clair056

The Idle No More movement for indigenous rights started out in Canada last year, and has been marked by protests across the country and similar actions elsewhere, including in the United States. One of the tactics used has been the staging of flashmob round dances in shopping malls and other public spaces. Last week the movement reached Salt Lake City in Utah, with 75 people staging a dance in the Capitol rotunda in protest against official approval for tar-sands minining in the state (pictued below). Source: City Weekly, 21 February 2013 One of the biggest actions took place on January 13 2013 at West Edmonton Mall, the largest shopping mall in North America. According to Indian Country , 'a good 3,000 people showed up for an Idle No More flash mob at the West Edmonton Mall, staging a full-scale Grand Entry, the ceremonial procession that opens pow wow gatherings. Led by an eagle staff, equivalent to a national flag for many First Nations, the giant procession included rows of da...

On Redcross Way SE1 (near to London Bridge station), the site of a paupers' graveyard was discovered during construction of the Jubilee line on the London underground in the 1990s. Crossbones has become a remarkable unofficial shrine where people gather on the 23rd of every month to remember the outcast dead buried there, and also their more recently departed loved ones. Going past last week I noticed a notice in memory of Jason Fisher (1979-2011), aka Angryness and Brimstone - evidently a pirate radio stalwart from South London and Kent. The notice also says 'Pirate Radio is Good for Your Mind'. 'Brimstone' was particularly associated with Essence FM, broadcasting in Kent from the early noughties (FM 105.1 - 105.0, 2000-2007). According to farstep in a discussion at Radionecks , Essence 'used to broadcast from Thanet (usually from tower block flats in Margate or Ramsgate) used to be a great little station playing UKG, DnB, Happy Hardcore, House etc. ... anyway...

On Valentine's Day last week, there were flashmob dances and similar actions in at least 190 countries as part of One Billion Rising , a call to 'strike, dance, rise' and 'SAY NO to violence against women and girls': 'One in three woman on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime.... One billion women violated is an atrocity. ONE BILLION WOMEN DANCING IS A REVOLUTION. On V-Day's 15th Anniversary, Feb-14-2013, we are inviting one billion women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the worlds to see our collective strengths, our numbers, our solidarity across borders. Join V-Day and ONE BILLION RISING today and SAY NO to violence against women and girls'. One Billion Rising in DR Congo Dancing in the rain in Miami Dancing in New Delhi Jill Filipovic in The Guardian : 'It's our bodies that are...

The latest news on threatened record shop chain HMV is that administrators Deloitte have announced that 66 of the 220 shops will close when stocks run out - with no clear rescue plan for the remaining shops. Here's a document from an earlier period in the company's history. The first His Master's Voice shop opened in London's Oxford Street in 1921, but seemingly in the early 1930s many people still needed persuading that recorded music was worth buying. The 'Programme of His Masters Voice Record and Radio-Gramophone Demonstration' is from a November 1932 event at the YWCA in London. Seemingly the programme consisted of playing records by among others Gracie Fields, Yehudi Menuhin and the Masses Bands of the National Band Festival at Crystal Palace (as it happens I came across this programme in Haynes Lane market in Crystal Palace last week). 'Recorded music gives entertainment which is obtainable by no other means, for the programme can be made entirely to ...

No I don't mean the racist idiots of the English Defence League and the British National Party... they are yesterday's news. I refer of course to the anti-racists of the English Disco Lovers and the Bass National Party. This EDL launched on facebook last September, with the following statement: 'The English Disco Lovers is a counter movement to the English Defence League. We aim to promote equality, respect and disco. We intend to be more popular that the English Defence League. This involves replacing them as the top result when "EDL" is searched on Google, as well as having more like than them on Facebook. Earn Baby Earn, the respect of others by respecting them, Earn Baby Earn, Disco Inferno. It's fun to practice the e-qua-li-ty, it's fun to practice e-qua-li-ty (to the tune of YMCA by the Village People). But if you're thinking' about my baby, it don't matter if you're black or white. People all over the World (everybody), join hands ...

The Civic Hall in Dunstable, later renamed the Queensway, was built in 1966 and demolished to make way for an Asda supermarket in 2000. Growing up in neighbouring Luton, which despite its size had no decent sized music venue, the Queensway was the nearest place where bands of any national repute came to play. Sadly I was just a little too young to catch iconic gigs by The Sex Pistols and the Jam (October 1976 - only 80 people were there on the Anarchy in the UK tour), The Clash (May 1977 and January 1978) and Blondie (March 1978), and when shortly after a school friend's biker older brother took us to a couple of gigs there it was to see ex-Deep Purple heavy metal acts Ian Gillan Band and Whitesnake. In my school days we had to travel further afield for the good stuff, coach trips from Luton Bus Station to Aylesbury Friars to see Echo and the Bunnymen  (with Blue Orchids, Apri 1981) or the Undertones (May 1981), or to St Albans City Hall to see Hawkwin...

Sad to hear that Freedom Bookshop in Whitechapel High Street was damaged last night in an apparent arson attack. The anarchist centre in Angel Alley has been a fixture of radical London life for decades -  Freedom Press dates back to the 1880s, and I believe the current centre to the late 1930s. The place has been reinvigorated in the past few years as a base for various groups such as the Advisory Service for Squatters, and the scene of various social and cultural events under the banner of the Autonomy Club. Last time I was there was back in September 2012 for an event during their William Blake: Visionary Anarchist exhibition, featuring shamanic poetry from John Constable and music (photos below). It seems that most of the damage last night was to the ground floor bookshop space, though I can see a stack of Kropotkin's Mutual Aid undamaged there on the right. Some things are indestrucible! Back in 1993 there was an arson attack on Freedom, the culmination of a campaig...