the rockwrite project

Zigzag was founded by Pete Frame (of Rock’s Family Trees fame) in 1969, to explore underground music (including folk and country rock) in detailed, well researched style -- and continued through a succession of interruptions and shifts of focus and editors (including John Tobler and Kris Needs) until 1986, by which time it was more goth than not, and its editor was the redoubtable Mick Mercer. The Family Trees remained an intermittent feature until the early 80s, as did a surprisingly large amount of actually hand-written copy -- which served it well during punk and post-punk. Cover star on the top issue (1969 or 1970) is apparently -- I got this off someone’s website -- Dora Henderson, except I’m not quite sure who that is? Deborah Harry in 1978 for the second, obviously, in March 1978.  [Update: not Dora Henderson but Dorris Henderson, who sang on the UK folk rock scene in the 60s and 70s, and played autoharp]

So I wrote up my thoughts, possibly somewhat chaotically. Sorting the book out comes next, though there’ll probably be a bit of a break. 

Run-up to my rockwrite conference Fri-Sat: will you get in? If you’re on a panel, yes! If you’ve registered, probably! But don’t rely on it: as it’s free, people will likely be admitted whether or not they’ve registered, first come first served. Birkbeck continue to insist that free events are only ever half full, and that my worries are unfounded. WE SHALL SEE! I want it to be well attended but I don’t want anyone to be turned away -- esp. if you went out of your way weeks ago to sign up etc. So add yourself to the waitlist -- in case someone registered has to drop out -- and turn up anyway just in case.    

On the plus side, if you do miss out, excerpts and possibly everything will be broadcast by Resonance FM at some point (possibly over the Bank Holiday weekend, 23-25 May). And proceedings are to be turned into a book, to be published next year with lots of extra material!     

Didn’t actually occur to me until far too late that I’d scheduled a conference about politics to begin exactly a week and a day after a general election: so -- quite apart from any other kittens I’m currently having -- I don’t (as of lunchtime 7 May) know if participants will largely be in a mood of battered wary relief or furious hate-filled disappointment tinged with fear :(   I was a stringer at NME when its editorial team put Kinnock^^^ on the cover (the week after my 27th birthday). It was a decision with fairly disastrous consequences, since (as you know) Kinnock lost and (as you may not) IPC management felt no compunction whatever in seizing the first excuse to remove the core of said team, going on to hire people consciously committed to sharply limiting what got covered going forward, in terms of music and everything else. (A previous editor had been carpeted for running covers two weeks in a row featuring a black face: one of these being Marvin Gaye, so not exactly a gamble on an unknown...) Thus one of the historical strengths of the magazine, its extraordinary breadth of potential topic -- which had for several years been a hold-out against the trends in media, of niche-marketing and specialist focus -- stumbled to a  foolish end, with no other title really picking up the baton. 

Individual talent notwithstanding, I don’t actually think it was a good editorial team qua team -- certainly it wasn’t a happy one -- and unresolved internal quarrelling and dislike ensured that it was vulnerable to a managerial coup of this sort. As someone removed from an editorship a few years later, I’m not going to say anything snarky about lack of antennae: these things happen, especially when sales aren’t looking healthy. But at the time -- as someone too junior to be involved at any decision-making level, but on hand enough to know (and dislike) the atmosphere (hullo, hiphop wars!) -- I strongly felt there was a confusion and a lack of confidence in the particulars of what constituted “politics” at such a title; all the things embedded, all the things unsaid, stances and shared values established as much as anything by the tone of picture captions, the nature of the puns in the headlines. An anxious deference had crept in towards what the world at large considered politics, and with it -- more from inattention and lack of gumption than malice -- a kind of a breach of faith. We had stopped trusting in and fighting for our craft, young as it was. This, anyway, is what I felt then; and what partially animated me when I became an editor myself. Part of the reason I wanted to run this conference was to see how much actual evidence there was (in other people’s memories) for my long-ago naive hunch. I guess we’ll soon see.     

Schedule of Birkbeck conference panels complete!

(Though please note, while no further adjustments are now planned, this schedule MAY STILL CHANGE A BIT. It’s the nature of the beast. For fuller details of venue, purpose of conference and where to register, go here.)

Friday 15 May 2015, Room B33, Malet Street, Birkbeck University of London

9.30 –11.00: panel discussion 

The trades meet the underground Charles Shaar Murray, Richard Williams, Mark Williams

11.00–11.15: coffee break (15 minutes)

11.15–12.45: panel discussion How well did the mainstream press deal with rock music in the 60s? What alternatives did the undergrounds offer? Tony Palmer, Jonathon Green, Mark Pringle Chair: Esther Leslie

12.45–1.45: lunch (one hour)

1.45–3.15: panel discussion Handling rhetorics of outsider style in a commercial context — the implicit politics of critical stance Barney Hoskyns, Paul Morley, Jonh Ingham Chair: Toby Litt

3.15–3.30: coffee break (15 minutes)

3.30–5.00: panel discussion The encroachment of professionalisation on a generational playpen — What were the pressures in a music paper’s editorial office, and what was the potential? Beverley Glick (aka Betty Page), Cynthia Rose, Tony Stewart Chair: Tom Ewing

Saturday 16 May 2015, same venue

9.45–11.00: conversation Val Wilmer, David Toop How to cover lesser known musicians and musics in the mainstream music press, and topics arising

11.00–11.15: coffee break (15 minutes)

11.15–12.45: panel discussion Was punk in the music press an affirmation of underground values or a challenge to them? Nigel Fountain, Liz Naylor, Edwin Pouncey Chair: Adam Gearey

12.45–1.45: lunch (one hour)

1.45–3.15: panel discussion: The changing make-up of bohemia — Who was reading? What constituencies were best-served when? Simon Frith, Paul Gilroy, Penny Reel Chair: Cynthia Rose

3.15–3.30: coffee break (15 minutes)

3.30–5.00: panel discussion Implications for the future, the legacy of an era Kodwo Eshun, Laura Snapes, Simon Warner Chair: Hazel Southwell

More excellent confirmation news for my conference! Charles Shaar Murray (who began his career as a music journalist writing for Schoolkids Oz* as an actual schoolkid, aged 18) before graduating to become one the names that made the NME’s 70s reputation; and Paul Gilroy (author of, among other things, There Ain't No Black In the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation, and The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness), who was an associated editor of City Limits in the early 80s and also often wrote about music for The Wire. I’m delighted (and flattered) that both have agreed to participate.  

*This is the issue -- which included a highly sexualised Rupert the Bear parody, created by a 15-yr-old schoolboy (not CSM!)** -- that led to the ‘Oz trial’ in 1971, the longest trial under England’s 1959 Obscene Publications Act: the editors were jailed, but freed on appeal. **I was shown this issue, in particular the Rupert pages, by a schoolchum (son of one of the lawyers on the case iirc) when I was a 15-yr-old schoolboy myself in 1975-76. Boy was I not ready for that jelly :(   

Category panic, or seating the remaining wedding guests. Actually I’ve never planned a wedding – but I *have* (often) tried to tidy my flat and file my um stuff sensibly. And there comes a point, towards the end, when you’ve taken account of all the individual quirks and pleas and potential problems (don’t put uncle zigg next to cousin zagg!) and enjoyed yourself setting up possible good chat between people who never yet met, and you end up with a table that doesn’t make sense. Everyone on it fits fine other tables, but the tables aren’t big enough to allow this – and if you swap this lot into those places, you’re left with a slightly different iteration of the same thing, with a slightly different group. (With filing it’s the problem of the labelling of the document box to take all the items that would otherwise just be one to a box: what’s the least baffling way to do this?)

Anyway, I think – fingers x-ed and a couple more confirmation emails or phonecalls to come in – I’ve dodged that problem! Which means I can likely go live on Monday with the list of panels (rather later than I meant to). And they all make sense, to the audience as well as to the people on them.

My conference (15-16 May) now has a Facebook page for you to like and join and share! Also you can reblog this page! 

Here’s the Birkbeck page (list of attendees now slightly out of date); and here’s the booking/registration page (it’s free!) 

Here’s the webpage with most details (as of now not quite up to date mind you), and here is a list (alphabetical) of confirmed and very nearly confirmed participants (I’m still juggling panels): Kodwo Eshun, Tom Ewing, Nigel Fountain, Simon Frith, Adam Gearey, Beverly Glick (aka Betty Page), Jonathon Green, Barney Hoskyns, John (aka Jonh) Ingham, Esther Leslie, Toby Litt, Paul Morley, Tony Palmer, Mark Pringle, Penny Reel, Cynthia Rose, Hazel Southwell (nee Robinson), David Toop, Simon Warner, Mark Williams, Richard Williams, Val Wilmer, self obv, plus hoping Bob Stanley will be doing a thing (exciting teaser, details later). 

Apologies if I missed anyone -- as I say, a handful are still trying to clear their calendars -- but this is already a great line-up!