clair056

The New Musical Express Guide to Rock & Roll London was a cut out and keep booklet given away with the NME in ealry 1978 - my copy is not dated, but it advertises a forthcoming event coming up at Easter 1978. I'm going to scan it and put some of it up over the next few weeks, starting with this guide to reggae venues and shops in the capital at that time. The listed venues include Dougie's Hideaway Club in Archway N18, Club Noreik in Seven Sisters Road N15 and the Bouncing Ball Club (43 Peckham High Street SE15), the latter offering 'Good Bar, plus hot Jamaica patties. Spacious club with congenial atmosphere, featuring top-line JA and UK reggae acts, plus some soul. Admiral Ken Sounds'. Reggae record shops included Hawkeye in Harlesden, Daddy Kool (Tottenham Court Road), M&D (36a Dalston Lane E8), Greensleeves (Shepherds Bush), Dub Vendor (Clapham Junction market - which survived in the area until last year), Third World Records (113 Stoke Newington Road N16) an...

While huge amounts of  money are being pumped into the top down spectacle of the Olympics, England's long established culture of African-Caribbean led community carnivals is under threat from a mixture of funding cuts and increasingly restrictive policing and licensing constraints. The St Pauls Carnival in Bristol has taken place every year but one since 1967, with 90,000 taking part last year. But there will be no Carnival in 2012 , with the organisers saying that they do not have the funds to organise the event and comply with the regulations. Now Lee Jasper has highlighted that Notting Hill Carnival, the biggest in Europe, may not happen. The authorities seem happy to allow it to drift into being cancelled with the organisation responsible for it in recent years not functioning and local Councils making little or no effort to encourage any replacement. As Jasper says: 'The history of the Notting Hill Carnival and the reason for its existence are firmly rooted in the ideals ...

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on this day, 19th May 1925. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written by him with Alex Haley, was published shortly after his assassination in 1965. Much of the book concerns his involvement with, and later break from the Nation of Islam. But the earlier part of the book contains some fascinating memories of nightlife in Boston and New York in the early 1940s. In Boston, Malcolm worked as a shoeshine boy at the Roseland Ballroom and was clearly a big fan of the music played there. He talks approvingly of seeing Peggy Lee, Benny Gordman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and many others, and recalled the fierce dancing competitions: '"Showtime" people would start hollering about the last hour of the dance. Then a couple of dozen really wild couples would stay on the floor, the girls changing to low-white sneakers. The band now would really be blasting, and all the other dancers would form a clapping, shouting circle to watch that wild competition ...