Home - About - Contact - Events - News - Books - Booklists - Stationery - Links - Periodicals

Housmans radical booksellers since 1945

EVENTS

We aim to put on a variety of events in the shop, and welcome suggestions from community and radical groups who want to use the shop for evening events. Please contact nik@housmans.com or ring us on 020 7837 4473 if you are interested in organising an event. (click here to see previous events)

"Wednesdays @ Housmans" continue... along with many other events on various days

Since September 2007, Housmans has been hosting weekly book events and talks based around a monthly theme. We hope on any given Wednesday from 7pm onwards you can pop into Housmans and be certain of catching a unique and stimulating evening of discussion and debate, with refreshments provided.

See 2008 monthly themes for a list of the topics to be covered by Housmans in 2008. If you are involved with any of the subjects covered then please feel free to contact us with events suggestions or to hold your own event@Housmans.

'

NOVEMBER EVENTS - MUSIC & POLITICS

John Sinclair – ‘Rock and Revolution with the MC5 and the White Panther Party’
Monday 10th November – 1pm

Housmans welcomes Detroit poet, one-time manager of the band MC5, and leader of the White Panther Party, John Sinclair, who will be signing and talking about ‘It’s All Good; the John Sinclair Reader', not published until April next year, but exclusively available on the day.

John is well known for his role in activism and publishing throughout the 1960s, and then for his management of the seminal hard-edged proto-punk MC5 from 1966 to 1969. Under his guidance the band embraced the counter-culture revolutionary politics of the White Panther Party. But it was his arrest after a series of convictions for possession of marijuana, for which Sinclair was sentenced to 10 years in prison, that made him a national star of the counter-culture.

This sentence sparked the landmark "Free John Now Rally" which brought together a who's-who of left-wing luminaries, including pop musicians John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Stevie Wonder, Phil Ochs and Bob Seger, jazz artists Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd, and speakers Allen Ginsberg, Rennie Davis, Dave Dellinger, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale. Three days after the rally, Sinclair was released from prison when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the state's marijuana statutes were unconstitutional.

‘Singing the Struggle: Voices, Women, Peace’ with Frankie Armstrong
Wednesday 12th November - 7pm

Frankie has been voicing her values and political commitments through song for over forty years. She has sung in Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park against the Vietnam war, in favour of women’s choice and against nuclear arms.

While she doesn’t believe that song can change the world, she does believe that it can play a crucial role in keeping up hope and spirits. This, in turn, help[s give the energy and stamina to keep up the struggle. Songs can speak to our heads and our hearts in equal measure and help us to keep this balance in our lives.

As well as performing, she has been running Voice Workshops for the past 33 years, which are very much about helping participants ‘find their voice’. In order to make ourselves heard, we must feel we have the RIGHT to speak or sing.

This evening will be a mix of Frankie chatting and singing, having you, the ‘listeners’, involved in voicing – no need for anxiety; the whole point of her work is to help people not to feel judged – but for everyone to feel that they have a valid voice to contribute to the whole.

The evening will also contain fun – she is currently obsessed by Edward Said’s wonderful saying, “lightness is the aesthetic of resistance”.

‘Digital Film Making’ with Mike Figgis
Wednesday 19th November - 7pm

Mike Figgis has roots in experimental theatre and music, which are just two primary influences that contribute to the creative vision in all of his feature films and documentaries. Over the course of the past 20 years, Figgis has emerged as a visionary filmmaker who thrives on taking artistic risks.

He is possibly most famous for directing the Oscar-winning ‘Leaving Las Vegas’, but the British born filmmaker has exhibited his more eclectic personal style in such films as ‘Stormy Monday’ and ‘Liebestraum’, while more recently his innovative use of new digital technology led to the making of ‘Timecode’, one of the first films to be shot entirely on digital cameras.

His enthusiastic uptake of the digital format has led him to write a book on the subject, ‘Digital Film Making’. On the one hand the book is a handy guide, offering the reader a tutorial in how to get the very best from digital film-making technology. But above all it sets out to encourage people to pick up a camera and have a go.

Mike Figgis will be talking about the digital film making revolution, answering questions and will also be signing copies of his book.

‘Forward Groove: the radical history of jazz’
with Chris Searle
Saturday 22nd November - 3pm

Chris Searle’s book ‘Forward Groove’ is a survey of recorded jazz from its beginnings to the present, seeking to show how its musicians always reflected in their music the issues of their day, from mass migration and the struggles against racism, to a hatred of war, the assertion of internationalism and the aspirations towards a fair and just world.

Searle looks at attempts to resist racism through music, including the Civil Rights movement in the US and the continuing fight against racism in the US and Britain.

This book will appeal to jazz lovers everywhere and those interested in culture and music as an expression of real history – jazz reconciles scattered cultures with diasporan sounds and instruments.

Chris will be discussing the radical history of jazz, playing excerpts from key pieces of music, answering questions, and also signing copies of the book.

No Sweat @ Housmans -Triple Bill featuring King Blues' frontman Itch Fox, Clayton Blizzard and PJ & Gaby
Saturday 22nd November 6pm-9pm

No Sweat regularly host the best nights in politically charged music, with all proceeds going towards fighting sweatshop bosses around the world. This evening No Sweat bring a selection of their favourite artists to Housmans, all playing in an unplugged style. The fantastic line up includes:

King Blues' frontman Itch Fox - skacore street politics and protest with a smile and a wink

Clayton Blizzard - the Finest in Political Hip Hop

PJ & Gaby - emotive and outsopken FolkPunk

…plus anti-sweatshop speeches, free drinks and a raffle.

This event is guaranteed to pack out, so arrive early to avoid disappointment.

War Resisters’ International website launch party
Wednesday 26th November - 7pm

War Resisters' International (WRI) is an international anti-war organisation with members and affiliates in over thirty countries, whose international headquarters are based in the offices above Housmans. This evening WRI will be launching their new website, On 26 November War Resisters' International will be launching its new website. The website - or better knowledgebase - provides information on everything of interest to WRI: issues of conscientious objection and recruitment all over the world, issues of nonviolence, and war profiteers.

The website also includes the new Conscientious Objection Information System (COBIS), which includes a global database of conscientious objectors and combines this with WRI's co-alert system.

Andreas Speck from War Resisters' International and Anselm Heaton from Netuxo Ltd will give brief presentations on the new website.

Drinks and snacks will be provided

‘Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – burning down the Ark’ with Henk Targowski
Saturday 29th November - 5pm

Reggae producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry is one of modern music’s undisputed legends; his groundbreaking production techniques proving hugely influential to this day. However, his visionary talents came at a price – by 1979 the pressure of the Jamaican music industry and the excesses of his lifestyle caught up with him, leading Perry to a mental breakdown that damaged both his personal and musical life. Perry’s studio, the Black Ark, fell into disrepair, and it looked as if Perry would never work again.

In April 1979, Perry received a visit from Henk Targowski, an impresario and owner of Black Star Liner distribution, a record company based in the Netherlands. Targowski wanted to distribute Perry's material, but was not prepared for the madness he would encounter at the Black Ark - reels of master tapes lay strewn on the floor, and the recording equipment was next to useless due to water damage from a leaky roof. The once proud studio was now little more than a junkyard.

Along with some associates, Targowski decided to attempt a salvage operation, trying to refurbish and restore the studio to working order. Financed by Black Star Liner, construction work progressed throughout 1980, and new equipment was ordered and installed. Along with a motley crew of European studio musicians, Scratch erratically recorded what would eventually become the ‘Return Of Pipecock Jacxson’ album – the last album to be recorded at the Ark.

By the spring of 1980, however, the restoration project was abandoned, and Black Star Liner's crew left Jamaica for good. What had been painstakingly rebuilt in the past year was dismantled and destroyed by Perry. Worse was to come: one morning in 1983, the Black Ark burned down. Fire raged through the concrete structure, the temperature inside becoming so intense that it eventually blew the roof off. The studio, the source of some of the most powerful music ever recorded, lay in ruins.

"The Black Ark was too black and too dread," Perry explains. "Even though I am black, I have to burn it down, to save my brain. It was too black. It want to eat me up!"

We are delighted to welcome Henk Targowski to Housmans to recount his memories of Lee Perry, and discuss all aspects of this seminal producer’s work. Henk is also the publisher of the now ultra-rare fanzine ‘The Upsetter’, copies of which we hope will be available on the day.