Free The Weed 46 by John Sinclair

Highest holiday greetings from Amsterdam and Happy New Year to everybody. I’m writing from my favorite spot, the 420 Café, where I landed a month ago from New Orleans to find that the 27th Annual High Times Cannabis Cup has been seriously disrupted by the local authorities who claimed that the Cup’s organizers had failed to obtain the proper permits for its five-day exposition of cannabis and weed-related products and shut down the affair. It’s no secret that the Netherlands and its business partners in America and the European Union have been increasingly unhappy with the relatively wide-open public availability, vendition and smoking of weed in Amsterdam and in towns and…

Continue Reading

Sun Ra Memories by John Sinclair

My first real exposure to the music and legend of Sun Ra came in the fall of 1964, when drummer Roger Blank passed through Detroit with a jazz trio I can't remember the name of. We put him up for a few days in our stronghold at the Detroit Artists Workshop Cooperative Housing Project, and I watched Roger open his suitcase and pull out what were obviously his most prized possessions: two weird LPs on the El Saturn label with garish outer space art on the covers and names like Supersonic Jazz and Jazz in Silhouette. I had read about the avant-garde Chicago pianist and bandleader in downbeat and other jazz…

Continue Reading

The square root of the M25: Gimpo’s 25 Hour M25 Spin

A witness statement from Iron Man Records 2014. I didn't get much sleep the night before, I had been working on the release of the new John Sinclair record "Mohawk." By the time I climbed into the car and started the engine it was 10am. I drove to London and dropped the car in Brentford, West London. I picked up the keys. I had a 9 seater VW Splitter van on hire from DYC Touring and headed to Shepherd's Bush. I wasn't due to meet the band until 3pm so I had a bit of time to park up and make phone calls. If I was applying for a job I'd…

Continue Reading