Dancing Questionnaire (25): Mark, New York

Mark is 38 years old and works as an Advertising Executive in New York, following an odyssey from Tamworth and London via Sheffield.

Can you remember your first experience of dancing?

I think the very earliest was bopping around to Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’ with my grandma at a family wedding reception near Walsall, but the one that really stands out is headbanging to AC/DC’s ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ at a primary school disco in Tamworth, Staffs, where I grew up. I’d seen some older kids doing it at the previous year’s event - my first taste of youth rebellion aged 8! I remembered the names of the bands on the patches sewed onto their sleeveless denim jackets and over the next twelve months become an entry-level rocker, renting albums from the local record library and getting my own cut-off denim with patches and studs. Then eventually it was me and my mates’ turn to headbang at the disco when the token metal record was played. The DJ cut it off before the end as the teachers were concerned about potential brain damage.

What's the most interesting/significant thing that has happened to you while dancing?

Building a deeper relationship with music. I’ve devoted much of my life to music in all its forms and through dancing I enjoy exploring its qualities more deeply, amongst the thrills and spills. I remember dancing in Manchester in 1996 in the Village to ‘The Love I Lost’ by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes and suddenly realizing that the dance music I enjoyed most had a particular combination of uplifting-ness and melancholy which then set the course ahead for many years.



You. Dancing. The Best of times...

New York 2007-2010. People say dancing in New York’s not what it was. Sure, over-zealous regulation has harmed the vibrancy and scale of the club scene but this has been replaced by an amazing DIY attitude for the past decade or so. This manifests in all-night semi-legal dance parties in lofts and warehouses mainly in Brooklyn often featuring an eclectic mix of music, DJs, performance and participation. There’s a real sense of excitement for me around something genuinely underground, unpredictable, community based and musically eclectic which has totally revitalized my love of dancing. It’s as if dance music has resumed its role in the city as outsiders’ music, which is how I’ve always most enjoyed it.

You. Dancing. The Worst of times...

When I first moved to London in the late 90s I found it hard to find a scene that satisfied me. DnB was too hard and fast, House had got too cheesy, Big Beat was too beery and everything was too segmented and focused on one style of music. Maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough though at the time.

Can you give a quick tour of the different dancing scenes/times/places you've frequented?

I started dancing regularly in 1987 at an under 18s discos in Tamworth at a club called the Embassy. It wasn’t really my scene though and things didn’t really take off until I discovered ‘indie’ music via John Peel and then started to make regular trips to Birmingham to indie disco nights and 60s psychedelic nights like the Sensateria at the Institute, as well as the odd hardcore rave. University in Sheffield in 1992 meant a headlong rush into house, techno, garage and funk with the poly-sexual scene around Vague [Leeds], Flesh [Manchester] and Sheffield’s Trash providing a little spice around the slightly-cheesy uniformity of the post-acid house scene up north at the time.

A move to London in the late 90s meant a hotch-potch of east-London fare – reggae, DnB, ragga, hip hop, a bit of house and the electroclash scene around Nag Nag Nag. Carnival weekend was always the highlight of the year, and I had a brief involvement with a north London pirate station. But gradually dancing died away. In 2005 the move to New York reignited it all again.

When and where did you last dance?

To a Robert Owens DJ set at Dalston Superstore, London last November.

You're on your death bed. What piece of music would make you leap up for one final dance?

‘I Want Your Love’ by Chic. The perfect combination of yearning, hope and melancholy that characterizes much of my favorite music to dance to.

All questionnaires welcome, just answer the same questions - or even make up a few of your own - and send to transpontine@btinternet.com (see previous questionnaires).

Portugal 1974/75: Radio and Revolution

In April 1974, left leaning military officers overthrew the Portuguese dictatorship and ended its colonial wars in Africa. For the next two years Portugal was in turmoil, with workers taking over workplaces and many hoping to push the revolution further. The radio stations were one of the key sites of struggle, in particular Rádio Renascença.

The Revolution Started with a Song by John Hoyland (Street Life, November 1 1975):

'3 am, April 25 1974. By prior arrangement with the rebel Armed Forces Movement (AFM), a DJ on Lisbon's Radio Renascenca plays 'Grandola, Vila Morena', a popular song of the day whose possible subversive meaning had escaped the censor's ears. The song is a signal for a military uprising that, with scarcely any opposition, overthrows the Caetano Government, and brings to an end 50 years of fascism in Portugal. The next day, the people pour into the streets, and give the soldiers red carnations. The soldiers stick the flowers in their guns...'

Tuesday August 26 1975

A visit to Radio Renascenca (RR), the radio station that the workers took over from its owners, the Catholic Church. As well as broadcasting news of workers' struggles and discussions with workers and peasants, it plays a lot of good music — including the best rock music in Lisbon — and has an hour a day in Spanish, beamed across Portugal towards Spain. A couple of the workers describe the history of their struggle to take over the radio station from their bosses — how the AFM sent a unit of COPCON [a military organisation] to hand RR back to the Church, and how the occupying workers broadcast a call to the people of Lisbon to help them — with the result that thousands of workers gathered outside the building to defend it, the COPCON soldiers refused to obey their orders, and in the end the AFM was forced to ratify the occupation.

The workers — both young guys, one of them with extremely long hair — go on to say that they are currently linking up with all the Lisbon Workers' Commissions, with the idea of forming a city-wide co-operative that would control the radio-station, and also finance it. "Then we won't have to take any more advertisements, not even from the nationalised industries." (At the moment a radio talk on the concept of Popular Power and the Class Struggle is liable to be disconcertingly interrupted by a bleep and a jingle for Seven-Up.) Before the April 25 coup, Radio Renascenca was on the air six hours a day, whereas now it's 24 hours a day. "We're the same number of workers, so we've multiplied our work-load by four. But you have to. The situation changes here so fast, each hour in Portugal is like a day. Since the coup, we feel as if we've lived through about 30 years . . ." In spite of this, they seem very sprightly and determined people. But they aren't particularly optimistic: "Lisbon is a red island in a sea of reaction. We don't think the conditions for revolution exist in Portugal yet. Nor is there a party that could carry it through. In our view, the parties here' are still too concerned about their own power, and not concerned enough about the needs of the workers'.'



Portugal: the Impossible Revolution by Phil Mailer:

'The radio station had been owned by the Catholic Church. Gradually, during May, the workers concerned had taken it over, disliking the line being pushed. Their communique of June 6 outlined what was at stake: "The complete history of our struggles at RR would bring together arguments and documents which a simple communique' cannot hope to do. When our story is written many positions will become clearer, as will the ways in which they relate to the overall politics of the country. The Portuguese people will then be able to judge the counter-revolutionary politics of the bosses, the immoralities of all sorts committed in the name of the Church, and the many betrayals carried out by capitalist lackeys in our midst. In their latest delirium the Management Committee (i.e. the Church) completely distorted our struggle and attacked the MFA. Of 127 lines, 73 were devoted to denouncing the government...

When they speak of the violent occupation of the radio station they forget to mention that the only violence was when Maximo Marques (a member of the Management Committee) attacked one of our comrades, who didn't respond to the provocation... The management argue that we are a minority of 20, whereas 30 would be more correct. Radio Renascenca is a private company owning a radio station, a printing press, a record shop, two cinemas, buildings and office blocks, etc. In the station we are about 60 workers. The management say we are trying to silence the Church's mouthpiece, and prevent it from reaching a large section of the population. If by this they mean we are trying to silence fascist voices, they are right. Words like truth, justice and liberty lose all meaning when they come from the RR administration. We remember the time when the priests managed the station and censored encyclicals, Vatican texts and even the Bible (!!) We propose that the management show their concern for liberty by supporting the current liberation of RR, now in the service of the workers and controlled by the workers. The workers of RR, June 6, 1975".

The struggle at Radio Renascenca was widely supported. The options were fairly clear: to side with the Workers' Committee or with the Church. Vasco Goncalves and other members of the Revolutionary Council decided to hand the station back to the Church. The decision was bitterly opposed by some 100,000 workers. A demonstration was held on June 18 at which Lisnave and TAP workers stood outside the gates and warned that RR would only be returned to the Church 'over their dead bodies'. 400 Catholic counter-demonstrators had to seek refuge in the house of the local Patriarcado. The determination of the workers caused the Revolutionary Council promptly to reverse steam. It found a way out: to decree the nationalisation of all newspapers, radio stations and television networks'.

In November 1975 the station's radio transmitters were blown up, effectively closing the station down before it was handed back to the Church in December.

Dancing Questionnaire (24): Coz, Dublin

Today is St Patrick's Day, and by complete coincidence the latest respondent to the Dancing Questionnaire is Dublin-based Coz who describes himself as '39, Male, Community Radio DJ (on Near FM), Community Worker and Anti-fascist dance lover'.

Can you remember your first experience of dancing?

No, but I can recall my earliest memory of dancing. One of my paternal uncle's had a friend who was a huge Elvis fan and was known on the local club circuit (in Barnsley) for paying tribute to the King. We were fortunate as kids in the famlily to get much closer to the King than those occupying Clubland ever could have and having a mother and father who liked to sing and party in equal measure ensured we were ever present at family get togethers. Naturally, Trevor (The King) would take the stage (front room) at some point and receive the Holy Spirit (Elvis), writhing in contorted ecstasy while he moaned and groaned his way through a repertiore of The King classics. Invariably the kids in the room, who were not yet old enough to be inhbited by the presence of others were implored to provide rhythmic accompaniament by various mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles. So, there I'd be, trying for all I was worth to swing my pre-pubescent hips to the Blue Suede Shoes, Jailhouse Rock and Moody Blue... and I've been swinging em ever since.

What's the most interesting/significant thing that has happened to you while dancing?

Hmm, probably too many to settle on as definitive, but certainly one that will live with me until I die (or develop memory loss) was during a Henry McCullough gig (relatively unknown to me at the time) at the Menagerie in Belfast... just about to swagger onto the dancefloor I was stunned then hugely gratified to see him leap of the stage and whack somone with his guitar who was apparently pissing him off (I knew the protagonist and can certainly vouch for his annoying temperament). It all happened in slo-mo and the ensuing collapse of the PA and the swift ejection of the suitably chastised all added to the surreal moment... and I swear Henry still had his slippers on. Quite remarkable and all I could say to my mate for the rest of the night was, “Now that's fucking rock n roll fella!”

You. Dancing. The Best of times...

Turning 16 in 1989, leaving school and embarking on my first year at college (studying shit you'd never get to study at school) and accompanied by the very 'OST' of an emerging Manchester sound blaring out of the stacks at the Baths Hall in Scunthorpe. For the next 3-4 years I mouched my way across the dancefloors of some pretty grim northern pubs, clubs and parties while the Stone Roses, Charlatans, Happy Mondays, Soup Dragons, Blur, The Farm, EMF, et al made every one of them shine like beacons in what were invariably violent, grubby, and dirty-drug soaked nights out. Hot on their heels came Britpop, personified by the arrogance and egotism of Luke Haines (Auteurs), Brett Anderson (Suede) and Liam Gallagher. Sure, they were mostly aresholes then (and some still are) but my God did they make you feel like there was more to life! And of course, there was and still is. Being young, embarking on life's meandering path and all accompanied by some fantastic anthems... well, I couldn't help but dance.

You. Dancing. The Worst of times...

If I can't dance to it I'm just not dancing... unfortunately that basic standard doesn't apply to a lot of others. The worst offenders? Clearly the pill popping, 2 left feet owning and chequed shirt wearing white (invariably) boys from the estates, whom you'd think would be saved by the simplicity of repetitive beats. But not for some lads (and lasses)... the dance scene undoubtedly brought some Halcyon moments (and still does), but these were often accompanied by some less savoury sites of wide-eyed astonishment. Unfortunatley I joined them on far to many occassions.

Can you give a quick tour of the different dancing scenes/times/places you've frequented?

As a young teen it revolved primarily around the informal self made nights that we created either at people's houses or off the beaten tracks of our estates (local woods were always popular, where you could build a fire from the pallets of the nearby Asda and drink/sniff glue/smoke blow without worrying about being seen by all and sundry). Music was provided through 8-12 battery ghetto blasters and was usually hard rock in them days (ACDC/Maiden/Crue/RATT/G'n'R), with a liberal dosing of punk (Clash/Pistols/Tenpole Tudor/Jam/Stiffs) and something a little bit more commercial (Housemartins/Smiths/New Order/Erasure)... and we pretty must just threw oursleves around whichever house/field/wood we were occupying at the time. Once the doors of pubs and clubs were thrown open to me (at far too early and age it must be said) I entered the world of commercial dross in most cases (chart topping hits and the like) and where girls played second fiddle to the music. Still. I managed to stumble upon the odd decent 'alternative' night/club for a dismal northern town, who regaled me with new and unkown sounds (Joy Division/Wire/Chumbawamba/CRASS/Cure/Television Personalities) that at the very least didn't seem to require any particular knowldege or skill related to fancy footwork. Again, throwing myself around a lot seemed to be the order of the night (or day).

Cue 'baggy' and Acid House and all of a sudden everyone's getting on the nouveau retro bandwagon and suddenly you not only needed to look good on the dancefloor but you needed to know the moves to... needless to say I just kept throwing myself around a lot. It didn't seem to matter... 25 years on and such club nights as Bop Yestrum in Belfast prove that you can play whatever the fuck you like and the primary desire for most people is to just throw themselves about a lot.... while I could always generally find a beat to bop to, the only one I could never get and will probably always regret was the smooth moves of the Northern Soul scene... making a bit of a comeback as a slight post-script to the Acid Jazz scene in Belfast in the mid 90s I was always envious of those old enough to have made sojourns across the country to the Weekenders/All Nighters around legendary places like Wigan Casino. Nothing delights me more than watching the effortless shuffles of those adept at moving to a classic Northern Soul number.

And in the 15 odd years since I've gravitated from one alternative disco/club/shebeen to the next... and pretty much still do. Too cynical to ever become truly immersed in a scene/place I've always thought of my dancing experiences as like brief flirtations, where I get to dip my toe in and feel the beat for a while, but I'll never make a mistress of ya! And having lived in Ireland for the last 20 years many of those 'alt' nights/places have included experiences you wouldn't just tell anybody about... particularly the Rozzers! These days, most dancing takes place at any gig I'm fortunate enough to get at where the cool factor hasn't induced everybody into a steady sway at best. No Means No being a more recent example of how gigs should be enjoyed by a crowd.

When and where did you last dance?

Funky Seomra (pictured below) at the RDS in Dublin – a regular monthly night of dancing with a strong emphasis on the absence of alcohol and the rewards of physical expression. Daunted on arrival, but soon realising it was really a night for 'alt festival' goers without the tents, field, cider, rain/wind/sun/, cheap burgers but still plenty of 'free spirits' trying to commune with their inner child. Despite my inherent cynicism I embraced it whole heartedly and danced my ass off to some real classics (Yeke Yeke/Insomnia/Blue Monday)... so much so I might just do it all again on Paddys Day, which will be a significant achievement in Dublin when drinking till you die appears to be a minimum expectation.

You're on your death bed. What piece of music would make you leap up for one final dance?

Soooo many, but truth be told it'd be a toss up between RATMs Killing in the Name Of and System of a Downs BYOB and Band of Horse's Funeral . I reckon that in most cases I feel like trashing whatevers around me when 2 of these songs are on and given I'd be on my deathbed I might just get away with it on this occasion! The thirds seems apt...


All questionnaires welcome, just answer the same questions - or even make up a few of your own - and send to transpontine@btinternet.com (see previous questionnaires).

Kaleidakon: 1930s light show

The centre piece of the 1939 Ideal Home exhibition in London was the Kaleidakon, what sounds like a proto-psychedelic light show.

'One of the many sights of the Ideal Home Exhibition now drawing to a close at Earls Court is the huge Kaleidakon, a white and silver tower which raises its head almost a hundred feet above a pool of rippling water. Here, with the aid of Quentin Maclean, at the console of a Compton organ, and an expert on a light console, duets in sound and light are given daily. As the sound of music emerges so the tower is lit by an ever changing harmony in colour in bright and pastel shades closely allied to the humour' (Gramophone magazine, May 1939)

Advert from South London Advertiser, April 21st 1939
'The Kaleidakon, world's greatest musical instrument combining sound and colour'

There's some further technical information at the Strand lighting archive (from where photograph below was sourced): 'The Kaleidakon: 70 feet, 230kW tower in the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition, Earl's Court with a 72-way Light Console and Compton Organ for Colour Music'

Black Panther Records

From the 'Black Panther' newspaper, January 17, 1970, adverts for Black Panther Party records.

Seize the Time was a collection of songs by Elaine Brown released in 1969, with song titles including Seize The Time, The Panther,  And All Stood By, The End Of Silence, Very Black Man and Poppa's Come Home among others.

'songs are a part of the culture of society. Art, in general, is that. Songs, like all art forms, are an expression of the feelings and thoughts, the desires and hopes, and so forth, of a people. They are no more than that. A song cannot change a situation, because a song does not live and breathe. People do.

And so the songs in this album are a statement – by, of, and for the people. All the people. A statement to say that we, the masses of the people have had a game run on us; a game that made us think that it was necessary for our survival to grab from each other, to take what we wanted as individuals from any other individuals or groups, or to exploit each other. And so, the statement is that some of us have understood that it is absolutely essential for our survival to do just the opposite. And that, in fact, we have always had the power to do it. The power to determine our destinies as human beings and not allow them to be determined by the few men who now determine them. That we were always human and always had this power. But that we never recognised that, for we were deluged, bombarded, mesmerised by the trinkets of the ruling class. And this means all of us: Black, Mexican, White, Indian, Oriental, Gypsy, all who are members of the working class, of the non-working class (that is, those who don’t have jobs), all who are oppressed.

This means all of us have the power. But the power only belongs to all of us, not just some or one, but all. And that was the trick. That was the thing we never understood. And that is what statement these songs make. All power to the people, seize the time’ (Elaine Brown, Deputy Minister of Information, Southern California Chapter, Black Panther Party)

Dig featured a recording of  a speech given by Eldridge Cleaver, Minister Of Information for the Black Panther Party at Syracuse University in July 1968.

(I found this amongst a number of issues of the paper at the South London Black Music Archive, an exhibition in Peckham)

121 Centre in Brixton: 1990s flyers

The 121 Centre in Brixton, variously known as an ‘anarchist centre’, ‘social centre’ and ‘squatted centre’, was a hub of international radical activity and much else throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The house at 121 Railton Road, SE24 was first squatted by a group of local anarchists in 1981 and was finally evicted in 1999 (it is now private flats). Its four storeys included a bookshop, office space, printing equipment, kitchen and meeting area, and a basement for gigs and parties.

Over 18+ years it was the launchpad for numerous radical initiatives, some short-lived, others having a more lasting impact. Many groups used 121 for meetings and events, including Brixton Squatters Aid, Brixton Hunt Saboteurs, Food not Bombs, Community Resistance Against the Poll Tax, Anarchist Black Cross, the Direct Action Movement, London Socialist Film Co-op and the Troops Out Movement. Publications associated with 121 included Shocking Pink, Bad Attitude, Crowbar, Contraflow, Black Flag and Underground.

There was a regular Friday night cafe and many gigs and club nights, including the legendary mid-1990s Dead by Dawn (which I've written about here before). 121 was a venue for major events including Queeruption, the Anarchy in the UK festival and an International Infoshop Conference. It was, in short, a space where hundreds of people met, argued, danced, found places to live, fell in and out of love, ate and drank..

This is the first in a series of posts featuring flyers from 121:



September 1995 - a film night with HHH Video Magazine featuring recent events including the Battle of Hyde Park
(anti-Criminal Justice Act demo), the McDonalds libel trial, the 1994 'levitation of parliament; and the Claremont Road/M11 road protest. In the pre-web 2.0/youtube era, videos like this were a key way in which visual information from different movements circulated.

Wonder what the 'Russian Techno Art Performance' was?



February 1995 - a benefit night for the 56a Info Shop in Elephant Castle, with Difficult  Daughters,
Steve Cope & the 1926 Committee, Mr Social Control and others.

Martin Dixon remembers playing the song  'Animals' at 121: 'Steve Cope and the 1926 Committee arose from the ashes of The Proles. I used to play trumpet with them on this one song. Invariably the last song of the set I remember getting on stage with them in the packed basement of the squatted 121 Centre in Railton Road, Brixton. Every time I lifted the trumpet a dog would leap up barking wildly. “Whenever they need to segregate, experiment or isolate, or simply to humiliate,
they’ll call you animals ”.

Mr Social Control was a performance poet, he used to sometimes have a synth player
 and rant to Pet Shop Boys style backing. 



August 1995: punk gig with Scottish band Oi Polloi and PMT, who came from Norwich.



August 1995 'Burn Hollywood Burn' video night. Riot Porn was always popular at 121,
in this case film of the Los Angeles uprising, as well as squatting in Brixton, Hackney and Holland.



1992: Burn Hollywood Burn again! LA riots plus video of Mainzer Straße evictions in Berlin (1989).
The benefit was to raise funds for an early computer link up with the Italian-based
European Counter Network (ECN) amd the Amsterdam-based Activist Press Service (APS),
via which radical news and information was circulated.




Dancing Questionnaire 23: Luc Sante

Luc Sante is the 23rd person to complete the Dancing Questionnaire. Luc has written extensively on New York cultural history, and much more, and as you might expect has savoured much of that city's legendary nightlife as well as clubbing in Paris and elsewhere.

1. Can you remember your first experience of dancing?

In 1963, when I was around 9 years old and in St. Teresa's School, Summit, New Jersey, our teacher would take us once a week to the adjacent Holy Name Hall to teach us square dancing. The tune was invariably "The Old Brass Wagon," and Mrs. Gibbs may have sung it herself--I don't remember a record. One week, though, she plugged in the jukebox and played "My Boyfriend's Back," by the Angels, and encouraged us to frug. I'm not sure the experience was ever repeated, but it left a permanent mark on me.

2. What’s the most interesting/significant thing that has happened to you while out dancing?


Oh gosh, that's a tough one... Possibly it was meeting Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Mudd Club, probably late 1978. I swear I knew at first glance that there was something exceptional about him. He moved in with one of my friends, and then another, and he and I were good friends until he became famous, circa 1983.

Basquiat at the Mudd Club in 1979

3. You. Dancing. The best of times…


From 1977 to 1982, roughly. Isaiah's, a reggae club in an upstairs loft on Broadway between Bleecker and Bond  approx. '77-'79; the Mudd Club from its opening on Halloween 1978 until it started getting press three or four months later (and then there would be huge crowds inside and out); Tier 3 on White Street and West Broadway (tiny, but excellent sounds), 1980-81; Squat Theater on 23rd Street around '79-'81, irregular as a dance venue but *the* place for the all-too-brief punk-jazz efflorescence; the Roxy around 1982--a roller disco that once a week would become a sort of hiphop-punk disco, often with Afrika Bambaataa on the decks. And sometime around '77 or '78 a gay friend once took me to the Loft, which I'm sure you've read about; it fully lived up to the hype.

4. You. Dancing. The worst of times…

White people attempting to dance to white rock, pretty much always the case until 1973 or so, when a great many people of my acquaintance suddenly "discovered" James Brown. And then the last three decades, when dancing opportunities have been few and far between.

5. Can you give a quick tour of the different dancing scenes/times/places you’ve frequented?

My first real dance experiences were all in gay discos, early '70s (I'm straight, but had a gay best friend): the (old) Limelight on Sheridan Square, Peter Rabbit's on West Street, and the amazing Nickel Bar on 72nd Street - where Robert Mapplethorpe, among others, would go to pick up young black men, and where the level of the dancing was so amazing I didn't dare attempt to compete.

Summer of 1974 in Paris: Le Cameleon on rue St.-Andre-des-Arts, a tiny African disco in a barely ventilated cellar - but it was the summer of "Soul Makossa." Nine years later I was back in Paris and Le Cameleon had moved to a much larger aboveground space--an exhilarating experience.

Also, besides the venues noted in #3, the Rock Lounge (sleazy, but good music) succeeded in the same space on Canal Street by the Reggae Lounge, circa '82; the World on 2nd Street a few years later (too sceney for words, but you could shut your eyes); assorted after-hours spots such as Brownie's on Avenue A (not to be confused with the legit rock club of the same name that succeeded it), although drugs were more of a priority than dancing or music in those places. Post '83 I can only remember the short-lived but excellent Giant Steps--a jazz disco--and a series of retro-soul clubs (don't remember their names, alas).

6. When and where did you last dance?


The New Year's Eve before last, a private party in Tivoli, New York, a pretty good techno mix.

7. You’re on your death bed. What piece of music would make your leap up for one final dance?

Tie: "One Nation Under a Groove," Funkadelic; "Got to Give It Up," Marvin Gaye.

All questionnaires welcome, just answer the same questions - or even make up a few of your own - and send to transpontine@btinternet.com (see previous questionnaires).

Nostell Priory Festival 1984: Police attack Convoy

Nostell Priory Music Festival was held near Wakefield in West Yorkshire in 1984, a commercial festival with performances from Van Morrison, The Band, The Damned and many others. It was also the scene of a violent police operation against the Convoy of festival travellers that prefigured the notorious Battle of the Beanfield in the following year.

The Convoy had emerged from the UK free festival scene in the late 1970s, as a nomadic community moving between festivals in trucks, vans and converted buses. For many travelling became a way of life all year round, not just in the summer festival season with the term New Age Travellers being invented to describe them (though not generally used by the people themselves). The name 'Peace Convoy' became attached to the Convoy as the peace camps at Greenham Common and Molesworth cruise missile bases became added to the itinerary. For instance in 1982, the Convoy arrived at Greenham and occupied land for a 'Cosmic Counter-Cruise Carnival'.

Thus the Convoy was lined up in the Thatcher Government's sights as part of The Enemy Within, along with striking miners, peace campaigners, Irish republicans and other dissidents.

At Nostell Priory, as at many other festivals including Glastonbury in that period, the Convoy has established its own more anarchic area on the edge of the commercial festival. As the festival came to an end, riot police raided the site, arrested 360 travellers (almost all present) and trashed their tents, benders and vehicles. Many of them were remanded in custody for up to two weeks - including in an army prison - before being convicted by magistrates on various trumped up charges.

There's a good interview with the late Phil Shakesby (aka Phil the Beer) by Andy Worthington which describes what happened. Here's an extract:

'It was the time of the miners’ strike, and the police had been herding them off into a field and battling it out with them. When the police steamed into Nostell Priory, they were fresh from beating up this bloody mega-wodge of miners. The first we knew of it was about half past eleven, when Alex came steaming past my gaff shouting, ‘The Old Bill’s coming up!’ As I leapt outside and looked up this huge field, there was these great big blocks of bobbies, just like the Roman epics, at least four or five hundred of them. And they came charging across the field towards us, with these batons banging on their riot shields, shouting a war cry. Oh, my goodness!

They surrounded us just right of the marquee. At that point we were well and truly sorted. As I say, they had these mega bloody riot sticks, and wagons chasing through the site running into benders. Now they didn’t know whether there was anybody in these benders, and they’d run into them at high speed, just loving the way that they exploded. The tarp and all the poles would blow out, scattering the contents all over the place'.

Interestingly in terms of what we are beginning to find out about police infiltration of movements in this period, Phil recalls that undercover police were also active in The Convoy:  'The other thing that went down: these guys that looked just like us — there was about seven of them. They’d infiltrated us that summer and done a bloody good job. They’d been wheeling and dealing along with some of the other lads that did that kind of thing. As we’re surrounded, people are getting these lumps out of their back pockets and shoving them to one side. They were arresting us — arm up the back — and filing us out through the crowd and pushing us into the main bulk of the bobbies with the tackle'.

 

The following contemporary account comes from Green Anarchist magazine (Nov/Dec 1984) at the time:

 

'Previously the Convoy had been told by the police that there would be no trouble, as long as they moved on peacefully and got out of Yorkshire. It then seems likely, after a report that the Yorkshire police chief said that "they were powerless to act against the Convoy" that Thatcher hit the ceiling, and demanded action. Next morning at 5 am, 3 coaches and 10 van loads of riot police surrounded the camp. As the Convoy retreated to the Marquee the police trashed their vehicles, smashed windows, tearing out wiring with the excuse of looking for guns. There were no guns.

They then demanded to talk to the Convoy's leader 'Boris'. They had got that wrong too. Boris is the goose. The Convoy started quacking. But they were surrounded... [later] Back at the site, a scene of wreckage, the Convoy who had just donated to the miners, were helped by them with food and tools to mend the vans and 45 gallons of diesel, and gave their addresses for bail' (Convoy Arrested, Green Anarchist, Nov/Dec.84).

Contemporary press cuttings from the Daily Express show how the police and media worked hand in hand to demonise and attack the Convoy at Nostell Priory. First ridiculously exaggerated stories about the Convoy being some kind of heavily armed cult - 'Pop village drug and sex scandal' reports 'firearms and chainsaws were among the weapons being carried by members of a bizarre cult' (28 August 1984).

Then the next day an editorial calling for police action which they knew was already planned: 'When are the police going to do something effective about the so-called Peace Convoy? This bunch of violent anarchists and drug peddlers have been travelling from one rural estate to another causing mayhem' (29 August 1984).

Finally the very next day reporting '200 arrested in massive swoop on Sin Village' - 'Police smash the reign of the "peace thugs"... Police stormed the grounds of a stately home yesterday and routed a hippy commune which openly peddles drugs and sex throughout Britain' (Thursday 30 August 1994).

Interview with Phil the Beer of the Convoy with his account of Nostell Priory (I think this may be an extract from a film called 'Operation Solstice' made in about 1991):

[post last updated December 2024]

Snakes for a Rave & other Ludicrous Valentine's Tales

India

'The Delhi Police on Monday busted a gang of snake smugglers and recovered four cobras and about half-a-litre of venom after a tip-off from an NGO People For Animals (PFA). According to police, the venom extracted from these snakes was to be used in high-end raves planned for Valentine's Day in and around the national capital.

So far, snake smuggling for skins or species value was common. However, smuggling cobras for venom meant for raves has alarmed the police. They have arrested two alleged smugglers and booked them for illegally carrying cobras. According to police, venom and snake bites are preferred by drug addicts in raves these days. They suspected that the four cobras were being smuggled to bite junkies.

Police said this new found drug is popular in Delhi raves. Snake bite thus joins morphine, cocaine and the rest as a sort of exotic stimulant. Apart from four cobras, the police also recovered a dead snake. They were investigating the matter further. PFA got information about the smuggling of snakes and it consequently informed the police leading to the arrest of the accused.

PFA activist Gaurav Gupta said, "We had information that some cobra snakes and their venom were to be smuggled to Delhi from Rajasthan so we laid a trap to catch the smuggled snakes. Cobras are killed in large numbers and their venom is smuggled to Delhi and NCR to be used in rave parties for doping purpose," Gupta added.

(India Today, February 13 2012)

Cambodia

'Police will be deployed to guesthouses in Phnom Penh today, and at least one school has asked authorities to crack down on flower sellers in a bid to prevent young lovers indulging in Valentine’s Day activities including . The Phnom Penh municipal authority announced yesterday it would order “all guesthouses and hotels in Phnom Penh” to strengthen security to avoid “anarchy” on a day that is increasingly popular across Cambodia.

Mak Hong, police chief of the capital’s Sen Sok district, said he would send officers to guesthouses and Phnom Penh municipal police chief Touch Naruth has ordered owners to ensure couples who check in today are over 18. “We just want to prevent anarchy,” Touch Naruth said.

Chhun Sarom, director of Wat Koh high school, said truancy rates on Valentine’s Day had increased in recent years, but he hopes a video supplied by the Ministry of Education will encourage students not to skip school with their sweethearts today... Chhun Sarom has also asked police to ban flower sellers near his school'.

(Phnom Penh, 14 February 2012)

Malaysia

'Islamic morality police have arrested at least five couples in a Malaysian city for being intimate on Valentine's Day, local media reported on Tuesday. It follows similar operations in previous years.


The Star, the country's largest newspaper, reported that the couples were arrested at budget hotels in the Malaysian city of Petaling Jaya in the state of Selangor. The raids began at 12:30 a.m. local time and continued throughout the night, concluding at around 4 a.m. local time.

The five couples were arrested by officers from the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) for alleged khalwa, an Islamic law that prevents unmarried Muslims from being alone with someone of the opposite sex. Those arrested were identified as men and women between the ages of 20 and 30, the report said. If convicted, those arrested on Tuesday face a jail sentence of up to two years and a fine of up to 3,000 Malaysian ringgit ($984).

Last year, during an operation called Ops Valentine, Islamic morality police in Malaysia also arrested more than 80 people for alleged khalwa. Another 61 people were also hauled up for 'indecent behavior' and were enlisted for counseling sessions with the department. In 2005, Malaysia's Islamic authorities issued a fatwa to prevent Muslims from celebrating Valentine's Day since it is associated with vice activities that are prohibited in Islam'.

(Channel6 News, 14 February 2012) 

Kraftwerk at the Lyceum, 1981

BBC Radio 6 have been having a Kraftwerk-themed weekend, based on the rather slender premise that it is the 30th anniversary of The Model getting to the top of the British singles chart. The track was actually recorded in 1978, but got a new lease of life and a number one hit in February 1982 on the back of the British synth-pop boom - which Kraftwerk were of course a big influence on.

I saw Kraftwerk play in that period and it was certainly one of the most memorable gigs I have attended. Live performances by the band in Britain were rare, and their gig at the Lyceum on 28 June 1981 was their first appearance in London since 1976 (and indeed only their fifth gig ever in the city). They were in the country as part of their 'Computer World' tour, the album of that name having been released in May. Four London gigs took place - one at the Hammersmith Palais and two at the Hammersmith Odeon, but it was the first at the Lyceum that I went to.

Poster for Kraftwerk's 1981 London shows

I can still vividly remember scenes from this gig, starting with the line of glamorously dressed new romantic blitz kid types outside the venue. There were the screens showing railway tracks during Trans Europe Express; the mannequins on stage during The Robots and most of all Pocket Calculator, where the four members of the group came from behind their machines and stood at the front of the stage with miniature electronic devices. In an act demystifying electronic music making they let people in the crowd generate sounds by tapping the keys on a wired-for-sound calculator. Arguably this was the group at their creative peak on the back of three classic albums - Trans-Europe Express, Man-Machine and Computer World - all of which they drew from at the gig.

Mary Harron reviewed the gig in the Guardian: 'On stage Ralph, Wolfgang, Karl and Florian stood before their synthesisers, dressed severely in black, backed by a wall of computers. As they proceeded serenely through their greatest hits video screens flashed bright geometric images and flashing lights put the audience in a pleasant state of trance... their concert was less like a visit to Metropolis than a store filled with marvellous clockwork toys'.

Review of the gig in The Guardian

Those marvellous toys had a fascination of their own - in that period most of us had never seen a computer outside of a special room at school. Synthesisers were becoming more accessible, but were still relatively rare. The school friend I went with actually made his own synth from a kit. I haven't seen him for years, but a quick search shows that he is now a professor at Oxford University with research interests including 'Phonetics, speech technology, laboratory phonology and computational linguistics' - how Kraftwerk is that?!

Steve McMahon, who was also at that gig, recalled: 'The Royal Wedding was about to happen and the riots in Toxteth – when me and my school mates went to see Kraftwerk play at the Lyceum in London. I seriously think that barring Iggy Pop a year later, at his drug addled most bizarre, this was one of the best gigs I ever went to'. 

Like Laibach later, Kraftwerk played around with totalitarian imagery such as uniforms which sometimes confused those who didn't perceive how they were subverting it with a critical intelligence. In a rare UK 1981 interview with Manchester's Beacon Radio, Ralf Hütter gave an insight into their thinking at that time: 'unfortunately a lot of control-oriented people have been using computers to store other people's data and take advantage of it. We didn't like that too much. In Germany there's very strong state control, a very strong bureaucratic system. The BKA have, I think, millions of people's data stored. This made us very upset. We're more concerned with working with computers in other directions: more creatively or productively, and not leave it to these kind of people who are only into compensating for their lack of love or personal acknowledgement. We are more interested in cooperating with computers as an extension of the creative side of the human being. Which I think is more the way society should be going: being more productive in expressing your ideas and fantasies and wishes, or visions. Anything that could help in making society a better place to live in, you know? And we feel we're only just starting to go in this direction, with the help of musical machines, computers or whatever it takes to put ideas across to other people. Communication between people in the technological society is what we are about'.

In the same interview he described 'The Man Machine' as being partly about 'certain aspects in society where people are mechanically reproduced, or bought and marketed, or robots: the original Russian word "robotnik" means "worker". That's really our identity, what we are'. Intriguingly he also said 'we're very much into situationists, so what we do now, and the next few steps, is what we're concerned about'. In 1981, nobody was name-checking the Situationist International in the media - was this really who Hütter was referring to? I wonder.

If Kraftwerk's influence in 1981 was particularly felt in the post-punk electronic scene (the Human League, Soft Cell, Cabaret Voltaire etc.), it was soon to spread even wider. A year or two later I remember hearing Afrika Bambaataa's Kraftwerk-sampling Planet Rock for the first time under the Westway at Notting Hill Carnival. Electro-funk, techno and so much more was to follow - but that's a whole other set of stories.

Vienna: in the fascist ballroom

The WKR-Ball in Vienna is an 'The annual ballroom dancefest of Austria’s pan-Germanist, far right student fraternities in the former Imperial Palace and official residence of the Austrian president in Vienna' (Martin Jordan). It has been going on for more than fifty years, and this year fell on International Holocaust Remembrance Day (27 January), a date that also marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Guests included Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party, and Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's National Front. The venue was protected by riot police from counter-demonstrators who blocked streets, delaying guests gettting to the ball.

Anarchistische Gruppe Freiburg report that 'A large coalition of leftist and radical leftist groups mobilized on the same evening with a mass demonstration held against it. From Germany, several buses were organized to Vienna. The bus from Frankfurt was pulled shortly after the border in Salzburg by a large contingent of police... All passengers were searched and photographed. On the left-wing demonstration, which went from Westbahnhof to the Hofburg, about 1,800 people took part...  At the end of the demonstration.... [there were] numerous direct actions, blockades and attacks on fraternities, Ball guests and neo-Nazis... In total 21 people were taken into custody'.

''No WKR - every year the same shit'

Austrian fascist leader Strache has sparked outrage with comments he made at the ball,  comparing the protest to the nazis' "Kristallnacht" pogrom and telling his supporters "We are the new Jews!". 

A placard on the demo declares 'Don't dance on my grave!
In the name of my great-grandfather... murdered in Auschwitz in 1944'

Teenbeat

Teenbeat Monthly was one of the wave of 1960s UK magazines published as part of the beat boom (see also Rave magazine).  A friend found a copy of the 1966 Teenbeat Annual in a skip in New Cross and passed it on to me. The Annual promised the 'Big Beat Star Parade', and featured The Rolling Stones, Beatles and Kinks on the cover, with features inside on them and many other bands from that period (Swinging Blue Jeans, Searchers, Yardbirds etc.).

Teenbeat was edited by Albert Hand, who also edited Elvis Monthly and the Elvis Special Yearbooks.

Every band featured seems to be composed entirely of white blokes, hardly reflective of some of the great music of the day. Still I love this great picture of The Kinks.

Remembering Bloody Sunday 1972

On  January 30th 1972, the British state killed 13 unarmed demonstrators on the streets of Derry (a 14th died as a result of their injuries a few months later). The dead, who included seven teenagers, were:

John (Jackie) Duddy (aged 17)

Patrick Joseph Doherty (31)

Bernard McGuigan (41)

Hugh Pious Gilmour (17)

Kevin McElhinney (17)

Michael Gerald Kelly (17)

John Pius Young (17)

William Noel Nash (19)

Michael M. McDaid (20)

James Joseph Wray (22)

Gerald Donaghy (17)

Gerald (James) McKinney (34)

William Anthony McKinney (27)

John Johnston (59)

The Bloody Sunday massacre of 30 January 1972 came after four years of popular insurgency in the north of Ireland, sparked by the civil rights marches of 1968. The immediate lead up to the day was described in the text  'From Bloody Sunday to Trafalgar Square' which I had a hand in producing following the 1990 London poll tax riot:

"What became known as Bloody Sunday then has often been, and frequently still is believed to have been, an act of undisciplined slaughter perpetrated by blood-crazed Paras. This assumption though is wrong and to a large extent lets the British establishment off the hook. By assuming that soldiers "ran amok" it puts the blame on individual soldiers who pulled triggers and killed people. Bloody Sunday was a planned, calculated response to a demand for civil rights, designed to terrify organised protesters away from protesting. It fits easily into the catalogue of British involvement in Ireland as a quite logical and even natural event" (Fred Holroyd, ex-British Army Intelligence Officer.)

In August 1971 internment without trial was introduced. On the tenth, Operation Demetrius was launched. 342 people were arrested and nine people killed by troops. In this period experiments in sensory deprivation torture were carried out on some people arrested, with the aim of psychologically breaking them. With hoods placed over their heads, they were made to stand spread-eagled against a wall balanced on their fingertips. They were kept like this for four or five days, being bombarded with white noise and beaten if they moved, denied food, drink, sleep, or access to toilets. At intervals they were taken up in a helicopter and thrown out while just a few feet off the ground having been told that they were hundreds of feet up (they were still wearing their hoods).

In protest at internment, a rent and rates strike was organised which attracted the support of some 40,000 households. By October this had escalated to non-payment of TV, radio, car licences, road tax, ground rent, electricity, gas and hire purchase (this a good idea that we should imitate- after all why stop at not paying the poll tax?). In response to this crisis the Payments of Debt Act was passed, allowing debts to be deducted directly from benefits- no doubt our rulers remembered this idea when they dreamt up the poll tax.

The introduction of internment was accompanied by a 12-month ban on all demonstrations. Despite this, on January 30 1972 tens of thousands of people attended a demonstration in Derry. The state's response to this act of defiance was a cold-blooded massacre. CS Gas and water cannon had already been used by the time the Parachute Regiment came onto the streets and opened fire on the crowd. The Army claimed that they were returning fire, but forensic tests on the 14 people killed showed that none of them had had contact with weapons and no weapons were found anywhere near the bodies'.

The official Bloody Sunday Inquiry eventually concluded in 2010 that the dead were innocent. But for years, the authorities attempted to hide the truth, with an earlier official investigation (the 1972 Lord Widgery report) including all kinds of smears and false claims that the soldiers had come under attack from gunfire and bombs. The fight for the truth was carried on for years by the victims' relatives and their supporters in the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign.

1990s Bloody Sunday Marches in London

For many years the main mobilisation of the Irish solidarity movement in Britain was for the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration march each January. I went on these marches in the 1990s, they typically attracted between two and five thousand people and started or finished in a north London area with a high Irish population like Kilburn or Archway.

Report of 1991 London Bloody Sunday demo from An Phoblact, 7th February 1991. The march went from Kilburn to Hyde Park, stopping at the Paddington Green police station in Edgware Road, notorious as the place where many people were taken after being arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Speakers included Paul Hill, one of the Guildford Four who has been framed for bombings in the 1970s and released after a long campaign in 1989.

Report of 1991 demonstration - Troops Out, March 1991

A feature of the Bloody Sunday marches was that the far right (BNP etc.) often mobilised to oppose them, so that in the pubs and streets surrounding the demonstrations there would be skirmishes between anti-fascists and racists. In 1990 for instance, three Anti Fascist Action (AFA) members were jailed after notorious Nazi skinhead Nicky Crane was dragged out of a taxi in Kilburn in the vicinity of the Bloody Sunday march.  The biggest trouble was on the Bloody Sunday march in 1993, when hundreds of fascists attempted to attack the march at the assembly point in Hyde Park and then again along Edgware Road. 376 fascists were arrested before the march made it to Kilburn where the speakers included Gerry Duddy, whose brother Jack was killed in 1972. 

1993 flyer for march called by Bloody Sunday March Organising Committee
(Troops Out Movement, Irish in Britain Representation Group, Women & Ireland Network,
Black Action and the Wolfe Tone Society)

Report of the 1993 Bloody Sunday March in London 

(written at the time by European Counter Network, London)

'On Saturday 30 January 1993 around 2000 people took part in the annual Bloody Sunday march in London. The march commemorates the day in 1972 when 14 unarmed civil rights demonstrators were shot dead by British paratroopers in Derry in the north of Ireland.

This year the British National Party and other fascist groups had announced their intention to stop what they called an "IRA march". For weeks before the march they leafleted football matches and other venues in an attempt to mobilise support.

On the day more than 350 fascists were arrested by the police, although only five were subsequently charged. The police delayed the start of the Bloody Sunday march, supposedly because of the fascist presence along the route. Eventually the march organisers informed the police that the demonstration was going to start, whether the police allowed it or not. At this point the police backed down and made no further attempt to stop the march.

As the march made its way from Hyde Park to Kilburn, small groups of fascists made occasional pathetic attempts to attack and provoke the march. However nobody was injured, and no demonstrators were arrested.

At the rally at the end of the march there were a number of speakers. These included the brother of one of those killed on Bloody Sunday, a speaker from Sinn Fein, Jim Kelly from the Casement Accused Relatives Committee (whose son is serving life imprisonment in relation to the killing of two soldiers at a Belfast funeral in 1988), and a speaker from the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism who compared the situation in Ireland to the rise in fascist attacks in Germany and elsewhere'.

Report from Troops Out, March 1993. Speakers on 1993 London Bloody Sunday demo included Jim Kelly of the Casement Accused Relatives Committeee, Unmesh Desai (Campaign Against Racism and Fascism), Ken Livingstone MP, Mick Conlon (Sinn Fein) and Gerry Duddy whose 17 year old brother Jack was shot dead on Bloody Sunday

1994 demo leaflet

The 1994 London Bloody Sunday demonstration

Report of 1994 demo with speakers including Ken Livingstone MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP and Hossein Zahir of Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (from An Phoblact, 4 February 1991)

1998 London demo flyer

1998 demo in London

Martin McGuinness speaks in London on 1998 Bloody Sunday demo

Bloody Sunday March in Manchester 1995

In 1995 the national Bloody Sunday march took place in Manchester. I noted at the time: ‘The march went well, it was as big as any of the recent London ones (about 2000), and there were four flute bands from Scotland. Two of them were right next to each other which made an amazing soundclash especially when we stopped under bridges'. There were clashes between AFA and fascists in the Clarence pub and along Oxford Road.

'Justice for the Casement Accused' banner in Manchester - an infamous miscarriage of justice case in Belfast.



Derry 1992: the twentieth anniversary 

In Ireland, one of the biggest remembrance mobilisations was in Derry itself in 1992 on the 20th anniversary. I was there and wrote this report for the 56a Info Shop Bulletin (May 1992):

'My first real taste of the British military presence came when the bus bringing us from Blefast was stopped at an army checkpoint outside of Derry. Troops boarded the bus, with one soldier walking slowly up the bus pointing his rifle at the heads of passengers.  In Derry itself the 'security forces' were keepong a low profile (by Irish standards), presumably because of the large international press presence. A low profile involved three helicopters in the sky, armoured police land rovers following the march and heavily armed RUC officers overlooking the route.

The march, organised by the Bloody Sunday Initiative, came at the end of a week of events in the city on the them 'One World, One Struggle' to mark the anniversary of the massacre. Thousands of people marched from the Creggan Estate, through the Bogside and into the Guildhall Square in the City Centre - the planned destination of the 1972 demonstration. As well as contingents from different parts of Ireland, there were supporters from Britain, Germany and elsewhere. A huge 50-foot long banner proclaimed 'We are the people of struggle, ours is the culture of chnage'. Relatives of those killed in 1972 marched at the front, and pictures of the dead were carried by marchers, as well as being displayed on murals along the route). At the end of the route a large crowd listened to speeches from Gerry Adams and Bernadette McAliskey.

Young children threw bottles and stones at the police vehicles (already colourfully decorated by paint bombs), but apart from this traditional local custom there was no trouble. However on the way back to Belfast, a window was smashed in our bus by Loyalists. Two people had to go to hospital to have their eyes examined for glass injuries. Within ten days of the demo three people had been killed by an RUC officer at Sinn Fein's Falls Road offices in Belfast, and five more people had been killed by a pro-British loyalist gang in a bookmakers shop in Belfast's Ormeau Road'.

Relatives lead the 1992 Derry march

So is Bloody Sunday now only of historic interest? No, it is a reminder of the murderous ruthlessness of the establishment when it thinks it may be losing. Prime Minister Edward Heath and the top brass of the army sent the soldiers in that day, and none of them were ever held to account. And in these times when we are supposed to believe that all soldiers are 'heroes' and to welcome the army without question into our schools and our streets, we should not forget that one of their historic functions is to kill civilians when the police lose control.

Bernadette McAliskey told the 1992 rally: ' I remember coming down that hill on that day 20 years ago. People were thinking "What can they do to us?", we are still here after internment and after gassing. But Billy Gallagher said to me "There will be murder in this town before the day is out'. And there was... On that day we knew real, naked fear for the first time. When the bullets were fired, people dived to the ground and crawled away like dogs in fear of their masters... Something else, an innocence died on Bloody Sunday. It was then that we realised that governments kill people'.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

The best known song referring to the events is U2's somewhat ambivalent Sunday Bloody Sunday. John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded a different song with the same name on their 1972 album Some Time in New York City:

Is there any one amongst you
Dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding
When they nailed the coffin lids

Bloody Sunday (This is a Rebel Song) by Hot Ash (1991):

At the Free Derry Corner the slaughter began
Some people fell and some people ran
Our civil rights banner was stained bloody red
At the barricades there they shot three people dead

[post updated 10 June 2022 with additional photos - I have donated photos, leaflets etc. to the Mayday Rooms archive, who are collecting material related to the Troops Out Movement and related Irish solidarity organisations].

More posts on Ireland

The Hunger Strike, the Irish War and an English Town: Luton 1980-81

May Days in Dublin 1994

Time for Peace, Time to Go: demonstrations in Belfast, Dublin and London 1994