This Week: Total Assault On The Culture

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Bandcamp
Work has started on uploading the Iron Man Records Catalogue on Bandcamp. To start with all releases will be available for £5 or you can Stream the releases and listen for free. All Releases are available on most of the download and streaming platforms already but for those of you who want an alternative to Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, Google, Youtube, Facebook and all the other main providers, Bandcamp seems good.

Back In Five Years:
Some people wonder what on earth I do for a living. Well, I earn money working as a Tour Manager. I spend all the money I earn trying to keep Iron Man Records going. Here’s a life in a couple of weeks:

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Cosmic Trigger
Steve Fly and Simon Reeves start work on post production this week. Simon spent three days last week recording Oliver Senton reading Cosmic Trigger 1 by Robert Anton Wilson. Here’s a picture of Simon and Oliver at Framework Studio, Birmingham, on completion of the great work.

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Framework Recording Studios, Birmingham.
Framework Studios has worked with Napalm Death, Carcass, Cathedral, Meathook Seed, P.J.Harvey, Ride, Family Cat and other acts including Piss On Authority, Police Bastard, Spirit Bomb, Drongos For Europe, Selfless, Cerebral Fix and more. Telephone Simon (UK+44) 07790 158210 or email siframework@gmail.com

Vinyl Test Pressings:
I’m waiting on test pressings of John Sinclair – Beatnik Youth Ambient to arrive and also test pressings of Police Bastard – Confined. Exciting times.

Pre-order John Sinclair – Beatnik Youth Ambient on VINYL
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You can pre-order the Vinyl, Double CD and T-shirt here:  http://ironmanrecords.bigcartel.com/artist/john-sinclair

All Press enquiries to Sean Newsham : sean@mutante-inc.demon.co.uk
Catalogue Number: IMB6033
Release date: April 2017
Label: Iron Man Records
Distribution: Cargo

Side A
Do It (6:16) Recitation – John Sinclair, Music – Youth, Mix – Youth and Michael Rendall
Brilliant Corners (11.29) Recitation – John Sinclair, Produced by Youth

Side B
War On Drugs (6:18) Recitation – Howard Marks, Music – Youth, Mix – Youth and Michael Rendall
Sitarrrtha (9:19) Recitation – John Sinclair, Produced by Youth

John Sinclair, the renegade poet, scholar and cultural revolutionary releases “Beatnik Youth Ambient” on Iron Man Records. The record is over 30 minutes of ambient, chill out music from the restless creative mind of Youth with some fine spoken word and poetry delivered by John Sinclair.

John, has been described as an Archetype of the 1960’s art, music and literary synthesis, and who today continues his work for cultural transformation.

Youth is one of the UK’s most influential producers and has been honoured, this year, with an Outstanding Contribution Award by the Music Producers Guild. His career spans more than 30 years and is one of the UK’s most consistent, credible and influential producers, Youth has also hand drawn the beautiful cover artwork.

The record features 4 ambient tracks including 2 tracks completed in late 2015. Do it and War on Drugs were composed and produced by Youth with words By John Sinclair and Howard Marks. John Sinclair presents some illuminating words of wisdom on the life of the artist in the opening track Do It, while Howard Marks delivers some lost last words in War on Drugs on side B.

The Mood is maintained by 2 extra ambient tracks taken from the Beatnik Youth album simultaneously released by Iron Man Records on Double CD. The free-form cinematic Brilliant Corners is a homage to Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs and the smokily atmospheric Sitarrtha reflects on the work of John Coltrane. The record is a smoker’s dream with the 4 ambient tracks clocking in at just over 30 minutes.

From Detroit to New Orleans and from Los Angeles to Amsterdam, John Sinclair is still the king-size, psychedelic old-gangster poet, a living legend, a veteran of the counterculture, a survivor of the Marijuana Wars, and one of the last bohemians still standing. As a co-founder of the Detroit underground newspaper The Fifth Estate, manager of MC5, and Chairman of the White Panther Party described on Wikipedia in these modern times as a far-left, anti-racist, white American political collective founded in 1968 and dedicated to cultural revolution his mark on the boho rock & roll underground has been unique.

In 1969, with Richard Nixon in the White House, Vietnam in chaos in the wake of the Viet Congs near-suicidal Tet Offensive, and American cities still scared and scarred from urban riots, even the comparatively harmless agitprop pranks of White Panther cultural revolution had those in power reaching for their metaphoric and sometimes actual revolvers. Authorities remembered how John had organized the MC5 playing outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the only band actually able to perform before Mayor Daley’s rabid police department violently derailed the massive anti-Vietnam war rally with teargas, billy clubs, and helicopter support.

John was deemed a danger to society and set up like a bowling pin. After handing a couple of joints to a hassling hippie who turned out to be an undercover narcotics agent, John found himself on the bad end of a ten year jail term. At the same time though he became a cause celebre. Free John Sinclair became one more battle cry in an embattled era. Protests, propaganda, and a giant concert in Ann Arbor headlined by John Lennon and Yoko Ono ultimately resulted in John s release in November 1971. Lennon even wrote a song about him called ‘John Sinclair’ which he included on his
‘Sometime In New York City’ album.

In common with much that happens with John, a meeting with producer Youth (Paul McCartneys ‘Fireman’, Primal Scream, The Verve etc & Killing Joke bass player) that sowed the creative seeds was a matter of stoned synchronicity. As former Track Records boss Ian Grant tells it, Alan Clayton told me he had John Sinclair coming round tomorrow. I said “The John Sinclair?” One night Zodiac (Mindwarp) was on the bill with the Dirty Strangers and Youth was very taken with John. “I want to make a jazz album with John” he said. Since then, the two met at Youths house whenever he was home, and when John was in the country, and recorded the album.

And through the course of those recordings John, always so associated with the 1960s, took a serious step into the ways of the 21st century, with the same intoned poetry, but with melodic backing vocals, highly inventive production, even a nod to hip-hop, but still remembering his first loves of blues, be-bop, and classic rock & roll.

Beatnik Youth Ambient is one more step in the Big Chief’s long zigzag trip that seems set to continue all the way to the far blue horizon. Summing up John Sinclair, you can only say with certainty that the beatnik goes on.