Monday, April 30, 2007
NEW CULTURE: MONOCLE MAGAZINE
This is a rare bird, purchased at Lewes station newsagents: a genuinely original and almost eccentric magazine/journal both in format, style, design and intention. The brainchild of the splendidly named Tyler Brûlé (surely the invention of a master chef or Tom Wolfe), there is obviously a lot of money behind it: HQ in central London, bureaux in Tokyo, New York and Zurich. There is an impressive and tres sophistique website, sponsored by Rolex. Here can be found the concepts and history underpinning Monocle. 'We believe its time, ' they say, 'for a new, global, European-based media brand.'
I scanned every page of Monocle and read a high percentage of it. I also made notes of things that I learnt: 1) Gronigen is the World Cycling City - it has 150,000 residents and 300,000 bikes. 2) There were 500m cyclists in China until a decade ago but bike ownership has fallen 25% in the last five years; car ownership increased 20% last year alone to 22m 3) The highest car ownership in the world is in Liechtenstein (718 per 1,000 head of population) whilst Nigeria, oen of the world's largest oil-producingt nations has only 2 per 1,000. New Zealanders only take 2% of their journeys by bus and 1% by rail. Car ownership there is 655 per 1,000. 4) Less than 4% of the world's air traffic is in Africa but one-third of the world's air disasters happen there. 5) There is a sushi boom in Moscow 6) At the biggest ice cream trade fair in the world, they were selling cuttlefish ice cream and gorgonzola ice cream with prune sauce. 7) TOTO build the world's most intelligent toilet - The Washlet - which will, amongst other things, wash your bottom and even blowdry it to the sound of music. 8) The world's largest bicycle firm is Giant in Taiwan, run by 73-year old Mr Lin, whose dream it is to make Taiwan a cycling island 9) The best bikes in the world are made in the Nordic countries and Japan. 10) There is a good-looking music shop in New York called Other Music and a great mag shop in Lisbon called Tema.
Monocle feels good, is easy to read, entertaining and fresh. Worth £5.00. Issue 4 is out in a few days.
[Footnote: I bought a great magazine in Lisbon once, a special issue of 'American Photographer' on Cartier-Bresson, which helped keep me together during a flight through a thunderstorm on our way to Orly.]
Friday, April 27, 2007
BEAT BOOKS 2
Following on from my post about the discovery a rare signed copy of a book by beat poet Jack Micheline in a Lewes second-hand bookshop ( seeJack Micheline: Beat Writer), the Beat Library was further enhanced by the gift of two great books, purchased in a second-hand bookshop in Castlemaine, in Victoria's Gold Rush region by friend and poet Lin Heyworth. [For new poem by her, see end of this post]
The Ginsberg book by ex-Fug Ed Sanders (published by the Overlook Press in Woodstock) in 2000) is a book-length poetic narrative (in Ginsberg's style), recounting the poet's life and times. Sanders writes: 'The life of Allen Ginsberg was very complicated, so 'The Poetry & Life of Allen Ginsberg' is really a kind of pathway through the Forest Ginsberg.'
It really is a wonderful book, and ideal prelude to reading the two major biographies - 'Ginsberg' by Barry Miles and 'Dharma Lion' by Michael Schumacher - and engaging with the poetry itself. A truly remarkable man. Sanders has also produced '1968: A History in Verse' and one volume of 'America: A History in Verse' which I shall report back on.
See Previous Post: My article on Ginsberg - A Prophet on the Electric Networks - based on the interview I did with him in Miles' flat in London on April 25th 1985.
The copy of Book of Dreams is a 1973 seventh printing of the City Lights edition first published in 1961. It features a wonderfully atmospheric cover photo by the legendary photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank.
[Kerouac wrote an introductory essay for Frank's wonderful book of black and white photography 'The Americans.' This was originally published in 1959 by Robert Delpire in Paris and Grove Press in New York. There was a 1968 Museum of Modern Art edition published by Aperture Press, which is in the Beat Library alongside the more recent reprint from Cornerhouse Publications in Manchester (1993)]
It was while Jack was working in North Carolina at the Rocky Mount Textile Mill that he began the dream notebooks that form this book. They were typed up when he was living with his mother (Memere) in Richmond Hill. Jack saw his dreams as another extension of spontaneous writing, almost automatic writing.
He wrote: 'The style of a person half awake from sleep and ripping it out in pencil by the bed, yes pencil, what a job! bleary eyes, insaned mind bemused and mystified by sleep, details that pop out even as you write them you don't know what they mean, till you wake up, have coffee, look at it, and see the logic of dreams in dream language itself, see?' (JK to Al Aronowitz in the New York Post (10.3.59)
Barry Miles devotes a couple of pages (pp 236-237) of his excellent Kerouac bio ('Jack Kerouac: King of The Beats' [Virgin Books. 2002]) to discussing 'Book of Dreams' and warning against snap judgments, quoting Freud as to the dangers of analysing dreams without knowing the context in which the dreams occured. The book contains many of the characters from his novels in bizarre situations, such characters all being based on people he knows with nom de plumes. Thus the real-life Neal Cassady appears in 'On the Road' as Dean Moriarty and in this book as Cody Pomeray.
In Kerouac's own foreword he writes '...the fact that everybody in the world dreams every night ties all mankind together shall we say in one unspoken Union and also proves that the world is really transcendental...'
*
The Moolort Plains: Victoria Australia 2007
And the sky opens up
Domes out egg blue
Into the delicate horizon
Possessed by an egg.
And the clouds rear
And buckle on its edge
And make no inroads
The spare and bony land
Beneath unfurls its map
A landscape barely written on
All scribbled over with spindly trees
And the heat beats in on the plains
The great grey stone slabbed ruins
Stand square and hollow eyed
In the face of - nothing
Once I saw a harvest moon
Rise over these hushed plains
To create its own comic universe
In denial of the living
The blank empty enormity of it all
reeled beneath
Lin Heyworth
Previous Posting: A Journalist's Death of Socrates by Lin Heyworth
And the sky opens up
Domes out egg blue
Into the delicate horizon
Possessed by an egg.
And the clouds rear
And buckle on its edge
And make no inroads
The spare and bony land
Beneath unfurls its map
A landscape barely written on
All scribbled over with spindly trees
And the heat beats in on the plains
The great grey stone slabbed ruins
Stand square and hollow eyed
In the face of - nothing
Once I saw a harvest moon
Rise over these hushed plains
To create its own comic universe
In denial of the living
The blank empty enormity of it all
reeled beneath
Lin Heyworth
Previous Posting: A Journalist's Death of Socrates by Lin Heyworth
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
THE BEAST MEETS PLANET CHICKEN
I founded The Beast magazine ('The Magazine That Bites Back') which was first published in June 1979. It ran for ten issues until Summer 1981. It was possibly the world's first newstand magazine on animal liberation and welfare.At that time, these issues were very marginalised and considered quite extreme. There was scant knowledge about what was being done to animals, compared to today, and the number of animal groups and people seriously involved was small.
So when I read in Hattie Ellis' book about the size and scale of the activities of Compassion for World Farming it is more than encouraging. In the days of The Beast it was a tiny shoestring operation, struggling for the oxygen of publicity. And it is good to read in her excellent book of the Real Meat company and people who are genuinely and actively worked to change livestock practices and welfare within the UK and abroad. Heartening in fact. And to read about the undeniably growing level of concern and awareness amongst shoppers, the growth of farmer's markets and the 'slow food' movement. Brilliant.
But in order to reach these causes for optimism, one has to take a journey through the first half of the book, into some very dark sheds where we are forced to confront - nay experience, such is Ms Ellis' skill - the realities of what we are doing to the chickens, or rather what is being done to them in our names by others.
I had rather naively begun to think that some real progress had and was being made in animal welfare. After all, we had been through Foot and Mouth and BSE and with Bird Flu looming like a Beak of Damocles, you would think that hygiene and biosecurity alone would drive reform.
Such is not the case.
Ms Ellis tells us that we are in the centre of a Livestock Revolution equivalent to the Green Revolution in agriculture of the 1960s/70s. More of the world want to eat meat on a regular basis and chicken is the meat of choice. It is a lower status meat and thus cheaper and available to all. It accounts for the majority of the 50 billion food animals eaten worldwide each year.
In order to meet this insatiable appetite for chicken, we humans have built an industrial production line system of infinite cruelty, one virtually guaranteed to ensure that the short life of these young birds is as full of as much pain and distress as possible. I'll spare you the details but this book won't.
Some glacially slow progress towards better animal welfare has been made but the figures speak for themselves. The majority of chickens are still subject to barbaric conditions - more than 96% in the UK are raised in 'factory farms' - .with little expectation of that changing much over the medium future. Unless we do something about it that is. That is only buy the best organic or highest welfare chicken you can find. It will be more expensive so you will eat it less but appreciate it more. Or become a vegetarian.
Consumers can create change and there is an urgent need to make it happen. We need to vote with our wallets, to force supermarkets and giant chicken producers to move rapidly towards humane farming methods, and with our votes to pressure our legislators to change the laws - or enforce the existing welfare legislation we have more effectively.
'Planet Chicken' is an important book, engagingly written, shocking and sensuous by turns. The author, a distinguished food writer of boundless curiosity, with many fine books already to her credit, employs her trademark technique of getting away from the desk and out onto the land and into the market and kitchen, to meet people of all kinds and many cultures, seeing the reality for herself, asking the right questions and remaining by turns full of delight and disgust at what she discovers.
The book leads us through a dark underworld, points a light towards an optimistic future and gives us the information we need to do our bit. It is a work of bravery which will encourage and challenge many to take up the task of creating a more humane future for all farmed creatures.
'Planet Chicken' by Hattie Ellis (Sceptre. £14.99)
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
INSIDE DOPE: OPERATION JULIE REVISITED
This is the original text of a piece I wrote on the Operation Julie story - Britain's largest LSD bust - as Dick Tracy for the NME (published March 18th, 1978) shortly after the verdicts had gone down. Published over two pages with pics (can you imagine that in the NME now). Additional research by Mike Marten.
It is very much of its time and I think reflects the widespread community/ street feeling that the whole thing had been hyped up to fit authoritarian agendas through the mouthpiece of the national press. Also that the sentences were savage.
OPERATION JULIE
"Never in the history of British crime has the police public relations been so effective and so exaggerated. It has been accepted blindly and blithely by all concerned."
- Defence lawyer
In an incredible display of media hand-holding, the official version of the Operation Julie story has now been splashed across the headlines of the press and featured on primetime TV.
It's a comforting picture of police efficiency smashing an evil international drug network so that the schoolkids of our nation can be protected from the threat of that of "heaven-or-hell" drug LSD. Comforting maybe — but accurate?
Simply put, the police offered the press their version of an exciting story, and they took it hook, line and sinker.
Of course, in a story this complicated, where everyone has an axe to grind, there is no such thing as he "ultimate truth". But in choosing to serve up only the police version of the story, and lace it with biased comment and questionable facts, most of the national media have shown themselves once-again to be unreliable and only too willing to cooperate with the authorities.
What follows is an attempt to show up some of the media inconsistencies, and to provide some alternative views on what the BBC described as "the most sustained and successful police investigations ever carried out."
POLICE POLITICS
In order to fully understand the police's attitude and hence the press's stand on Operation Julie, it is necessary to realise that the whole affair had a great deal to do with internal police politics.
The 28-strong Julie team, seconded from eleven different police forces, worked outside the traditional police structures as an elite crew, and their activities formed the basis for Det Chief Supt Greenslade's vision for a national drug squad.
The team, characterised by the Mirror as "a handful of shabby supercops", were so secretive that, according to The Times, even the Metropolitan Police did not know about the planned raids until the last possible moment.
The Julie squad used every available trick in the book to break the case. At the farm in
Foremost among these was Detective Sergeant Martin Pritchard, described by the Mail as "more hippy than policeman".Interestingly, the Mirror, who published his own story, revealed that they had taken a picture of Pritchard when he had to give evidence after he bust a cannabis racket in 1975. He said:"The Daily Mirror published a rear-view picture of me so that it wouldn't blow my cover."
Even Detective Chief Inspector Lee, the operations expert from the Thames Valley Drug Squad, indulged in fancy dress, posing as "a
The main leads were provided by Ron Stark, a former associate who shopped the others when busted for heroin in
As the Mail pointed out, Lee knew of the existence of the acid factory at the Welsh Mansion House in Carno for some time before the final raids. According to them: “He knew the drugs from the Mansion House would be distributed throughout the world. He knew they would be taken by young pople whose lives could be ruined – they might even die as a result. He knew he could stop their sale by raiding the house, he decided not to. This the Mail presented not as a criticism but as a picture of Lee’s heroic dilemma
Perhaps as a result of Lee's delay tactics, two key figures — the international dealer American Paul Annabaldi and an Israeli named Zahi — escaped cdespite being under surveillance for some time.
Following their success, real or overstated, Greenslade and others began pushing their idea for a super-police unit – an FBI style national drug squad – who, they claimed, would be able to combat the drug menace more effectively. Many papers took their lead and made their own demands for such a force to be set up – notably the Mirror and the Express.
All the comments on this — including the bitter denunciations by the six members of the Julie squad who have resigned amidst complaints about "penny-pinching" by Whitehall, and their bitching about the police treating them as regular coppers rather than continuing the impetus of Operation Julie into a special force — should be seen in this context: as an attempt to pressurise the Home Office into setting up a special task force which neither they nor most local chief constables deem necessary. Greenslade boasted: "The operation was successful beyond my wildest dreams. This could pave the way for a national police force." Presumably, also in his dreams, with Detective Chief Superintendent Greenslade at the helm.
It was obvious that following the-huge police operation, including dawn raids by 800 police on March 26 1977, that much would have to be made of this case in order to justify the huge expenditure involved.
Greenslade was at pains to point out in the press that: "In two years' operation Julie cost £500,000 - but normal wages, transport and expenses have to be deducted. We hope to reciver enough in cash and property so that it will have cost
THE NUMBERS GAME
Throughout the press reporting on the Julie case, numbers have been thrown about with gay abandon. How much LSD was actually produced?
The Mail claims 15 million doses; the Times 20-60 million, supplying a dozen countries. The Mirror claimed that in 1976 alone the gang’s turnover reached an estimated £200 million — equal to that of the British Homes Stores. This is disputed by the defence lawyer we spoke to - he claimed that the total syndicate take was nearer £700,000:throughout their entire operations.
Then there was the question of what fraction of the total LSD market the syndicate's output represented. The Mirror claimed it was "two-thirds of the world's supply," the BBC News said 90 per cent of Britain's and 60 percent of the world's supply, while-Greenslade told the Express: "In our view 95 percent of LSD in Britain was coming from this source and so was half the world's supply " Of course, these things are impossible to gauge, but the mere act of printing them renders them 'official'. When it came to the street price the estimates were even more diverse. The Express claimed that it was £l a tab when the syndicate was in operation but that, since the bust, the street price had shot 
up to £5 or even £8 a tab, a fact quoted in court. On the other hand, the Times said: "Last week in
Release, who are closer to the street than any Fleet Street journalist is ever likely to get, told Thrills that bulk price was now £40 for 4,000 (l0p a tab) with street price at £1. They also claimed that LSD, far from drying up, is now "almost as easily obtainable as cannabis ', putting the lie to the police's claim to have wiped out
Other random statistics appeared in print with no hint as to where they came from. An unknown 1973 survey was quoted which suggested that 600,000 people in
LSD PARANOIA
It has been standard practice in the British and American media for many years now to distort the true nature of the drug LSD. Medical research into the subject has been officially frowned on, but nevertheless there is a considerable body of evidence available, enough to refute most of the basic untruths. Needless to say, medical facts were ignored in favour of selling newspapers. Operation Julie provided the press with a field day, allowing them to dust off all the old cliches and trot them out into print.
The piece continued: ‘Her father said: “She liked pop records but many of them by people like David Bowie mentioned drugs. I suppose she didn't want to be square and felt she had to 'try it'.” Other young people who ended up in hospital from an LSD trip have lived — or rather, have not died. They have stayed there staring at the walls, transfixed with a terror they cannot explain and cannot be freed from."
Ironically, in a moment of high comedy, proof of LSD effects were provided by three policemen, who accidentally tripped out while cleaning up one of the acid factories.None of them jumped
out of the windows or became uncontrollably homicidal. Nonetheless, the Police Federation is now backing their claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.
Mind you, the press were only following the lead of the police. In the Guardian a police spokesman said that half the admissions to mental hospitals in the
The police in turn were supported in their attitude by the trial judge,
Surprisingly only the BBC report by their science correspondent provided an accurate analysis of the drug's effect, pointing out, for instance, that it is not addictive.And nobody at all mentioned the fact that acidheads have gone almost totally underground these past few years — or, at least, acid has become completely unfashionable.
THE DEFENDANTS
The defendants stood little chance, it seems, against the weight of public opinion which, in turn, was shaped by the media. They were variously described as the "international firm of L.S.D. (Unlimited)" and "one of the most educated teams of criminals the world has ever known."
The Guardian said "the flower of British post-war education were in the dock" and, described them as a mixture of evangelists, middle-aged Americans and get-rich-quick merchants, many of them
Christine Bott and Richard Kemp were typically characterised as star-crossed lovers and tarnished idealists but, as Release pointed out, by providing the finest quality acid ever produced, Kemp ... could be claimed to have been providing “community service". His acid was "less likely to have negative effects" due to the fact that the impurities, which often cause the teeth grinding and stomach churning which sometimes lead to bummers, had been removed.
The Leary connection was another interesting aspect of the case's coverage. There was no hard evidence to support this, of course, but mention LSD and you're bound to find
Even worse was the piece in the Evening Standard headlined: EXPLODING THE MYTH OF POP FESTIVALS. It read: ‘The myth that free pop festivals were innocent happenings where youth did its own harmless thing and sought peace through flower power has been finally exposed by the Operation Julie drugs trials.’ They further claimed that, at the trial, ‘pop festivals and the vast open-air happenings were finally shown up in their true form — as gatherings financed out of LSD manufacturing profits to attract hard-core drug takers with sufficient numbers of innocent fans to cover up the illicit drug trafficking and introduction to the drugs scene of new recruits.’ So much for the Standard's understanding and attitude towards the youth culture.
EPILOGUE
Perhaps the saddest aspect of the whole affair is the lack of support and interest from the 'hip' or head community. International Times editors Max Handley and Lyn Solomon (David'sdaughter) are writing a book on the whole affair, all royalties from which will got to the defendants - most of whom are appealing.
But a few short years ago Kemp and Co would have been hailed as "psychedelic outlaws". Now it seems most people are content to accept the official word on the subject and go back to their Bovril and bedroom slippers. On the other hand, many people I spoke to were beside themselves with anger at the whitewash job performed on the affair.
The only positive aspect of the case is that many lawyers, angry at the sentencing, are planning to push for a new law which would make the appropriate distinctions between LSD and other hard drugs like heroin, and change sentencing policy accordingly. After all, the people involved in the largest heroin ring ever busted in
Only one thing is going to change this kind of inconsistency in the law — an inconsistency fostered by the police and perpetrated by the national press — and that's concerted pressure in the face of public witch-hunts such as Operation Julie. Pressure from you.
The republished book 'The Brotherhood of Eternal Love' (see previous post),records what has happened to some of the main protagonists since this story was written.'Ron Stark was the man who linked the activities of the Brotherhood and the LSD chemists who succeeded them in Britain. He died in a San Francisco hospital in 1984, from heart disease...
'The chemists and dealeers caught in Operation Julie have largely disappeared. David Solomon, who started the English connection, is dead. His chemist Richard Kemp and Kemp's girldfriend Christine Bott, apparently retreated into anonymity after serving their sentences. Henry Todd served seven and a half years of a thirteen year sentence and then followed his love of mountaineering ot Nepal and a career running one of the largest climbing supply companies. By his mid- 50s he had become a ccontroversial legend among climbers in the Himalayas for his no-frills operation based in Nepal. In the summer of 2006 he and two others faced a private prosecution for manslaughter mommounted by the family of a climber who died climbing on Everest but the case was thrown out.
'Dick Lee, the man who put Todd behind bars, left the police to become a freelance journalist and shop-owner. His book on the investigation drew sharp criticisms from former coplleagues who felt he had gone too far in describing police operations such as telephone tapping, not normally discussed publicly at that time.'
Saturday, April 21, 2007
LSD and THE BROTHERHOOD
This is an updated reissue of the book which has become a cult classic since its first publication in 1984. Written by the former Sunday Times journalist David May and The Times' crime correspondent Stewart Tendler, it is a textbook example of solid investigative reporting into the history of LSD in general and the underground characters behind its manufacture and distribution during the '60s and '70s in particular.
Based on scores of original interviews with many of the key particpants - both lawbreakers and feds - it take us into a clandestine world where visionary chemists linked to the Grateful Dead and the utopian Brotherhood of Eternal Love conspire to produce enough LSD to power a cultural revolution.
The scale of their ambition and activities, inspired by the antics of Timothy Leary (one of the book's central characters), requires their engagement with Hell's Angels, career criminals, professional fantasists and other duplicitous and shadowy figures who often turn out to be undercover agents or intelligence operatives. The links extend to a major LSD production ring in the UK, who were famously brought to trial in the late 1970s by a massive police operation codenamed 'Operation Julie.'
A fresh epilogue in this new edition traces the fate of all the book's main characters up to the present day and provides a valuable historical perspective on a utopian time when it really did seem likely that this 'problem child' (the phrase used to describe LSD by its discoverer, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman) could change the course of history. Certainly it changed the minds of thousands of key creative people during this period.
In a world of half-baked conspiracy theories and loosely researched internet tittle-tattle, in which myth and supposition take the place of documented fact, it is easy to see why this important intensively detailed work continues to maintain its credibility - it's a powerful tale well told, happily devoid of emotional judgments but stuffed with extraordinary tales and characters.
'The Brotherhood of Eternal Love' - by Stewart Tendler & David May [Cyan Books. London]
(Left) Cover of the original version, now a collector's edition, published by Panther Books in 1984 [The Generalist Archive]
Interesting LSD Links:
'Revealed: Dentist who introduced Beatles to LSD' by Ian Herbert (The Independent 9.12.06)
'The trip goes on' - It was the drug that fuelled the psychedelic 60s - and was tested as a weapon by MI6. But whatever became of LSD? Duncan Campbell traces its colourful past, and finds that the acidhead are still out thereThe Guardian 28.2.07
Nine drawings done by an artist under the influence of LSD
‘MI6 pays out over secret LSD mind control tests’ - Rob Evans (The Guardian 24.2.06). ‘The Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, has paid thousands of pounds in compensation to servicemen who were fed LSD without their consent in clandestine mind-control experiments in the 1950s. MI6 has agreed an out-of-court settlement with the men, who said they were duped into taking part in the experiments and had waited years to learn the truth.’
The full text of Albert Hoffman's book 'LSD - My Problem Child'Slideshow: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug ? (Wired 16.1.06) Participants from around the globe came to
‘A dose of madness’ - Johan Jensen (The Guardian 8.8.02) Forty years ago, two psychiatrists administered history's largest dose of LSD.
'Psychiatrist calls for end to 30-year taboo over use of LSD as a medical treatment - Sarah Bosley (The Guardian 11.1.06)
Leonardo DiCaprio to play Timothy Leary?
AUDIO GENERALIST NEW
Two great new exclusive longform interviews have been added to our audio site.
Everett True (below) talks about his new book on Nirvana
Nick Kent (right) talks around the subject of 'The Dark Stuff', his classic collection of rock journalism, recently republished in an updated version.
Enjoy them both at www.thegeneralist.co.uk
Friday, April 20, 2007
WE HAVE WON
Press Release20 April 2007
Greene King announces reinstatement of Harveys at the Lewes Arms
The reinstatement of Harveys to the Lewes Arms has been announced today. Greene King Local Pubs managing director Jonathan Lawson and regional manager Andrea Greenwood were at the pub today talking to their team and to the regulars, and letting them know of the decision. Jonathan said that the order for the beer had been placed and that following secondary fermentation in the cellar, it should be ready to drink towards the end of next week.
“We are passionate supporters of cask beer, are proud of our own brews and have recognised the intensity of feeling around Harveys at the Lewes Arms.” He said that the history of the pub, including its role as former brewery tap, combined with activities ranging from dwyle flunking to pea throwing made this hostelry very special.
“Now that Harveys is going back into the pub, my team and I are hoping that we can make a fresh start with our customers and are looking forward to helping the Lewes Arms once again play a full role in the local community.”
Greene King chief executive Rooney Anand added, “The Lewes Arms is a very special local pub with a unique place in the life of the town.
“We underestimated the depth of feeling and level of reaction about our initial decision and I believe that the conclusion the team put forward to return Harveys to the bar is the right one. I'm pleased that Jonathan and the team have taken on board our customers’ feedback and hope people will be pleased with the news.”
Thursday, April 12, 2007
LEWES ARMS BENEFIT
Yours truly with son Louis performing a few numbers as part of a crowded bill of bands, musicians and singers of all descriptions, which raised £1300 for the cause. Much merriment ensued. Photo: Andy Gammon.Read Greene King's latest statement here
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
PHIL SPECTOR: TEARING DOWN THE WALL OF SOUND
There have been five other biographies of Phil Spector published over the years, (none of which I have read) but I would be surprised if they were able to match this magisterial piece of music journalism.
'Tearing Down the Wall of Sound' developed out of an assignment for The Telegraph's Saturday magazine. Mick had managed to secure the first interview with Spector for an age (and successfully survived the encounter without being threatened or locked in). The same weekend the piece was published in February 2003, Spector was arrested after actress Lana Clarkson was found dead in the hall of Spector's mansion with gunshot wounds. The trial, after much legal prevarication, began on March 19th this year.
The book opens and closes with extracts from Mick’s interview (which can incidentally be heard on The Telegraph website here) together with the latest state of procedural play at time of publication. Expect an update paperback version reporting on the trial and its outcome.
Spector’s is a complicated tale. Needless to say, he came from a disturbed background, had a supernatural genius as a producer, had lots of guns, turned ugly when on pills and alcohol. The talent and the chaos are mixed up together.
Spector’s personal life makes for depressing reading. His father had committed suicide during his young life. He was dominated for many year's by his mother and sister and had many disastrous personal relationships. He had a dread of women leaving him, which is why he often locked them in his house against their will.
At the launch of this book which 'The Generalist' attended at Daunt’s bookshop in
What did I learn: well for a start, I hadn’t appreciated that Dennis Hopper had planned to make 'The Last Movie' first and had financial backing from Phil Spector before getting into 'Easy Rider' and then making it later and thus effectively ending his
I hadn’t known that Barney Kessel was the young Spector’s great guitar hero (Spector himself being a bit of child prodigy on the instrument by the age of 12) and actually rose to his defence in Downbeat magazine who hadn’t included him in their Great Guitarist of Jazz poll. Spector’s mother heard that Kessel was recording in LA and arranged for the young Spector to meet him. Kessel took the boy under his wing and taught him the tricks of the trade. Strangely, later in Spector’s life, Kessel’s two sons chaperoned Spector around LA's nightlife for a period; they found Spector's mad and dangerous antics hilariously funny and seemed to have no fear in extreme situations - of which there were many.
This is a well written, researched and crafted book which manages a huge array of complex material and multiple narratives successfully and brings us haunting visions of Spector in the studio, in his darkened mansions, in extremis, in a brief period of blissful parenting before his young son was to died of leukaemia.
'Tearing Down the Wall of Sound' by
Monday, March 26, 2007
LEWES ARMS: The First 100 days
It began with an essay in The Generalist in October last year, [State of the Nation: Think About Your Local), developed into a blog of its own (http://lewesarms.blogspot.com) and attracted national press cioverage,was featured on Radio 4's AM programme and the story was syndicated worldwide through Reuters (being picked up by the Jamaica Gleaner amongst others).
Now The Guardian have picked up the issue again, 100 days into a boycott of the pub that has reduced the Lewes Arms takings by 90%, become a legend in the beer world and has dragged Greene King back into the spotlight.
This story was picked up by Nick Cohen in The Observer who wrote:
'Furthermore: Please raise a glass to Lewes's drinking classes. At Westminster tomorrow, there will be a rally for the Sustainable Communities Bill, an attempt by MPs from all parties to break up the centralised English state by giving local authorities the power to deal with social and environmental grievances. It's a worthy measure, but what sets this initiative apart from many other good causes is the number of boozers who support it. Publicans, small breweries and the Campaign for Real Ale - the vanguard of England's beer-drinking classes, in short - are rallying behind the bill and being radicalised in the process.
'Writing in the Guardian last week, Tim Minogue of Private Eye explained why. He is one of a group of pickets who are turning customers away from the Lewes Arms. The Greene King conglomerate owns the 220-year-old Sussex pub and in December decided to practise restrictive trading by refusing to sell the bitter from Lewes's independent brewery. As with other exploitations of their market dominance by the pub corporations, Greene King's ban had nothing to do with drinkers' wishes, but was an act of commercial spite against a small business rival. Rather magnificently, its customers responded with a mass boycott that has turned the Lewes Arms into a ghost pub. '
'We usually discuss political cynicism in grand terms and talk about globalisation, the judges and the EU undermining democracy. More insidious is the inability of the English to make lives in their localities a bit better. If this bill succeeds, Lewes council will be able to compel Greene King to stock Harvey's Bitter. If it falls, it won't. That strikes me as reason enough for MPs to vote for it.'
Also see follow-up story in The Publican, the leading trade magazine.
STOP PRESS: Business section of today's Evening Standard:
Greene King makes locals more local
STOP PRESS: Business section of today's Evening Standard:
Greene King makes locals more local
Landlords are to be given greater power to run local pubs after a shake-up by Greene King.
The brewer has been under fire in Lewes, West (?) Sussex, for removing guest bitter Harveys from the Lewes Arms. Regulars boycotted the pub and burnt effigies of Greene King management.
Today the company is splittting its managed house operations into local pubs, to be run by Jonathan Lawson and "destination" pubs headed by Jonathan Webster.
Lawson joined from sainbury's where he was director of the convenience store business. Webster was chief executive at Hardy & Hansons. Mark Angela who ran the business befored the split, is lraving with a year's salary of around £450,000.
Greene King said the move is not connected to its Lewes troubles. But chief executive Rooney Anand said: "Managers will be given greater autonomy and flexibility to match individual pub offers to local needs.
Greene King's 510 local pubs will focus on selling beer while its 280 larger "destination" pubs and hotels are to be food led.
The brewer has been under fire in Lewes, West (?) Sussex, for removing guest bitter Harveys from the Lewes Arms. Regulars boycotted the pub and burnt effigies of Greene King management.
Today the company is splittting its managed house operations into local pubs, to be run by Jonathan Lawson and "destination" pubs headed by Jonathan Webster.
Lawson joined from sainbury's where he was director of the convenience store business. Webster was chief executive at Hardy & Hansons. Mark Angela who ran the business befored the split, is lraving with a year's salary of around £450,000.
Greene King said the move is not connected to its Lewes troubles. But chief executive Rooney Anand said: "Managers will be given greater autonomy and flexibility to match individual pub offers to local needs.
Greene King's 510 local pubs will focus on selling beer while its 280 larger "destination" pubs and hotels are to be food led.
JACK MICHELINE: BEAT WRITER
So how does a rare copy of 'In The Bronx and Other Stories', an inscribed copy no less, end up in a second-hand bookshop in Lewes, where I recently purchased it. Micheline is one of the lesser known beat writers and was unknown to me. The inscription, dated 3/28/66 (US style)says: 'For Jackod! (could be Sackod?), Jack Micheline.' Under this he has written: 'The finest writers of this nation still remain unpublished but known amongst the [looks like lions] in this
land. We write and it is a way of life and love.' The book is a first edition published in June 1965 by the Sam Hooker Press, 103 Park Avenue, New York. It is comprised of short pieces of prose that bring to mind both Bukowski and Raymond Carver. The extract I have chosen is from 'Whisky, Madness and Bellvue' and begins 'To be a poet is to be mad. I was a poet....' He describes arriving at a literary party, the kind of event he hated.'I grabbed the bourbon and beagn to drink. I had come from the streets where I had lived and written and pissed and cried. I drank more bourbon and got drunk quickly and ran upstairs where the food was. I was drunk; I had finished a fifth of whisky. I had remembered the cries in the flophouse the winter before, and the years I had wandered through the streets, the long winters of hell in New York; and the fear and hell and cowardice of our twentieth century; the lips of prostitutes and junkies and mad dogs; the streets crowded in summer with sweat and dreams and fights and families and sirens and bars, fights, cribs and cubicles; the narrow crowded, stinging, smelly city, hard as reality, filled with lost loves and pain and misery; the roar of the beaten, hungry, frightened and afraid. I grabbed the salami sandwi ches and threw them from the balcony out into the street.'
Find out more about him at the website of the Jack Micheline Foundation.
REST AND RECREATION
Three weeks in Sitges and Barcelona cleared my mind and soul. Hola!(Left): Sitges at sunset
(Below) Graffiti in an area off the northern end of the Ramblas in Barcelona where a cluster of tasty record shops can be found.
MEETING DAVY GRAHAM
The Generalist meets Davy Graham8th February 2007
[Photo Louis May]
Meeting Davy was like making a connection with Neal Cassidy. He is an original beat brother whose massive contribution to British music and guitar playing is still only just being fully recognised.
Notes scribbled on the train home that night, at fever pitch, with added amendments in brackets:
'Arived late. Full house. Young guitarist playing. Ordered a drink by which time Davy Graham is on stage wearing a polka dot shirt, sleeveless puffer jacket, jeans and trainers and a corduroy titfer. His slight figure, bathed in red light, was set against a blank stage with only wisps of dry ice for atmosphere.
He played eastern pieces, medieval folk, bach. Sang folk and work songs (people clapped along), played a couple of other guitar pieces and left the stage. [His complete set I estimate was not more than about 30-40mins.]. After a sustained attempt to gain an encore, the applause stopped and then, at the last moment, Davy returned, recited a Brooklyn poem [along the lines of that famous one: Der spring has sprung/der grass has riz/i wonder where dem boidies is] and left the stage.
[His whole set had been punctuated by people walking out and as the crowd as whole left, it was clear that very few people were happy at what they had seen. There must have been 2-300 present. The place was virtually sold out.
We [son Louis and I] headed for the dressing room, where his young manager stood guard. I said I was a friend of Shirley Collins come to pay my respects and gained entrance. Davy and his mate were drinking an orange juice and we immediately fell into conversation. We talked about his 1962 albums, his esatern music, Brian Jones and Brion Gysin's Joujouka recordings. I asked him about Ken Colyer and Ramblin' Jack Elliot ('a good picker' he recalled).His friend played some ragtime. Lots of young people came and went, seeking autographs. I gave Davy a big hug, which is what I been wanting to do as soon as I first saw him, and we left him and his young admirers [and went out into the night, both saddened and elated.]
Then I started this short pome:
Wounded Bird
On meeting Davy Graham
I couldn't believe
How beautiful he looked with his guitar
In his beat Bukowski splendour
How he looked like a sailor on a whaler
Happy sitting amongst the coils of rope
Completely at ease
He appeared to have long arms
And his agile fingers were beautifully shaped
And appeared to have a mind of their own
As they danced over the fretboard
A large reefer ('old style') on a white plate
Circulated in the narrow dressing room
After a gig notable for being both
Brief and unexpected
Both a triumph and a disaster
This wounded bird
Touches my heart
Wounded Bird
On meeting Davy Graham
I couldn't believe
How beautiful he looked with his guitar
In his beat Bukowski splendour
How he looked like a sailor on a whaler
Happy sitting amongst the coils of rope
Completely at ease
He appeared to have long arms
And his agile fingers were beautifully shaped
And appeared to have a mind of their own
As they danced over the fretboard
A large reefer ('old style') on a white plate
Circulated in the narrow dressing room
After a gig notable for being both
Brief and unexpected
Both a triumph and a disaster
This wounded bird
Touches my heart
For more on Davy Graham see previous postings:
Further Folk Adventures: Martin Carthy & Davy Graham
Musical Roundup: This contains review of Will Hodgkinson's book 'Guitar Man', lots of links and details about Davy Graham.
Further Folk Adventures: Martin Carthy & Davy Graham
Musical Roundup: This contains review of Will Hodgkinson's book 'Guitar Man', lots of links and details about Davy Graham.
THE 200TH POST
There comes a time in every person's life when their Mum dies. From that moment, it seems as if someone has drawn a big line in the sand and all one's past begins to float gently, like an ocean liner packed with freight and passengers, down the river to the ocean. One can still visit it in a rowboat and spend time there, at least for a while, but the main challenge is to now face forward and embrace a new life, new opportunities and possibilities. My Mum was 93 and is now at peace. This is the poem i wrote the night before her funeral.Release of the Spirit
(For Grace: 2 Dec 1913 – 15 December 2006)
The roses are still blooming
In the mild winter air
But the gardener whose delight they were
Is no longer there
The piano sits in silence
In the bungalow’s still air
But the pianist who made the music
Is no longer there
The dollies all stare sightless
Dressed up like ladies fair
But the girl who so adored them
Is no longer there
The ornaments on the mantle
Are arranged with artistic flair
But the dresser who carefully placed them
Is no longer there
The wandering cats of the street
Found love and comfort there
But the woman who loved them dearly
Is no longer there
The apple tree still stands
Its fruit gone, branches bare
But the woman who ate the crispy Cox’s
Is no longer there
The southern downland still survives
Full of memories beyond compare
But the dreamer who loved its stories
Is no longer there
The spirituals, hymns and carols
Once used to fill the air
But the singer who raised her joyous voice
Is no longer there
The restless sea is surging
Waves crested with mermaid’s hair
But the swimmer who surfed the shallows
Is no longer there
The colours of the rainbow
Imagine them if you dare
But the artist who employed them
Is no longer there
*
This lady was called Grace
Kathleen Lovegrove May
Her body may have left us
But her spirit is with us today
So
Fly sweetly
Dear heart
Into the bright light
Be at peace
For evermore
Safe and sure
In the knowledge
That your work
On earth is done
And your time
In heaven is at hand
John May
Written on the night of
Sunday, November 05, 2006
TONY TYLER TRIBUTE
We are sorry to report the passing away of our dear friend and colleague Tony Tyler. What follows is a small tribute to him, a series of posts reflecting different parts of his life and times, his talents, his range, his intelligence, his humour - all of which we will miss greatly. [Pictures from the wake at The Royal Oak in Pett by Anna Chen]To begin, two fine obituaries from colleagues Charles Shaar Murray and Chris Salewicz, in 'The Independent and The Guardian respectively:
James Edward Anthony Tyler, writer and editor: born Bristol 31 October 1943; twice married; died Hastings,
In his time on the New Musical Express, Tony Tyler was one of those rare, inspirational editors who can see every element of a story in a one-sentence description, and commission it on the spot: lengthy lunches discussing the piece held no interest for such a meteoric, extraordinarily intelligent and encouraging mind. Besides, only half of his teeming brain was focused on the job, as
Always hilariously funny in his writing, as a human being and in his editorial roles on the increasingly surreal NME in the mid-1970s, he arrived with a romantic past. "He was the only journalist on the music press who had carried a weapon in war," said Michael Watts, a rival editor on Melody Maker.
He had enlisted in the Royal Tank Regiment via a circuitous route. His father, from an upper-middle-class family, had been a fighter ace in the First World War. The experience had turned him into an alcoholic. Giving up drink, he married his nurse, who was much younger than him. Their only child, James Edward Anthony Tyler, was born on Hallowe'en night in 1943 in
Tony Tyler grew up in Liverpool, where he attended Liverpool College, at the age of 16 turning on prefects attempting another of their habitual beatings, and leaving before he could be expelled: he had one O-level, in English Literature. His mother died the next year. He became a police cadet, but quit when told his stammer was so extreme he would never be able to give evidence in court. (When people asked him later what cured his debilitating stutter,
But
After he was hospitalised with pneumonia,
When his father died in 1966,
Back in
He was brought into the NME in 1972 by the editor Alan Smith, who was re-launching the pop paper; Tyler's zest, hilarious verve and formidable energy made him a pivot of an editorial team that included Nick Logan, who succeeded Smith in 1973 and went on to found The Face, Charles Shaar Murray, Nick Kent and Ian MacDonald. With MacDonald, he formed a double act that informed the paper's humour. It was Tyler, who adored to debunk pomposity, who, when confronted with Bryan Ferry's latest sartorial extravagance, came up with the headline "How Gauche Can a Gaucho Get?"
In 1975, his first book was published, The Beatles: an illustrated record, an astute and amusing analysis of every recorded song by the group, a collaboration with Roy Carr, another NME editor. The next year
In 1982,
Fascinated early on by the very notion of computers, Tony Tyler plunged into that emerging world, trying to bring the same sense of NME absurdity to Big K, a computer magazine he started in 1983, but which folded. He celebrated his new fascination with technology with I Hate Rock & Roll (1984). He began to write columns for the magazines MacUser and MacWorld. These were only intended to fund his efforts to be a fiction writer. He completed several novels, none of which was published. "They were so intelligent," said his agent Julian Alexander, "with incredible flights of fancy, that I don't think they were easily understood."
Tyler, who viewed life as a cosmic joke, was wryly philosophical about the failure to place these books with publishers. As he was when confronted with his cancer, diagnosed only 11 days before he died. "Shit happens, but I'm completely cool with this," he said, phoning his friends to come and visit him. He was annoyed, he said, that he would never get to see Casino Royale, starring his godson Daniel.
"I want you to know, for when your time comes," Tyler told his wife, her sister and mother two days before he died, his curiosity about the mysteries of life and death undiminished, "that this isn't really too bad. It's quite dealable with."
Chris Salewicz
Tony Tyler
NME talent spotter, Tolkien expert and computer pundit
Charles Shaar Murray
If some of the New Musical Express's prominent writers were the faces of the 1970s paper, and editor Nick Logan and the late assistant editor Ian MacDonald functioned as its brain, then Tony Tyler, who has died of cancer aged 62, was its heart and soul. Features editor and later assistant editor during the early 70s, Tony, "the looming boomer", 6ft 5in in height with a resonant, drawling baritone, contributed irreverence and absurdist humour to the forging of the NME's identity.
He was also an author who once had two radically different books, The Tolkien Companion (1976) and The Beatles: an Illustrated Record (1975) - the latter a collaboration with his NME colleague Roy Carr - appearing simultaneously in the New York Times best-seller lists. A gadget freak, he became the founding editor of
TT, as he was almost universally known, led a rich existence. During a spell in the army, he was the last British soldier to be wounded by a musket-ball. As a teenage stowaway to
He was also godfather, albeit informally, to Daniel Craig, the new James Bond: TT had known the actor's father, Tim Craig, since they were seven years old. Since Ian Fleming was, along with PG Wodehouse and JRR Tolkien, one of Tyler's favourite authors, it was a major disappointment to TT to realise that he would not live long enough to see his godson play 007. "I'll never go to the cinema again," he said, "and I won't be around when the DVD comes out."
TT was born in
Feeling cast adrift, he signed up as a police cadet, but was told that his chronic stammer would prevent him from giving effective evidence in court. After stowing away to
Back in civilian life, he sold instruments by day and played guitar and organ in groups at night, until an Italian band kidnapped him for several years on the European club circuit. On his return to
Returning to London, he briefly edited the magazine Beat Instrumental before becoming a publicist for Emerson, Lake and Palmer - "I make no apologies," he later said, "though I would if I thought apology was sufficient " - but, finding both public relations and ELP uncongenial, he took the opportunity to join NME, then just about to start the radical rethink that transformed it from pop-picking chart fluff to a salon for gadflies. At the NME, Tyler demonstrated a keen eye for talent both musical and journalistic: an early champion of Roxy Music and Dr Feelgood, he was instrumental in the hiring of such writers as Nick Kent, Neil Spencer, Tony Parsons, Julie Burchill, Paul Morley, Vivien Goldman, Paul DuNoyer and Kate Phillips, with whom he fell in love and who subsequently became his second wife.
In addition to his NME duties, he wrote (as JEA Tyler) his Tolkien Companion, a massive concordance of all the people, places and things in The Lord of the Rings and its associated texts. The success of this and the Beatles book, co-written with Roy Carr, enabled him to leave the NME and retreat, with Kate, to a remote riverside cottage, which he soon filled with early personal computers. He became besotted with all things Macintosh, and his witty, anarchic punditry for magazines such as MacUser and Computer Shopper helped to keep him in fine wines and electronic keyboards for the remainder of his life.
His third book - a hilariously splenetic rant called I Hate Rock And Roll (1984) - was rather less successful, but remains a cult classic.
Outside his professional achievements, he will be remembered as a formidable autodidact who became expert on ancient and military history; as a right-wing libertarian who preferred to be surrounded by liberals and lefties "because most people who share my views are staggeringly unpleasant"; as a gourmet, oenophile and chef; as a genial host with unquenchable joie de vivre, determined to make sure everybody had fun; and as a man who remained urbane even on his deathbed. His last words, addressed to his 86-year-old mother-in-law, were: "I just want you to know, for when it's your turn, that this [dying] isn't actually so bad."
He is survived by Kate.
· James Edward Anthony Tyler, journalist, born
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