An alternative news and ideas channel on art, science, culture, politics and the environment, by freelance journalist, magazine editor and author John May.
Neil Young has gone into partnership with entrepreneur Johnathan Goodwin to create a company called Linc Volt Technology to promote the conversion of existing gas-guzzling cars into vehicles that run on alternative energy.
Young started out just wanting to convert his 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV to run on alternate fuels. The car weighs 2 1/2 tons and at 19 1/2 feet long, it was the longest car built in its era. 'Its original gas mileage', writes Al Saracevic in the SF Chronicle, 'was best measured in feet rather than miles'.
'[Goodwin] had pioneered a new type of alternative-energy engine that makes a car run on a variety of fuel platforms... For short runs, a car can be plugged in, charged and then run strictly on electricity using a rotary engine and its batteries. For longer hauls, there's also a generator in the car that runs on compressed natural gas. When electricity runs short, the generator kicks in and refuels the batteries. To make matters even more interesting, the car's generator will actually feed electricity back into your home when it's parked and plugged in in the garage.
"It's a power generator," Young said. "This thing can power up about a third of a city block. It'll make your meter run backward."
Here are some other developments in this field since our Previous Post EARTHED: GREEN CAR GUIDE back in September 2006.
CalCars is the Californian Cars Initiative which is promoting 100mpg + hybrid plug-ins.
Follow the progress of Amory Lovin's Hypercar. See a video of Lovin's talking about his brainchild on the excellent site AutoblogGreen
'Daimler-Benz, the maker of Mercedes, and Ballard Power Systems of Vancouver, Canada, have announced a $350 million-plus joint venture to market fuel cells as automobile engines...Ford and Chrysler have also recently announced ambitious fuel cell programs.
'Other technologies vying to power cars of the future range from cleaner gasoline and diesel engines, to miniature gas turbines, to internal combustion/electric hybrids, to incredibly efficient Stirling-technology external combustion engines.
In addition, an estimated 385,744 alternative fueled vehicles are currently in use in the United States, according to Alternatives to Traditional Transportation Fuels 1995, a December 1996 publication of the Energy Information Administration. These include 273,000 vehicles that run on liquid petroleum gases, 81,000 that run on compressed natural gas, 26,000 that run on 85% alcohol, and 3,900 electric vehicles (EVs).
'The former chairman and CEO of Intel Corp., Andrew Grove, thinks that energy and transportation have reached a strategic inflection point. That's a term that Grove coined years ago to describe a point in time when conditions in an industry have changed sufficiently to force a sudden and dramatic change of course for a company. Grove believes that the confluence of oil prices, environmental concerns and economic conditions now demand a rapid move from internal combustion to electrically driven vehicles. Grove is now pushing to find a way to retrofit the tens of millions of older vehicles on the road with hybrid drive systems. Grove is pushing for tax incentives to help fund battery and conversion kit development.'
This year Bonfire Night fell on a Wednesday which meant smaller crowds from out of town and a more relaxed evening all round. Mild and dry for the processions in the early part of the evening, before the rain arrived and steadily beat down for hours. Not that that interfered with some spectacular displays and general joviality round town. The best Bonfire Night in Britain.
Was musing about this while cataloguing the five copies of Newton's paper 'The Black Panther' from 1970 and 1971 in the HQINFO Archive.
Also discovered a powerful obituary, published in The Independent on 26th August 1989 - four days after Newton was found shot dead in the street. The obituary is written the radical lawyer William Kunstler, who defended many significant figures in the underground and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Click on the image to read full size [clip just too long for the scanner]:
The obituary begins: 'The news that the body of Huey Newton had been found lying in a pool of blood, on a street in West Oakland, California, with three bullets in his head, came as a profound shock to everyone who knew him. Less than five months earlier, Abbie Hoffman...' Now read on.
You can find the full text here of 'Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party'. Edited by Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas. [ Routledge, 2001. ISBN 0415927838, 9780415927833]. The blurb says: 'This unique collection of essays conveys the views of scholars and activists on the continuing impact of the Black Panther Party, which inspired thousands to join their movement to transform "the system." [It] offers a fresh and realistic recounting of the tumultuous history of what arguably became the most significant revolutionary organization in the US during the late 20th century.
Credits: Written and published by John Michell. Designed by Richard Adams. Cover illustration by Mikki Rain. Cover design by Nigel Coke. [The edition contains a hand-written note from Richard Adams: 'One slightly fire damaged Stonehenge.']
This 32pp-page booklet is an updated version of the original, published, as the intro of the new edition tells us, 'on Midsummer's Day 1985, three weeks after the shocking incident on 1 June, referred to within...This new edition retains the original purpose: to explain as clearly and concisely as possible the meaning of the Stonehenge temple, to demonstrate its use as an instrument for reconciling different and opposite instruments and to examine how it can be made once more to fulfill its designed function.’
The 'shocking incident' referred to has become known as The Battle of the Beanfield which, according to Wikipedia, 'took place over several hours on the afternoon of Saturday June 1, 1985 when Wiltshire Police prevented a vehicle convoy of several hundred new age travellers, known as the Peace Convoy, from setting up the fourteenth Stonehenge free festival at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England after English Heritage, the owners of the site, persuaded the judiciary to grant an exclusion zone of some miles around the stones.
'The incident became notorious for accusations of a police riot that were reported to have taken place. Those in the convoy insist that, after a stand-off of several hours, police attacked their procession of vehicles by entering the field where they were being contained, methodically smashing windows, beating people on the head with truncheons, and using sledgehammers to damage the interiors of their coaches. The bean field was the next field down from where the vehicles were and when a large number of police entered the first field many of the convoy vehicles tried to escape by going through the beanfield, where they were pursued and arrested by police. The Police stated that they responded after they had earlier come under attack, being pelted with lumps of wood, stones and petrol bombs. The full account of the events remain in hot dispute.'
The best account to date of this incident appears to be ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’, edited by Andy Worthington, with photos and contributions by Alan Lodge, Tim Malyon, Neil Goodwin, Gareth Morris, Alan Dearling and others. [Enabler Publications, June 2005. ISBN 0 9523316 6 7. 240 pages, 102 photos and illustrations, three maps]
There are numerous YouTube videos of this incident including the following:
Andy Worthington is also the author of 'Stonehenge: Celebration & Subversion. [Published by Alternative Albion, an imprint of Heart of Albion Press, June 2004. ISBN 1 872883 76 1. 245 x 175 mm, 300 pages, 147 photos and illustrations, paperback, £12.95.]
The blurb reads: This innovative social history looks in detail at how the celebrations at Stonehenge have brought together different aspects of British counter-culture to make the monument a ‘living temple’ and an icon of alternative Britain.
'The history of the celebrants and counter-cultural leaders is interwoven with the viewpoints of the land-owners, custodians and archaeologists who have generally attempted to impose order on the shifting patterns of these modern-day mythologies.'
'The story of the Stonehenge summer solstice celebrations begins with the Druid revival of the 18th century and the earliest public gatherings of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the social upheavals of the 1960s and early ‘70s, these trailblazers were superseded by the Stonehenge Free Festival, which evolved from a small gathering to an anarchic free state the size of a small city, before its brutal suppression at the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985.
'In the aftermath of the Beanfield, the author examines how the political and spiritual aspirations of the free festivals evolved into both the rave scene and the road protest movement, and how the prevailing trends in the counter-culture provided a fertile breeding ground for the development of new Druid groups, the growth of paganism in general, and the adoption of other sacred sites, in particular Stonehenge’s gargantuan neighbour Avebury.
The account is brought up to date with the reopening of Stonehenge on the summer solstice in 2000, the unprecedented crowds drawn by the new access arrangements, and the latest source of conflict, centred on a bitterly-contested road improvement scheme.'
For those interested in the archaeology of Stonehenge, the June 2008 Issue of National Geographic had an excellent cover story 'If The Stones Could Speak' by Caroline Alexander.In brief, recent investigations had spread out from the stones themselves into the wider surrounding landscape. It now seems abundantly clear from this that Stonehenge was the key part of a much broader sacred landscape that we are only now beginning to understand. Fascinating stuff. See also NG's multimedia feature 'Stonehenge Decoded'
The history of LSD has been the subject of numerous studies in the past and the subject of a number of previous posts on The Generalist (see below).Andy Roberts new book 'Albion Dreaming' is a welcome addition to the literature as it breaks new ground by concentrating on the significant effects LSD had on British culture - the first such book to do so.
It is distinguished by a high-level of original research, including numerous interviews with key characters and material from previously unresearched government documents. The book is well-referenced throughout, has a interesting 16pp black-and-white photo section, and will prove a useful and reliable source to researchers and historians in many fields.Roberts writes from a counter-culture perspective in a readable non-academic style which makes his book also accessible to the general reader.
The book, he says, was written to redress the balance in what he sees as an American bias in previous LSD historical accounts and to restore 'Britain's status as a major crucible of LSD culture.'
He writes: 'In fact, LSD is a European export to America. The drug was discovered in Switzerland, the British pioneered LSD psychotherapy and military tests, and much of the counter-culture's underlying philosophy stems from British expatriates such as Aldous Huxley and Alan Watts. On a more fundamental level, at certain times, the bulk of the world's LSD was manufactured in Britain.'
The author has provided a useful chapter-by-chapter commentary on the book's contents, reproduced below, to which I have added additional thoughts and comments, based on my close reading of the text.
1. Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out: Introduction The author refers to several interesting books of which I was previously unaware: 'Psychedelia Britannica' by Tony Melechi, 'Acid' by David Black and Paul Devereux's 'The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia.'
2. Hofmann's Potion: Albert Hofmann's discovery and the history of LSD worldwide up to1952. Unusual facts about Hofmann's spiritual life prior to the discovery of LSD. Early distribution to the CIA and other military sources.
Sources the origins of the idea of putting LSD in the water supply to a conversation between Los Angeles psychiatrist Nick Bercel, the first medical professional in the USA to work with LSD, and the CIA. He told them that the chlorine in the water would make the drug innefective. Roberts recommends 'Acid Dreams' by Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain as the most comprehensive book on the history of the CIA's involvement with LSD in their search for the ultimate 'truth drug'.
3. LSD: The Cure of Souls?: The coming of LSD to Britain in late 1952. Development of LSD/ psychotherapy at Powick and elsewhere. Unusual government connections with LSD psychotherapy unit at Powick. Interview with Dr Ronnie Sandison etc. The demise of LSD as a therapeutic tool. Dr Sandison's wife wrote to tell me (Ronnie is aged and unable to write) that this chapter was 'The best treatment of R's work I have seen in print'. Centres on the above-mentioned interview with Sandison, who became Consultant Psychiatrist to Worcester's Powick Hospital from Sept 1951 to 1964. During this time he was supplied free LSD by Sandoz; he had met Hofmann there who had given him a present of a box of ampoules of LSD, making Sandison the first person to bring LSD to Britain. Sandison and colleagues carried out LSD experiments on 36 patients with very difficult psychiatriic problems over the course of a year in 1953. Their report was the first article about LSD to be published in Britain. The results were encouraging: 14 of the subjects recovered; 3 showed moderate improvement. Sandison's work was expanded and a special brick LSD unit was built, with the help of Dr Joel Elkes; Sandison was not aware at the tijme that Elkes had close connections with the Ministry of Defence (MOD). All this work was secret. Sandison believes that, by the mid-1950s, there were more than 10 centres in Britain practicing LSD psychotherapy experiments; by the 1970s, therapy with LSD in Britain had ceased completely.
Chapter also mentions Frankie Howerd's and Sean Connery's experiences with LSD, introduces Ronnie Laing and Syd Barrett.
4. LSD: A Cure for the Common Cold: LSD experiments by the SIS (MI6) in the early 1950s. Continued experiments by the Ministry of Defence in the 1960s. Links with US intelligence. The fascinating story of the LSD experiments at Porton Down (1953-54), instituted by MI6, and kept secret until 2002. Volunteers were duped into taking LSD without their informed consent. Lab testing resumed in 1961-62 followed by field trials with troops in 1964 and 1966. In March 1971, Porton Down traced soldiers involved in the '60s tests but the details of these follow-up interview have been lost. A detailed police investigation named Operation Antler into a wide variety of experiments carried at Porton (including the LSD tests) was initiated in 1999: its findings were submitted to the Crown prosecution Service (CSP) who concluded that nobody would face criminal charges. Three LSD test veterans waged their own legal compensation battle and settled out of court with the MOD for a reported £10,000 in February 2006.
5. The Joyous Cosmology: Intellectual precursors of the LSD generation focusing on British ex-pats: Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard as well as David Solomon, Timothy Leary and co. How the counter-culture's philosophy was formed.
Much of the material on Huxley is well-known including his experiences on mescaline with Dr Humphrey Osmond, who later coined the term 'psychedlic. This led to his book 'The Doors of Perception', a line from William Blake. His first LSD trip was in October 1955. Less well-known characters are Captain Alfred M. Hubbard, credited with turning on 6,000 people to LSD and Michael Hollingshead, who similarly made it his mission to spread LSD widely. Huxley introduced Hollingshead to Timothy Leary, who first tripped out with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and his wife in December 1961 on acid supplied by Hollingshead, who was also present. American writer David Solomon was literary editor for Playboy in the early '60s and published material by Leary and Osmond. Huxley he described as his 'guru extraordinaire.' 6. The Foggy Ruins of Time:Early recreational use of LSD in Britain 1959-late 1965: Trocchi, Hollingshead, the London Psychedelic Centre etc. Government and media interest.
A valuable chapter much of which was new to this reader, particular the central role of Scottish writer Alex Trocchi, best known for the heroin memoir 'Cain's Book', here revealed as one of the first major importers of LSD into Britain. His flat in Notting Hill Gate was one of five main LSD pads of the time, the others being 101 Cromwell Rd (where Syd Barrett lived for a while and where Jagger, McCartney and Donovan visited), the luxurious residence of antqiue dealer Christopher Gibb in Cheyne Walk, and 25 Pont Street, both in Chelsea. Hollingshead pops up throughout the narrative as does R.D. Laing. Retells the story of Vince Taylor, the first LSD rock casualty, the man on whom David Bowie based Ziggy Stardust and who Joe Strummer called 'the beginning of British rock 'n' roll.'
7. Strangely Strange, but Oddly Normal: LSD in Britain in 1966. Early users and trials. John Esam. LSD in development of London's counterculture. 'London Life's exposure of Hollingshead's activities. Terry Taylor and the Notting Hill LSD cult. The legislation against LSD and on what basis it came about.
1966 was the year when police arrests began in earnest and the national press began infiltrating the scene and publishing banner headline scare stories.Britain's first successful legal prosecution of freelance photographer Roger Lewis for LSD possession resulted in a £25 fine. Michael Hollingshead was sent to prison for 21 months, during which he took acid in Wormwood Scrubs with the Russian spy George Blake, who escaped from prison to Russia shortly afterwards. New to me was the story of Teddy Taylor, the model for Colin McInnes novel 'Absolure Beginners'; his 1961 novel 'Baron's Court, All Change' contained the first fictional refernce to LSD in Britain. In 1966, the UN called for world governments to put in place controls to prevent the manufacture, sale or use of LSD. In June the British Medical Journal called for LSD to be made illegal in Britain. On July 21st, Roy Jenkins presented to Parliament a draft order calling for LSD to be incorporated into the Misuse of Drugs Act. On September 9th, LSD became illegal to possess or distribute in the UK, followed by the US a month later.
8. Senses Working Overtime: LSD in Britain in 1967. Pop stars and LSD use. The 101 Cromwell Road scene. BBC and LSD lyrics. The first LSD chemist and manufacturing and distribution network in Britain.
Largely concerned with the crossover with LSD and the music scene. Documents the Stones' bust at Redlands, the News of the World's expose of Donovan's LSD lifestyle and LSD links to the Move, the Moody Blues and the Beatles. Also details of Victor James Kapur, the first LSD chemist to be busted in Britain.
9. All You Need is Love?: LSD in Britain 1968-73.Trial of first outlaw British LSD chemist. Tim Leary in Britain. LSD and spirituality in Britain. More on early LSD chemists. Hollingshead and the Isle of Cumbrae commune. Early sightings of Operation Julie participants.
This period saw LSD move from being a consciousness changing substance linked to the movers and shakers of the '60s to a cheap and widely available drug. Emphasises the importance of the 1971 Glastonbury Fayre festival, LSD's infiltration into the squatting movement, continued legal prosecutions and the early roots of the Free Festival movement and what was to become the biggest LSD manufacturing business in British history.
10. Bring What You Expect to Find:LSD and free festivals. How free festivals were focussed on and motivated by LSD. Glastonbury Fayre 1971 and LSD. Watchfield, Windsor, Meigan, Trentishoe, Wally Hope, Bill Dwyer, Sid Rawle.
A useful short history of the Free Festival movement, beginning with Phun City in 1970.
11. The Mind Alchemists: Operation Julie. This chapter analyses the Operation Julie LSD manufacturing and distribution ring. Contains recent information given by one of the main participants.A look at the events leading up to the trial, the trail and its aftermath from a counterculture perspective.
Little to add. Roberts points out that those interested in the fine detail of this story should consult 'Operation Julie' by Dick Lee (the head of the police operation) and Stewart Tendler and David May's 'Brotherhood of Eternal Love.'
12. Coming Down Again:LSD in the 80s and 90s. The rise of rave culture and ecstasy
Begins with Julien Cope of Teardrop Explodes and the Liverpool Club Eric's, the further rise of the Free Festival Movement, its untimely end in 1984 at the Battle of the Beanfield, the rise of the Peace Convoy, the emergence of Ecstasy and the rave culture, the Criminal Justic and Public Order Act 1984, the reemergence of blotter acid and the court case brought by participants in LSD medical experiments in the 1950s and 1960s against the NHS, who eventually paid out £195,000. 13. Revolution in the Head: LSD and the future of drug laws.
At the beginning of the new century, public interest was low, legal cases were small, siezure rates falling. Account of the case of the Brighton-based LSD chemist Casey Hardison, who was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. A two -year investigation funded by the RoyalCollege of Arts, published in March 2007, called for the legal status of all drugs to be reclassified in line with their potential for actual harm. In October that year, Richard Brumstrom, then Chief Constable of North Wales, called for a radical overhaul of the Misuse of Drugs Act. Prohibition, he claimed, causes five harms:increasing crime, overloading the crininal justice system, economic harm, undermining public health, destablisation of countries producing drugs, the undermining of civil rights. The book ends with the death of Albert Hofmann on 29th April 2008 and a quote from Aldous Huxley, in a letter he wrote to Hofmann:
' Essentially this is what must be developed: the art of giving out in love and intelligence what is taken from vision and the experience of self-transcendence and solidarity with the universe.'
It was one of the great pleasures during my work producing the programme for the London Festival of Tantra (see Previous Posts) to discover the work of Jennifer Esperanza on the theme of the Goddess.
This Santa Fe-based photographer has a beautiful, sophisticatedly simple eye and her photographs of women are quite simply superb. They manage, by turns, to be strong, emotional, erotic, graceful and elegant, playful and serious.
She has a wonderful sense of colour and composition and it is clear that the images are infused with a deep spirituality and social commitment; the book includes peace activists and pictures Esperanza took India after the tsunami.
She has now produced a wonderful book 'Tears of Venus' through print-on-demand company Blurb, which you can buy directly from them. The images in it are stunning on the pdf she sent me. On the phone, she tells me the print quality in the book is first-class.
In the introduction she writes: ' The women in this book are like wild flowers that grow between the cracks in the sidewalk, strong and free. They are living aspects of the Goddess. Working with each of them was an honour. I enjoy to photograph and work with other women. To share with them an appreciation of their own bodies and souls, as they help me to heal my soul. We made these photos toether to control the world of control and shame; to shake and shift time. We worked together to pull back the walls and free ourselves in the act of worshipping her, the Goddess.'
You can also get a look at her work on Flickr, where she has a portfolio of images, entitled Its All the Goddess In Me, some of which are included in this book.
The theme of this post also gives me a chance to recommend some previously-published books from The Generalist's library that address similar themes.
I have had Return of The Great Goddess for years (first published in 1986) and have often gone back to it for further investigation. It is a beautifully produced pocket-size anthology of images and quotes on the theme of the title. The images include photos, sculptures, illustrations, artworks of all kinds accompanied by literary extracts, pithy spiritual thoughts, poems, short essays. The combination is inspiring, eye-catching and food for thought.
The Intro is prefaced with a quote from Rilke, one of my favourite poets: 'You must give birth to images/They are the future waiting to be born.'
(Left): The artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeoisby Annie Liebowitz
Another favourite of mine is Women, a photobook by Annie Liebowitz with introductory essay by Susan Sontag, published in 1998.
One of the world's most famous women photographers, who carved a career at Rolling Stone and is now top photographer at Vanity Fair, Liebowitz's work is of course extremely well-known and largely celebrity driven. Her pictures demand attention. 'Women' is my favourite of her books because she draws together images of women of all ages, ethnicity and social situations to construct a book that challenges our notions of the feminine.
In the intro, entitled 'A Photograph Is Not An Opinion, Or Is It?', Susan Sontag writes: 'This celebration of variety, of individuality, of individuality as style, saps the authority of gender stereotypes, and has become an i9nexorable counterforce to the bigotry that still denies women more than token access to many occcupations and experiences. That women, in the same measure as men, should be able to fulfill their individuality is, of course, a radical idea.'
Leibowitz and Sontag had a decade-long relationship and the photoshow of this book in Washington DC contained many personal pictures of Sontag, including some 'showing her battle with cancer, her treatment, and ultimately her death and burial.' [Wikipedia]
Finally, mention should be made of the fine, seminal work done by Whitney Chadwick into the history of women in art. Two of her key books are 'Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement' and 'Women, Art and Society.' Also important is 'Significant Others: Creativity and Intimate Partnership' which she edited with Isabelle De Courtivron, insightful profiles of famous artistic partnerships, including Rodin and Camille Claudel.
Fresh from exploring some of the mysteries of Tantra, THE GENERALIST is now engaging with the Music of India on behalf of Krishna's Flute, a music promotions company with a difference – a partnership between artist Andrew Wood and prop maker Russell Beck, who share a common interest in bringing the best of world music to a wider audience. This series of concerts at Pelham House in Lewes will be the chance to see and hear some world-class virtuoso musicians at first hand. Should be exciting.
GAURAV MAZUMDAR, who will be accompanied by Shahbaz Hussain on Tablagrew up in a family of well-known musicians from Allahabad and later studied and trained under the legendary master Ravi Shankar. He has subsequently built a global reputation as not only one of the premier sitar players of his generation but also as one of the world’s foremost and versatile Indian musicians.
As well as performing recitals with other leading Indian players, he has also collaborated with the composer Philip Glass, composed and performed with the English Chamber Orchestra and written the music for the ballet 'Siddhartha', based on the book by Herman Hesse.
He became the first Indian musician to perform at the Vatican, where he played his raga ‘Akanksha’ during a concert to celebrate the new millennium. His album ‘Orion’ was recorded live at a concert in the Acropolis in Greece to commemorate the Olympics in 2004.
Other albums featuring his classical, collaborative and compositional works include ‘Echoes from India', 'In Search of Peace', 'Neemrana', 'Soul Strings' and the Grammy-nominated 'East Meets West'. He devotes a substantial amount of his time teaching disciples from all over the world. He is currently composer in residence at MILAP (Liverpool Festival of Culture).
Popularly known as the NIZAMI BROTHERS, Shakir Ali, Tahir Ali and Mahir Ali Nizami Qawwal got their childhood training from accompanying their famous father, the late Jaffar Hussain Nizami, and are now considered amongst the leading Qawwali musicians of today.
They will be performing in Lewes with a choir of 11 singers from Delhi.
Showered with numerous awards, titles and medals in India and Pakistan, the Nizami Brother’s recordings are best-sellers throughout the Indian subcontinent. Following in the footsteps of the late great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who first introduced Qawwali music to an international audience, they have become world ambassadors for this 700-year old musical tradition.
Qawwali is a form of Sufi devotional music, its name deriving from the Arabic word Qual meaning “utterance (of the prophet). Its central themes are love, devotion and longing for the Divine. The Lewes concert will be a rare chance to see a Qawwali performance of what has been memorably described as ‘14th-century soul music’. It is an experience not to be forgotten, as the musicians steadily build up hypnotic sounds and high energy rhythms that produce trance-like states in audience and players alike.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 21st /7.30pm. Tickets £18/concs £15
Krishnamurti Sridhar , who is performing with Sanjay Jhalla on tabla, is a leading virtuoso on the sarod, which is considered one of the world’s most complex instruments. He began training on the instrument when he was five, became the youngest member ever of Ravi Shankar's orchestral group seven years later, and started performing solo whilst still in his teens.
His musical mastery and training in both of India’s leading classical music traditions allows him to bridge the gap between the Hindustani music of the North and the Carnatic of the South to create profound and illuminating music that enriches both. Sridhar gives his Sufi guru the main credit for giving his music a quality he describes as “an aspiration towards spiritual bliss."
Since1982, he has given hundreds of concerts worldwide, many under the auspices of WOMAD, and has made 13 recordings for European, Middle Eastern, and American record companies, including the album ‘Shrinigar’ on Peter Gabriel’s RealWorld Label. In the process, he has forged exciting links with musicians of many disciplines including Arabic, African, jazz, flamenco, Persian and European classical.
The recent death of Rick Wright, the keyboard player of the Pink Floyd, took me back to the rock 'n' roll history of Lewes.
For years I had heard rumours of that a number of famous bands had played at the Town Hall during the '60s but information was scarce. Certainly the Pretty Things had been there (they replayed the venue some ten years ago). Others said Paul Butterfield Blues Band had done the gig. And then there was the rumour of the Floyd, which I managed to confirm in 2007 when I discovered Vernon Fitch's extraordinary Pink Floyd Archive, which includes a complete list of Floyd concert appearances.
This is where it began to get interesting. For January 1968, he lists the following dates: 12 - University of Aston, Birmingham, Warwickshire, 13 - Winter Gardens Pavilion, Weston-Super-Mare, Avon, (Saturday Dance Date) 19 - Town Hall, Lewes, Sussex (two shows) 20 - Hastings Pier, Hastings, Sussex
What makes these special is that these were the only four gigs which featured the following line-up: Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Rick Wright. In other words, Syd and Dave Gilmour on-stage at the same time. By the following month, Syd had left the band and the rest is history.
There the story might have rested were it not for the recent publication in our local magazine Lewes News, of the above signed poster. LN had been contacted by the promoter of the concert Norman Ashdown, who still lives in the town, and still has many original posters, tickets, account sheets and photos from the series of gigs he put on to raise funds for Lewes Football Club. Of such stuff are legends made.
In recent years Lewes, like many towns around the country, has been plagued by a rash of unseemly and unsightly development projects which threaten to damage the fabric and nature of our small historic town. Small but vociferous protest groups grew up to challenge each of the major projects in turn but despite their best efforts, it seemed that the little could be done to challenge a planning system weighted towards development and a District Council that refused to acknowledge the important objections raised by the town's citizens.
The spark that started a much bigger protest movement within the town began when illustrator Jenny Mumford revived Glenda, a character loosely based on Private Eye's Glenda Slagg, who had been a figurehead of previous protests against development many years before. Jenny put up a big Glenda protest cartoon frame on the outside of her house and the Council threatened her with legal action unless she took it down. Within days and weeks, Glenda posters sprouted on windows, doors and walls throughout the town. See: Friends of Glenda
In fact, the Council backed down but it was too late to stop Glenda. She became the figurehead of a big protest march which had the effect of uniting all the disparate anti-development groups in the town. Since then, all the groups have formed a Lewes Coalition, who now meeet every month to compare information and discuss strategy and tactics. This has proved extremely effective and we now have tabs on every single development in Lewes and have managed to create a much broader awareness within the town about the scale and nature of the problem.
This was helped a lot by the publication of the New Battle of Lewes map (above) which showed people for the first time the scale and range of developments currently under consideration.
This fact has not escaped the attention of the authorities, who are beginning to realise that their every action is now under scrutiny. Also working in our favour is the economic downturn which looks set to scupper at least some of the grandiose schemes for more unsightly high-priced apartment developments.
What's happening in Lewes is a microcosm of the development picture throughout the South-East in particular and the rest of the country in general.
The issues concerned include: the loss of community buildings to commercial development; the failure of the planning system to protect the historic fabric of the town, which is designated a conservation area; allowing development on the flood plain, in a town that was severely damaged by flooding in October 2000.
One of the big focuses now is to ramp up the campaign to get Lewes included in the proposed South Downs National Park. This will automatically raise planning standards and require that any new developments meet much more stringent planning requirements.
One of the concerns amongst many about our District Council's planning system is that an increasing amopunt of planning descisions are being made, not by elected representatives who are, in principle, answerable to the electorate, but by planning officers. There have been many breaches in legal procedure which we are carefully documenting. There also appears to be a much too cosy relationship between the planners and developers.
We have also brought pressure to bear on our local civic society, the Friends of Lewes, who in their younger days were a vibrant and active force who prevented potentially catastrophic developments in the town but who in recent years have allowed projects to pass through without a murmur.
We are not against development per se. There are many things our town needs, not least affordable housing for young people and other facilities that would add value to the existing infrastructure. But part of the problem is that all planning applications are considered individually without reference to the broader picture of the evolution of the town as a whole.
The Council is currently meant to be preparing a proper overall Development Plan but their deliberations are moving at a snail's pace.
We believe that poor planning regimes flourish in the absence of active citizens, prepared to devote their unpaid time to opposing them.
Follow the progress of Amory Lovin's Hypercar. See a video of Lovin's talking about his brainchild on the excellent site AutoblogGreen
