John Sinclair performs Twenty One Days in Jail

Following the awesome appearance of 1960s icon, poet and political jailbird John Sinclair on Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge at Resonance FM on Tuesday, I'm posting the video I took of John when he played at Café Oto a few years back.

He performs Twenty One Days In Jail, accompanied by Gary Lammin on guitar, Martin Stacey on bass, Jim Jones on piano, and Paul Ronnie on harmonica.

Listen to John Sinclair on Breaking a Butterfly on a Wheel: Modern Heroes, programme 7 in Anna Chen's Resonance 104.4FM series, Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge. With Oliver Shykles of Queer Friends of Chelsea Manning and Charles Shaar Murray.

The Hackney Tea Ceremony: Gary Lammin at The Steampunk Opium Wars

Gary Lammin is Master of Ceremonies in The Hackney Tea Ceremony, part of The Steampunk Opium Wars debut at the National Maritime Museum on 16th February 2012. With legendary radical theatre impressario Neil Hornick as Captain Ironside. Written by Anna Chen with additional material by Gary Lammin. Additional video by Jeff Willis.

The Steampunk Opium Wars pages:
The Steampunk Opium Wars Home Page
Afterview
The Company: who we are and how to find us.
Gallery: debut performance at the National Maritime Museum.
VIDEO: Lin Zexu Just Says No!
VIDEO: Britannia sings "Money"
What they said ...

Bermondsey Joyriders at The 100 Club: Rat Scabies joins line-up

Last night Loved One and I trekked to The 100 Club in London's West End to see our friend Gary Lammin (Cock Sparrer, The Little Roosters) debut the new line-up of his band, The Bermondsey Joyriders, which sees powerhouse drummer Rat Scabies (The Damned) join Gary and Martin Stacey (Chelsea).

A great energetic gig, Gary isn't a man for the slow ballade so Rat's Keith Moonesque slamming fits in nicely.

I've posted "All The Darkness" and my favourite Lammin song, "Football". Very apt on this Word Cup Final weekend. Oh, there's Germany's first goal ...



OK, one more. Here's the much-covered "Runnin Riot" Gary wrote an age ago when he was in Cock Sparrer in the 1970s.

Bermondsey Joyriders at The 100 Club: Rat Scabies joins line-up

Last night Loved One and I trekked to The 100 Club in London's West End to see our friend Gary Lammin (Cock Sparrer, The Little Roosters) debut the new line-up of his band, The Bermondsey Joyriders, which sees powerhouse drummer Rat Scabies (The Damned) join Gary and Martin Stacey (Chelsea).

A great energetic gig, Gary isn't a man for the slow ballade so Rat's Keith Moonesque slamming fits in nicely.

I've posted "All The Darkness" and my favourite Lammin song, "Football". Very apt on this Word Cup Final weekend. Oh, there's Germany's first goal ...



OK, one more. Here's the much-covered "Runnin Riot" Gary wrote an age ago when he was in Cock Sparrer in the 1970s.

John Sinclair, Charles Shaar Murray, Buffalo Bill: Crossroads

More John Sinclair ...

John Sinclair performs "The Crossroads", his poem about Tommy Johnson (not Robert) who is said to have acquired his mojo when he met a dark stranger at the Crossroads at midnight.

John was the visionary manager of the MC5 who founded the White Panthers when the Black Panthers called for support from the white population. Having caught the eye of the authorities, he was arrested for giving — not selling — two joints to an undercover cop, and served two and a half years of a draconian ten year prison sentence. John Lennon wrote a song about him (it's the one called "John Sinclair"), and a number of luminaries (including Stevie Wonder, Yoko Ono, Bob Seger, Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale) campaigned for his release which happened days after Lennon headlined a benefit Free John Now Rally.

He now lives and works in Amsterdam.

John is accompanied by Charles Shaar Murray on resonator guitar and Buffalo Bill Smith on harmonica. Recorded by Madam Miaow at the Café OTO in Dalston, North London, Saturday 14th March 2009.

UPDATE: New video from the same gig of John Sinclair reciting Twenty-One Days In Jail, accompanied by Gary Lammin and his band.

March 29th, Charles Shaar Murray article on John Sinclair in The Sunday Times:

John Sinclair, Charles Shaar Murray, Buffalo Bill: Crossroads

More John Sinclair ...

John Sinclair performs "The Crossroads", his poem about Tommy Johnson (not Robert) who is said to have acquired his mojo when he met a dark stranger at the Crossroads at midnight.

John was the visionary manager of the MC5 who founded the White Panthers when the Black Panthers called for support from the white population. Having caught the eye of the authorities, he was arrested for giving — not selling — two joints to an undercover cop, and served two and a half years of a draconian ten year prison sentence. John Lennon wrote a song about him (it's the one called "John Sinclair"), and a number of luminaries (including Stevie Wonder, Yoko Ono, Bob Seger, Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale) campaigned for his release which happened days after Lennon headlined a benefit Free John Now Rally.

He now lives and works in Amsterdam.

John is accompanied by Charles Shaar Murray on resonator guitar and Buffalo Bill Smith on harmonica. Recorded by Madam Miaow at the Café OTO in Dalston, North London, Saturday 14th March 2009.

UPDATE: New video from the same gig of John Sinclair reciting Twenty-One Days In Jail, accompanied by Gary Lammin and his band.

March 29th, Charles Shaar Murray article on John Sinclair in The Sunday Times:

Yo! What happened to health and safety?

My mate, punk-rock blues guitarist Gary Lammin, witnessed a fine bit of irony at the public launch of the "Yo! What Happened to Peace" exhibition at The Foundry in trendy Shoreditch on Tuesday.

Some bright spark had decided that mood of the cafe upstairs from the collection of anti-war posters would be enhanced by the use of naked candles stuck into the necks of wine bottles.

This being the opening of the UK leg of the international tour, it drew a heaving crowd.

You know what happens next.

One young black woman in a long scarf and permed hair passes too close to a candle and the next thing her scarf's alight, her coat's alight and her hair's on fire. Everyone's gawping while she's screaming. Gary has the presence of mind to leap across the room and smother the flames, singeing his own fingers in the process, not an ideal situation for a guitarist about to head off to America and record with Pierre De Beauport, the Rolling Stones' guitar specialist.

She's in shock. Gary's in shock. No-one calls an ambulance and now the venue managers are apparently telling her it's her fault because she was wearing a long flammable scarf.

The cherry on the icing on the cake is the reaction from the yuppie at the bar. Before dashing over to save the distressed damsel, Gary had plunged his hands into the nearest liquid in the room: a pint sitting on the bar.

He returns to the bar and the disgruntled yuppie who says,

"Excuse me, that was my drink."

"Frightfully sorry. Would you like me to buy you another one?"

"Yes, that would be the thing to do."

Gary, his blood up, racing with adrenalin, and still with the smell of burning flesh in his nostrils, is commendably restrained for a diamond geezer. He says,

"I will buy you one, mate. But before I do, consider this. You won't be drinking it, you'll be wearing it."

Gary and his mate Mark leave the yuppie scum to their deathtrap jollities and head off to find one of the few remaining working-class pubs in the area where the clientele act like human beings and not Fellini grotesques.

Yo! What happened to health and safety?

My mate, punk-rock blues guitarist Gary Lammin, witnessed a fine bit of irony at the public launch of the "Yo! What Happened to Peace" exhibition at The Foundry in trendy Shoreditch on Tuesday.

Some bright spark had decided that mood of the cafe upstairs from the collection of anti-war posters would be enhanced by the use of naked candles stuck into the necks of wine bottles.

This being the opening of the UK leg of the international tour, it drew a heaving crowd.

You know what happens next.

One young black woman in a long scarf and permed hair passes too close to a candle and the next thing her scarf's alight, her coat's alight and her hair's on fire. Everyone's gawping while she's screaming. Gary has the presence of mind to leap across the room and smother the flames, singeing his own fingers in the process, not an ideal situation for a guitarist about to head off to America and record with Pierre De Beauport, the Rolling Stones' guitar specialist.

She's in shock. Gary's in shock. No-one calls an ambulance and now the venue managers are apparently telling her it's her fault because she was wearing a long flammable scarf.

The cherry on the icing on the cake is the reaction from the yuppie at the bar. Before dashing over to save the distressed damsel, Gary had plunged his hands into the nearest liquid in the room: a pint sitting on the bar.

He returns to the bar and the disgruntled yuppie who says,

"Excuse me, that was my drink."

"Frightfully sorry. Would you like me to buy you another one?"

"Yes, that would be the thing to do."

Gary, his blood up, racing with adrenalin, and still with the smell of burning flesh in his nostrils, is commendably restrained for a diamond geezer. He says,

"I will buy you one, mate. But before I do, consider this. You won't be drinking it, you'll be wearing it."

Gary and his mate Mark leave the yuppie scum to their deathtrap jollities and head off to find one of the few remaining working-class pubs in the area where the clientele act like human beings and not Fellini grotesques.