uncarved.org blog

LUX presents - HACKNEY PREMIERE of Anja Kirschner and David Panos’, ‘TRAIL OF THE SPIDER’
…filmed on location in Hackney Marshes & Essex

Trail of the Spider is a Western shot in Hackney and Essex, with a cast of actors and non-actors including many residents of East London.

The film recreates the epic panoramas of the Wild West using landfill sites in the Thames Gateway, gravel pits serving the Olympic Park, and Hackney Marshes - an area affected by the land grab accompanying the 2012 Olympics.

Trail of the Spider takes elements from the history of the Western (the stylized violence of Spaghetti Westerns and the melodrama of golden era ‘Horse Operas’) and combines them with the suppressed history of the multi-racial American West, where many cowboys were black, and alliances that crossed racial boundaries were common.

The film also addresses class conflict and displacement in East London today. By using standard Western plot devices of the ‘arrival of the railroad’ and the ‘end of an era’, Trail of the Spider explores the compromises and struggles of a population facing a new order of property speculation and gentrification.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the makers of the film + bar and DJs MIZ CB2000 & guests.

Thursday 24 July 2008.
7.30pm doors |8pm screening | party ’til late at Chats Palace Arts Centre, 42-44 Brooksbys Walk, Homerton, Hackney, London E9 6DF

Entrance FREE

This is London article about the film.

Hackney Solidarity Network

“The Hackney Solidarity Network (HSN) was launched in January 2008 as a space where community activists and campaigners can

• Meet each other
• Let each other know what they are doing
• Share skills and information
• Network and get to know each other socially

Penny Reel aka Observer on the Chatty Mouth message board:

The big turnover was in the mid-1980s when Shaka was playing Ashwin Street in Dalston just over the road from Club Labyrinth (the old Four Aces). Some of the crusties from Labyrinth would arrive at Shaka when the other club closed its doors.

Labyrynth being of course one of the key nodes for ‘ardkore in London and the Four Aces being a key site for reggae. I’d never twigged that the one had turned into the other.

Seems like Mr Reel’s chronology might be a bit messed up though - according to here the Four Aces was going strong in 1985 and had Unity Hi-Fi as resident sound. (As we know, Unity fits in really well with this whole schtick as it was the first place for Peter Bouncer and the Ragga Twins to touch the mic - in fact Shut Up and Dance discovered many of their vocalists at Unity dances).

Ragga Twins and Navigator in Club 4 Aces Dalston 1988:

Side A: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AELQ8B6G
Side B: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TZNONUDM

Thanks to Luka for reposting this on the Dissensus thread about the twin’s recent set at Heatwave. It’s a cool tape - Trevor Sax from Saxon takes selection duties for a while, and there are some nice slices of early digital dancehall bizniss on there, which have aged a lot better than the aciiiiiiieeeed to my mind. (It gets unforgivably slack after 45:00 on side A tho).

Certainly the above flyer (courtesy of the excellent Derelict London site) would suggest Labrynth began later in the year when the two 8s clashed…

The image of George Harrison on the flyer was also used above the entrance to the building in tribute to the rumour that the man had once lived there.

So I suspect we are looking at acid house period onwards, with ravers finding Jah Shaka as a suitable post-club chill out. And in some ways perhaps influencing the move towards exclusively four to the floor steppers at events like the University of Dub…

I’ve previously written about the interplay between the two scenes in “London Acid City - when the two 8s clashed”, but this is quite an interesting example of geographical cross-pollination I think. On a similar note, Jungle was obviously the point when the ragga scene crossed into rave in a big way - but it’s also worth remembering that a lot of clapped out junglists have become full time reggae heads (me included, in some ways).

Some great b&w photos on flickr

Video footage aplenty from Labrynth here

The building survived a lot, including a firebomb attack by the National Front in 1982.

Difficult to say if the potent influence of the Four Aces / Labrynth at 12 Dalston Lane will continue. With their typical concern for local history in the face of capital, Hackney Council have now transformed vast tracts of Dalston Lane into this:

I noted here that the site was soon to be picturesque ruins, but in fact it’s nothing as romantic as that. Open Dalston have done a great job of monitoring the “development” of the area and have written this piece on New Labour’s plans. It’s doubtful that the sanitised “clubbing quarter” of Hoxton will produce anything quite so radical but we can hope.

My overseas readers are probably aware that English people have a reputation for being a bit repressed. What may not be known is that we have several cathartic rituals in our culture which allow us an emotional release. They include getting completely shitfaced on continental lager, making some of the best music in the world, and moaning.

One extremely popular ritual for couples is a pilgrimage to IKEA to buy various bits and bobs for the house. On the surface an entirely mundane activity, but in reality a shitstorm of repressed aggression rising to the surface. For example, my nearest IKEA is the Edmonton branch - a store whose opening was heralded by a near riot and stabbing.

I found myself anticipating our latest visit with some excitement. The day began well with my better half telling me to fuck off before we’d even had breakfast, but this was merely a glimmer of what was to come. We headed up on the train to meet my Dad and borrow his car. (It’s always good to involve as many family members as possible in these operations as it maximises the potential for disagreement and conflict).

Our train was a bit late, so we pegged it off the station only to be greeted by a wall of cops. They had kindly erected a portable metal detector so they could search everyone leaving for evidence of “weapons, or terrorism”. Which I guess is fine - no point in going to IKEA for an argument if some nutjob is about to blow the place up as a symbolic gesture against western decadence, right?

Only, they weren’t searching bags.

“We’re not doing that today, sir.”

“Are terrorists not using bags today or something?”

“I can’t really comment on that, sir, but we’ll be searching bags on another day”.

“?”

“Can I just take your names? We need it for our records”

We give our names.

“Can I also have your full addresses and dates of birth?”

Better half asks why, and tries to find out what the data is for/who will see it. This is pretty much stonewalled and we don’t want to make an issue of it for two reasons. Firstly, my Dad is waiting in his car somewhere. Best not confirm his worst fears and turn up late after an argument with the police.

Secondly, someone else who was on our train is making an issue of it and things aren’t going well for her - in fact some copper has started asking her all sorts of questions about whether she has a valid ticket for her journey, eventually removing her oyster card from her and going into the station to check. Because not having a valid ticket is a clear sign of being a terrorist, or course, bag or not. Just to help you visualise the scene, I will point out that she was black and virtually all the cops were white.

“Can you just put any metal objects in your bag, sir, and walk through?”

Both of us walked through the detector and set the alarm off.

My better half pipes up “Oh, that’s probably my belt buckle”. We show our belt buckles. They wave us on without any further searches, meaning we could have any kind of metal on us, or in our bags.

I have mixed feelings about the incident. On the one hand, I should have been much more arsey about it all - but I caved in as my role of designated driver over-rode my role as heroic defender of civil liberties. On the other hand, the whole thing was so comically pointless, that adding to it seemed a bit surplus to requirements.

After that, IKEA was quite dull.

But we did get some nice shelves.

“On 13 August 1977, the far-right National Front attempted to march from New Cross to Lewisham in South East London. Local people and anti-racists from all over London and beyond mobilised to oppose them, and the NF were humiliated as their march was disrupted and banners seized.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the ‘Battle of Lewisham’ we are holding a half day event in New Cross on Saturday 10th November with speakers and films (1 pm start at Goldsmiths College, New Cross).”

Some time has passed since the event at Goldsmiths, so my memory may play tricks on me. That would be in keeping with the write up on the Lewisham 77 blog makes the point that history is itself a battlefield, with various agendas and versions struggling to be heard. For me that was one of the most interesting aspects of the day – better than amassing a tick list of “facts” about what happened.

I arrived in time to see my friend Neil giving an overview of the events which lead up to the big day, and then we were straight into the first panel discussion.

This section could loosely be described as “leftie hacks vs the people”. On the one hand speakers on the platform and contributors from the audience tried to outline the orthodox left’s history of the event. Parts of this were very interesting – for example the tactics which succeeded in Lewisham had been attempted during a similar march in Wood Green some months beforehand, but hadn’t quite worked. The catastrophic humiliation of the Front in Lewisham severely limited their ability to operate a “march and grow” strategy.

And of course it is very heart warming to see that peoples’ sincerely held beliefs have endured over the 30 years since the day. However these contributions were marred for me by an emphasis on the bureaucracy of organising – the committee structure, lots of meetings, etc. And grandstanding, which was gloriously personified by an audience member from one sect beginning his “question” by trying to undermine the credibility of one of the speakers: “when I saw the poster I had no idea who you are, but now I see you I think I can remember you from back then”.

It’s undeniable that, like ‘em or loathe ‘em, groups like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) et al played a huge role in the day’s events (as did local church groups). But they are often completely fucking boring to listen to.

In stark contrast, the other speakers in this first section were much more lively. Martin Lux gave an account of rucking with the NF and the cops from a working class anarchist perspective which was as uncompromising as it was entertaining.

Dr William Lez Henry (aka Lez Lyrix) told us of his experiences growing up in the area and the racism he encountered on a daily basis. His talk was very instructive and went some way to break down the mythologising of the other contributors. For example he and his friends had been told by more senior members of the local black community to let the white anti-racists converging on the area from outside fight the white fascists doing the same. The role of black youth on the day was initially to defend the few black owned businesses in the area, but then of course events overtook them and many opportunities to confront the overt racism of the NF and the not-so covert racism of the cops were exploited to the full.

Lez’s comments are fleshed out in his new book Whiteness Made Simple: Stepping Into The Grey Zone (NuBeyond, 2007) , with a particular emphasis on the need for black autonomy and self-education as ways of combating institutional racism.

I can’t remember much about the q&a section. It was probably better than the questions later on, but that isn’t saying very much. At all.

The first panel session was followed by a series of films which varied in quality. One was positively avant-garde, combining a soundtrack of harsh traffic noise alongside some indistinct commentary by people being interviewed about their involvement in the great day.

The second panel discussion was chaired by Dr Henry (which I thought was a good sign, because he doesn’t put up with any nonsense!). It was more questioning in nature – which was very welcome.

There were a number of contributions throughout the day from people involved with current struggles, for example against the BNP in Barking, the No-Borders campaign, etc. I didn’t get the impression that there was anywhere near as much energy or creativity involved with these projects as in 1977, but then we live in different times.

It was, however, quite depressing to hear from a representative from Unite Against Fascism that their main tactic is to campaign for people to vote for anyone other than the British National Party. This seems to be singularly unsuccessful and perhaps the reason for this is that the BNP are positioning themselves as a radical alternative to all of the other parties - parties who many people feel have nothing to offer them. UAF’s position only serves to reinforce this divide. If people are pissed off with their New Labour council, there is little point in trying to get people to vote Labour just to keep the BNP out. If this tactic is the best the orthodox left have to offer then it is no wonder that the BNP are currently competing with the Greens to become the 4th major political party in the UK - or indeed the 2nd or 3rd in some areas.

On a more positive note, Paul Gilroy (yes, him!) gave a great talk on his experiences of the riot, which essentially were of abject fear. He used this as a tool to open up a discussion about mythologising the past and how attempts to produce one coherent story should be resisted.

One profound example of this is that the orthodox left remembers an old woman leaning out of a window on Clifton Rise and questioning some of those present on the counter demo. According to that story she then put her speakers out of her window and played Bob Marley’s “Get Up Stand Up” which electrified the crowd. Non-aligned people remember it as Junior Murvin’s “Police and Thieves” however.

I find that very interesting for a whole number of reasons – not least that it reinforces Dr Henry’s comments that local black youth experienced far more oppression from the police than they did from swastika wielding NF members.

Gilroy was followed by Les Back whose contribution was similarly questioning and lacking in dogmatic certainties. He raised a number of issues around the changing face of British fascism. His questioning of the validity of the usefulness of referring to the BNP in the 21st Century as “Nazis” caused quite a stir amongst those involved in doing just that as part of the SWP-backed Anti-Nazi League, but to my mind he is bang on. His analysis extended into an interrogation of the idea of an English/British identity and how this is used by the right wing press as well as organised fascist groups, and of course by mainstream politicians.

I wanted this part of the day to be much more developed – how do you counteract the promotion of a “white identity” or a “national identity”? Do you:

a) take the piss out of it (by having a pop at middle-Englanders and morris dancing?).

But does this alienate people who have already bought into it to a greater or lesser degree? And do you replace it with anything else? – which brings us to:

b) Try to develop a more inclusive “English” identity – a la “curry and chips”, “reclaiming the Union Jack/Cross of St George”

– beaming faces looking up at you from the clip art produced by your press dept after having gone on their diversity training? Can you do this without appearing tokenistic (all these companies with black people splashed across their brochures, when their board of directors is all white guys in their fifties?). But isn’t an “inclusive” Englishness still basically an excuse for excluding people who are not “English” – i.e. the most recent waves of immigrants, but not those who have been here a while now?

c) Try to replace it with an identity based on class rather than race/nation…

Unfortunately that didn’t happen. What did happen was a series of mind-numbingly awful contributions from the floor, which consisted of the most heinous grandstanding I have ever had the misfortune to witness. Anyone who starts their “question” with “Right, I’ve just come from a meeting where we’ve been …” should be made to leave. The meeting degenerated into a thinly veiled competition to see who could justify their current political activity the best. Presumably this was meant to inspire people to join in or something. But as the “questions” got longer and longer my thoughts and energy began to evaporate. The British Left at play, fucking it all up as usual.

I fled the building with Martin after congratulating the organisers (because overall, I’d had a great time and it was very well organised), introducing myself to Dave Katz and saying hello to Lez.

The day raised so many questions it’s difficult to know where to begin. I learnt a lot about Lewisham 77 and realised how far we are away from anything like a successful mass movement against fascism 30 years later.

Further information is available at the great Lewisham 77 blog.

1) Simon Norris of Cyclobe (he seemed chipper).

2) A girl, buying lots of Studio One (she seemed completely in love with it).

3&4) Mr and Mrs Droid (they seemed knackered but very happy).

5) Martin, on his way to a new job (he seemed in a hurry).

A guy called Zero got in touch to ask a few questions about me going down a sewer in Bow E3. Turns out he does that sort of thing a lot, as far as I can tell without the official permission I had!

He also takes better photos than me and sticks them up with some written accounts on his website: Silent UK