Turbulent Times issue 10 now out!

(now sold out)

Photo by Nick Ekoplekz

Photo by Nick Ekoplekz

60 page fanzine! In a bag!

With:

8 page insert on anti-fascism and music!

2 full-colour Adolf Steg postcards!

Degenerate Waves Badge!

(Apologies for ridiculous overseas prices – these are because of the recently privatised UK Post Office).

Also available from Electric Knife (London) and Praxis (Berlin) – both of which are physical shops that also do mailorder.

Enquiries from other distributors and people wanting to blag free copies are welcome.

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ORDER ISSUES 9 AND 10 FOR JUST A QUID MORE:

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There are still some copies the last issue left. See this page for enthusiastic reviews.

Buying both is only one pound more, because the postage cost is the same:

LDN Oct 19th: Revolt of the Ravers: The Movement Against the Criminal Justice Act, 1994

This looks great:

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Photo from Tash’s CJA pages

Sunday October 19th 2014, 2 pm –  10 pm,  at MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH
(Admission free)

Twenty years ago, on 9 October 1994, a huge demonstration against the Government’s Criminal Justice Act ended in London’s Hyde Park with riotous clashes, police horses charging, and people dancing to sound systems. The Act brought in new police powers against raves, squatters, protestors, travellers and others, and was passed amidst widespread opposition.

This event will include memories of this movement, its ways of organising and representing itself and will feature displays of its ‘material culture’ such as zines, flyers, cassettes and letters.

There will also be a panel discussion looking at the related radical/techno zines of the 1990s, in what was one of the last musical and social movements mediated primarily through print rather than digitally.

The talks and discussion will be followed by an evening of films, music and refreshments.

It is hoped that the day will be a catalyst for a process of archiving, circulating and discussing materials from the radical social/musical movements of the 1990s.

Supported by MayDay Rooms, Datacide magazine, Cesura//Acceso journal, History is Made at Night.

More info: http://history-is-made-at-night.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/criminal-justice-act-20th-anniversary.html

dealing with rejection

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cover image taken from discogs.com

I enjoyed completing the questionnaire that is a pre-requirement for obtaining the new Libbe Matz Gang / Degenerate Waves “Victory Through Voltage” release. But I never guessed that this would be the only enjoyment I would get out of it.

Shortly after submitting my entry, I received a brief email directing me to a secret blog for an “update”. The only contents of said blog were an animated pink/black gif flashing with the words “Your application has been REJECTED. Sincerest apologies, Libertatia Overseas Trading”.

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It’s hard to express how I feel about this. It is certainly a very confusing business model and I am pissed off that a label I have helped over the last few years has now made it impossible for me to keep up with their output. I guess this could be for my own safety, but come on. On the other hand it is very amusing-  to me, and much more for others I’ve talked to about it. Most of the people I’ve discussed this with haven’t had this sort of aggro, but there are a select few of us who are denied hearing “630v HEX ATTACK”.

I’ve had quite a strange relationship with Libertatia Overseas Trading since they came to my attention two years ago and it looks like things are set to get even stranger…

Other things, which I will actually be able to get hold of, probably:

The Hacker Farm / Libbe Matz Gang film “Witches” (which I organised a London showing for last year) is nearing an official DVD (and maybe other formats) release. A “teaser-trailer” has been uploaded to YouTube, which is characteristically sinister, but oddly doesn’t actually feature any footage from the film:

IX Tab have their much anticipated (not just by me) second album coming out soon on Exotic Pylon:

 

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Oh and there’s a new album by The Bug just out too, which you have probably already heard lots about already.

 

August updates

Grmmsk on vinyl

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GRMMSK – cyaan go back (unfrei, 2013) from grm on Vimeo.

“This is another doomdub-resurrection ov the still undead punk genre. similar to the evolution ov zombie’s mobility in movies these days, on the collaboration ‘müllGRMM TÜTEsk’ you’ll find not only slow motion crawling and staggering, but also rather aggressive and hectic attacks. that’s when they’ve spotted you! feel the sting ov this toothed-up VERSIONS of the tracks from the 3rd EP by berlin’s MÜLLTÜTE.”

There is some X-Rated Live Screenprinting Video filth for you to watch here.

Available from Rough Trade, Praxis in Berlin and a bunch of other places.

New releases on Libertatia Overseas Trading

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Degenerate Waves are a new act and their debut features “Lo-fi sinewave abuse, limited edition of 50 copies” with some sound sourced from DSEI 2013 arms trade expo apparently! Another great quality (but lo-fi, naturally) release from L.O.T.

There is also a forthcoming Degenerate Waves split CD with Libbe Matz Gang. To get a copy you need to complete a slightly unnerving questionnaire! I really like the idea of having to go through arcane processes to get hold of music in the current era of everything being available. So I’ve completed my questionnaire and await the results…

Available from http://libertatiaot.blogspot.co.uk/

Turbulent Times issue 10

Is nearing completion, but don’t hold your breath. Some copies of issue 9 are still available from me.

See also new releases from:

Ekoplekz

Concrete / Field

Dream Baby Dream Baby Dream

John Eden: Dream Baby Dream Baby Dream versions Part Two by Johnedenuk on Mixcloud

1. Fuxa – Dream Baby Dream
2. Christian & the Heathens – Dream Baby Dream
3. Mark Refoy – Blue Moon Dream Baby Dream
4. Madrugada – Dream Baby Dream
5. Luna – Dream Baby Dream
6. Black Tambourine – Dream Baby Dream
7. Savages – Dream Baby Dream
8. Sonic Death – Dream Baby Dream
9. Neneh Cherry & The Thing – Dream Baby Dream
10. Takkyu Ishino – Dream Baby Dream
11. Soma Sema – Dream Baby Dream
12. Zombie Zombie – Dream Baby Dream
13. Moto Boy- Dream Baby Dream
14. Enzo Boni – Dream Baby Dream

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Sometimes quantity has a quality all of its own

Initially I liked the brevity of the Dream Baby Dream mix, but then my obsessive tendencies got the better of me. Banished from the room which contains my records last night I took to the internet to see what other versions of the Suicide track I could find.

What I like about the original its sparse brutal sonics and minimal deadpan vocals. This combination often seems to produce an emotional response in me that belies the simplicity of the ingredients. Ask any techno fan or Zen Buddhist if you don’t believe me.

Folk music, jazz and reggae are all based on versions, standards, interpretations of existing material but in rock music “original compositions” are what gets praised. The “cover version” is supposedly filler, novelty, the domain of jobbing pub bands giving the punters an unchallenging night out with no surprises or musical adventure.

The multiple versions here display diversity in unexpected ways.

Initially I was interested in the different genres which were being used to filter the interpretations. On the surface this is surprisingly varied, taking in pop, indie, jazz, rock, ambient, techno and piano balladeering.

But actually these genres (or the performances of them on display here) are more conservative than what Suicide were doing in the late seventies.

This is exacerbated by the Bruce Springsteen cover of the song (see the previous mix) which seems to have given a green light to various stadium performers (whether actual or wannabe) to reinterpret the song themselves. One of the artists on show here was actually honest enough to describe their work as “a cover version of the Bruce Springsteen cover version of the Suicide song”.

This has lead to a tendency to make some renditions of the song less deadpan and more literally emotional both in vocal and instrumental content. Which possibly says something about trying to appeal to a wider audience. But having said that I also like the balance of bedroom producers, small bands and what I guess are probably fairly well known people here. (The only artist I was familiar with previously was Neneh Cherry & The Thing).

Repeated listening made me appreciate less obvious differences between the tracks in the mix. Variations in bass tones, vocal tics, subtle textural shifts, different crowd noises, “mistakes”, room ambience, drop outs, and glitches caused by the free software I was using. I think these things are important, arguably just as important as the music being performed – but maybe it takes a version excursion to bring out these elements.

Dream Baby Dream.

STANDING UP TO POLITICAL POLICING AND SURVEILLANCE: Weds May 7th

Radical History Network public meeting

STANDING UP TO POLITICAL POLICING AND SURVEILLANCE
Wednesday May 7th
7.30pm, Wood Green Social Club
3 Stuart Crescent, N22 5NJ
[off High Rd Wood Green, near Wood Green tube]

– How and why are the police used to try to suppress public dissent and any challenge to the capitalist ‘status quo’?
– What tactics have protestors and campaigners developed to successfully defend public rights and struggles for a better society?

Including:

– Kevin Blowe from Newham Monitoring Project on community campaigns resisting
oppressive policing and seeking to hold the police to account.

– Dave Morris on London Greenpeace – possibly the most infiltrated group in
UK history. Despite that it continued to be a highly effective campaigning organisation
The group initiated the Stop ‘The City’ anti-capitalist mobilisations in
the early 1980s, and the global anti-McDonald’s and McLibel campaigns in
the ’80s and ’90s.

– John Eden on campaigns against police corruption in Hackney in the ’80s and ’90s.

All welcome to come and share experiences, anecdotes, photos, archive material and general thoughts.

http://radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.co.uk/

Austerity Reggae Mix

John Eden: Austerity Reggae Mix by Johnedenuk on Mixcloud

(download the mp3 direct from here but don’t go mad and use up all my bandwidth)

In which I slam down a bunch of the tunes I took to play out last week on the loose topic of austerity, poverty and the general insanity of the system.

Tracklist

1. Ansil Collings – Keep The Cost of Living Down (Magnet 7″)
2. The Abyssinians – Declaration of Rights (Studio One 7″)
3. Johnny Clarke – Declaration of Rights version (Jackpot 7″)
4. Earl Cunningham – I Want My Pay (Midnight Rock Music 7″)
5. Lorna Gee – Three Week Gone (Ariwa 12″)
6. Black Uhuru – Rent Man (DEB Music 7″)
7. Half Pint – Mr Landlord (Jammys 12″)
8. Lieutentant Stitchie – Promises (Digital B 7″)
9. Black Uhuru – Pain On The Poorman Brain (JR 7″)
10. King General – Broke Again (Conscious Sounds 12″)
11. Robert Lee – Leader (Fish Tea 7″)
12. Pliers – Rough This Year (Black Scorpio 12″)
13. Cobra – Poorman Shoes (Digital B 7″)
14. Anthony B – Nah Vote (Stone Love 7″)
15. Junior Reid – John Law (Blacker Dread 7″)
16. Joseph Hill & The Culture – Police Man (Mister Tipsy 7″)
17. Barrington Levy – Murderer (Jah Life 7″)
18. Barrington Levy & Beenie Man – Murderation (Xtra Large 7″)
19. Turbulence – Guns Bring Misery (Palm of Gold 7″)
20. Natty King – Guns To Town (2 Miles 7″)
21. Admiral Tibet – Da Pon Mi Guard (Ranking Universal 12″)
22. Dennis Brown – Revolution (Auralux LP)
23. David Harvey – Outro (Novara Media Youtube rip)

Special Unauthorised Guest Appearance from David Harvey via Novara Media.