Wednesday 7 January 2009

The Angry Brigade - Communiques & Chronology


First Communique

BROTHERS & SISTERS:

We expect the news of the machine-gunning of the Spanish Embassy in London on Thursday night to be suppressed by the bourgeois Press... It's the third time over the last month that the system has dropped the mask of the so-called `freedom of information' and tried to hide the fact of its vulnerability.

`They' know the truth behind the BBC the day before the Miss World farce; `they' know the truth behind the destruction of property of High Court judges; `they' know the truth behind the four Barclays Banks which were either burned or badly destroyed; `they' also know that active opposition to their system is spreading.

The Angry Brigade doesn't claim responsibility for everything. We can make ourselves heard in one way or another. We machine-gunned the Spanish Embassy last night in solidarity with our Basque brothers and sisters. We were careful not to hit the pigs guarding the building as representatives of British capital in fascist Spain. If Britain co-operates with France over this `legal' Iynching by shutting the truth away, we will take more careful aim next time.

SOLIDARITY & REVOLUTION
LOVE
Communique, The Angry Brigade

Communique 1

Fascism & oppression
will be smashed
Embassies (Spanish Embassy machine gunned Thursday)
High Pigs
Spectacles
Judges
Property

Communique 1
The Angry Brigade

Communique 2

Success
Min. E. & Prod.

Communique 2
The Angry Brigade

Communique 3

(Only extracts of Communique 3 are available from l.T. 94 and 95)

The statement claims the bombing of the Department of Employment and Productivity Wages Council Office. They described it as part of `a planned series of attacks on capitalist and government property'. It ends `we will answer their force with our class violence'.

Communique 4

Robert Carr got it tonight. We're getting closer.

Communique 4
The Angry Brigade

Communique 5

We are no mercenaries.

We attack property not people.

Carr, Rawlinson, Waldron, would all be dead if we had wished.

Fascists and government agents are the only ones who attack the public -- the fire-bombing of the West Indian party in South London, the West End cinema bomb.

British democracy is based on more blood, terror, and exploitation than any empire in history.

Has a brutal police force whose crimes against people the media will not report.

Now its government has declared vicious class war.

Carr's Industrial Relations Bill aims to make it a one-sided war.

We have started to fight back and the war will be won by the organised working class, with bombs.

Communique 5
The Angry Brigade

Communique 6

FELLOW REVOLUTIONARIES...

We have sat quietly and suffered the violence of the system for too long. We are being attacked daily. Violence does not only exist in the army, the police and the prisons. It exists in the shoddy alienating culture pushed out by TV films and magazines, it exists in the ugly sterility of urban life. It exists in the daily exploitation of our Labour, which gives big Bosses the power to control our lives and run the system for their own ends.

How many Rolls Royce... how many Northern Irelands... how many anti-Trade Union bills will it take to demonstrate that in a crisis of capitalism the ruling class can only react by attacking the people politically?

But the system will never collapse or capitulate by itself.

More and more workers now realise this and are transforming union consciousness into offensive political militancy. In one week, one million workers were on strike... Fords, Post Office, BEA, oil delivery workers...

Our role is to deepen the political contradictions at every level. We will not achieve this by concentrating on `issues' or by using watered down socialist platitudes.

In Northern Ireland the British army and its minions has found a practising range: the CS gas and bullets in Belfast will be in Derby and Dagenham tomorrow.

OUR attack is violent...

Our violence is organised.

The question is not whether the revolution will be violent. Organised militant struggle and organised terrorism go side by side. These are the tactics of the revolutionary class movement. Where two or three revolutionaries use organised violence to attack the class system... there is the Angry Brigade. Revolutionaries all over England are already using the name to publicise their attacks on the system.

No revolution was ever won without violence.

Just as the structures and programmes of a new revolutionary society must be incorporated into every organised base at every point in the struggle, so must organised violence accompany every point of the struggle until, armed the revolutionary working class overthrows the capitalist system.

Communique 6
The Angry Brigade

Communique 7

COMRADES!

Two months ago we blew up Carr's house. Revolutionary violence through the high walls of English liberalism.

Apart from a short communique we remained silent since... Why?... who is the Angry Brigade... what are its political objectives... a lot of criticism was directed toward vague directions... they called us the Special Branch, the Front, Anarcho-nuts, Commies, Bomb-mob, the lot... we believe that the time has come for an honest dialogue... with any comrade who cares to address us... through the Underground Press... through anything. Look around you brother and sister... look at the barriers... don't breathe... don't love, don't don't strike, don't make trouble... DON'T.

The politicians, the leaders, the rich, the big bosses, are in command... THEY control. WE, THE PEOPLE, SUFFER... THEY have tried to make us mere functions of a production process. THEY have polluted the world with chemical waste from their factories. THEY shoved garbage from their media down our throats. THEY made us absurd sexual caricatures, all of us, men and women. THEY killed, napalmed, burned us into soap, mutilated us, raped us.

It's gone on for centuries.

Slowly we started understanding the BIG CON. We saw that they had defined `our possibilities'. They said: You can demonstrate... between police lines. You can have sex... in the normal position and as a commodity; commodities are good. You can rally in defence of the TUC... The `leadership' is wise.

THEY used confusing words like `public' or the `National Interest'. Is the Public some kind of `Dignified Body' which we belong to, only until we go on strike? Why are we reduced then to dreaded scroungers, ruining the country's economy? Is `National Interest' anything more than THEIR interest?

Lately we started seeing through another kind of con: There is a certain kind of professional who claims to represent us... the MPs, the Communist Party, the Union leaders, the Social Workers, the old-old left... All these people people presumed to act on our behalf. All these people have certain things in common... THEY always sell us out... THEY are all afraid of us... THEY'LL preach towards keeping the peace... and we are bored... poor... and very tired of keeping the peace.

THE ANGRY BRIGADE BECAME A REALITY we knew that every moment of badly paid boredom in a production line was a violent crime. We had rejected all the senile hierarchies and ALL the structures, the liars, the poverty pimps, the Carrs, the Jacksons, the Rawlinsons, the Bob Hopes, the Waldrons...

To believe that OUR struggle could be restricted to the channels provided to us by the pigs, WAS THE GREATEST CON. And we started hitting them.


January 12 was important... we shattered the blackouts of the yellow Press... hundreds of years of Imperialism... millions of victims of colonisation were breaking up... all the suppressed frustration, all the glow of unleashed energy was blowing our minds... Carr was totally unimportant... he was just a symbol... we could have killed the bastard... or Powell or Davies... or any pig.

Then we were scared... like any newly born baby opening our eyes to a gigantic glow -- we got frightened... every knock, every word became a menace... but simultaneously we realised that our panic was minute compared to the panic of the Mirrors and the Habershons AND IT FLASHED: WE WERE INVlNClBLE... because we were everybody.

THEY COULD NOT JAIL US FOR WE DID NOT EXIST

We started daring out into the open, talking to friends, to neighbours, to people in the pubs, in football games... and we knew we were not alone... WE WERE ALIVE AND GROWING !

COMRADES!

Brothers and sisters we hardly know have been picked up, framed, intimidated, harassed. The McCarthy's, the Prescotts, the Purdies are all INNOCENT. The pigs need scapegoats.

Our Power is the 6 Conservative Offices petrol bombed on January 13, the Altringham generator which was blown out are all answers of the Revolutionary movement to our call .

We are certain that every single day that these comrades stay behind bars will be avenged... Even if it means that some of the Pigs will lose their lives.


Three weeks ago we nearly blew up Jackson's headquarters. We knew he had to sell out. We wanted to hit him BEFORE he did the damage. But inside us we carry the remnants of liberalism and irrationality... burdens of our past we have tried to shed. He beat us to it... HE SOLD OUT ... Let the working brothers and sisters be our jury.

This time we knew better: it's FORD TONIGHT. We are celebrating the hundred years of the Paris Commune. We are celebrating our REVOLUTION which won't be controlled .

Our revolution is autonomous rank and file action -- we create it OURSELVES. We have confidence now... we don't have to wait for them to dangle something tempting like a Powell, a Bill, or a bad apple in front of our faces, before we jump like rabbits. We don't clutch desperately at the illusion of FREEDOM. Our strategy is clear: How can we smash the system? How can the people take Power?

We must ATTACK, we cannot delegate our desire to take the offensive. Sabotage is a reality... getting out of the factory is not the only way to strike... stay in and take over. We are against any external structure, whether it's called Carr, Jackson, IS, CP, or SLL is irrelevant -- they're all one and the same.

WE BELIEVE IN THE AUTONOMOUS WORKING CLASS. WE ARE PART OF IT. AND WE ARE READY TO GIVE OUR LIVES FOR OUR LIBERATION.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Communique 7
The Angry Brigade

Communique 8

`If you're not busy being born you're busy buying'.

All the sales girls in the flash boutiques are made to dress the same and have the same make-up, representing the 1940's. In fashion as in everything else, capitalism can only go backwards -- they've nowhere to go -- they're dead.

The future is ours.

Life is so boring there is nothing to do except spend all our wages on the latest skirt or shirt.

Brothers and Sisters, what are your real desires?

Sit in the drugstore, look distant, empty, bored, drinking some tasteless coffee? Or perhaps BLOW IT UP OR BURN IT DOWN. The only thing you can do with modern slave-houses -- called boutiques -- IS WRECK THEM. You can't reform profit capitalism and inhumanity. Just kick it till it breaks.

Revolution.

Communique 8
The Angry Brigade

Communique 10

JOHN DILLON'S IN; WE WON
BATTY AND HIS TRANSFORMER'S OUT; WE WON AGAIN
PUT THE BOOT IN
BOGSIDE -- CLYDESIDE
SUPPORT THE ANGRY SIDE SPREAD THE WORD
POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Communique 10
The Angry Brigade

Communique 11

DAVIES IS A LYING BASTARD

He hides the deliberate rundown of heavy industry, the rundown of investment in the traditionally depressed areas, that's never been much anyway, by saying that the closures at UCS are just the result of bad management. And the bloody management won't suffer anyway. The conditions he's made for the new company are tough only for the workers who have to sign once and for all a contract they can't fight according to the Industrial Relations Bill.

Davies `courageously' says the government won't support lame ducks. Yet 2 weeks ago the government put a massive investment in Harland and Wolff. A political move to keep capitalism going at any cost in the face of the people's uprising.

VICTORY TO THE WORKERS ON THE CLYDESIDE.
We'd like to say to you to watch out for all the vultures who'll be flying to Clydeside to tell you what to do. The same people who signed the productivity deals that started the redundancy ball rolling are now trying to feed off your struggle. If there's going to be an occupation it's got to be for real. Take the yards from the bosses and keep them. The Labour Party, the Unions and their minions, the CP with its productivity craze, the same bastards who always sell us out, will try to fob you off with gestures like one day strikes and one day occupations, petitions, etc., which will achieve bugger all.

YOU ARE YOUR OWN LEADERS. HAVE YOUR OWN TACTICS. CONTROL YOUR OWN STRUGGLE -- SOLIDARITY

BOGSIDE, CLYDESIDE, JOIN THE ANGRY SIDE

Communique 11
The Angry Brigade

Twelfth Communique

Over 5,500 refugees, 2,000 homeless, over 20 dead in 2 days, 230 imprisoned without charge or trial, the six occupied counties of Ireland are terrorised by the gunmen in khaki. This war of terror is carried out in the name of the British people. THIS IS A SLANDEROUS LIE. The British Imperialist Campaign in Ireland is waged only to safeguard the fat profits of a few rich pigs and power crazy politicians.

We warn all unemployed brothers and sisters.

Do not be fooled by the army recruiting campaign. An army career isn't fun in the sun and learning a useful trade, if you join you'll be trained in Belfast, Derry and all the other working class ghettos in Northern Ireland to murder and brutalise ordinary working class people. The training will come in useful when the boss class sends the troops into Clydeside, Merseyside, Tyneside, Birmingham, London and all the working class districts throughout Britain. To any unemployed worker thinking of joining up we ask you one question:

-- WHICH WAY WILL YOU POINT YOUR GUN WHEN THE OFFICERS ORDER YOU AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF YOUR OWN TOWN?..

Who will you shoot when your parents, brothers and sisters are in sight of your gun?

The British boss class has lined its pockets with the accumulated profits of 700 years of exploitation of the Irish working people.

Now they are killing to defend these profits.

THE ANGRY BRIGADE ADVISES THE BRITISH RULING CLASSES TO GET OUT OF IRELAND AND TAKE THEIR PUPPETS (LYNCH, FAULKNER, ETC) WITH THEM.

ANGRY BRIGADE
MOONLIGHTER'S CELL
POINT YOUR GUN

Thirteenth Communique

The Angry Brigade bombing of Chris Bryant's home in Birmingham has brought attention to the activities of the Bryant building combine.

For two weeks workers on a Bryant site have been on strike demanding a flat rate of one pound an hour and the end of `the lump' -- a pool of self-employed non-union men available for hire.

The blast badly damaged the front of Bryant's six bedroomed house but as with other AB bombings, didn't hurt anyone .

Capitalism is a vicious circle.

People's sweat and blood is used and exploited. They make us produce shit... they give us next to nothing while their class pockets huge profits... the ruling class... the Bryan of this world.

Then, when we put the overalls aside, we clean up the muck from our faces and we take the boring bus or train home and they suddenly transform us into consumers. In other words when we are not working they make us buy... the same shit we produced. The miserable wage packet they gave us they make us spend on useless food, on machines specially designed to break down and on houses we know look and feel like prisons.

Prisons we helped build. And paid (more specifically promised to pay over the next twenty years for we never have enough dough to pay for a house or a car or anything for that matter -- they have to exploit us even more by making us pay interest) for them. We build the prisons and then we live in them. We produce shit and then we eat it.

Producers of shit -- consumers of shit.

There are many of our brothers and sisters inside. An old revolutionary once called prisons `an occupational hazard'. A hazard which may hit any person who chooses to take a action. But to lose a finger, a limb, your lungs -- any accident at work -- this too is an occupational hazard. Look at the safety precautions on Bryant's sites -- none at all. Not only a limb but your life. So what's the bloody difference?

Chris Bryant made £1,714,857 profit last year -- a 25 per cent rise on 1969. He does it by a cocktail of high society, high finance and a lot of corruption. He has clinched his deals for the redevelopment of Birmingham on the golf courses of Solihull with Corporation Councillors. The Councillors oblige by charging high rents on the Council estates -- like Chelmsley Wood -- to pay high prices to Bryant for his contracts. Now he's buying up land around Solihull to sell to the same Council who will give him the contracts to develop it, with our money. No one should be conned that the Birmingham Mail is anything other than the Bryant broadsheet either. A man who lives in a mock Tudor village ('Windways', Jacobean Road, Knowle) doesn't have to worry about the next HP installment, doesn't have to nick a can of paint from work to make his house look decent, doesn't have to worry about draughts. (But today... did we say Windways?) We'll hit million for million... We'll follow him from Tudor village to Tudor village.

25 years we've waited in Birmingham for a building strike. Bryant hit us and bullied us with the lump. By hitting Bryant we're hitting the lump too. The Woodgate Valley stands for class solidarity and Revolution. The Workers have taken their stand. Sabotage in the place of work is a reality. The bosses are beginning to feel the undiluted power of the people. The people are hitting back.

The Brigade is hitting back.

Now we are too many to know each other.

Yet we recognise all those charged with crimes against property as our brothers and sisters. The Stoke-Newington 6, the political prisoners in Northern Ireland are all prisoners of the class war.

We are not in a position to say whether any one person is or isn't a member of the Brigade. All we say is: the Brigade is everywhere.

Without any Central Committee and no hierarchy to classify our members, we can only know strange faces as friends through their actions.

We love them, we embrace them as we know others will. Other cells, sections, groups.

Let ten men and women meet who are resolved on the lightening of violence rather than the long agony of survival; from this moment despair ends and tactics begin.

Power to the people.

THE BRIGADE IS ANGRY

CHRONOLOGY

1967

August 21
Three gunmen in a white saloon car rake the consular section of the US Embassy with machine gun fire the preceding night. Scattered leaflets call for solidarity with the Vietnamese. The action is claimed by the First of May Group. Five of their comrades had been jailed in Spain for trying to kidnap the chief of an American air base in Spain.
November
Simultaneous bomb attacks against the Greek, Bolivian and Spanish Embassies in Bonn and the Venezuelan Embassy in Rome. (1st of May Group -- in solidarity with the Latin American guerrillas and against the fascist regimes in Europe). The same day a bomb destroyed the entrance to the Spanish Tourist Office in Milan and the Spanish, Greek and American Embassies in the Hague, Holland.
March 3
Six bombs damage the buildings of diplomatic missions in London, the Hague and Turin. These actions were claimed by the 1st of May Group.
March 6
Incendiary bomb with timing mechanism explodes in the Moabit Criminal Court, West Berlin.
March 18
Plastic bomb attacks damage three US buildings in Paris: Chase Manhattan Bank, Bank of America and Transworld Airlines.
March 25
US Embassy in Madrid bombed,
August
International Anarchist Conference in Carrara, Italy.
September 10
Seven young anarchists arrested in Spain, accused of conspiring with the 1st of May Group and of participation in actions in the Valencia region. Information leading to their arrest came from the Special Branch of New Scotland Yard, London.
October 15
Imperial War Museum gutted by incendiary device.

1968

January
Explosive rocket discovered facing the Greek Embassy in London.
February 27
The Hornsey home of Stuart Christie is raided by police led by Det. Sgt. Roy Cremer with explosives warrant relating to Greek Embassy and information received that other attacks were about to take place in London.
November 4
Department of Internal Affairs in West Berlin is attacked with molotov cocktails.

1969

February 3
Unexploded dynamite charges discovered on the premises of the Bank of Bilbao and the Bank of Spain in London.
February 9
Bank of Spain in Liverpool bombed.
March 15
Two anarchists, Alan Barlow and Phil Carver, arrested immediately following a powerful explosion at the Bank of Bilbao in London. In their possession was a letter claiming the action on behalf of the 1st of May Group.
August 16
Home of Duncan Sandys, Tory MP, fire-bombed.
August 17
Ulster Office in London firebombed.
August 19
Bomb explodes after being thrown into army recruiting office, Brighton.
October 9
Petrol bombs found in left luggage locker in London.
October 15
Imperial War Museum gutted by incendiary device.

1970

January 28
Bomb attack on offices of the Spanish Cultural attache in Paris.
February 10
Ian Purdie is imprisoned for 9 months for throwing a petrol bomb at the Ulster Office in Saville Row during an Irish Civil Rights Campaign march.
February 20
3 students captured as they are about to firebomb Barclays Bank.
February 28
Bomb attack on the Bank of Bilbao and the Spanish State Railways in Paris.
March 28
Time bomb found at Waterloo Station.
May 4
American Embassy, London, firebombed.
May 10
Incendiary device discovered aboard Iberian Airliner at Heathrow. Similar devices are found in other European capitals on planes belonging to Iberia.
May 19
Wembley Conservative Association firebombed.
May 22
High explosive device discovered at a new police station in Paddington. This was later claimed by the prosecution in the trial of the Stoke Newington Eight to be the first action undertaken by `The Angry Brigade'.
June 10
Brixton Conservative Association firebombed.
June 11
Stuart Christie's home raided with explosives warrant.
June 18
Lambeth Court firebombed.
June 30
Army depot, Kimber Road, London, firebombed.
June 30
Ian Purdie is released from Albany prison (Isle of Wight).
July 3
Simultaneous bomb attacks in Paris and London against Spanish State Tourist offices, and the Spanish and Greek Embassies.
July 7
Army recruiting office, South London, firebombed. Army Officer Training Centre, Holborn, London, firebombed.
July 10
Home of a retired policeman in Stoke Newington firebombed.
August 18
The London offices of Iberia Airlines, Spanish State airline, bombed.
August 30
The London home of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Waldron, is damaged by a bomb blast. The bombing is not reported in the national press.
September 8
The London home of Attorney General, Sir Peter Rawlinson, in Chelsea, is bombed. Again this goes unreported .
September 17
Jake Prescott paroled from Albany Prison, Isle of Wight.
September 21
Wimbledon Conservative Association firebombed.
September 26
Hampstead Conservative Association firebombed.
September 26
Bomb exploded outside Barclays Bank, Heathrow.
September 26
Simultaneous bomb attacks against Iberia in Geneva, Frankfurt, Paris and London airports.
October 7
BOAC Air terminal at Victoria, booby trap hand grenade found.
October 8
Second explosion at Rawlinson's home.
October 9
Italian Trade Centre, Exhibition Building, Cork Street, London, bombed. Attacks simultaneously in Manchester, Birmingham and Paris against Italian State buildings. The attacks were claimed on behalf of Giuseppe Pinelli the Italian anarchist murdered by the police in 1969.
October 24
During the Council workers' strike a bomb explodes in the cleansing dept head office, Greenford.
October 26
Administration building on Keele University campus firebombed.
October 26
Barclays Bank at Stoke Newington firebombed. Newspaper report says: `Police are investigating several similar incidents at other branches'.
November 20
A BBC van outside the Albert Hall in London covering the Miss World contest is bombed at 2,30 am. The prosecution claimed that Jake Prescott was responsible for this explosion, but also brought a witness who vouched that Jake was in fact in Edinburgh at the time. They were forced to drop this charge.
December 3
Spanish Embassy in London machine gunned following international protests against the trial of the Basque nationalists, the Burgos Six. This was not reported.
December 8
Big demonstrations against the Tory Government's Industrial Relations Bill. In the early hours of December 9 the Department of Employment and Productivity in St James Square, London, is bombed. The police had searched the building and no sooner left it than it went off. Action claimed by the Angry Brigade.

1971

January 12
Thousands of people strike and march against the Industrial Relations Bill. The home of Robert Carr, Minister of Employment, in Hadley Green Road, Barnet, is bombed. First explosion is at 10:05 pm, the second at 10:20 pm. The action is claimed by the Angry Brigade.
"One man the police particularly want... is a Scot in his twenties who is suspected of being involved in the bomb attack at the Iberia Airlines office in London last August. This man was believed to be in Paris yesterday." (The Times)
The hunt for Stuart Christie as a likely `candidate for outrage' was on. His history as an anarchist and his involvement with the movement in Spain made him a superb candidate for a fit-up.

Police searches extend over the whole of the London area. A number of people were dragged up to Barnet Police Station for questioning. "Special Branch were watching members of a group believed to be connected with the ex-plosions". All those questioned at Barnet in the early part of the week were released, apart from a man and a woman who were handed over to the police in other parts of London in connection with other offences.

In the week after the Carr bomb a police guard was provided for Justice Melford Stevenson after he had received a phone call saying that a bomb was to be placed at his house. This was Melford the hanging judge who was to sentence Jake Prescott to 15 years.

Secret orders have been issued to police and security guards that members of the organisation must be flushed out as a matter of top priority. An undercover squad of Special Branch officers has been formed to pursue full-time investigation into the group.

Full-time guards have been placed on Cabinet Ministers. These are angry times... Peter Walker (environment Minister), Melford Stevenson, Tory MP Hugh Fraser, Tory Prime Minister Heath and many others have received threatening calls. A communique sent to the Express newspaper says:
"THE ANGRY BRIGADE IS AFTER HEATH NOW. WE'RE GETTING CLOSER".

January 18
Glasgow South African Airways office firebombed.
January 19
Jake Prescott was arrested on a cheque charge in Notting Hill. On January 20 he appeared in Marylebone Court, where he was questioned by Habershon. In the time he was inside on remand, he was put in cells with Messrs A, B and C. Habershon had an interview with Mr A at Camberwell Court, which he took up again on February 9. Mr A made a statement that Jake "had admitted the bombings at the DEP, Carr's home and the Miss World Contest"... Very convenient! But unfortunately for Habershon, the jury at Jake's trial were not prepared to believe the police witness (perhaps they had in mind the £10,000 reward that had been offered by the Daily Mirror for police informants)... This part of the police evidence was rejected as a frame-up.

At this time the police were being given full rein to do what they liked. In the midst of the hysteria that was generated by the idea that the opposition might be armed, in the midst of the fear that came after a cabinet minister had his front door blown off, a manhunt was taking place `leaving no stone unturned'. Stuart Christie was particularly a victim of this. The London evening newspapers were trumpeting from day to day about the `young Scottish anarchist recently returned from Spain' whom they had branded as the most likely... people were disappearing off the streets for questioning.

The police visit offices of leading newspapers and take photographers off to Barnet to identify people from the photos that were taken outside Carr's house on the night of the January 12 bombing.

On February 3 Jake Prescott was released on bail. Ian Purdie was in court at the time, as he had been for Jake's previous remands. Then, on February 11, Jake and a Dutch friend were seized from a pub in North London and dragged off to Barnet. They were refused any access to lawyers for two days. Jake was interrogated by Habershon and Allard for hours. On February 12 Jake's defence counsel began preparations for a writ of habeas corpus on the police, which would require them to either charge Jake or release him. On February 13 Jan Oudenaarden, the Dutchman, was released after "the most frightening experience of my life". Jake however was not released. He was charged with causing an explosion at Carr's home and those at the DEP and the Miss World contest.

Jake and Jan had been `detained for questioning' for 3 days. In the court at Barnet, Habershon is challenged to produce `grounds for arrest' and is threatened with legal action. It is claimed that he had tried to persuade Jake to change his lawyer -- presumably to one who would not cause trouble for the police...

January 25
Home of the Lord Provost of Glasgow bombed.
January 27
Communique 5 received by the Press Association. The police were forced to admit that earlier bombings (which they had covered up) had taken place. The police, however, imposed a press blackout on the course of the investigations. At the same time the Daily Mirror offers a £10,000 reward to anybody giving information leading to a conviction.
January 29
The Times reports: "Scotland Yard and security officials are becoming increasingly embarrassed and annoyed by the activities of the Angry Brigade, who cannot now be dismissed as a group of cranks. Some senior officers credit the group with a degree of professional skill that has seldom been experienced".

In the weeks after the Carr bombing, the Barnet Brigade, headed by Roy Habershon (explosives expert), Commander Bond and Commander Dace, thundered all over London with squad cars, dogs, photographers, raiding houses of 'known left wing extremists'. Their concern (as was clear from the number of address books, magazines, letters, etc that they took) was to draw up a picture of the extra- parliamentary left, whose activities they were now forced to take seriously, and whose structures they were more or less ignorant of. These were raids of the political police in action.

The raids included:

  • January 13: Chris Reed, Huddleston Road, London, N7
  • January 14: Stuart Roche, Schools Union activist.
  • January 15: Ian Purdie's brother, Robert is taken up to Barnet and questioned. The police are looking for Ian.
  • January 17: The house of Ann Lamche (Cinema Action) is raided. Two people are taken off for questioning. The Agitprop house in Muswell Hill (which the police were eager to look round) address book copied.
  • January 19: 4 known raids in which nothing is found. Joe Keith and Tony Swash questioned by Habershon.
  • January 20: Ian Purdie questioned by Palmer-Hall at Bedford Gardens.
  • January 21: Paul Lewis of International Times is questioned by Habershon. Office and home searched.
  • January 22: Chris Allen is questioned by Edinburgh CID. Habershon goes to Edinburgh for three days.
  • January 23: Another raid in Edinburgh.
  • January 24: Police raid a house in London and two men, Ross Flett and Phil Carver were dragged off to Barnet for questioning. Barnet refuses them access to a lawyer who was present outside the station. The papers start to talk of a Scottish anarchist.

    Two men are seized by police in London and taken to Barnet for questioning concerning `about 30 unpublicised attacks on Establishment property' including banks, the home of Tory racist Duncan Sandys and various Conservative Party offices.

January 29
The Evening News reports that: "... in the latest report of HM Inspector of Explosives, `there was again a substantial increase in the number of cases involving homemade devices. There is evidence of the increasing use of such devices in the furtherance of political activities' ".
January 30
Slough Conservative Office firebombed.
February 3
Jake Prescott is released on bail and yet is arrested on the 11th. He is interrogated, denied access to a lawyer for three days, and is accused of the attacks on Carr's home and the BBC van.
February 9
The Jersey home of a local managing director firebombed.
February 11
The house in Grosvenor Avenue, Islington, where Jake Prescott had been staying, is raided by the police. The house is searched for explosives. Diaries, address books, newspapers and other articles are taken away, despite protests that this does not come into the terms of the police warrants. Press reports now make Grosvenor Avenue the centre of the conspiracy. The nearest thing they can find...
February 11
Earlier in the day Habershon and his gang had disrupted the trial of the people who were involved in the demonstration at the Miss World contest in November 1970. They removed by force four of the defence witnesses who were due to give evidence in the trial. They were taken off to Barnet, where they were questioned and denied all access to legal representation. Habershon comes forth in true democratic light when he says "I am not concerned with legal niceties". Charges are brought against Scotland Yard for assault (of those dragged away from Bow Street) and for wrongful arrest and imprisonment. The Special Branch were present at the Miss World trial.
February 13
Searches at the homes of Hilary Creek, John Barker, Kate McLean, Chris Allen and others in a hunt for explosives. Jake Prescott is charged with conspiracy to cause explosions between July 30 1970 and December 1971, and with the specific bombings of Carr's home, the Dept of Employment and the Miss World contest.
February 15
Cannock Street is raided again.
February 19
Habershon goes to Edinburgh. Two houses are raided and Jane and Chris Allen are questioned. The same day The Times prints Communique 6 from the Angry Brigade. There was also a telephone call from an Angry Brigade spokesman to the Havering Recorder in Essex, saying that from Saturday next a campaign of violence would be conducted against Conservative Party policies in South Africa.

THE RAIDS CONTINUE
February 20
Mike Kane's house is raided.
March 5
House in Talbot Road, Notting Hill raided.
March 6
12 midnight, house in Tyneham Road, SW11, raided. Ian Purdie was there and was arrested. Habershon said at Barnet that "the raid was to find explosives and Ian Purdie. They are synonymous as far as I am concerned." He admitted in court that he had ordered Ian to be arrested for questioning, which is illegal.
March 7
Ian Purdie is charged, along with Jake Prescott, accused of the two Angry Brigade bombings. They are both in the top security wing at Brixton Prison -- as class A prisoners -- and are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day.
March 10
The Guardian reports on police excesses in their investigations.
March 18
During a major strike of Ford workers in England the main offices of the Ford Motor Company at Gants Hill, Ilford, on the outskirts of London, is wrecked by a powerful explosion. A thousand word communique (Communique no 7) is delivered shortly after.

... A man walks into a London bank and demands £5,000 with the threat of a bomb that he had with him (a biscuit tin full of coal).

The bomb at Fords on March 18 sparks off another wave of raids:
March 20
House in Notting Hill raided. Defence documents seized.
March 23
Grosvenor Avenue raided for the second time. Dogs and ten pigs.
March 24
Two houses in East London raided. First, Ron Bailey's with explosives warrant -- impression of typewriter taken. Second, Digger Walsh's with explosives warrant, by Cremer and Bentley.
April 1
Two houses in Notting Hill raided. More defence files for the Powis Square trial are seized.

Throughout the period since their arrest, Ian and Jake have been kept in solitary in Brixton Prison, allowed out for only one hour each day. Their defence lawyers can only gain access to them after bargaining with Habershon. When the defence counsel asks for evidence of arrests to be produced, he is told this can't be done without the permission of the Attorney General. In addition £10,000 bail for each of the defendants is refused by the magistrate at Barnet.

April 1
The home of the headmaster of Roydale School is firebombed.
April 5
Arson attempt at Gosport Tory Club. (Evening Standard says "this is the latest in a series of incidents involving this club in the last six months.")
April 5
Bomb left in Leicester Square.
April 22
Committal proceedings for Jake and Ian start at Barnet Court. The committal is to decide whether or not the magistrate feels there is enough evidence against the two of them for a trial to be set at the Old Bailey. There is no doubt that he will find so, but nevertheless proceedings proceed... interminably... until May 27. Jake had been presented (April 15) with three more charges: having conspired with Ian to cause explosions `with others' between July 1970 and March 1971 and having actually caused the Miss World and DEP bombings.
April 22
Arson at Whitechapel Barclays Bank.
April 23
Booby trap incendiary envelope posted to MP at House of Commons.
April 24
Second police raid in Wivenhoe, Essex. Charges: possession of drugs -- shown photos of Jim Greenfield and Anna Mendelson and 2 others.
April 26
3rd raid on Cannock Street. Chris arrested on cheques charges.
April 28
The Times receives a liquid bomb through the post. It had a message: "From the Vengeance Squad, the Angry Brigade, The People's Army. We will use these. Many of them in June and July. Revolution now."
April 29
Sabotage at Nuclear Power Station, Berkeley, Gloucester (3rd such incident within three months).
April/May
The IS printers had an intimidating visit, asking about women's newspaper. Raids on IS members in London.
May 1
Mayday, a bomb explodes in the Biba boutique in trendy Kensington. It was accompanied by Communique 8.
May 4
Bomb found strapped to the underside of Lady Beaverbrook's car. Inquiries range through Kent, Essex and Oxfordshire.
May 4
Four home-made bombs found near the Sidcup and Chislehurst Grammar School, where Prime Minister Heath received the Freedom of Bexley on Friday.
May 22
Bomb attack on Scotland Yard Computer Room at Tintagel House, London. This is accompanied by simultaneous attacks by the Angry Brigade, the International Solidarity Movement, and the Marius Jacob group against British Rail, Rolls Royce and Rover offices in Paris.
May
Harris Gleckman, Alan Barlow, and Smith raided for the second time at Agitprop, Muswell Hill.
June 1
A letter is sent to The Times: "If Heath and Rippon contrive to enter the Common Market without seeking the opinion of the British people they will be on the receiving end of a bullet. This is no idle threat. Signed: The Angry Brigade."
July 22
During a dispute between Ford management and the militant shop steward John Dillon, in the Ford Liverpool plant, the Angry Brigade blow up the home of Ford's managing director, William Batty, in Essex. The same night a bomb damages a transformer at the Dagenham plant of the Ford Motor Company.

By this time Scotland Yard is hopping mad. Sir John Waldron holds a conference there, where senior police officers are told of the order that has come from the Prime Minister, via Home Secretary Maudling, that "The Angry Brigade must be found and smashed"... "We have been ordered to treat the Angry Brigade as Public Enemy Number 1. This is a top priority job."

In the words of the Sunday Telegraph:

"YARD WILL GET THE ANGRY BRIGADE.... A special team of 20 hand-picked detectives from the Flying Squad and Special Branch, working with army bomb disposal experts and Home Office scientists. Their leader, a commander, whose name is being kept secret for his own safety... is known as rough and ready... The squad is taking a tough line. It will raid hippy communes, question avowed members of the `underground' and build up a complete file on the sub-culture that threatens the present social order."
July 19
Factory at Dordan damaged by several fires started by incendiary devices.
July 25
Intimidation of a claimant in North London when police with explosives warrant smash door in.
July 26
Ian Purdie refused bail of £17,500 by Melford Stevenson.
July 31
Despite close police protection in the home of the Secretary for Trade and Industry, John Davies, is badly damaged by a powerful explosion in London. This action followed close on Davies' announcement of his intention to close Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, throwing thousands of men out of work. This is accompanied by the 11th Communique from the Angry Brigade.
August 2
Two houses in Essex searched with explosives warrant. Judge Argyll of the OZ trial is threatened in his Midlands home.

The trial date for Jake Prescott and Ian Purdie is set for September 7, and now the police's concern is to do everything possible to wreck and intimidate any support action that might be planned for them. Various houses are raided and material and addresses related to the Ian and Jake defence is seized. One of the places raided was the Agitprop collective in Bethnal Green, London, where material was seized .

August 15
More raids: Hungerford Road, Dave Garfinkel taken for questioning. Beresford Terrace, N5 -- documents seized. Crystal Palace -- Sally Keith's house, floorboards ripped up.
August 15
Following the announcement by the British Government that internment was to be introduced in Ireland, there was a powerful explosion at the Army recruiting centre in Holloway Road, North London. This was accompanied by a Communique signed `Angry Brigade Moonlighters Cell'.
August 16
Agitprop, Bethnal Green again raided with explosives warrant.
August 17
Wilson and Habershon raid house in Talbot Road, Notting Hill, with warrant for stolen goods.
August 21
House in Amhurst Road, London, raided by Special Branch and CID. Jim Greenfield, Anna Mendelson, John Barker and Hilary Creek are arrested. The four are taken to the `Bomb Squad' HQ in Albany Street, London, where the two men are subjected to a brutal beating-up to extract a confession from them.
August 21
Stuart Christie arrested at Amhurst Road, London, while visiting the house. One hour later Chris Bott is also arrested at the same place. Both are taken to join the others at Albany Street Police Station. Incriminating evidence in the form of two detonators is planted by police officers in Christie's car. Both men are also verballed.
August 23
All are charged at Albany Street Police Station with:
  1. Conspiring to cause explosions between January 1 1968 and August 21 1971.
  2. Possessing explosive substances for an unlawful purpose.
  3. Possessing a pistol without a firearms certificate.
  4. Possessing eight rounds of ammunition without a firearms certificate.
  5. Possessing two machine guns without the authority of the Secretary of State.
  6. Possessing 36 rounds of ammunition without a firearms certificate.
  7. Jim: attempting to cause an explosion in May 1970.
  8. Anna and Jim: attempting to cause an explosion in Manchester, October 1970.
  9. Stuart: possessing one round of ammunition without a firearm certificate. (This was dated back 2 years when a bullet was taken from his flat. No charges were preferred against him at the time.)
  10. John, Jim and Stuart: possessing explosive substances.
  11. Jim, John and Hilary: receiving stolen vehicle.
  12. Stuart: possessing explosive substances. (The two detonators planted by the police). All are refused bail and remanded in custody to await trial.
August 29
Military wing of Edinburgh Castle bombed.
September 10
Ipswich Courthouse bombed.
September 16
Bomb discovered in officers' mess inside Dartmoor prison. (News not released for two weeks).
September 20
Support of Chelsea Bridge opposite army barracks bombed. (Blast heard three miles away.)
September 24
Despite the fact that the police claim to have arrested all the Angry Brigade, the Albany Street Army Barracks (near the Bomb Squad HQ) is bombed by the Angry Brigade in protest against the actions of the British Army in Northern Ireland.
October 15
Maryhill Barracks Army HQ, Glasgow, firebombed.
October 20
Home of Bryant, Birmingham building boss, bombed while his workers are on strike. Communique issued by the Angry Brigade.
October 30
Post Office Tower in London is bombed by the Angry Brigade.
October 30
'The Cunning Man' Pub, Reading, which refused to serve workers from the M4 site, bombed.
November 1
Army Tank HQ in Everton Street, London, bombed by the Angry Brigade.
November 6
Amsterdam: attack against Lloyds Bank; Basle: Italian Consulate attacked; Rome: British Embassy attacked; Barcelona: British Embassy attacked. All in support of the `Stoke Newington Eight' and the Italian anarchists imprisoned on trumped-up charges of 'conspiracy' and subversion.
November 11
Haverstock Street, Islington, raided. Angie Weir arrested, taken to Albany Street and charged with conspiracy to cause explosions.
November 17
89 Talbot Road raided: Chris Allen ends up similarly charged.
November 26
Pauline Conroy arrested in her flat in Powis Square and charged.
November 29
Broadstairs Courthouse firebombed.
December 1
Trial of Ian Purdie and Jake Prescott ends. Ian Purdie found not guilty on all charges. Jake Prescott found not guilty of specific bombings, but guilty of conspiracy to cause bombings on the basis of having written three envelopes, and was sentenced to fifteen years.
December 15
Jordanian Ambassador, London, machine-gunned in his car.
December 18
Kate McLean arrested and charged along with Angela Weir, Chris Allen and Pauline Conroy, who had been arrested during the course of November. of having conspired with the six people already arrested on conspiracy charges. Shortly before the opening of Committal proceedings against the ten militants, Attorney General, Sir Peter Rawlinson, the victim of one of the Angry Brigade attacks, decided there was insufficient evidence for a case to be made against Pauline Conroy and Chris Allen, and they were released from custody.

1972

January 22
Explosive letter sent to MP at House of Commons.
February 1
Rhodesia House in London firebombed.
February 3
Kirkgate, Huddersfield, Army Recruiting Office destroyed by firebombs.
February 17
Bonhill Street Social Security Office, London, firebombed. Liverpool Army HQ, Edge Lane, bombed. Severe damage.
February 22
Aldershot Paras HQ bombed -- 7 killed.
March 10
South African Airways, London, firebombed.
March 15
(Approx) Prison officer shot outside Wandsworth Prison.
March 20
Two shots fired through the front of the Army Recruiting Office, Slough, Bucks.
March
Four members of the Workers' Party of Scotland sentenced to a total of 81 years as a result of an expropriation carried out against the Bank of Scotland in June, 1971. The comrades, who defended their actions politically in court, were dealt the highest sentences ever by a Scottish court for robbery: William McPherson, 26 years, Matt Lygate, 25 years, and Ian Doran were virtually ignored by the revolutionary left.
March 30
Bomb containing 13 sticks of gelignite planted on railway line near Stranraer, Glasgow, used by the Army to transport men and equipment to ferry for N. Ireland.
April 6
2nd bomb (13 sticks) planted on rail link near Glasgow.
April 24
Homemade bomb planted at police headquarters at Sleaford, Lancs. 15 year old boy held.
April 26
Bomb blast and fire at Tory HQ, Billericay, Essex.
May 1
Explosion at CS gas factory.
May 30
Trial of `Stoke Newington Eight' accused of conspiracy to cause Angry Brigade bombings, begins in No 1 Court at the Old Bailey in London. This was to be the longest trial in the history of the British legal system.
Excerpt from a Stoke Newington Eight Defence Bulletin:
THE TRIAL SO FAR...

Has been four months of prosecution, four months of police witness after witness contradicting each other, changing their story, LYING, broken only for four weeks when the judge had his holiday...

A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE

The Press have reported nothing of all this -- just as they never reported the bombings until it suited them. What are they scared of?

WHAT CONSPIRACY?

The only concrete evidence is the guns and gelignite `found' by the police in the flat where 4 of the defendants lived. At first the police said that 2 of the 4 were there throughout the raid; then they admitted that at one point they were taken out of the flat then brought back. WHY? The fingerprint expert admitted that there were no prints on the guns and explosives. WHY NOT?

The prosecution's story changed from day to day. It emerged that the police would have fallen flat over the guns and gelly as they came into the flat if it had been where they said it was, instead of 'finding' it ten minutes later; so they suddenly `remembered' for the first time -- a year later -- that it had been covered with clothes.

POLICE CONSPIRACY

One detective was forced to admit that he had altered his notebook during the trial. Another gave the game away altogether when he said that he and a colleague sat down in the kitchen and `decided' what happened in the raid.

NO CONSPIRACY

The rest of the evidence against the eight is research, letter and articles written by the defendants for different underground papers (Frendz, Strike) and broadsheets. The prosecution call them proof of conspiracy because they mention such political targets as the Industrial Relations Act, Fair Rents Act, Miss World contest, etc.

Their scientific experts' tried to pin 25 of the bombings that took place in England between 1968 and 1971 on to these people, claiming that these bombings were `associated' -- disregarding other similar bombings and covering up the differences between the 25. But the explosions were claimed by groups as different as the 1st of May group, the Angry Brigade, The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And the `set' didn't include 3 claimed by the Angry Brigade AFTER Amhurst Road was raided.

Now the defence is beginning, the truth can come out: the only conspiracy there's been is a STATE CONSPIRACY.


Police explosives expert testifies that between March 1968 and August 1971 there had been 123 known attacks on property.
November 24
During his summing up Mr Justice James directed the jury to ignore the defence's protestations that it was a political trial. He said: "It is not (a political trial) and I direct you to have none of it. Political trials are trials of people for their political views. We do not have them in this country."
December 6
The trial ends. Jim Greenfield, Anna Mendleson, Hilary Creek and John Barker are sentenced to 10 years for `conspiracy to cause explosions'. The other four charged are acquitted, and the sentence of Jake Prescott is reduced to 10 years.
December 7
After the Angry Brigade sentences the previous day, Scotland Yard names two more people they want in connection with the bombings: Gerry Osner and Sarah Poulikakou, both living abroad at the time. 300 people marched in protest to Holloway Prison.

In all, 12 people were arrested and charged -- 2 had the charges against them withdrawn, 5 were acquitted, five were convicted and imprisoned for conspiracy.

Following the trial Commander Bond was promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard. Det. Chief Superintendent Habershon was made Commander and seconded to the Home Office's Research and Planning Office in 1973. In June 1974 he headed the police investi- gation into the killing of Kevin Gateley, the Warwick Uni- versity student, in Red Lion Square on June 5th 1974 -- as a result of which the police were absolved of all respon- sibility. In April 1975 Commander Habershon was appoint- ed head of the Bomb Squad, replacing Robert Huntley.

More from Recollection Books here.
2002 article from 'The Observer' here.
Introduction to Elephant Editions collection by Jean Weir here.
John Barker reviews Tom Vague's 'The Angry Brigade' here.
3AM MAG interview with John Barker here.
3AM MAG interview with Stuart Christie here.
'Guardian' interview with Stuart Christie here.
Stuart Christie's website here.
(Thanx to Grant McD over in NZ for inadvertantly reminding me of those heady days!)

'Be The Change' by Shepard Fairey

Ron Asheton RIP

Stooges guitarist found dead at home.
Story from 'NME' here.
Iggy Pop pays tribute at 'Rolling Stone' here.
Well all I can say is that I am glad that I finally saw The Stooges when they played the BDO a couple of years ago here in Melbourne.
(They were the one band that I wanted to see and had given up hope.)
Today you can relive their performance at Glastonbury on the 23rd June 2007.

E PLURIBUS UNUM!

One out of many!

Strike on school in Gaza kills at least 30!

Story from the 'BBC' here.

This is just fucking ridiculous!!!

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Arthur 32

Free online here.

Oh dear, oh dear

Following the story here of Steven Gerrard's fracas in Southport, I refused to believe that it could be true that the fight started due to the DJ's refusal to play Gerrard's request. (Phil Collins!) Couldn't be true surely and then I found this!

Poison Girls - Persons Unknown


Poison Girls.
'Persons Unknown'

This is a message to persons unknown
Persons in hiding. Persons unknown
Survival in silence
Isn't good enough no more
Keeping your mouth shut head in the sand
Terrorists and saboteurs
Each and every one of us
Hiding in shadows persons unknown

Hey there Mr. Average
You don't exist you never did
Hiding in shadows persons unknown
Habits of hiding
Soon will be the death of us
Dying in secret from poisons unknown
This is a message to persons unknown
Strangers and passers-by
Persons unknown
Turning a blind eye
Hope to go unrecognized
Keeping your secrets persons unknown

Housewives and prostitutes
Plumbers in boiler suits
Truants in coffee bars
Who think you're alone
Big men on building sites
Sick men in dressing gowns
Agents in motor cars
Who never go home
Women in factories
One parent families
Women in purdah
Persons unknown
Wild girls and criminals
Rotting in prison cells
Patients in corridors
Persons unknown
Statistics on balance sheets
Numbered and rubberstamped
Blind and invisible
You're lost in your homes
Liggers and layabouts
Lovers on roundabouts
Wake up in the morning
Persons unknown

Accountants in nylon shirts
Feminists in floral skirts
Nurses for when it hurts
Persons unknown
Astronauts and celibates
Deejays and hypocrites
Liars and lunatics
Persons unknown
Hopefuls on football pools
Teachers in empty schools
Kids into heroin not yet full grown
Typists and usherettes
Black men who can't forget
The lonely who long for
Persons unknown

Closet idealists
Baldheaded realists
Rastas and bikers
The voice on the phone
Pimps and economists
Royalty and communists
Rioters and pacifists
Persons unknown

Visionaries with coloured hair
Leather boys who just don't care
Garter girls with time to spare
Persons unknown
Judges with prejudice
Dissidents and anarchists
Policemen deal dirty tricks
To persons unknown
Strikers and pickets
Collectors of tickets
Radical architects
The queen on her throne
Soldiers in uniform
Sailors and stevedores
Beggars and bankers
Persons unknown
Football crowd hooligans
Bunking off school again
Workers down tools again
United's at home
Smokers with heart disease
Cleaners of lavatories
The old with their memories
Persons unknown

Flesh and blood is who we are
Flesh and blood are what we are
Flesh and blood is who we are
Our cover is blown...

Obama Must Get Tough With Israel To Achieve Peace

Picture: Jae C. Hong-AFP/Getty Images
In Search of the High Ground: In July, Obama got a bird's-eye view of the Holy Land with
Tzipi Livni (right) and Ehud Barak.

Article from 'Newsweek' here.

Sam Shepard reads from 'Motel Chronicles'

'Paris Texas' - Japanese trailer

Currently reading

Sam Shepard arrested for drink driving.
Story at 'Huffington Post' here.

Tim or Jeff?


You get the feeling that Jeff would buy you flowers and then write a song about it while Tim would shoot you full of heroin and then fuck your brains out!
Compare Jeff Buckley and Elizabeth Fraser - 'All Flowers In Time' with Tim Buckley - 'Live at The Starwood L.A. in 1975 (Buzzin' Fly - Nighthawkin' - Dolphins - Get On Top - Devil Eyes - Finale)

Monday 5 January 2009

Spiritualized - These Blues (Live 1995)


Spare ticket for Thursday's Melbourne gig for sale see here.

Spare Spiritualized ticket for Melbourne gig this Thursday



Contact me through blog if you want the ticket (at cost price).

Senator Al Franken does Mick Jagger


Thanx to 'Boingboing'

Gary Clail - Human Nature (1991)

There's something wrong with 'Human Nature'

To celebrate the return of On-U Sound Records after 5 years I give you 'Human Nature' by Gary Clail.
Also included is the original 12 minute demo by the Tackhead crew featuring the words of the Rev. Billy Graham.

Ricky Gervais defends his fat jokes


"I heard someone on the radio once say that they were tired of the prejudice aimed at the overweight. They said something like "you're not allowed to make fun of gay people, so why are you allowed to make fun of fat people? It's the same thing."
It's not the same thing though, is it? Gay people are born that way. They didn't work at becoming gay. Fat people became fat because they would rather be that way than stop eating so much. They had to eat and eat to get fat. Then, when they were fat they had to keep up the eating to stay fat. For gayness to be the same as fatness, gay people would have to start off straight but then ween themselves onto cock. Soon they're noshing all day getting gayer and gayer. They've had more than enough cock... they're full... they're just sucking for the sake of it. Now they're overgay, and frowned upon by people who can have the occasional cock but not over indulge.
When a doctor tells me that that's how you become gay, I'll stop making jokes about fat people."

More blogging from Ricky Gervais here.

Doctor Who?

More on Matt Smith from the 'BBC' here.

Underworld - Born Slippy NUXX (Live Bondi Beach NYE 2008)

Sunday 4 January 2009

Newsflash!!! (From On - U Sound HQ)


ON-U SOUND ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT WE ARE BACK IN BUSINESS AND RELEASING MUSIC AGAIN, ALTHOUGH PAST EXPERIENCE TELLS US NOT TO!!! We are back after an absence of nearly 5 years and along with the Lee Perry, Harry Beckett & Samia Farah albums - which will be available across Europe from January - we are happy to announce the following titles for 2009:

- African Headcharge's "VISION OF A PSYCHEDELIC AFRICA" (around May 2009)
- "DUBSETTER" by Lee Perry & Adrian Sherwood (around May 2009)
- "THE ROYAL VARIETY SHOW : THE BEST OF DUB SYNDICATE" by Dub Syndicate (before the summer)
- Ian King's "PANIC GRASS AND FEVER FEW" or "... KING OF ENGLAND" (will be mastered this month and scheduled for release)

January 2009 : Off to Jamaica to do a new batch of recordings with Ari Up, towards a new New Age Steppers album and tracks for a new Adrian Sherwood album that started in Brazil and will hopefully end there. Life's Sweet!!

A 12" of "International Broadcaster" (Remixed by Moody Boyz) by Lee Perry (Ft Roots Manuva & LSK) is due out soon and a collaborative project between Adrian Sherwood and The Moody One is under way.

New On-U recordings are under way with Denise Sherwood, Sandman, African Headcharge, Ghetto Priest, Little Axe, Mark Stewart, DJ Moodie & Jennie Bellstar / Dave Barker.


Watch this space!

Links & Comments (Getting MY Message Across...)

From now on all download links for anything I post will be in the comments section and while you are there...

'Segway' office skiing looks like a fun potential lawsuit source

And there was me thinking that Marilyn Manson was a dick!

LA coroner finds Dr. Dre's son OD'd on heroin & morphine

Story from 'Gigwise' here.

Saturday 3 January 2009

There Are No Spectators!

Skip McDonald - guitar

Mark Stewart - vocals

Mark Stewart and the Maffia
Live @ Auditório Serralves - Porto (14.04.07)
Get it here.
(A rather subdued excursion this time around perhaps due to the gig being held in an art gallery.)

Israel/Palestine: Another Path Is Possible


Cast Lead in the Foundry


From the Editors
Middle East Research and Information Project [MERIP]
December 31, 2008


A stopped clock, the saying goes, is right twice a day. The “senior Bush administration official” who chatted with the Washington Post on December 28 was right that Israel is “not trying to take over the Gaza Strip” with the massive assault launched the previous day, and correct that the Israelis are bombing now “because they want it to be over before the next administration comes in.” That’s twice, and so one must take this official’s remaining reasoning -- that President-elect Barack Obama may not smile upon Israel’s gross abuses of military power as the Bush administration has done -- with a grain of salt.

To be sure, it is hard to imagine that the incoming Obama administration could be as blithely indulgent of Israeli belligerence as its predecessor has been. In 2004, President George W. Bush broke not only with international law, but also with decades of US policy, when he promised Israel that it could keep its major West Bank settlement blocs and forget about Palestinian refugees. Bill Clinton did much the same in 2001, with his last-ditch plan for reviving the Oslo process, but settlements and refugees were still matters for negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians, not between Israel and the United States. In 2006, as Israel laid waste to swathes of Lebanon, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hardly tried to hide that her refusal to broker an end to hostilities came in deference to Israel’s requirement for more time to achieve objectives it ultimately failed to meet. Henry Kissinger did much the same in 1973, green-lighting additional Israeli advances into Egypt after passage of UN Security Council Resolution 338 imposed a ceasefire, but he did it behind his own boss’s back. Obama will almost certainly be more cognizant of the value of being held in global esteem, and thus more inclined to restrain Israeli militarism, than Bush.

But Obama and his team should feel the imperative to speak out now, as Israel illegally shells a captive civilian population, if only in light of the conventional wisdom that Operation Cast Lead complicates their advertised plans for an early push to restart an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Instead, the administration-in-waiting has kept quiet, stirring only to send future White House adviser David Axelrod on CBS’s Face the Nation to say that the president-elect understands Israel’s “urge to respond” to the Qassams, Katyushas and mortars being lobbed from Gaza. Far from a mere slip of “one president at a time” decorum, this de facto endorsement of the bombardment echoes the Clinton administration line backing Israel’s “right to self-defense” as live ammunition flew at rock-throwing Palestinians in the fall of 2000. It also underlines the magnitude of the changes Obama must make in US policy toward Israel-Palestine, if he hopes to intervene other than to bless and uphold the achievements of Israeli settler-colonialism.

As for the official narrative of the “all-out war” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak swears to wage against “Hamas and its kind” in Gaza: Even CNN reporters in Sderot acknowledge that there is no equivalence between the unguided projectiles of Hamas, illegitimate and ill-considered as they are, and the might and technological sophistication of the Israeli air force and army. Not a single rocketeer will be dissuaded by the bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza or the headquarters of al-Aqsa television. Israel plainly chose the moment of attack not only to spring a tactical surprise, but also to maximize the death and destruction. Upwards of 385 Palestinians lie dead -- at least 64 of them, by “conservative” UN estimates, wearing no uniform not required by a school -- and more than 1,750 others are injured.

And as for the Israeli-US tale, parroted by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Ghayt, that Hamas brought this mayhem upon Gaza by declining to extend the truce that expired on December 19: According to the December 28 edition of Ha’aretz, Barak ordered the Defense Ministry to begin plotting this offensive before the truce agreement was concluded six months ago, in anticipation of a pretext, and in preparation for a smoother, less costly campaign than the 2006 stalemate in Lebanon. The next day, the defense minister told the Knesset the same thing. The renewal of Hamas rocket fire in November, prompted by an Israeli incursion to close off a “ticking tunnel” originating underneath a Gazan home, was the pretext. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, 18 people in Israel have been killed by rockets and mortars from Gaza since 2004, four of them since Operation Cast Lead got underway. The costs of the campaign to the Palestinians have already been far steeper -- and they will grow steeper still in Israel’s attempt to keep its own costs to a minimum.

The most compelling explanation for the scope of the assault on Gaza is that militarist interpretations of the failed war in Lebanon have prevailed inside the Israeli establishment. As one general told the New York Times, the problem then was not that the Israelis hit Lebanon too hard and too indiscriminately, but rather that “we were not decisive enough.” Mark Heller of Tel Aviv University completed the thought: “This operation is an attempt to reestablish the perception that if you provoke or attack you are going to pay a disproportionate price.” Leave aside that the linchpin of Israel’s strategy is therefore the very lack of proportionality that Israeli spokespeople so bristle at being accused of by proponents of the laws of war. If this explanation for Israel’s actions is accurate, then Gaza will suffer considerably more punishment before Israel is satisfied that its “deterrence capability” is adequately acknowledged. The danger of escalation, moreover, is acute.

The appearance of such a frank analysis in America’s newspaper of record, to be mulled over by the more intelligent anchors on CNN, is perhaps a sign of slippage in Israel’s exercise of dominion over both Gaza and the way that events there are portrayed. Since the fall of 2000, and far more intensely since Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, Israel has entrapped Palestinians within Gaza, preventing them from telling their story abroad, and blocked the access of outsiders to the coastal strip. Recipients of foreign scholarships are forced to stay home, as are human rights activists invited to speak by Israelis or others in the world outside. Palestinian reporters living in Gaza cannot travel either, and might not want to, given the beating administered by Israeli security personnel to their colleague Muhammad ‘Umar, who managed in June to escape to London to collect the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. Members of the non-Palestinian media, meanwhile, have periodically been barred, as they are now, from entering Gaza or the “closed military zone” in its vicinity, leading the Foreign Press Association in Israel to register regular protests at this “serious violation of press freedom.” Other outside fact finders, like Bishop Desmond Tutu, are likewise excluded, and only two weeks before Operation Cast Lead, the new UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk, was detained at the Tel Aviv airport and summarily expelled from the country on spurious charges of “legitimizing Hamas terrorism.” The systematic veiling of Gaza from outside scrutiny allows Israel to turn Gaza into a black box to which only it holds the key. Israeli spokespeople enjoy a near monopoly on the story that gets told, whether about the tactics of Hamas rule or the tunnels that Gazans use to infiltrate food and (non-military as well as military) supplies.

So it is not surprising, if still vexing, that most American coverage of Cast Lead, and certainly the reaction in Congress, hews closely to Israel’s position that the expansive nature of the operation is justified as self-defense. “We are trying to hit the whole spectrum,” an unnamed Israeli officer told the Washington Post, “because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel.” Lost in the laying of blame upon Hamas is the stark fact that Gaza remains Israeli-occupied, both in the eyes of the UN and in the practical sense that Israel has near complete control over exit and egress of persons and goods. There is political purpose behind the bombing of the Islamist party’s “civilian infrastructure” and the closure of border crossings to needed shipments of food, fuel, medicine and cash -- closures, again, that long preceded Cast Lead. It is the same motive underlying the December 30 ramming of an activist boat carrying emergency supplies (and a CNN reporter -- oops) and the repulsion of a Libyan relief vessel on December 1. The purpose is to render Hamas totally unprepared to deal with humanitarian crisis in the hope of undercutting support for the party as it fails to deliver basic services. Absent from the American media, as well, is the long history of the siege, the primary reason by far that Hamas refused to renew the ceasefire. This stance, to a large extent, came about in answer to popular demand.

Hamas, without a doubt, has contributed to Gaza’s isolation, not least with the brutality of its armed takeover of the territory in the summer of 2007 and its vindictive maltreatment of Fatah affiliates and others since then. But enmity for the Islamist party cannot pardon the Arab complicity, most notably that of Abbas and the Egyptian regime, in the “all-out war” on Gaza and the years of siege that have gone before. Abbas, like Syria, has “suspended” talks with Israel until the offensive winds down, but the fact is that those talks are premised upon removing Hamas from the Palestinian national equation. Like Israel, he now hopes that bombardment will quell the Islamists’ will to political power, instead of working with Hamas to remove the blockade upon the livelihoods of the Gazans he still claims to represent. Certainly, as well, the chaos in Gaza takes the spotlight off the impending crisis over the status of his presidential term after January 9, 2009 and his resolve to stay in office for another year. Meanwhile, the Arab world is again treated to the spectacle of Egyptian border guards forcibly sealing Palestinians back into Gaza after they had broken out. The regime of President Husni Mubarak, seized with antipathy of its own for the Muslim Brothers of whom Hamas is nominally a part, is just as determined as Israel and the Bush administration that the Islamists next door be prevented from governing -- the well-being of Gazans be damned. It is striking that some of the more raucous demonstrations in Jordan, Yemen and elsewhere since the bombing began occurred at Egyptian embassies and consulates. Six pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested outside the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv, of all places.

Why exactly did Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, until recently the presumptive prime minister-designate, pay a visit to Cairo shortly before the fighter jets roared over Gaza? Was it simply to warn her Egyptian interlocutors that “all-out war” was coming? Or might there be an Israeli endgame discernible in the siege that keeps the Gaza pressure cooker constantly boiling over? In theory, the endgame could aim at dumping the humanitarian catastrophe on Egypt’s doorstep. With Abbas signed up to sever Gaza from the West Bank, Israel and its allies are free to make conditions intolerable in Gaza in a bid to weaken Hamas and eventually impel Egypt to take security responsibility for Gaza as the precondition for lifting the siege. Egypt was abuzz with precisely this theory this past January, when Gaza’s agony last dominated the news cycle. On the one hand, the regime calculates that the doomsday scenario blunts domestic opposition to its enforcement of the embargo. But that does not mean the scenario has no champions among Israel’s strategic thinkers.

The Israeli project of deepening the political and geographical division between Gaza and the West Bank is quite compatible with a longer-term objective of greater Egyptian (or even Jordanian) involvement in the Occupied Territories. Egypt cannot relish the prospect, and so its diplomacy is geared toward encouraging a more coherent Palestinian polity that can keep Gaza and its Islamists on the other side of the border. But Israeli and Egyptian interests converge upon the immediate challenge: how to cut Hamas down to size.

Operation Cast Lead is intended as a hammer blow, but one with the comparatively modest ambition (for now) to “shape a different and new security situation” in the Gaza Strip. In the estimation of the aforementioned senior Bush administration official, “the Israeli goal now is to damage Hamas enough so that Hamas will accept a real truce.” Of course, there was a real truce, for the most part, from mid-June through mid-December. Yet the quiet on Israel’s southern front did not result in a significant loosening of the blockade, and Hamas returned to its old logic that it must inflict pain upon Israel to accomplish its political goals. Now Barak’s declaration that Cast Lead has been in the foundry since before the ceasefire began will be taken by the Islamist party as confirmation that its thinking was on target.

Along with Barak’s speech in the Knesset, the calls emanating from Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus, and Hizballah in Lebanon, for a “third intifada” including resumed suicide operations in Israel ought to compel the UN Security Council to pass a binding ceasefire resolution. Instead, what little international pressure the combatants have faced to desist has come from individual European states, Britain and France, the European Commission and the so-called Quartet invested by the Security Council with the Israeli-Palestinian file. For its part, the Security Council has issued an ineffectual press statement calling for an “immediate halt to all violence.” That Russia suggested this course of action reveals the extent of US hegemony over the thinkable in Turtle Bay -- Moscow knows that Washington would stymie any attempt to lend the plaintive ceasefire pleas the teeth of international law. The Bush administration, surprising no one at this point, is poised to shield Israel once again as the Jewish state carries out its military campaign to its conclusion. The questions are when Israel will adjudge its “deterrence capability” sufficiently burnished and, as with the Gaza offensive of 2006, whether external factors will intrude.

In the meantime, the Israeli attack prepares the political battlefield in anticipation of an Obama administration-led peace process. Assuming that Obama’s effort follows the phased approach of Clinton, and continues to freeze out Hamas, Israel is protected from the concessions of a comprehensive settlement. As long as Gaza remains separated from the West Bank, and the Hamas-Fatah divide festers, no peace process can gain traction. This is true regardless of which party wins the upcoming Israeli elections, for Israel will be able to claim that the Palestinians have no single political address, and Hamas will have every motivation to sabotage any attempt to strike a deal with Mahmoud Abbas alone. The siege of Gaza would then stretch on indefinitely, with Hamas duly weakened.

Another path is possible, of course. Obama could quietly drop US rejection of the 2006 Palestinian election results, and work to help the Palestinians form a national unity government. As the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is advocating, he could call the siege of Gaza by its rightful name -- collective punishment -- and demand that it cease. He could throw the weight of Washington behind Security Council action toward that end, and toward a genuine halt to settlement and separation wall construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He could enforce the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, and terminate US supply to Israel of F-16s and Apache helicopters, paid for with US military aid dollars, because they have been used to harm civilians in the attack on Gaza. The measure of Barack Obama will be how far, if at all, he travels toward such a dramatic transformation of US policy on the question of Palestine.

Is it true that “change is coming” when Obama enters the White House? We hope so. Yet the conventional pro-Israel tilt of his campaign indicates otherwise, as does the composition of his foreign policy crew. Obama appears poised to content himself with more energetic US engagement in the sort of flawed negotiations of the Clinton years, the sort that put ending the occupation last, as if the developments of the Bush years had not rendered that approach utterly untenable.

Please, Mr. President-elect, surprise us.

Friday 2 January 2009

Bon Iver - The Wolves (Act 1 & 2)

Italic

Bon Iver - Lump Sum

Bon Iver - Flume

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Farewell To All That: An Oral History of the Bush White House

Article from 'Vanity Fair' here.

Mark Stewart & The Maffia - Learning To Cope With Cowardice (version)

Ultra rare dub of the original track. Released as a flexi disc with the Dutch magazine 'Vinyl' in 1983.
Get it here.

You should be repulsed by this


Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative writes at 'The Washington Note' here.

'Free Jazz' Primer

Albert Ayler

Over at Dennis Coopers's blog today there is a wonderful guide to 'Free Jazz' by Chill Jay Chill from 'Destination OUT'

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore on his top ten here.

(If you go here you can download many of Thurston's choices.)

Thursday 1 January 2009

It's official

THE DEAD ANNOUNCE 2009 ARENA TOUR DATES - KICKING OFF APRIL 12
MARKS THEIR FIRST CONCERT TOUR IN FIVE YEARS

Happy New Year from the DEAD.
After months of fan speculation bolstered by an October 2008 performance at the “Change Rocks” concert/rally for Barack Obama in State College, PA and three recent viral internet videos with band interviews and performance footage, the DEAD today (1/1/09) officially announced tour dates for 2009.
This marks their first trek since 2004’s “Wave at Flag” tour.
Kicking off April 12 in Greensboro, NC and wrapping May 10 near San Francisco, the tour will encompass 19 shows--all to be performed as “An Evening With”--in 16 cities. Details for pre-sale and on-sale tickets will be announced in the near future. Go to WWW.Dead.net for ticket and tour information. All the concerts are set for indoor arenas except for the final show at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA.
Original Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart will be joined by keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and Allman BrothersBand/Gov’t Mule guitarist Warren Haynes, both of whom played with the band at the “Change Rocks” concert.
The group first formed with lead
guitarist Jerry Garcia as the Grateful Dead in 1965 and are legendary for their live performances. The Grammy-winning Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group always toured relentlessly, allowing their “Dead Head” fans to tape and trade their exploratory, free-flowing concerts.
“We’ve got some unfinished business,” says guitarist/singer Bob Weir. “Everybody has a whole new bag of tricks; we have the body of material we worked up over the years and we have a mind meld going on here and it would be a sin to let that just wither and die.” Drummer Mickey Hart adds, “A mind meld is a terrible thing to waste.” Bassist Phil Lesh says, “For me, it’s the question mark that’s really pulling me in…what’s gonna happen? When you walk
out on the stage the possibilities are infinite every time. The musical possibilities are infinite: there is no end to it, there’s no back wall and there’s no ceiling, there’s no floor. It’s infinite and therefore you can still explore it till the day that you die.” Drummer Bill Kreutzmann says, “I get goose bumps just thinking about the possibilities.”
Seeds of the idea of touring again were first planted in February of this year when Hart, Lesh and Weir played a “Dead Heads For Obama” show at the Warfield in their native San Francisco, and last year Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart performed at a post-inauguration for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Always sonic and technological adventurers, the Grateful Dead formed in San Francisco’s electric Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in the mid-‘60s, combining their love of bluegrass, country, electric rock and jazz to create one of the most iconic repertoires in rock music. By touring continuously and never relying on radio hits or latest trends, the Dead and Dead Heads created an unparalleled bond. Fans were turned on to the group by live bootlegs and word of mouth, with many following the band on the road for whole tours.
For more information, go to www.dead.net or www.Dead.Net/Dead09
Date: City: Venue:
Sun 4/12 Greensboro, NC Greensboro Coliseum
Tue 4/14 Washington, DC Verizon Center
Wed 4/15 Charlottesville, VA John Paul Jones Arena
Fri 4/17 Albany, NY Times Union Center
Sat 4/18 Worcester, MA DCU Center
Sun 4/19 Worcester, MA DCU Center
Tue 4/21 Buffalo, NY HSBC Arena
Wed 4/22 Wilkes-Barre, PA Wachovia Arena @ Casey Plaza
Fri 4/24 Uniondale, NY Nassau Coliseum
Sat 4/25 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
Sun 4/26 Hartford, CT XL Center
Tue 4/28 E. Rutherford, NJ IZOD Center
Wed 4/29 E. Rutherford, NJ IZOD Center
Fri 5/1 Philadelphia, PA Wachovia Spectrum
Sat 5/2 Philadelphia, PA Wachovia Spectrum
Tue 5/5 Chicago, IL All State Arena
u 5/7 Denver, CO Pepsi Center
Sat 5/9 Los Angeles, CA e Forum
Sun 5/10 Mountain View, CA Shoreline Amphitheater

The first of the first

Happy New Year

buon anno
šťastný nový rok
godt nytår
gelukkig nieuwjaar
manigong bagong taon
hyvää uuttavuotta
bonne année
Frohes neues Jahr
ευτυχισμένο το νέο έτος
שנה טובה
नया साल मुबारक हो
selamat tahun baru
happy new year
laimīgu Jauno gadu
laimingų Naujųjų metų
godt nytt år
szczęśliwego nowego roku
с новым годом
feliz año nuevo
gott nytt år
chúc mừng năm mới
كل عام وأنتم بخير