Friday, March 29, 2013

A Bigger Splash

This weekend is the last chance to see 'A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance' at Tate Modern in London. The exhibition 'looks at the dynamic relationship between painting and performance since the 1950s'. I must admit in places the connections seem rather tenuous, but who cares when there is this much iconic radical/feminist/queer film, photography and painting in one space.

Viennese Actionism, Derek Jarman (his film 'Miss Gaby, I'm ready for my close up'), Cindi Sherman, Ana Mendiata, Jack Smith, Hélio Oiticica - all present and correct, along with the following:



Sanja Ivekovic, Make-Up Make-Down (1978) - the film features the make up ritual to a soundtrack that includes 'Fly Robin Fly' by Silver Convention.

 
Yayoi Kusama, from 'Flower Orgy', 1968
 
Zsuzsanna Ujj, With a Throne, 1986

Gunter Brus walking through Vienna in 1965 painted white
with a black stripe down his face and front - for which he was arrested

Luigi Ontani as San Sebastiano, 1976
 
Valie Export, Identity Transfer 3, 1968

Modelling dresses with fabric printed 
by Pinot Gallizio's Situationist 'industrial painting' process, 1958

 The second part of the show features contemporary installations - inevitably they lack the subversive charge of the earlier work, products of an age in which art's shock value has seemingly been exhausted, and in which the creative gestures that erupted outside of the academy have now been safely domesticated in the 21st century gallery. But I enjoyed the dream space room of  Karen Kilmnik's Swan Lake (1992).


 A Bigger Splash closes on 1st April 2013.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Music and Moonlight and Feeling are One

In the last weeks before he was drowned in 1822,   Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a series of poems inspired by his friend Jane Williams  and her musical talents. Among other things she sang and played the guitar, and indeed a guitar Shelley gave to her still exists in the Bodlean Museum in Oxford (pictured below).

The poem's romantic linking of 'music and moonlight' has been repeated many times - think of Irving Berlin's 'There may be trouble ahead, But while there’s music and moonlight and love and romance, Let’s face the music and dance' and all those 'Dancing in the Moonlight' songs. 

To Jane: The Keen Stars Were Twinkling

The keen stars were twinkling,
And the fair moon was rising among them,
Dear Jane!
The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them
Again.

As the moon's soft splendour
O'er the faint cold starlight of Heaven
Is thrown,
So your voice most tender
To the strings without soul had then given
Its own.

The stars will awaken,
Though the moon sleep a full hour later,
To-night;
No leaf will be shaken
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter
Delight.

Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.


Monday, March 18, 2013

Communism of the Senses

Dancing in Lost River Cave, Bowling Green,Kentucky in the late 1940s
'shared conviviality could be seen as a kind of communistic base on top of which everything else is constructed. It also helps to emphasize that sharing is not simply about morality, but also about pleasure. Solitary pleasures will always exist, but for most human beings, the most pleasurable activities almost always involve sharing something: music, food, liquor, drugs, gossip, drama, beds. There is a certain communism of the senses at the root of most things we consider fun'
(David Graeber, Debt: the first 5000 years, 2011)


Sunday, March 10, 2013

1930s: Workers Film and Photo League

The Workers Film and Photo League  (sometimes just 'The Film and Photo League') was a 1930s organisation associated with the Communist Party. I came across an article about them recently: 'England: the (Workers) Film and Photo League' by Terry Dennett, published in Photography/Politics: One' - a journal/book published by Photography Workshop in 1979.

A League document quoted in the article set out its mission as being: 'to provide and popularize film and photos of working class interest, giving a true picture of the industrial and social conditions of the workers today and of their organized struggle to improve their conditions'. Another text states: 'There are thousands of workers in this country who own cameras, but who only use them for taking an occasional snapshot. If even a number of them were to photograph the conditions around the - in the factories, workshops, railways and countryside, in their streets - we should have an invaluable record of working class life'.

The League held regular film schools with lectures and film shows. No doubt there was some dreadful Stalinist propaganda - the 1933 advert below mentions a lecture by Stephen Harrison 'just back from Moscow'. But some of the films from that time sound interesting - a 1936 advert mentions 'Tenants in Revolt! - 'A Stirring Record of the Struggle of the Stepney Tenants' made by the British Film Unit with the Stepney Tenants League and featuring music by the Unity Theatre orchestra.

1933
 A film school was held in July 1933 in the garden of the Studio Theatre (59 Finchley Road, London NW8), followed by 'Flannel Dance in the Ballroom' attended by 'stars' including Elli Tompuri (Finnish dancer and actress), Fritz Kortner (Austrian Jewish film actor) and Mabel Constanduros (famous at the time for her radio show The Buggins Family).

A 1936 London Film School held at the Veterans' Hall in High Holborn was also followed by a dance, while a four day film school in 1938 included a Saturday night 'Grand Social and Dance - The Highspot of the rally! Bring all your friends! Any costume... carnival and fun'.

'1936:  The Film is a weapon. Use it'

1938 Film School programme - note also Session on 'The Place of Sound' including 'Disc-records to be made by members'
(Sorry for poor quality images)

Monday, March 04, 2013

Protest Memes: Gangnam & Harlem Shake

No sooner has a dance craze exploded over the internet than it seems to emerge as a global protest meme.

Protestors have been doing it Gangnam style since Psy's Korean pop track became an international hit last year. For instance, last October the dance featured in a demonstration at Marineland in Ontario protesting against keeping dolphins in captivity.



In January, construction workers in the Chinese city of Wuhan danced Gangnam Style outside the nightclub they had built in protest against delayed wages (Guardian 23 January 2013).

Also in China, in Henan province, there has been an ongoing campaign against the clearing of graves by the Government, including last month a mass movement to restore graves that had been partially destroyed. One local blogger complained: 'The so-called “grave clearing for agriculture” is just an excuse to get the land and sell it to developers for industrial purposes. The movement is de facto land encirclement. They use the graves of people's ancestors to decorate their hats. If the grave digging movement in Zhoukou city is successful, other cities in Henan will follow'.

As part of the campaign, a Gangnam/zombie video was put out last November with the lyrics including: 'For thousands of years, we have visited our ancestors’ graves. This is our tradition. You wipe your ass, dig up our ancestors’ graves, and they are homeless. They are moved to the public cemetery. Then you cover the land with cement and take away the land forever. Dig up the graves for agriculture, not a soul will believe this'.



Harlem Shakes the Middle East

Now the Harlem Shake is emerging as a protest dance, including in North Africa and the Middle East as a wind up of Islamists. Last week several hundred people danced it outside the headquarters of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo; earlier four students were arrested for dancing the Shake in their underwear.



In Tunisia there have been clashes between conservative Salafists and students. According to the Daily Star (Lebanon):

'Salafist Muslims tried to prevent the filming of current Internet craze the "Harlem Shake" at a Tunis school on Wednesday, but were driven off after coming to blows with students, an AFP correspondent said. When the dozen or so ultra-conservative Muslims, some of them women in veils, showed up at the Bourguiba Language Institute in the El Khadra neighbourhood, a Salafist bastion, students shouted "Get out, get out!" One of the Salafists, wearing military gear and carrying a Molotov cocktail he never used, shouted "Our brothers in Palestine are being killed by Israelis, and you are dancing."The Islamists eventually withdrew, and the students were able to film their production.

On Monday, Education Minister Abdellatif Abid said a probe had been ordered into a staging two days earlier of a "Harlem Shake" by students in a Tunis suburb. He said there could be expulsions of students or sacking of educational staff who were behind the staging of the dance'.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Idle No More: Round Dance Revolution

The Idle No More movement for indigenous rights started out in Canada last year, and has been marked by protests across the country and similar actions elsewhere, including in the United States. One of the tactics used has been the staging of flashmob round dances in shopping malls and other public spaces.

Last week the movement reached Salt Lake City in Utah, with 75 people staging a dance in the Capitol rotunda in protest against official approval for tar-sands minining in the state (pictued below).

Source: City Weekly, 21 February 2013
One of the biggest actions took place on January 13 2013 at West Edmonton Mall, the largest shopping mall in North America. According to Indian Country, 'a good 3,000 people showed up for an Idle No More flash mob at the West Edmonton Mall, staging a full-scale Grand Entry, the ceremonial procession that opens pow wow gatherings. Led by an eagle staff, equivalent to a national flag for many First Nations, the giant procession included rows of dancers three people wide, many in full traditional regalia and clothes, wrapped all the way around the mall's ice skating rink. These were followed by hoop dancers and accompanied by pow wow drumming'. In another action in December 2012 people drummed and danced in the Southgate Mall in Missoula, Montana. Supporters have talked of the movement as a Round Dance Revoltion.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

A shrine to a pirate

On Redcross Way SE1 (near to London Bridge station), the site of a paupers' graveyard was discovered during construction of the Jubilee line on the London underground in the 1990s. Crossbones has become a remarkable unofficial shrine where people gather on the 23rd of every month to remember the outcast dead buried there, and also their more recently departed loved ones.


Going past last week I noticed a notice in memory of Jason Fisher (1979-2011), aka Angryness and Brimstone - evidently a pirate radio stalwart from South London and Kent. The notice also says 'Pirate Radio is Good for Your Mind'.


'Brimstone' was particularly associated with Essence FM, broadcasting in Kent from the early noughties (FM 105.1 - 105.0, 2000-2007). According to farstep in a discussion at Radionecks, Essence 'used to broadcast from Thanet (usually from tower block flats in Margate or Ramsgate) used to be a great little station playing UKG, DnB, Happy Hardcore, House etc. ... anyway was nice to hear it when it was about and to date its been the only one that was audible in Thanet/Kent which is a bit sad to say the least as we need something on round here. There was briefly Sweet FM which went on for one night from a farm in Ramsgate but sounds to me they got dobbed up and never returned. Friend of mine did a set on Rival FM but I dont think that lasted long either so Essence was really the only driving force around these parts'

This prompted an interesting reply:  'Hi everyone, I'm "Brimstone's" dad. First of all I like to say how much I and family and friends miss him. I believe he started Essence FM in around 2000 with Frantic and Mr Woo was also involved and this went on till about 2005. He built rigs at one time then did repairs then designed and built link boxes and audio limiters of high quality. He left radio behind and then he was into computers and built his own website. He was quite well known in the pirate world around London, Essex and Kent. He did pirate radio proud. He was a genius...  I am writing a book on his life and collecting any info about his radio days if anyone feels they have a story please let me know'.

Radiocommunications Agency press release (31 January 2003) descirbes Fisher's arrest at the top of an aerial:
'Two pirate operators were convicted at Camberwell Magistrates Court on 27th January 2003 for offences under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949. Jason Fisher of Priestwood House, Drummond Road, Rotherhithe, London, SE16 and Michael Pruce of Philip Walk, Peckham, London, SE15, both 23, were each given 18 months conditional discharges and ordered to pay £150 costs after being found guilty of participating in the running of a pirate radio station calling itself Essence FM.

28 September last, the two defendants were caught at the top of a 180ft-cell phone aerial with tools and radio transmitting apparatus. When questioned they stated they were enjoying the aerial views. However, they subsequently admitted the offences when interviewed. The court ordered the seized equipment be forfeited'.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Global dance protest says no to violence against women



On Valentine's Day last week, there were flashmob dances and similar actions in at least 190 countries as part of One Billion Rising, a call to 'strike, dance, rise' and 'SAY NO to violence against women and girls':

'One in three woman on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime.... One billion women violated is an atrocity. ONE BILLION WOMEN DANCING IS A REVOLUTION.

On V-Day's 15th Anniversary, Feb-14-2013, we are inviting one billion women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the worlds to see our collective strengths, our numbers, our solidarity across borders. Join V-Day and ONE BILLION RISING today and SAY NO to violence against women and girls'.


One Billion Rising in DR Congo

Dancing in the rain in Miami

Dancing in New Delhi

Jill Filipovic in The Guardian:

'It's our bodies that are violated. It's our bodies that are politicized and subjected to laws about what we can or can't cover or how we can or can't reproduce or what our families should look like.It's our bodies that are blamed for the harm that comes to us, when we're told that we were hurt because we're too tempting, too sexual, too ugly, too loud, too easy, too feminine, too manly, too vulnerable. It's our bodies that too often feel like the enemy, when our own self-worth is worn down by cultural myths that we're too fat, too dark, too poor, too awkward, too shy, too sexy, too female, too masculine, too strong, too weak, too big, too little.

And so it's with our bodies that we should act. When our bodies have been politicized, targeted and defined for us, there's power in the simple enjoyment of that body. When women are supposed to be small and inoffensive, taking up public space is a radical act. It's unladylike. Dance, OBR reminds us, is both free and freeing. Will dance save the world? Of course not. And it certainly won't end violence against women. But any worldwide movement that focuses on the appalling levels of violence that women face and crafts a national day of action to push back against that violence is fine with me'.

And the biggest news story on that day? Another woman killed by her boyfriend. In Pretoria, 'No Killing of Women and Children' featured on another protest a few days later - outside the court where Oscar Pistorious was accused of the murder of Reeva Steenkamp.

Monday, February 11, 2013

HMV 1932: Radio-Gramophone Demonstration

The latest news on threatened record shop chain HMV is that administrators Deloitte have announced that 66 of the 220 shops will close when stocks run out - with no clear rescue plan for the remaining shops.

Here's a document from an earlier period in the company's history. The first His Master's Voice shop opened in London's Oxford Street in 1921, but seemingly in the early 1930s many people still needed persuading that recorded music was worth buying. The 'Programme of His Masters Voice Record and Radio-Gramophone Demonstration' is from a November 1932 event at the YWCA in London.



Seemingly the programme consisted of playing records by among others Gracie Fields, Yehudi Menuhin and the Masses Bands of the National Band Festival at Crystal Palace (as it happens I came across this programme in Haynes Lane market in Crystal Palace last week).

'Recorded music gives entertainment which is obtainable by no other means, for the programme can be made entirely to one's own taste and mood'.


Sunday, February 10, 2013

Join the EDL and BNP

No I don't mean the racist idiots of the English Defence League and the British National Party... they are yesterday's news. I refer of course to the anti-racists of the English Disco Lovers and the Bass National Party.



This EDL launched on facebook last September, with the following statement:

'The English Disco Lovers is a counter movement to the English Defence League. We aim to promote equality, respect and disco. We intend to be more popular that the English Defence League. This involves replacing them as the top result when "EDL" is searched on Google, as well as having more like than them on Facebook.

Earn Baby Earn, the respect of others by respecting them, Earn Baby Earn, Disco Inferno.

It's fun to practice the e-qua-li-ty, it's fun to practice e-qua-li-ty (to the tune of YMCA by the Village People).

But if you're thinking' about my baby, it don't matter if you're black or white.

People all over the World (everybody), join hands (join), start a love train, love train.

Who the funk is James Brown? He's a Soul Man.

Hate Racism, Love Disco'

They have already generated lots of international press coverage (including this Guardian article) and overtaken one of the main  EDL pages on facebook. Now up to nearly 25,000 facebook followers, people are talking about taking it out into the material world with t-shirts and club nights.


Now, inevitably, the Bass National Party has been launched on a similar 'Bass trascends race' basis:





Monday, February 04, 2013

Bowie in Dunstable 1972

The Civic Hall in Dunstable, later renamed the Queensway, was built in 1966 and demolished to make way for an Asda supermarket in 2000. Growing up in neighbouring Luton, which despite its size had no decent sized music venue, the Queensway was the nearest place where bands of any national repute came to play. Sadly I was just a little too young to catch iconic gigs by The Sex Pistols and the Jam (October 1976 - only 80 people were there on the Anarchy in the UK tour), The Clash (May 1977 and January 1978) and Blondie (March 1978), and when shortly after a school friend's biker older brother took us to a couple of gigs there it was to see ex-Deep Purple heavy metal acts Ian Gillan Band and Whitesnake. In my school days we had to travel further afield for the good stuff, coach trips from Luton Bus Station to Aylesbury Friars to see Echo and the Bunnymen  (with Blue Orchids, Apri 1981) or the Undertones (May 1981), or to St Albans City Hall to see Hawkwind and Motorhead (the acceptable end of the metalist spectrum).

Still looking at photos of the building now it has the retro-futurist appeal of a lost space age classic and the appropriate place for gigs by Pink Floyd (February 1967 and November 1969) and most famously of all David Bowie.

The Civic Centre/Queensway Hall, Dunstable

Bowie in Dunstable
On the June 21 1972 Summer Solstice, David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars (supported by no less than the Flamin' Groovies) played a 'Midsummer Night's Dream' in Dunstable. Somebody filmed it, and the footage is now a Youtube favourite for Bowie fans - the original silent images having been cleverly synched with sound from another gig on the same tour. Songs featured include Ziggy Stardust, Moonage Daydream, Suffragette City, Andy Warhol, Song for Bob Dylan, Star Man, Waiting for the Man, Queen Bitch, Space Oddity, Hang onto Yourself, and Jacques Brel's Amsterdam.


Bowie's album 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders and Mars' had been released just two weeks earlier, on 6 June 1972. The album and tour gave rise to full scale Bowie-mania, with an army of fans going on to imitate his Ziggy style. What's great about this Dunstable footage is that it shows a cross section of the audience experiencing this moment directly, plainly enraptured in many cases, but not yet having becoming 'Bowie kids'.







So Dunstable shoppers, next time you're in Asda pause to remember that this also has been one of the wonderful places of the earth.


Friday, February 01, 2013

Fire at Freedom

Sad to hear that Freedom Bookshop in Whitechapel High Street was damaged last night in an apparent arson attack. The anarchist centre in Angel Alley has been a fixture of radical London life for decades - Freedom Press dates back to the 1880s, and I believe the current centre to the late 1930s. The place has been reinvigorated in the past few years as a base for various groups such as the Advisory Service for Squatters, and the scene of various social and cultural events under the banner of the Autonomy Club.

Last time I was there was back in September 2012 for an event during their William Blake: Visionary Anarchist exhibition, featuring shamanic poetry from John Constable and music (photos below).




It seems that most of the damage last night was to the ground floor bookshop space, though I can see a stack of Kropotkin's Mutual Aid undamaged there on the right. Some things are indestrucible!



Back in 1993 there was an arson attack on Freedom, the culmination of a campaign of fascist intimidation linked to wannabe paramilitaries Combat 18. Suspicion is that similar motivations were behind last night's incident.

People are invited to come down and help clear up tomorrow (Saturday) from 1 pm, and donations are also welcomed - details here.


Thursday, January 17, 2013

His Masters Voice goes Silent

The threatened closure of HMV (which has gone into administration) saddens me mainly because thousands of staff in its shops in Britain and Ireland face joining the dole queue, along with workers from Blockbuster video and Jessops cameras which are also in Administration. Good to see that workers at two HMV branches in Limerick have occupied the shops demanding they are paid for work they've already done and that they get redundancy payments.

Unless somebody buys the shops and reopens them, that will be the end of music shops in most  UK town centres. I believe that would also hasten the end of the CD format - why make products if there are no shops to sell them? (apart from a small number of specialist shops on the one hand and supermarkets selling a narrow range on the other). Of course people can order CDs online, but increasingly they are more likely to just download or stream the music.

In the pre-internet age record shops were portals to whole musical worlds, and beyond them to alternative  sexual, literary, fashion and political sub cultures. Arguably this function began to decline once CDs replaced vinyl, if only because CD boxes conveyed so little information to the browsing music fan compared with a 12 record sleeve. Of course the internet finished it off, demystifying all those hidden scenes by giving instant access to their 'secrets' from the home computer and later from the mobile phone.


Analysts have criticised various HMV business decisions and blamed tax dodging at HMV's big competitor Amazon for the fall of the record shop chain. But these are marginal factors compared to the bigger trend - the fall in the value of recorded music.

As both Marx and the classical economists (particularly Ricardo) discovered, the economic value of a commodity is ulitmately a function of the amount a labour embodied in it. In the pre-digitial music industry, a huge amount of labour was involved in bridging the gap between the recording of music and the consumer - workers in record pressing plants (and in the plants feeding them with raw materials), in transport distributing records and CDs, and in shops like HMV.

The amount of labour embodied in CDs and DVDs sold in shops hasn't changed, but as Marx also showed it's not the amount of labour in an individual product that determines its value but the amount of 'socially necessary labour' - ie the average amount of labour time in a society necessary to produce that thing. If the 'thing' in this case is the consumer having access to the piece of music when they want it, then the socially necessary labour involved in its manufacture and distribution is virtually zero with internet downloading. As price broadly follows value, old style retailers of material music cannot really compete. And with the magnitude of value circulating in the music industry reduced there is obviously less scope for 'surplus value', the element accrued by capital as profit. Hence businesses like HMV becoming less profitable and ultimately unviable from a capitalist point of view.

Does that mean that record shops are completely finished? Not necessarily. For most consumers the 'use value' of a song is simply a matter of being able to listen to it at will - the delivery mechanism (digital, CD or vinyl) is irrelevant. For a minority though the use value of a physical record or CD goes beyond this. It might be a matter of a perceived difference in the sound quality compared with digital music, it might be an aesthetic appreciation of the packaging. It might be to satisfy (or never quite satisfy) the fetishistic desire of the obsessive collector, or to signify some kind of imagined 'cool' (hey look at my hipster cassette collection). There's enough there to hopefully keep open some specialist shops like Rough Trade which retain some of that aura of the portal. But in the present form of society, probably not enough value to cover the costs of a presence in the average high street or shopping mall.

British Record Shop Archive

Right on time comes the British Record Shop Archive: 'The record shop was once the centre of every music lover's universe, from the beginnings of the vinyl 12 inch in the 1940's through to the digital music developments of the 1990's, millions of us browsed, socialised and bought music in our local record shop or high street department stores. Record shops were an integral part of the social fabric in local areas. They launched pop stars, record labels, and were focal points for emerging music genres. The aim of this site is to record the history of the record shop in an accessible archive, to hold intrinsic details that could get lost in the mix, and to celebrate the role that the record shop played'.

Leon Parker is trying to raise funds at Kickstarter to mount an exhibition on the history of Dobell's Jazz and Folk Record Shop (21 Tower Street, London WC2): 'Until 1989, when Dobells finally became another victim of rent rises and redevelopment, Dobells had been a Mecca to music lovers for more than four decades. Dobells was one of the first record shops outside the US to stock Jazz, Blues, Folk, World, Latin and African music. It was also a meeting point for a remarkable network of different people — musicians, both the famous and the forgotten, anarchists, Tory politicians, doctors, dancers, dockers, writers galore, union leaders, eminent academics, film stars, journalists. school kids still in uniform and bankers (not to mention some distinctly dodgy Soho characters) — all rubbing shoulders drawn by a passion for music into a cramped, smoke-filled and frequently alcohol-fueled record shop in Soho.

Dobells was the first port of call for visiting American musicians. Many would come to Dobell’s from Heathrow and buy records before they found a hotel room! BB King loved Dobell’s while once Janis Joplin dropped in with a bottle of Southern Comfort. You could find Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Red Allen or half the Ellington band shopping and gossiping. It acted as a fertile learning ground for the youngsters who went on to lead such legendary British bands as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Cream and from Belfast Taste. The listening booths were research libraries to a whole generation and on Friday afternoons wage envelopes were torn open for rare Blue Notes, Riversides, Topics Folkways and Blue Horizons. And Dobells is where Bob Dylan spent a lot of his time during the long winter of 1962 when he lived and performed in London. Dylan even recorded in Dobell’s basement as Blind Boy Grunt'.

(find out more and pledge your support if you are so minded at Sound of Dobells)

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Gerry Anderson Fashions

The death this week of Gerry Anderson has sparked an outpouring of nostalgia from those brought up on his TV programmes in the 1960s and 1970s - Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, Space 1999 etc. And yes this is partly a nostalgia for the future that never happened, the thrilling world of space travel, underwater exploration and mass luxurious leisure that children in that period were told would be their birthright in Tomorrow's World by the end of the 20th century. I won't labour the point - Simon Reynolds has after all written a whole book about Retromania - but not only has that future not materialised but the whole belief in the future expansion of human possibilities is often dismissed as a mere retro fixation. The Association of Autonomous Astronauts (1995-2000) was partly an attempt by some of the children of the Gerry Anderson generation to carry forward that hope - inevitably we  called our 1999 conference in London 'Space 1999: ten days that shook the universe'.

Never mind the lack of personal jetpacks, one of the many disappointments of living in the actually existing 21st century is that the futuristic clothes in Gerry Anderson's shows haven't really caught on. There was a period in the techno mid-1990s when interesting fabrics and unisex clothing took off, with labels/shops like Vexed Generation in Soho. But for now looking like you crawled out of an early 1970s  album cover seems to be enough for the average hipster - though to be fair is that any more retro than desiring to look like you crawled out of an early 1970s TV show about the future?

UFO (1969-70)

UFO (1969-70)
The costumes for Space 1999 were designed by Rudi Gernreich (1922-1985), a refugee from the Nazis who was one of the founders of pioneering US gay rights organisation The Mattachine Society

Space 1999 (1973-76)


Space 1999 (1973-76)

Destiny Angel from Captain Scarlet (1967)

Thunderbirds (1964-66)

Well at least Britney Spears had a go at channelling Thunderbirds as a space age air hostess in the Toxic video:

Sunday, December 23, 2012

All Nite Mod Rave - Bradford 1964

Another example of 1960s 'rave' - an advert for an 'All Nite Mod Rave' on 18 July 1964 in Bradford, at the Coffin club in Ivegate, featuring Herman's Hermits and The Mutineers.



Another venue at the time was the 'Futurist Theatre' in Scarborough - built as a cinema in 1921, and still going strong today.


There was also 'The Big Beat Scene' tour in 1964, featuring Gene Vincent, Millie, Lulu and others.



Source: the fascinating Bradford Timeline Concerts and Package Tours 1956-67

(see previously: 1960s raves)

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Norfolk Police smash up speakers - and boast about it

Earlier this week (December 12), Norfolk police posted a short video on Youtube with the title 'Seized rave equipment destroyed'. An accompanying press release says:

'Officers from Norfolk Constabulary have re-iterated their zero-tolerance of unlicensed music events by destroying seized equipment The speakers, generator, amplifier and cables were confiscated following a rave in Feltwell Woods, West Norfolk on 4 March. The offender was fined £100 plus costs and a destruction order for the equipment was issued by the courts.The equipment was destroyed by officers at King’s Lynn police station on Tuesday 11 December 2012. The items destroyed were:
  • 8 standard speakers measuring 2’x2’
  • 2 Peavey UL Speakers measuring 24” x 42”
  • A Stephill generator
  • A Crown amplifier
  • 3 metal cases
  • 1 plastic case containing jump leads
  • A draper tool box
  • A small container of diesel
  • 1 nitrous oxide cylinder'.
 The video shows a hammer smashing up the which could obviously have been put to good use, and indeed a local music charity 'Community Music East called it a "waste of equipment" that could be used by the county's "under-resourced" groups'. Bizarrely a police spokesperson told the BBC (13 December 2012) that "If the equipment was sold or donated there is a possibility it could be used for unlicensed music events in the future." Well that would apply to any musical equipment, why not send the police round to music shops with their big hammers and smash up all the amps and speakers in case they end up at a free party!
  


Not a great bit of PR - as of last night tonight it had received 4 likes, and 311 dislikes.


As covered here before, Norfolk has been the focus for an ongoing cat and mouse struggle between police and sound systems. Here's a couple of other recent examples:

‘Police were called to a disused quarry in North Creake over the weekend after reports of around 700 people arriving for an illegal rave. Police first received a call to the unlicensed music event at around 10.30pm on Saturday night, the event was located on a remote area of land that is difficult to access by vehicle. Police air support were used overnight, in addition to officers on the ground, a local gamekeeper and farm manager to monitor the situation and bring the event to a peaceful and safe closure. Sound equipment and a van were seized from the site, and police made two arrests for possession of drugs with intent to supply. Police noted all vehicles leaving the site and many were searched with several dozen drivers being breathalysed, but none were found over the limit for drink or drugs. (Lynn News, 22 October 2012)



Two men have been convicted of organising an illegal rave, which attracted about 200 people to a site near Beccles. The pair, who pleaded guilty when they appeared at Great Yarmouth Magistrates’ Court yesterday, [Monday, October 15] were told thousands of pounds of equipment, seized by police at the July 14 rave at Gillingham, would not be returned to them… The pair pleaded guilty to a charge of committing unauthorised licensable activity under the Licensing Act 2003, after the court heard the rave attracted about 200 people and caused “extensive damage to property”. They were also each given a two year conditional discharge, ordered to pay £150 compensation to the farmer and £85 costs… The court heard that R. had sent text messages to a large number of people, saying “the number for the Norfolk party is” followed by a mobile telephone number, and “keep it off Facebook...pass on to safe ravers.” It also read “see you rigside” – a reference to the large set-up of speakers and amplifiers used to play loud music, known as a “rig”.


Gary Mayle, prosecuting, said that when asked by police if the turntables were his, M. said: “It would be pretty hard to have a party without them.” Items seized also  included 18 speakers, five electrical power generators and four “disco light projectors”(Norwich Evening News, 16 October 2012).


Sunday, December 09, 2012

Operation Condor: Prohibition London

If anyone got robbed, burgled or raped this weekend in London and wondered where the police were when they needed them - hey, they had other things on their mind.

Around 4,000 cops took part in a 48-hour 'Operation Condor' operation to enforce alchohol and other licensing laws. According to The Guardian today: 'Since 8am on Friday police have visited nearly 6,000 premises, where 1,046 offences were reported or disclosed during the operation, dubbed Operation Condor. Twenty-two venues were shut down, including pubs, saunas and massage parlours, with police checking for sex worker cards and that no-drinking zones had been enforced... At least 297 people were arrested for various offences, including 38 for theft, 20 for public order offences, 20 for possessing Class-A drugs, 22 for possessing Class-B drugs, 26 for possession with intent to supply, seven for possessing offensive weapons, 18 for drunkenness, and 52 for immigration offences' (in other words mostly victimless 'crimes' which any fishing expedition rounding up people in bars and clubs would find).

The operation included a show-piece raid on 93 Feet East in Brick Lane on Friday night: 'One of the largest individual operations involved 175 officers, including the Territorial Support Group, the Met police's helicopter and dog units, who raided the 93 Feet East club in Brick Lane after reports of dealers selling Class-A drugs. Police arrested nine people for offences, including possession of drugs with intent to supply, and the club was closed'.

The police have posted some 'raid porn' footage on youtube showing them piling in to 93 Feet East, the message being 'we are big, we are tough, and we mean business'. Ludicrous really, these periodic blitzes have been going for decades and they don't make the slightest difference to the levels of drug taking, or drinking after hours.

helicopter footage showing swarm of police at 93 Feet East 
By they way are the Metropolitan Police aware of the resonance of the term Operation Condor, particularly for the many Latin American migrants in London? It was also the name for a notorious campaign of terror conducted by right wing dictatorships in South America in the 1970s, during which tens of thousands of people were tortured and executed.