Hi everybody and highest greetings from the northeast sector of Detroit where I’m recovering from foot surgery with my daughters and granddaughter waiting on me hand and foot to keep me from going stir crazy while I sit here and heal. While in Detroit for the past two months I’ve been delighted to read page after page of coverage in the daily papers of the proliferation of medical marijuana outlets in the city and several serious think pieces about the burgeoning of the cannabis industry and the imminence of legalization for recreational use as well. My position is clear: For those like myself who spent 40 or 50 years copping in…
detroit artists workshop
Free The Weed 55 by John Sinclair
Highest greetings from the northeast side of Detroit, where I’m visiting with my daughter Sunny and granddaughter Beyonce and waiting right now to schedule a required foot operation that promises to restore much of my personal mobility that’s been shackled for most of the present year by a diabetic wound on my left foot that has refused to heal. My several doctors say that portions of infected bones in my foot—sadly including my small toe—must be removed so that the flesh may heal, and then I’ll be off my feet for another month of recovery time. I’ve had to cancel all my potential performance work and my entire trip to Chicago,…
Free The Weed 54 by John Sinclair
I’ve been talking in this space all year about my forthcoming book from the MMM Publishing Company called IT’S ALL GOOD—A John Sinclair Reader, and our hope was to have it available for the Cannabis Cup in Clio. But that proved impossible, and now it’ll hit the streets right around the first of September. I’ve been running excerpts from the book to try to pique your interest in what’s coming, and here’s an excerpt from the lead number in the book: On The Road…. Although this writer has followed faithfully the bardic path for fifty years, I waited a long time to hit the road as a poet. There were so…
Free The Weed 47 by John Sinclair
As my readers will remember, last November marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Detroit Artists Workshop, a seminal collective of cultural workers I’m proud to have been a part of. This coming June will mark the 50th anniversary of the Artists Workshop Press, which published my first books of poetry. And to celebrate my half a century as a poet and writer I have collected 25 poems & 25 writings for Its All Good: A John Sinclair Reader, which I hope to see published in an American edition this year, and hopefully by the publisher of this magazine for which I’ve written a column each month for the…
Free The Weed 43 by John Sinclair
I’d like to take a turn away from our usual conversation to commemorate the once-in-a-lifetime experience I’ll enjoy next month when we celebrate the founding of the Detroit Artists Workshop 50 years ago. This month I’ll celebrate my 73rd birthday on October 2nd, so I was 23 when we started the Artists Workshop as Detroit’s bohemian outpost and gathering place for a renegade artistic community that was creating a new way to make art and live and work together with other fellow seekers like ourselves. The Detroit Artists Workshop was a beautifully organic thing that grew directly out of the nexus of a wildly disparate group of creative individuals in their…
John Sinclair + The Founder Effect – Spiegeltent, Canary Wharf, London 17th Sept
John Sinclair and The Founder Effect perform songs from ‘Mohawk’ at Canary Wharf Spiegeltent, London Download the Spiegeltent Leaflet PDF here "John Sinclair - renegade poet, scholar and cultural revolutionary.....an Archetype of the 1960's art, music and literary synthesis, still kicking with both feet on his trajectory for cultural transformation. Mohawk features ten tracks from his book of verse: always know: a book of monk. Beatnik poems, great odes and personal reflections of the Be-Bop jazz persuasion, all flowering together." Doors – 6.00pm John Sinclair on stage 6.30pm – 7.45pm Tickets available through SEE Tickets for £10 + Booking Fee All Press Enquiries Sean Newsham: sean@mutante-inc.demon.co.uk All Guest List requests to:…
Free The Weed 42 by John Sinclair
Highest greetings from Amsterdam for the last time this summer. I’ll be spending a month in London to serve as a judge for the Dopefiend Cup at an undisclosed location at the end of August and play a concert in the Speigeltent at Canary Wharf in mid-September with a great British jazz ensemble called The Founder Effect. Then I’ll head back to Detroit to begin an action-packed fall schedule, and if you’re at all interested in following my progress around the United States from the Hempstock Festival in Portland, Oregon to the Maine Harvest Festival near Portland, Maine to Lowell Celebrates Kerouac in Massachusetts to New York City and back to…
WHITE PANTHER: The Legacy of John Sinclair
WHITE PANTHER: The Legacy of John Sinclair - a short film by CHARLES SHAW featuring JOHN SINCLAIR music by THELONIUS MONK John Sinclair is best known as the Sixties "marijuana" activist who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for giving two joints to an undercover policewoman. he was eventually freed when John Lennon and Yoko Ono spoke out on his behalf Less understood is his role as the founder and chairman of the radical anti-war group, The White Panther Party, an offshoot of the Black Panthers. The Black Panther Party was a militant political organization formed after the brutal murders of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy. The…
John Sinclair – Discography
01 John Sinclair: Thelonious: a book of monk (1996) 02 John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars: Full Moon Night (1994) 03 John Sinclair with Ed Moss Society Jazz Orchestra: If I Could Be With You (1996) 04 John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars: Full Circle (1997) 05 John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars: White Buffalo Prayer (2000) 06 John Sinclair: Underground Issues (2000) 07 John Sinclair & His Boston Blues Scholars: Steady Rollin’ Man Live (2001) [BOX-1] John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars: Fattening Frogs For Snakes, Volume One: The Delta Sound (2002) 08 John Sinclair: KnockOut (2002) 09 John Sinclair & Monster Island: PeyoteMind (2002) 10 John Sinclair: It’s All…
John Sinclair – Biography (June 2013)
Cultural revolutionary, pioneer of marijuana activism, radical leader, political prisoner by the end of the 1960s, a legend of the imagine nation, the last of the Beatnik Warrior Poets, and a founding father of the U.S rock and roll constitution, John Sinclair. John Sinclair was born on the 2nd of October 1941, in Flint, Michigan, and grew from being a rock’n’roll fanatic and teenage disc jockey enthusiast to a cultural revolutionary icon, pioneer of marijuana activism, co-founder of the White Panther Party and a political prisoner, all by the end of the explosive 1960’s. He first tuned into rhythm and blues radio at a young age, getting his hands on records by…
John Sinclair – Biography
John Sinclair author, poet and activist John Sinclair (born October 2, 1941, in Flint, Michigan) mutated from small-town rock’n’roll fanatic and teenage disc jockey to cultural revolutionary, pioneer of marijuana activism, radical leader and political prisoner by the end of the 1960s. In 1966-67 the jazz poet, downbeat correspondent, founder of the Detroit Artists Workshop and underground journalist joined the front ranks of the hippie revolution, managing the “avant-rock” MC5 and organizing countless free concerts in the parks, White Panther rallies and radical benefits. Working closely with lead singer and songwriter Rob Tyner and the members of the band, Sinclair brought the MC5 to local fame, national attention and a contract…
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