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A chronology of events in the UK (See also   Welcome to 1984 ; February 1984 ) 1984 started with various strikes, including the early rumblings of what would soon become the national miners strike. The armed conflict was continuing in the North of Ireland, with the row continuing about the mass escape of IRA prisoners in the previous September. The movement against nuclear weapons was focused particularly on Greenham Common in Berkshire, where women had established a peace camp... Tues. 3 January: 110 workers go on strike over pay at Phillips Rubber Ltd, Dantzic street, Manchester [Hansard, 5.7.84] Tues. 3 January: 21 Greenham women arrested after sit-in at Little Chef restaurant in Newbury. They were protesting about being banned from the premises, the nearest to the peace camp [GH, 4 Jan) Thurs. 5 January: planned national shipyard strike called off by unions [T.6.1.84]; Land Rover workers vote to strike (but this is also later called off by unions). Mon. 9 January: Sarah Tisdall...

A while ago I put together a mix for Stefan Szczelkun's Agit Disco series of political music, which was later included in the book of the same name . Myself and various other Agit Disco selectors are taking part in a benefit for Housmans , the long established radical bookshop at Kings Cross. The event takes place at Surya,  154-156 Pentonville Rd, London N1 on  Thursday 10th April,  7pm to Midnight. Full details follow... 'We’d like to invite you to come along to a special fundraising DJ shindig, being put on by Housmans alongside the good people involved with the Agit Disco book (Mute Books 2011). We’ll be taking over both floors of local eco-music venue Surya, and filling it with guest selec tors who featured in the Agit Disco book. The music policy on both floors will be nothing but the best politically-charged tunes ever recorded. Selectors on the night include: Sian Addicott Martin Dixon John Eden Marc Garrett Nik Górecki Caroline Heron Stewart Home Paul Jamrozy Mi...

Stuart Hall (1932-2014), who died yesterday, was of course one of the founders of 'cultural studies', and one of the first British-based critical thinkers to take seriously youth sub-cultures. In 1975 he edited, with Tony Jefferson, the influential ' Resistance through rituals: youth sub-cultures in post-war Britain '. In the 1950s Hall moved from Jamaica to Oxford Universtity and then to London, where he helped edit the Universities and Left Review and then the New Left Review. One of his earlier published articles, Absolute Beginnings: Reflections on the Secondary Modern Generation (ULR 7, 1959), was informed by his experience of teaching in a South London school - Secondary Moderns accommodated the majority of working class pupils who failed the 11+ exams for the more academic and better-resourced Grammar Schools. One of the things Hall documents in this article is the transition from 'teddy boy' fashions to mod styles, with a close attention to what people...

When Pete Seeger (1919-2014) was born the First World had only just finished. I don't feel so much sad that he has died this week almost a century later as amazed that his life, singing and activism has spanned such a long period of historical hopes, tragedies, victories and defeats. 'this machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender' image of Seeger from 'Carry it on"' Pete Seeger's biggest direct influence on me was via a book rather than through his singing. 'Carry it On! A history in song and picture of the working men and women of America' was written by Seeger with Bob Reiser and first published in 1985. The book grew out of a 1982 call from Seeger, in the folk magazine 'Sing out' to 'commemorate the Haymarket Affair and celebrate working people and the growth of the unions'.  The book provides a potted history of U.S. struggles from the late 18th century onwards, with some amazing illustrations and photographs. But what ...

'New Orleans means music' So what word comes to mind when you hear the name 'New Orleans'? Other than 'flood' it's probably 'music'. But the city's live music scene is under threat of new restrictions from a proposed new 'Noise Ordinance'. 'The Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans' is on the case and last week (17 January), musicians and their supporters converged en masse to protest at a Council meeting at New Orleans City Hall. Hundreds of people protested outside and then inside complete with their musical instruments. Picture from Louisiana Justice Institute As summarised by Offbeat the proposal 'maintains the current city noise ordinance (which is decades old) mandate that noise ordinance violations in the City of New Orleans are a criminal, versus civil, offense, and therefore criminalizes musicians who receive a noise violation citation'. It also 'sets the legal limit for public music at 60 decibels, a ...

Well 1984 was thirty years ago, so why not use the arbitrary temporal conventions of decade-based anniversaries as an excuse for a series of posts on that year? First of all, some reflections on the lead up to that year: 'Someday they won't let you,   so now you must agree The times they are a-telling,   and the changing isn't free You've read it in the tea leaves,   and the tracks are on TV Beware the savage jaw   Of 1984' (David Bowie) 1984 was no ordinary year. For a start it was a year carrying an ominous weight of dystopian expectations before it even started.  Of course George Orwell was to blame, writing in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and, after some hesitation, choosing in 1948 to call his novel 1984.  If Orwell had stuck with his original working title, The Last Man in Europe, the sense of foreboding as 1984 approached would not have existed in the same way.  As it was, his novel had been continuously in print ever since an...

'I'm your man: the life of Leonard Cohen' (2012) is an excellent biography of everybody's favourite Jewish-Buddhist-Canadian singer/poet. With nearly 80 busy years behind him there's certainly plenty of material for a book like this, and Sylvie Simmons has interviewed the man himself and many of his friends, collaborators and lovers. One of the revelations to me was Cohen's time in London before his musical career. Cohen stayed at a boarding house in Hampstead from December 1959 to March 1960, working on a novel. With Nancy Bacal, a friend from Montreal, he drank regularly in the King William IV pub in Hampstead. After closing time they would explore the night time city, wandering around Soho and the East End. They went to the legendary All-Nighters at the Flamingo club on Wardour Street, with its mixed black and white crowd dancing to jazz and R&B. Bacal recalled that 'There was so much weed in the air that it felt like walking into a painting of smoke...