Showing posts with label anarcho-punk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anarcho-punk. Show all posts

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Luton punk squat party 1985: 'Revolution is the Festival of the Oppressed'

In November 1985 there was a squat gig in Luton with local punk bands. Unusually for that time some people actually took photos of it which have popped up on facebook and other places over the years (including I think the old  UK Decay website). So we have a lovely snapshot of the some of the beautiful people of my home town and I still have the flyer, which promised a lot:

'On Saturday 16th November an attempt will be made to put on a squat gig in Luton featuring local bands Karma Sutra, Penumbra Sigh and Party Girls. The reasons for doing a squat gig are many and varied. The bureaucratic organisations of the political elite do nothing but spout dead dogma and empty rhetoric about the young and what they think we need. All these schemes do nothing except reinforce our feelings of powerlessness. This attempt to reclaim disused property and put it to constructive use is an attempt to put into practice our own feelings of power and humanity and to do things for ourselves when all around us we are offered nothing except misery and destruction. Here is a constructive attempt to create something of real importance in an atmosphere of love and cooperation as an alternative to what we see around us... we cannot do it alone but we can do it together, come along and participate'

 
The venue was the TUC Centre for the Unemployed, or rather the building that they had been using at 17 Dunstable Road, Luton, but which they had recently moved out of. Most of the Luton punks were on the dole at the time and many of us had been helped out with our claims and housing issues by the advice workers there - though earlier in the year we had fallen out with the Centre's management when our rowdy protests became too much for them (see previous post on Dole Days in Luton). I think the perception was that the centre was being closed down to punish our ingratitude but actually it reopened later in a different location.

It was a great gig/party, the place decorated with banners, loads of people turning up and three fine bands. Luton's two main anarcho-punk bands from the time, Karma Sutra and Penumbra Sigh (the latter sadly never recorded), plus Party Girls who I guess were a bit more what was becoming known as goth.



Karma Sutra - Graeme, Dave and Neil in shot

Penumbra Sigh - the late Karen Tharsby, Steve, Pete and Mark

Party Girls Dan and Pete

All the bands played in front of a banner declaring 'Revolution is the Festival of the Oppressed'. Looking through photos I can also see 'Alternative Luton', 'Revolution is Every Day Life' and 'Where does the enemy hide?'. The latter question comes from London situationist punk funk band Slave Dance, whose song of that name features the answer '...if not in our everyday lives?'. Yes we'd all been digesting the Situationists, mostly via Spectacular Times booklets. I can also spot a couple of Karma Sutra banners: 'Here lies the world destroyed by greed, profit and envy' and a chained up figure inside a globe cage, plus a red and black flag.

I can also see a poster declaring 'Wickham 19 are innocent'. The gig was actually a benefit for this defendants campaign supporting those arrested in a series of South East Animal Liberation League raids on vivisection related companies in Hampshire. One of our Luton crew was among those arrested, hence the graffiti saying 'hello the Wickham One!'

I don't remember all the names of the people below, but not going to name the ones I do remember (you can out yourselves in the comments if you want). Hope nobody minds though being included in the photo gallery I think it's very evocative of a time and place that seems both recent and a million years ago. Obviously if anybody does object to use of pictures let me know and I will edit accordingly,













I was recently in touch with Dave G. who helped put on the party who has kindly contributed his recollections:

'It took place a very short time after the building was emptied. A group of us went down there one evening (in the dark) to gain access. We knew that breaking and entering would be a criminal offence but entering through a window without causing any damage was “merely” trespass and a civil matter. That said, we also knew that the police usually made mincemeat of these distinctions. I think we knew the building and how to get in via a dodgy window then open the doors from inside. 

I remember being very surprised and impressed that someone – I think from Karma – knew about electricity and fuse boxes. I seem to recall that fuses were missing or something had been done to remove power but that this had easily been rectified.

We worked out that entrance to the gig should be via the back of the building to avoid attracting attention with the front available as a fire exit.  You’d pass through a kitchen where food had been made and upstairs there were two rooms – one where all the instruments of the bands were kept and another where people could sit and chat.

I remember bits of the evening itself and that at a certain point the police tried to get in but were blocked.  They claimed it was about health and safety then said, “don’t blame us if you all burn to death” and disappeared.  

I think the event was considered a “success” and there were initial plans to do more.  For example, the big old Co-op building opposite St George’s Square had been empty for years and some of us went in via the back one Sunday afternoon and talked about repeating it there – perhaps on Carnival Day - but it never happened. I think one reason is that the momentum of doing something like the squat gig the first time had now gone. I definitely wanted it to happen at the Co-op and went back a couple of times alone to check things out but it was probably just as well it didn’t happen because the Co-op would have been too high profile to pull off successfully without more people involved and better organisation. I also think that the first squat gig popularity was because the centre had done so much to help people in practical terms and that closing it down was regarded as a spiteful injustice. The people who organised the gig and others who turned up – so many of them had received support and the closure felt more personal and something to be challenged - the gig seemed like “having a go back”. Perhaps, having done it once, people didn’t think it had been worth all the effort.  Certainly, if you are involved in something and it comes off, there’s a degree of wanting to repeat and scale up the same experience, whereas if you weren’t central to it, you are less invested. I don’t know…

To me, the idea of squat gigs/events felt like we were “reclaiming” space, highlighting the waste of resources during a housing crisis and creating our own cultural spaces as an alternative to “confected entertainment” but there were many weaknesses with those theories… [soon] there were other things to be getting on with like Anti-Apartheid, Section 28, the Alton Bill, pickets at Wapping, local strike action at Vauxhall…'

If you have any memories, photos, flyers related to this or similar nights get in touch




 

Friday, January 12, 2024

Dole Days in Luton: unemployed protests 1985

In the turbulent mid-1980s - 1984 to 1986 to be precise - I was unemployed like most of my punky friends in Luton. My 1985 diary has the same entry on almost every Thursday – ‘Sign on, Switch’. The weekly ‘Giro Thursday’ routine consisted on signing on at the dole office, cashing in our ‘Personal Issue’ cheque at the post office, buying in our vegan supplies for the week, and 'then going home to crimp our hair before heading to the pub and then The Switch Club, the town’s only regular alternative night. There to drink and dance to songs like Spear of Destiny’s Liberator, Baby Turns Blue by the Virgin Prunes, the Sisters of Mercy’s Alice, Dark Entries by Bauhaus and The Cult’s Spiritwalker. In a departure from the general gothdom the last record was usually 'Tequila' by The Champs' (see more here on Luton nightlife at this time).

Many of us were living in bedsits in the town’s London Road area owned by the late Gerry Cremin, a generally amiable Irish landlord who nevertheless thought it necessary to collect the rent accompanied by an Alsatian, a baseball bat and his burly sons (my dad had coached some of them at St Joseph's football club). The deal was that in return for providing a nominal breakfast which hardly anyone got out of bed for, the landlord was able to charge the Government's Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) a higher rent, and the tenants got a little bit more on their dole – so we took home a massive £39 a week. It wasn’t exactly paradise, but it was too good to last.

‘In Luton hundreds of unemployed people under the age of 26 are being made homeless by new government rules on Bed and Breakfast accommodation. The government and their friends in the media claim that these new regulations are to stop people taking free holidays at the taxpayers’ expense. The reality is that most people live in B&B because they have nowhere else to go. Who’d take a holiday in Luton?’ (Luton Bed and Breakfast Claimants Action Group leaflet, June 1985)

In 1985, the Government decided to change the rules so that young people under 26 could only stay in board and lodging for four weeks before their rent and benefits were cut – for those of us living in the Costa del Cremin this threatened homelessness. Actually it was no joke – the Luton News reported that Michael Ball, a 24 year old from Marsh Farm, hanged himself when he was forced to move by the new regulations.

In June 1985, a Bed and Breakfast Claimants Action Group was set up at a meeting at the TUC Centre for the Unemployed (17 Dunstable Road, Luton). This was a trade union sponsored centre which offered benefits and other advice, and for which Luton bands including Karma Sutra, Click Click and Party Girls had played a benefit at the local college (now University of Bedfordshire). I wish I still had my ticket for that, as they were hand printed by Elizabeth Price who went on to be in indie pop band Tallulah Gosh and then to win the 2012 Turner Prize for her video art. 

The Centre was one of around 200 similar projects around the country in this period set up with the support of the Trades Union Congress and local unions. An oral history of this movement has recently (2023) been written by Paul Griffin (Unemployed Workers Centres: politicising unemployment through trade unions and communities). There was a political tension in these centres - were they top down, even paternalistic, welfare service for the unemployed, or were they centres for agitation and organising by the unemployed? That tension certainly played out in Luton, as we shall see.

Flyer for the first meeting on 10 June 1985

 
A campaign of action followed on quickly from that first meeting. Over the next few weeks, we occupied Luton DHSS and the Anglia TV office in the town, and disrupted council meetings (Luton had a Conservative Council at the time). Between 20 and 50 people took part, mostly drawn from our punk circles but not just the usual anarcho activists. When Prince Charles visited the town's Youth House we occupied the Radio Bedfordshire office in Chapel Street, while Karen Tharsby (singer with Luton punk band Penumbra Sigh, who sadly died in 2013) was arrested for sticking her fingers up at the heir to the throne. The clip below includes short Radio Beds reports of one of the town hall protests and an interview with Pete K. about the Prince Charles visit.

 

Transcript of BBC Radio Bedfordshire clip: 'There was a demonstration outside Youth House where Prince Charles was on a tour. The demonstration was by young unemployed people from Luton protesting about the government's new board and lodging rules which they claim have made them homeless. One person was arrested. One of the protesters explained why they  tried to disrupt the Royal day: 'to show we're angry about people being thrown out of their homes, made homeless while people like Prince Charles can visit Luton and like £50,000 be spent out on someone like him to visit Luton. People like myself, people in bed and breakfast accommodation all over Luton are being made homeless. I don't see how can they can justify spending all this money on him'. [and how would you prefer the money be spent?] Well for a start I think it should be spent giving people houses, renovating houses, Council houses whatever… hospitals, kidney machines, things like that things that, things that are worthwhile'

 Plans were also laid for squatting – a list of empty properties was put together at the Centre for the Unemployed and circulated in the name of ‘Luton Squatters Advisory Service’ (‘Jobless Encouraged to become Squatters’, Luton News, 27 June 1985). 

Things came to a head in July 1985 when during a protest at another council meeting in the Town Hall there was a scuffle with councillors. Gerard Benton – an advice worker at the Centre for the Unemployed  - was arrested and later jailed for six months for ‘actual body harm’. Gerry was definitely innocent of the charge of hitting a councillor, he had just stayed around after others had left and been the one there to be picked up. After he was convicted, some of Gerry’s friends repaid the councilor who they believed had given deliberately misleading evidence against him with a number of pranks, including placing an advert in a local paper offering prison uniforms for sale, with their phone number. On his release, Gerry continued in advice work until his untimely death in 2005 at the age of 47.

It was all too much for the respectable Labour Party types who ran the Centre for the Unemployed. We were banned from meeting there anymore, and even before Gerry was jailed he was told by the management not to associate with us. One of the contradictions of the unemployed centre movement was that staff were often paid with funding from the Manpower Services Commission - a kind of Government job creation scheme - so there was always a limit to how far they could go in opposing the state. Not long afterwards the Centre moved buildings - leaving the original one to be squatted for one night for a  great Luton punk gig (see post here). 

‘Jobless Protestors Occupy DHSS Office - A demonstration at Luton’s DHSS office against new Government rules for the unemployed ended when police were called in to break it up. Around 40 unemployed people occupied the Guildford Street office on Thursday… They occupied the offices for two hours and hung up banners in windows until police were called by the manager’ (Luton News, 20 June 1985)

‘furious councilors and demonstrators jostled and argued when a protest got out of hand during a committee meeting at Luton Town Hall last week. Around 30 punk-style protestors objecting to the new bed and breakfast laws were ejected by police. One arrest was made after coffee cups were broken during the row’ (Herald, 11 July 1985)

 I believe that the Centre for the Unemployed continued elsewhere in Luton until 1999, and then changed its name to  Rights - this advice service  is still going 40 years later. Looking back I can see that we were sometimes quite obnoxious to  some of the no doubt well meaning people running the Centre for the Unemployed, but equally we felt justified in our anger at their failure to support actual unemployed young people fighting back against cuts to our benefits.

Another leaflet advertising the first meeting on 10th June 1985:


Report on the campaign from Black Flag magazine:



'Youth Dole Sit-in Demo' - Luton and Dunstable Chronicle & Echo, 14 June 1985










A bit more here about Gerard Benton.  A definite Luton character,  I first met him when I was at school and had joined the Labour Party Young Socialists for a while. Gerry arranged a coach trip to the Welsh seaside resort of Llandudno for the LPYS conference, with us all being put up in a hotel. A lot of people came along for the ride, some of whom never even stepped foot inside the conference, with no questions asked about ability to pay. We got to see Steel Pulse too. It was only when we got back that we found out that Gerard had simply arranged for the hotel bill to be sent to Luton Labour Party, who weren't very happy but paid up anyway.

Footnote: a Tory landlord and an imaginary strike in Luton

Another Luton landlord at the time was Mr Mason, a Tory councillor with shabby accommodation in Stockwood Crescent and elsewhere. Some of his tenants took to painting graffiti or otherwise vandalising his office on the way back from the pub and a group of them got arrested in the process. A couple of them were members of the Socialist Workers Party and one of their leading members locally, Ged Peck, was believed to have reported them to the SWP's control commission (their internal disciplinary body). Those involved were furious at what they saw at this lack of support and the response was to submit a fake strike report that was unwittingly printed in Socialist Worker in July 1984. The bad employer was a fictional Pecks Publishing in Luton - named for Ged Peck (who incidentally had played guitar at the Isle of Wight Festival). Gerard Benton was named as the shop steward at  this imaginary firm and the person named as the author of the piece had nothing to do with it. Just goes to show you can't believe everything you read in the archive - let future historians note there was no such strike in Luton! I believe those held responsible for this fake news were suspended from the party.


[This is an edited extract, with some additional material, from my article - Neil Transpontine, Hyper-active as the day is long: anarcho-punk activism in an English town, 1984-86 in 'And all around was darkness' edited by Gregory Bull and Mike Dines, Itchy Monkey Press, 2017.  The full article goes on to look at more Luton activism covering animal rights, anti-apartheid, the peace movement, Stop the City, the miners strike and more. The book is an excellent collection of participant accounts of the scene including The Mob, Crass, Flowers in the Dustbin, anarcho-feminism and Greenham Common etc. You can buy copies of it here and recommend you do if you are at all interested in this kind of stuff.

One of the criticisms sometimes levelled at the anarcho-punk scene of that time is that its politics were a kind of militant liberalism in which activists always seemed to be seeking to act on behalf of others – whether animals or people in far off places – rather than confronting their own position as young, mostly working class people in a capitalist society. There is some merit in this, though a counter argument could of course be made that they refused to be confined to their narrow sectional interest and instead tried to embrace a more global critique of oppression and exploitation. But I guess in the above episode at least we were directly self-organising around our own needs in the context of unemployed benefit cuts.




Saturday, September 16, 2023

Birmingham Stop the City 1984

We've previously covered the Stop the City demonstrations in London of 1983/84 when a couple of thousand  people, mainly young anarcho-punks, attempted and partly succeeded in bringing chaos to the financial centre of the city. The biggest event was in March 1984, by September 1984 heavy policing more or less shut it down with nearly 500 arrests. 

The idea spread around the country. Leeds Stop the City in August 1984 was by all accounts quite successful with around 400 people taking part, 100 of whom were arrested. Later, in 1985, there was a decentralised Stop Business as Usual with events happening simultaneously in different towns and cities.

But the attempted Birmingham Stop the City on October 11th 1984 was generally viewed as a dismal failure. Less than 200 people turned up and were contained by a large police operation, only occasionally managing to break away to little effect. Getting nicked in the Tesco meat department by plain clothes cops was not my finest moment. The night before some doors were glued up at banks and there had been some graffiti too.

Report from Black Flag, 10/12/84: ' 'We decided to meet at Chamberlain Square on the way noticed many banks had excessive numbers of security guards, shops had their windows greased to prevent paint getting on. A few people marched into Barclays to leaflet but got escorted out quickly. Leafletting was done on many matters. Several supermarkets had meat thrown about, people filled trolleys and either dumped them or took them to the cash register and refused to pay, saying no South African goods'.


Report from Green Anarchist, November 1984 - "Stop the City: we couldn't even stop a public loo"

The night before eight people who had travelled from London for the protest were arrested when their van was stopped by police. Charged with conspiring to cause a public the case dragged on for many months, with a committal hearing at Birmingham Magistrates Court in July 1985 and a trial at Birmingham Crown Court in December 1985 (I haven't been able to find out outcome of trial - does anybody know?).

'The so called evidence in relation to this charge is that the eight travelled together to Birmingham the night before Stop the City and during their stay in police custody the eight refused to co-operate and some shouted and sang for much of the time. During this time the police found a leaflet on the police station floor, not even on or near any of the defendants. The leaflet suggested actions for Stop the City such as sit-ins, blockades and causing damage to oppressive property. It went on to suggest that if arrested disruption should continue, non-cooperation with police and making lots of noise in the cells. The police are trying to claim that because the eight were  'carrying out' the second part of the leaflet they must have been intending to carry out the first and disrupt Birmingham so cauusing a public nuisance... if the eight are found guilty this will mean that to conspire to cause a public nuisance you need only to travel with others to a demo where anything like this might happen'


Black Flag 12 August 1985


Freedom, December 1985

See previous posts:




Thursday, September 07, 2023

Stop the City, London, September 1984



1983/84 saw a series of anti-capitalist 'Stop the City' actions focused on the financial centre of London and other cities too, including Leeds and Birmingham. In London, momentum built with large protests in September 1983 and March 1984 (I've written about the March one here). A fairly half hearted one in May 1984 didn't amount to much, but a more serious attempt to organise and mobilise led up to the action on September 27 1984. By this point though the police had got used to this mode of protest and had developed their own tactics for dealing with it - largely mass preventative arrest. 470 people were arrested, most of them later released without charge. A high proportion of people came from the anarcho-punk scene, but there was advice to dress in more casual clothes to avoid being singled out by the police. I did so, not sure I would have passed for a city gent but I didn't get nicked!

There were occasional short lived breakaways from police lines, as reported below: 'There was a small rampage not far from the Stock Exchange where windows were smashed and cars jumped on and later Barclays Bank off Cheapside had windows broken'. I recall somebody stepping up on the window sill of a bank and kicking the window in. Other than these brief moments there was a lot of wandering around aimlessly.

Dave M, who helped organise the London events as part of London Greenpeace, summarised the day as follows:

'On Sept 27th, maybe 2000 came - mostly anarchists and unemployed, as well as some peace and animal rights campaigners. Police repression was well organised and strong. It was impossible to gather at the City centre (St Paul's and the Bank of England, used previously, were cordoned off). Individuals and isolated small groups who were 'looking for the demo' were threatened with arrest, and soon left, disillusioned. Anyone looking like a punk was particularly harassed. 470 were arrested and held hostage (only 35 were charged) to break up the collective strength.

However, many people who'd organised into independent groups were able to do quick actions all over the place (graffiti, smashing bank windows, a quick occupation etc). 2 or 3 times 3-400 people came together for a march into the centre… Hundreds who were dressed up smart continued to float about (giving out leaflets, passing messages, doing actions...). But generally the City became a no-go area almost for us. Many demonstrators therefore decided to go to Oxford Street, and Soho in central London and were able to make quite a few effective protests at various banks, offices and stores etc.' (A Brief Account of the Stop the City Protests)


Report from Green Anarchist, November 1984


There was quite a lot of soul searching afterwards. The following chronology from anarcho zine Socialist Opportunist (October 1994) ends up asking 'People put months of planning into all this. Was it worth it?'


The general consensus was that it was 'time for us to move on, having learnt from Stop the City' as expressed in this response written on the day:

 
(there a couple of other responses in the same issue, full copy of which can be read at the excellent Sparrows Nest Archive).



Press coverage



Evening Standard calls for police to move in on the organisers

Guardian: 'Police swamp  City's 2,000 anarchists'

Benefit Gig

The night before there was a benefit gig for the Stop the City Bust Fund in Camberwell at Dickie Dirts, featuring among others Conflict, Subhumans and Stalag17. The venue was an old Odeon cinema that for a while had been a Dickie Dirts jeans warehouse before being squatted.   I think there may have been some Stop the City planning meetings in the same venue.

There's a little confusion about the Conflict/Subhumans gig, the flyer is clear that it was the night before Stop the City though some people (mis?)remember it as being on the night of the protest. 



Earlier that Summer Subhumans had recorded a song Rats about Stop the City, having taken part in the previous London actions. As lead singer Dick recalls:

"We're talking about thousands of people — a lot of them punk rockers, hippies, alternative types — all turning up, dressed up, making a lot of noise... bells, whistles and drums, that sort of thing. It was an angry party atmosphere, and it was just really refreshing. It was one of the first protests I'd been to that wasn't a CND march, and it felt slightly more relevant, more 'everyday' than a protest for nuclear disarmament. That was a one-subject protest, but this was against the exploitation of people across the world by the people who press all the buttons and control all the money — it was about the very  hold that money and profit and greed have got on society in general. It felt more urgent to be there. I went up there on my own, and met up with lots of people. I remember the band Karma Sutra from Luton were there.  At one point, people were being violently thrust around by the cops, and I overheard one of them say, 'If you act like rats, you'll get treated like this... ', which became a line in the song and is the reason the song's called 'Rats' , which may not be an obvious name for a song about protesting against capitalism" (quoted in 'Silence Is No Reaction: Forty Years of Subhumans' by Ian Glasper).

The lyrics of the song do capture the feeling of those days (maybe especially the line  'Co-ordination was not so good, But everyone did just what they could'!):

A sense of enterprise is here, The attitudes that conquer fear
Stability, togetherness, The feeling cannot be suppressed
Hand in hand we had our say,  United we stand but so did they
Hands in handcuffs dragged away, To cheers of hate and victory!

We fought the city but no-one cared, They passed it off as just a game
The city won't stop til attitudes change, Rats in the cellars of the stock exchange

Co-ordination was not so good, But everyone did just what they could
Unarmed with inexperience, We had to use our common sense
If you act like rats you get treated like this,  Said a policeman like we didn't exist
When the force of law has lost it's head, The law of force is what you get

We fought their calculations, Money gained from third world nations
All that money spent on war, Could be used to feed their poor
The papers played the whole thing down, Said there was nothing to worry about
The rats have all gone underground, But we'll be back again next time round


See also:



Sunday, June 11, 2023

Tales from a Disappearing City


Tales from a Disappearing City is a new youtube podcast from DJ Controlled Weirdness (Neil Keating) exploring untold subcultural stories from subterranean London. First few episodes have featured Ian/Blackmass Plastics and Howard Slater and centred around 1990s techno and free parties, with a common thread being the Dead by Dawn club in Brixton. But an emerging theme is that people are not confined to one scene and there are lots of connections linking apparently separate subcultures - each of our lives being a thread that join the dots across time and space.

So now it's my turn, in the first of two episodes me and Neil focus on the early/mid-1980s and my experience of growing up in Luton, in the orbit of London but with its own scenes. We covered a lot of ground including:

- being a 'paper boy punk' - slightly too young to take part in first wave punk and first encountering it in tabloid outrage;
- punk in Luton (including UK Decay, their Matrix record shop, and anarcho-punk band Karma Sutra);
- the open possibilities of post-punk, as exemplified on the Rough Trade/NME C81 compilation (which I misdescribe as C82 in the interview!)
- seeing Mark Stewart and The Pop Group at the Ally Pally and at CND demo
- GLC festivals and events including the one where fascists attacked the Redskins and the Test Dept extravanganza (which Neil went to but I didn't)
- Luton 33 Arts Centre -  a link connecting the later 1960s Artslab scene through to punk and beyond;
- the influence of 1950s style in the 80s, clothes shopping at Kensington Market and Flip;
- seeing Brion Gysin speak in Bedford library;
- Compendium bookshop in Camden;
- Anarcho punk including Conflict at Thames Poly and my hobby horse about No Defences being the greatest band in that scene even if they never really put out a record;
- the limits of the Crass and Southern studios sonic/stylistic/political template and how the actual scene was more diverse;
- punk squat gigs at the Old Kent Road ambulance station and at Kings Cross.



In the second episode me and Neil move on to late 1980s and 90s and discuss things including:

- Pre-rave clubbing - rare groove, Jay Strongman's Dance Exchange at the Fridge, Brixton; Wendy May's Locomotion in Kentish Town; the PSV in Manchester;
- the early 90s 'crusty' squat scene - RDF, Back to the Planet, Ruff Ruff & Ready and related squat parties at Cool Tan (Brixton), behind Joiners Arms in Camberwell and school in Stockwell;
- the free party scene partly emerging from this, parties in Hackney Bus garage etc.;
- 'world music' clubs including the Mambo Inn (Loughborough Hotel, Brixton) and the Whirl-y-gig (which I went to at Shoreditch Town Hall and Neil in Leicester Square at Notre Dame Hall, also scene of famous Sex Pistols gig);
- Criminal Justice Act and getting into history of dance music scenes; 
- Megatripolis at Heaven and emergence of psychedelic trance;
-  1990s clubbing explosion - so called 'Handbag House' clubs - Club UK, Leisure Lounge, Turnmills, Aquarium etc.;
- 'clean living in difficult circumstances' - glam house clubbing wear as extension of mod sharp dressing continuum;
- superclubs and superstar DJs including Fatboy Slim vs Armand Van Helden at Brixton Academy (1999)
- the Association of Autonomous Astronauts - Disconaut division.


Monday, January 30, 2023

Chris Killip (1946-2020): photos of punks, pits and more

Some great images of 1980s North East (among other places) in the Chris Killip retrospective at the Photographers Gallery

There's quite a few shots of Gateshead anarcho-punks in around 1985, where Killip documented nights at The Station, the venue set up by Gateshead Musicians Collective. Lots of Crass, Conflict and Flux of Pink Indians t-shirts.



The miners strike also features, with images from Easington colliery in the Durham coalfield and the 1984 Durham Miners gala (featured here previously)




 

Friday, July 08, 2022

Farewell Mark Astronaut

photo from Astronauts on facebook

Sad to hear of the death this week of Mark Astronaut (Mark Wilkins). I saw his band The Astronauts a number of times in the mid-1980s playing at anarcho-punk gigs, I believe for the first time at the Blockers Arms in Luton in February 1985 which I noted in my diary: 'really good, songs a bit like the early Bowie meets The Mob with a sense of humour, e.g. 'this one's about urban disintegration - it's also about darts'.  Also remember a gig in Mark's home town of Welwyn Garden City, again with Karma and Hertford indie-poppers The McTells and at various squat gigs in London. 

The Astronauts kept at it with various line ups from the later 1970s through to this year, to those in the know Mark was one of the great lost songwriters but they were perhaps too unique to fit in with any particular scene.  On the anarcho-punk scene for instance their folky melodies were a bit of an anomaly, though All the Madmen records did release their great 'It's All Done by Mirrors' album in 1983. 

image from discogs

Like many bands in that period they played various benefit gigs including one  with the Redskins for striking miners at  Welwyn's Woodhall Community Centre in 1984. Earlier in 1979, under the name Restricted Hours, they had contributed to a Stevenage Rock Against Racism EP

image from Discogs


Last year in November I went to one of my first post-Covid gigs at the New Cross Inn in SE London, to see another set of anarcho-punk survivors Zounds supported by Hagar the Womb. I saw a long haired figure with a covid mask on and immediately recognised Mark Astronaut who I hadn't seen for 30 years. He joined Zounds on stage for a guest vocal on You Can't Cheat Karma, and I chatted to him briefly afterwards before he headed off to get his train back to Welwyn. He told me that the Astronauts had some gigs coming up and that a book about him was coming out soon - I haven't got round to getting a copy yet of Survivors - 45 years of the Astronauts, but by all accounts its a great history not just of the band but of the punk/alternative scenes around his part of the world. 


Mark Astronaut with Zounds at New Cross Inn in November 2021

I went to see The Astronauts at Club 85 in Hitchin only a few weeks ago, playing with Blyth Power and Pog. They were great, nobody knew then that would be one of his last gigs. So long and thank you Peter Pan of the suburbs.




The Astronauts at Club 85 in Hitchin in May 2022



 

See also