Watch this space

Ah... we have been gone too long, but don't despair. We have found a new home on Basic.fm so in the next few weeks you can enjoy our mix of music, poetry, lectures, readings, rantings and silly stuff. It's pretty rare that there is not at least one thing on the programme to raise a smile if not a real laugh.

Even though this will be the third station we've broadcast on in the last 2 years, we are so fond of our name that we are sticking with it.
Of course you know where the name comes from? - What?  Heavens....

it's my favourite author's brilliant book - the first of her books that I read, and perhaps for that reason probably still my favourite.  I do recommend her writing to anyone who can read... she writes about real people in real situations - often doing the things we don't quite dare to do. The thing that makes her books so real for me is that they draw such clear portraits of people and somehow, while telling a story, don't feel obliged to build into climaxes and denouments and all the stuff so many writers think are essential. They are all the more real and memorable for their apparent ordinariness. Have I contradicted myself enough?

So with all this in mind, we'll be back in your ears soon - in the meantime, why don't you read a book?

This week's show has a lengthy extract from Tony Benn's diaries - Years of Hope, starting in the late 1950s and going into the early sixties. He even speaks of the days when Enoch Powell seems to have been vaguely human.....
2 September is the 84th birthday of pianist Horace Silver.... on his song To Whom it May Concern, we hear Adrian Mitchell's poem of the same name.

 The show goes out on Catalyst Radio on Saturday 1 September at 5pm BST

Here are some links to documentary films mentioned:

What in the World are they Spraying?

American Holocaust of Native American Indians

Russell Means - Welcome to the Reservation

Trudell

Films for Action

Black August

This week's programme speaks of Jonathan and George Jackson, Huey P Newton and Kerwin Lucas (Duinmeijer) who all died in August.... and Marcus Garvey who was born on August 17th.

There's poetry from the Last Poets, Wanda Coleman, Mutabaruka and music from Serious Bizniss, Elaine Brown, Primal Scream and Richie Havens.

We finally got the turntable up and running, so there's some nice scratchy vinyl going on - not because I'm scratching or itching, but because these old albums have knocked about for a long time.

After it goes out on Catalyst Radio at 5pm on Saturday 18th, it will be posted on podomatic

For more about Kerwin see www.kerwin.nl  the story is there in English as well as Dutch. He was only 15 when he was stabbed by a racist skinhead who had '100% white' tatooed on his arm. In spite of the fact that the killer also called him a 'dirty n*****' and told him he had no right to walk on the streets of Amsterdam, he claimed that the killing was not a racist act.....

A poem was written to commemorate his death and is now translated in 63 languages. We're still looking for Irish and Scots Gaelic and a bunch more.... get in touch if you want to know if your language is available. The original English poem is on the website.

June in July

Celestial Navigation on Catalyst Radio - broadcast date 14 July 2012

This was the 50th edition of Celestial Navigation, first broadcast a year ago. It includes an interview with Jodie McIntyre, made by Rob Davies. Poetry by Cecil Rajendra, Suheir Hammad, June Jordan, Benjamin Zephaniah and Lynton Kwesi Johnson.  Speaking of Palestine, of breast cancer, of heavy-handed police, of John Coltrane and Billie Holiday...  with a sprinkling of Noam Chomsky for good measure

COINTELPRO, George Jackson and other stories

Oh... I just heard myself say I'd post more links about George Jackson, the Black Panther Party and heaven knows what else....
This particular programme was first broadcast in August 2011 - I put it up now because I didn't want to leave it too long before playing part Two of COINTELPRO 101.

I also think it's about time to play the programme that was made for the birthday of Angela Davis.... let's do that next week.

Here are some links:

Black Panther Party

http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/index_PhotoGallery.html

http://www.bobbyseale.com/phototour/

http://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/content.php?pid=94602&sid=707244

COINTELPRO

http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIa.htm

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/cointelpro.html

FBI

George Jackson  


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Jackson_%28Black_Panther%29
 
Soledad Brother

Of course there's also lots more material to be found on YouTube if you look.

Huey P - belated HapPy birthday

Today's show is the Happy Birthday Huey episode, first broadcast on February 17... the show which somehow broke some ole camel's back.... Didn't I tell you to stop smoking those things?

In memory of... Gil Scott Heron, Curtis Mayfield, Allen Ginsberg

Today's show includes some exclusive interviews made with Gil Scott-Heron, Curtis Mayfield and Allen Ginsberg by Maurice Di of A Love Supreme Broadcasts, Amsterdam.
Di made radio with a number of stations in Amsterdam between 1985 and 1997.

Gil Scott-Heron died on May 27, 2011; Curtis Mayfield and Allen Ginsberg were born on June 3, Curtis in 1942 and Ginsberg in 1926 - plenty of reasons to hear from all of them in a couple of hours.

In the next couple of shows you'll finally hear COINTELPRO 101 part 2 and the programmes we made earlier this year for the birthdays of Angela Davis and Huey P Newton.

You can't say we don't bring you some great treats.