Category: John Sinclair and his International Blues Scholars

  • TOT

    TOT

    https://www.patreon.com/cw/stevefly/shop

    PRESENT AUTHORS INTRODUCTION


    So what have we here then Steve? Tinkering with the AI again are we? I told you and warned you a thousand times about it and you just kept going and going and now look wot’ you’ve gone and done. Claiming it’s a bit ov’ a modern verse epic, but know full well it could never truly be the thing, as to our beingness and human struggle through time.Chatting to myself again, as Homo Promptus, in first person reflection space. The following series of essays are AI generated, spoiler alert. And I can already sense that slight frown and disappointment that I wasn’t hand crafting this big shebang, or rag-bag of notes. That’s under construction, in the meantime, this work is my contribution, an example of what I find interesting firstly, and also with luck what you dear reader, enjoy.

    The subject matter reflects a purposeful choice, and works on a few different levels, both personal-historical and geographical meaning to me myself and I. For those that know me…the flesh and bone present author…will experience reading these articles in a different way to a total stranger. However I hope the unpredictability of the order and content within rings many bells at once, each effectively acting as an Epyllion (a mini modern epic) but, alas, lacking poetry turns of phrase and typographic experimentation, grammatical loop-da-loops and tricks of human authors with a pen or typewriter, battling digital algorithms and infernal averages. Hot stuff.

    There’s something for everyone here, so at the least maybe give it a quick browse. In some sense this is a browsing document, a mini wikipedia world whipped up around this author’s ego, weird esoteric interests, fictional fancies, friends, family, hobbies, and a recurring theme: demonstrating the paradox of the tale of the tribe. Subjective experiences of mine, loves and some struggles, at the same time as containing historical forces (can we say facts without annoying too many people?). Leading, with luck, to distinguished science facts, methods, experiments, peer reviewed studies, when required, generously blended with my own mystical personal queries, carefully crafted and selected for you here. Feels a bit like cheating for an exam, producing all the goods to at least get a pass, but did I and do I really understand these Frankenstein’s Monster mash-ups? Who knows, here’s the results of my experiments. Hope you have a s much fun as I did.   

    In no particular order the articles feature such people and concepts as Rituals, Sports Mega Events, Economics, Beatboxing, Dutch, English, American History, Turntablism, Shakespeare, James Joyce, Typewriter Innovation, Lisbon Maru, Maj Frank Foley, AI, The Modern Verse Epic, Robert Anton Wilson, Ostriches, Countering Hate Speech, DIY Pot Hole Guide, Konnakol, Led Zeppelin, Swimming, Lightening, Thunder and the Brontic Logos, Magick, Tarot, LBJP, Drumming, Geronimo Pratt, Identity, McLuhan, Climate Science Solutions, The Black Country, Dutch Water Management, Story telling, John Sinclair, Street Art, Jazz, Stage Lighting, Causes Of War, Genealogy Writing, Digital I.D.J, Kim Stanley Robinson, thoughts on thoughts about thoughts.

    • TOT
      All in all an updated answer to critical questions concerning the limits of AI and what distinguishes human beings with their wet-ware–AI-like interacting human nervous system–from the probability cloud intelligences. Short answer by way of analogy, see the limits and questions and paradox inherent in the tale of the tribe, a poem, a modern verse epic, a poem including history, from an individual in time yet also bringing historical forces to bear, facts from a widely shared globally vindicated source. Like Thunder. It did or it didn’t? Toward a universal agreeability. Negotiations. Understanding. To peace. To digress I digress. Yeah, Ostriches too. Let’s goo. I, still can’t really decide what order to present them in tbh.
    • Ambidexless – A Blend
      The sharp contrast and flip between hot and cold seems like a powerful force across scale, materials and technology. Geology, thermodynamics and data hardware depend upon stable temperature parameters. Like wearing six hoodies and thermal underpants in a sauna, or swimming with no wet suit in the North Sea after eating ten choc’ ice’s, these sharp contrasts are testing human capacity to adequately house and feed everyone. I conclude, burn less fossil fuels, utilise the natural abundance of untapped energy in wind, water, solar and novel natural carbon capture technologies. I’m drifting… 
    • Loves Labours Lost Mixtape
    • Climate Scenarios, Urban Impacts, and Adaptation Frameworks for the Netherlands
      The acceleration of global cryospheric decay represents one of the most critical variables in contemporary sea level rise projections. Recent observational data and numerical modeling of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, particularly the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), indicate that major marine-terminating glaciers are undergoing unprecedented rates of retreat and destabilization.
    • Makes Me Wanna’ Hurl
      A poem spoken with added guitar and then just mixed together on the fly and put out….shape of things to come. x
    • LENI: Looking Through the Lens Exhibition Opening
      LENI: Looking Through the Lens Exhibition Opening
  • HORNITHOLOGY FOR JOHN SINCLAIR

    HORNITHOLOGY FOR JOHN SINCLAIR

    Hornithology
    (For John Sinclair set to Ornithology by Charlie Parker)

    1

    i’m thinking of you standing on the corner
    joint in my hand, in my head plays a band
    i thought i’d write a head for you

    for all that you did it’s the least I can do
    for all what you wrote on the blues is true

    and so I’m asking what can we do?

    as long as you stay in my head
    i’ll be feeling well and read

    (we cut our own path and on we tread
    but don’t forget to go to bed)

    2

    we’ll always have your music and your writing
    to brighten our day, and show a new way
    i really miss your singing and laugh

    but inside my heart I have your autograph
    outer space bop and anti-gravity craft

    obli be bop blamster dam

    dizzy bird and monk and rap
    muddy sonny ra and fats

    (ginsberg burroughs kerouac
    hope your happy in you nap)

    3

    i wonder how it is up in the jukebox
    up there in the mix with mingus hendrix
    and all the rockin’ jams that you love

    all the swinging cats an’ the poets you dug
    dancing like a teenager to wolf and bud

    i hear you speaking in my dreams

    a yusef miles and coltrane breeze
    roll up a scroll an’ cheers our teas

    (a drop of honey lemon squeeze
    in the land of ooh blah dee)

    –Steve Fly
    Amsterdam, 2nd April 2025.
    For John Sinclair (R.I.P)

  • John Sinclair: the collected poems

    John Sinclair: the collected poems

    https://www.thebookbeat.com/bookshop/catalog/john-sinclair-the-collected-poems-1964-2024/#prettyPhoto

    John Sinclair: The Collected Poems 1964-2024

                –this life

    of the mind & spirit
    rooted in humanism
    & love of art, & manifested
    in creative production

    & social engagement, like trane said
    “to be a force for good”
    & make an impact
    on the world at large

    “I’m very happy with this book and very grateful to have all my poems collected in one place like this.”
    –John Sinclair

    “Thank you for your poetry, your standing up for the blues and jazz for decades when few did, and for the way you share your talents and good will wherever you go.”
    –David Amram, Musician, Composer and Author

    “Many of these extraordinary poems trace an important method of “transmission of mind,” a form of Investigative Poetry. These poems are a big work that places Sinclair on the path of Charles Olson. This is an extraordinary work.”
    –Edward Sanders, Poet, Activist and founder of the Fugs

    John Sinclair’s Collected Poems 1964-2024 arrived within a week of his passing, and was edited and proofed with an introduction written by Sinclair in late January of 2024. The book was designed by Sinclair’s right-hand commrade at Radio Free Amsterdam Steve “The Fly” Pratt and published by Ridgeway press in a limited first edition of 150 hand-numbered copies with a forward written by M.L. Liebler. Photographs from the covers of each book and recording begin selections taken from each book. Only Fattening Frogs for Snakes, The Book of Monk, and Songs Of Praise for John Coltrane are not entirely included. The book runs 557 pages, with many poems collected here for the first time.

    “I was first attracted to becoming a poet when I read On the Road,” wrote John Sinclair in his introduction, “the idea became more apparent when I read Howl by Allen Ginsberg and Pictures of the Gone World by Lawrence Ferlinghetti after I had ascended into college.”

    Presented are Sinclair’s scarce first books printed in the early sixties by the Artists Workshop press; This is Our Music, Meditations and Fire Music. Selections from Fattening Frogs for Snakes and thelonious a book of monk and several of his recording projects; The White Buffalo Prayer, Detroit Life, Viper Madness. The last section “Mobile Homeland” has over three dozen uncollected poems written between 1964-2024. Many of the books have special introductions and notes on the text which Sinclair completed for this edition over the past several years.


    The Collected Poems includes a concise six page biography, bibliography of major publications, and a discography of the poet’s recordings, a culmination of 60 years of art and life in one collection. Collected Poems 1964-2004 was produced in a first limited edition of 150 hand numbered copies in paperbound wraps, with a signed forward by M. L. Liebler, 557 pages, issued by Ridgeway press. Profits for the book help support the Detroit Writers Guild.

  • John Sinclair – Beatnik Youth

    John Sinclair – Beatnik Youth

    John Sinclair – “Beatnik Youth” on Double CD
    Released 8th September 2017 by Iron Man Records.
    All Press enquiries to Sean Newsham : sean@mutante.co.uk

    Catalogue Number: IMB6032
    Release date: 8th September 2017
    Label: Iron Man Records
    Distribution: Cargo

    Disc 1

    Testify (9.10)
    Good Stuff (4.32)
    Everybody Needs Somebody (7.09)
    Change My Life (5.14)
    Ain’t Nobody’s Business (3.36)
    My Buddy (5.13)
    That Old Man (3.53)

    Disc 2

    Brilliant Corners (11.29)
    Culture Cide (11.38)
    Red Dress (Ruby My Dear) (6.25)
    Sitarrtha (6.16)
    Do It (6.16)
    War On Drugs (6.18)

  • John Sinclair Radio Show #338

    Please visit my blog: FATTENING BLOGS FOR SNAKES. Dedicated to the music, writing and social activism of John Sinclair, love, steve.

    http://fatteningblogsforsnakes.blogspot.com/

    John Sinclair Radio Show #338

    http://www.radiofreeamsterdam.com/john-sinclair-radio-show-338/

    John Sinclair Radio Show #338

    The John Sinclair Foundation Presents
    Café The Zen
    Saturday, August 22, 2010 @ 2:00-3:00 am [20-1034]
    Amsterdam, NL.

    Our program this week emanates from Café The Zen in Amsterdam where we’ve been based all week with the New Orleans action painter called Frenchy and 101 Runners pianist Tom Worrell plus guitarist Vincent Pino (from Venezuela), drummer Steve Fly (UK) and bassist-engineer Leslie Lopez (Puerto Rico)—the International Blues Scholars. We’re listening to music we made here at Studio Zen on Monday night (16) and at the 420 Café on Wednesday (18), where we were joined by Chris Jones (New Orleans) on bongos during his brief visit to Amsterdam, and we’ve got a few records to add by Alberta Adams & the Planet D Nonet, Kermit Ruffins, Lenny Bruce on airplane glue, and Brother Jack McDuff. Rasdan makes a brief recorded announcement from Café The Zen while he presently languishes in a Dutch jail waiting to be deported back to Suriname for lack of proper paperwork. Free Rasdan!

    Playlist 338
    [01] Opening Music: Tom Worrell & the International Blues Scholars: Tipitina
    [02] John Sinclair Intro Comments with Larry Hayden & Steve Fly
    [03] Ras Dan: Pasa Ding De Café Zen
    [04] John Sinclair & His International Blues Scholars: Louisiana Blues
    [05] John Sinclair & His International Blues Scholars: The Delta Sound
    [06] John Sinclair Comments & Conversation with Larry Hayden & Steve Fly
    [07] Alberta Adams & Planet D Nonet: Say Baby Say
    [08] Kermit Ruffins: I Got a Treme Woman
    [09] Lenny Bruce: Airplane Glue
    [10] Brother Jack McDuff: Smut
    [11] John Sinclair Comments & Conversation with Larry Hayden & Steve Fly
    [12] Closing Music: John Sinclair & His International Blues Scholars: friday the 13th > monk in orbit > my buddy

    Hosted by John Sinclair for Radio Free Amsterdam
    Produced, recorded, edited & assembled by John Sinclair
    Posted by Larry Hayden
    Executive Producer: Larry Hayden
    Special thanks to Celia Sinclair, Frenchy, Tom Worrell, Vincent Pino, Steve Fly & Leslie Lopez—Leslie Lopez, The Man
    © 2010 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

    http://www.radiofreeamsterdam.com/john-sinclair-radio-show-338/