The politics of dancing and musicking and other dark matters
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The total eclipse of the sun in 1999 coincided with a high point of activity for the Association of Autonomous Astronauts. On its email discussion list (AAA-list@onelist.com), various AAA operatives posted their reports of the action. Did Parasol AAA really launch an umbrella-shaped spacecraft under cover of the eclipse in Leicester? Perhaps it's still too soon to say... From AAA Kernow: Total…
In July 1979 Scritti Politti played a benefit for Stevenage Rock Against Racism at Hitchin College, supported by Acme Sewage Company (a punk band from Welwyn Garden City) Advert for the gig, from NME, 7 July 1979 As reported in the local paper, the Stevenage Comet, a gang of skindeads 'attacked members of the crowd, charged the band and tried to smash up their equipment'. The trouble apparently…
On June 10 1984 the left Labour-led Greater London Council, on the verge of being abolished by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, put on the free 'Jobs for a Change' festival by County Hall on the South Bank. I was one of the estimated 150,000 who went along, with the line up including Billy Bragg, Misty in Roots, Mari Wilson, Hank Wangford, Gil Scott-Heron and Ivor Cutler. The biggest…
Emma Warren's 'Up the Youth Club: illuminating a hidden history' is an enthusiastic account of 150 years of recreational provision for young people. This has taken many forms, but she identifies a number of common themes: 'A central quality connects all the spaces in this book, whether they're attended by five young people or five hundred, in a shed or a purpose-built centre. A youth club, as far…
Today, as in the past, the fight against the far right has to be taken to small towns as well as to city streets. Back in 1971, the town of Hitchin in Hertfordshire was one such place. On this occasion the openly racist National Front had been refused permission for a rally in London's Trafalgar Square so they landed 40 miles north in Hitchin instead. On 27 March 1971 around 400 NF supporters from…
Quite an early interview with the Fugees from Minneapolis anarchist paper ' The Blast' (March 1995 - though interview was at time of their December 1994 show in MN). ' I was telling you about that whole immigration rap thing. You know what I'm sayin', it's like people hear refugees and I want people to know it's not a gimmick. My mother was really pregnant and immigration was knocking on her door,…
Protests are taking place throughout France against a proposed new law targeting free parties. Thousands took part in a demonstration in Montpellier yesterday (30 May 2026, pictured here) and more are planned over the next two weeks. The law is known as RIPOST - 'Réponses immédiates aux phénomènes troublant l’ordre public, la sécurité et la tranquillité de nos concitoyens' (Immediate Responses to…
From NME, 1 October 1983, a report of anarchist squat centres in London including Kafe Kollapse in West Hampstead, the Burn it Down Ballroom in Finchley and the Peace Centre at 99-119 Roseberry Avenue, London N1
My mum mentioned to me recently that she went to a jazz club in Luton at the TUC Hall in Church Street around 1960, which got me searching the archive. Its seems that the town, like many other parts of the country, experienced a jazz boom in the late 1950s with several weekly clubs running. In 1958 the New Orleans Jazz Club was running a Sunday night 'Jazz at the Dome' at the Cresta Dome Ballroom…
Max Horkheimer (1935)– ' Der Wolkenkratzer / The Skyscraper': 'A cross section of today's social structure would have to show the following: at the top, the feuding tycoons of the various capitalist power constellations. Below them, the lesser magnates, the large landowners and the entire staff of important co-workers. Below that, and in various layers, the large numbers of professionals, smaller…
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