bourbonese qualk live. DMA2 1988

bourbonese qualk. dma2 bourdeax 1988

DMA was a record label and music promotion organisation based in Bordeaux who were best known for the annual DMA2 ‘Divergences/Divisions’ music festival during the late eighties. This festival became one of the most respected ‘experimental with an industrial slant’ music event in Europe and featured such stars as as Legendary Pink Dots, Nocturnal Emissions, The Hafler Trio, laibach and of course, Bourbonese Qualk.

Beyond the wall: new music from China

Yan Jun with Wu Na & David Coulter/ White/ FM3/ Xiao He

Barbican St Luke’s London. 26-04-2009

‘Beyond the wall’ is a rare chance to glimpse the musical innovation that is taking place in China right now. Modern Chinese music is usually ‘state approved’, uncontroversial and sanitised i.e. the ubiquitous Mando/Canto Pop which almost exclusively dominates the airwaves and record stores. Despite and maybe because of this commercialism an experimental counter-culture has developed over the last decade under the radar of official or unofficial state control. Characterised by a noisy and experimental approach and championed by a loose pan-Chinese coalition of oddballs, new middle class youth and eccentric musicians; this music is the direct polar opposite of the banalities of Chinese Pop:

Riot diary. g20 pictures and videos, 1-4-2009

This is a video i took after gaining access to the RBS Building (Royal Bank Of Scotland – notorious for incompetence, hubris and corruption) with twenty or so other individuals. The offices were quickly set alight and i made my escape up the fire escape persued by a number of portly riot cops, who, encumbered by shields, batons, armour, helmets and excessive body fat took several minutes to make the ascent. The short fideo clip shows the banking district of the City Of London occupied by massed anarchist hordes.

where’s the riot?

In advance of  tomorrows events: a ‘print-out and keep’ map of all the happenings c/0 Indymedia:

see you’s there…

“Summer of rage” round one: G20 Meltdown

“Anyone who was working in the City in 1999 will remember how awful those riots were. There were riot police banked outside my office and all the tube stations closed so I had to walk for miles through what was effectively a war zone. It was absolutely terrifying and I’m afraid I can’t believe there is anything more behind it than a desire to cause as much damage and mayhem as possible. The mindset is no better than that of football hooligans, if not worse. I for one will be taking April 1st as a day’s holiday rather than risk putting myself through anything like that again.”

London Evening Standard march 2009

 

Musical roads of the world.

Steen Krarup Jensen and Jakob Freud-Magnus building the Asphaltophone

back in the seventies novelty cereal packet gifts reached a zenith of inventiveness and surreality.My particular favourite was a sound player ‘toy’ – basically a strip of red plastic, shaped like a cable tie, with audio samples encoded into grooves in the strip. The idea was to fit one end to a hole in the empty cereal packet and run your fingernail along the strip at a constant speed. the cereal box acted as an sound box, amplifying the vibrations delighting the astonished breakfast audience with audio clips from history, if my memory serves me correctly, Chamberlain’s “…and here is the paper” and Churchill’s ” some chicken, some neck” amongst others.

how to be invisible

I’ve always been of the opinion that people over concerned with surveillance and data security are displaying the first stages of clinical paranoia. It’s well known, for those that care to look, that the UK police and military have in their possession technology which enables them to track individuals movements visually and electronically (think of google maps ++), trace your behaviour (spending, travelling, health, political persuasion), listen in to conversations and so-on – our only real defence against this intrusion has been the plod/MOD’s incompetence at cross referencing and interpreting the mass of data they’ve so carefully collated.

Britain is one of the world’s most surveyed society; It is estimated (2002 figures) that the United Kingdom is watched by over 4.2 million CCTV cameras. This equates to one camera for every fourteen people; each UK subject is recorded on average by up to three hundred cameras a day. Surveillance has become part of our lives; we’ve become used to accepting surveillance as a shield against crime and terrorism, sacrificing our privacy for the apparent greater good. However a recent trend is the movement of commercial organisation into the field of surveillance and “dataveillance” – using similar unregulated techniques and technologies global corporations are starting to watch you. Is it time to get paranoid?

Top of the Nazi pops: towards a racially pure top ten

“We are on the verge of moving into the music business in a big way – something with enormous cultural, political and financial potential.”

BNP Chairman Mr. Nick Griffin 2005

What would British music sound like if it was free of racial ‘impurities’ and  foreign influence, what would the undefiled, ‘indigenous’ British top ten sound like? The obvious answer would be that it wouldn’t sound like anything because music has been for millenia a fertile mix of multiple cultural influences echoing the mixed racial and cultural profile of the people who make it. Despite this, white supremacists seem intent on defining ‘M.O.W.I.’ – Music of White Origin –  as the genre of choice of the true white indigenous British race.

“Muslimgauze: Chasing the Shadow of Bryn Jones”

Ibrahim’s encyclopedic book on the history and music of Muslingauze is finally finished “Muslimgauze: Chasing the Shadow of Bryn Jones” will soon be available from amazon:

“A decade after his untimely passing, Bryn Jones, better known as Muslimgauze, left behind a staggering catalogue of published and unreleased music that continues to be appreciated by dedicated fans as well as converts to industrial, techno, hip-hop, dancehall reggae and dubstep styles. Manchester-born Jones was both prolific and controversial. Working alone in his bedroom studio, Muslimgauze’s music highlighted the struggles of the Muslim world against the West, with the Palestine/Israel conflict as the focal point.”

Athens-London

‘Anarchist’ riots continue for the fifth day in Greece triggered by the police murder of  teenage boy and popular disgust at the self serving and corruption ridden right-wing government.  Here in London our own home-grown police murder goes almost unnoticed and  without a stone being thrown. The verdict from the  Jean Charles De Menezes killing inquest is expected today, yet in an outrageously blatant attempt at controlling the outcome  - echoing the history of Police lies and attempts at cover-up throughout the proceedings- the Coroner (Sir Michael Wright) instructed the jury to only deliver an ‘open’ or ‘lawful killing’ verdict.