch ups. The occupation started on 16th March 1984 and lasted for about a week, taking over the college accommodation office and for a little while the Registry again.
The occupation was pretty life changing for me as I became very close to a couple of anarchists who remained friends for long after. Unable to stomach a return to social reality when the occupation ended we hitch hiked to Amsterdam, where we went to the Melkweg club among other adventures.
The final occupation of my student days came in March 1984. The University had agreed to run a 13 week IT course to Marconi management recruits which involved them staying in new Park Wood accommodation that had been built for students. With student accommodation in short supply - many had to travel in from Whitstable or Herne Bay - this in itself was controversial. But there was also a broader question of the privatisation of the university with corporate income substituting for government funding. And the fact that electronics company Marconi was essentially a military contractor (hence the 'Marconi sells death!' graffiti on campus). The occupation continued for nearly two weeks before the University took out a High Court injunction.
I found this diary entry for March 13th 1984 which describes how it started: ‘next term's accommodation lists had been published and the university had gone back on an earlier verbal promise and was going to rent out 25 rooms in Park Wood to Marconi Electronics. We went over to the union offices where some more people had gathered in small groups. We went over to the Registry and took it over though unfortunately due to bad planning we only got one office upstairs in addition to the finance office downstairs. Subsequently as doors were mysteriously broken down we had access as well to all the corridors, toilets, kitchens the post room and the print room. The first thing that happened was that people rifled through files and cupboards, a lot of university stationery was expropriated. A key was found which opened another office which we took over as the 'Autonomy Office', we covered the door and some corridors with anarchist posters’. The more 'hippyish' occupiers also set up their own area, which they christened 'Weird City'.
Among other things I recall that during the occupation we had a film showing of The Hunger, the vampire movie which starts with Bauhaus playing Bela Lugosi's Dead. Socialist Workers Party leader Tony Cliff gave a talk in the occupied foyer on the Russian revolution with a bad tempered argument about Kronstadt thanks to anarchist questions, and a couple of miners came by - the miners strike was just starting in the local Kent coalfield and was soon to become the main focus of radical student activism for the next year (see previous post on miners support in Kent). I also recall having sleep deprivation hallucinations, looking out from the occupation and buildings seeming to move.
These occupations were mainly short lived and actively involved a minority of students, though the size of union general meetings where these actions were discussed and sometimes agreed was quite impressive, more than 600 people for instance at one of the meetings discussing Marconi. Disagreements about tactics and maneuvering by different factions was sometimes exhausting. But the act of taking over space and living together in a common cause outside of the routines of everyday life, even for a short time, is an intense experience never forgotten.
[at the time of writing this, May 2024, students at UKC have set up a pro-Palestine encampment at the university and a campaign against education cuts is continuing with courses facing closure including art history, music and audio technology, philosophy, religious studies, anthropology, health and social care, and journalism.]
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