A HIDDEN LANDSCAPE ONCE A WEEK: the kickstarter for the book of the politics of rockwriting conference

first time for me too

i think for £100 we should have gotten '2 months guaranteed of regular mark s posts on ILX'

Congratulations!

It looks so great, cannot wait to read

(and really pleased for you)

(xp so otm)

congratz mark :)

thanks everyone!

(lol tracer)

grats, now get to work

£9838!

Awesome!

Tom on Facebook: "If this was a Beano story, this would be the point at which Mark, happily walking home, passes a life size fibreglass Tarkus in a shop window with a £9,500 price tag…"

luckily i'd still have £338!

Disappointed no fibreglass Tarkuses listed in your Kickstarter's "Risks & Challenges" section

Well done, mark

Yay! Looking fwd to book.

:)

Yay! Was still four hours to go with a decent chunk left to fund when I crashed out at midnight in NZ, wonderful news to wake up to :)

ok it is now the following morning and i have an ANTHOLOGY to edit apparently

anyway many thanks and many apologies in all the relevant directions

[i am now off to post this exact sentiment on ILE bcz BRANDING]

Website!

http://marksinker.co.uk/ahiddenlandscape.html

Favorite name on the list of backers: Rita Tushingham!

i know :)

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A HIDDEN LANDSCAPE ONCE A WEEK: the kickstarter for the book of the politics of rockwriting conference 3804 3725 67 12

manuscript and illustrations drop-boxed to publisher 10 minutes ago

(naturally i have already remembered a thing i was planning to do and haven't: luckily it is small and can be done at layout proofing stage IF I REMEMBER)

a year and two days since the kickstarter began, two years and six weeks since the original conference

it feels like a lot has gone down in the interim

I've been doing nothing but sitting here waiting for this book!

Podcast with mark s on all of this.

https://soundcloud.com/hazel-southwell-322745150/pilot-five-turds-a-week

pilot podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/hazel-southwell-322745150/pilot-five-turds-a-week

1st non-pilot podcast:
pod 2: https://soundcloud.com/hazel-southwell-322745150/know-thine-nme

the rambling conversation of the book feat. me and hazel southwell and what sounds like a GIANT bottle of wine which was in fact entirely normal sized yes

patreon to help defray a few costs: patreon: https://www.patreon.com/marksink3r
^^^let yr well-heeled chums know, they will enjoy listening

book due july/august if not sooner, savage pencil cover here:
http://marksinker.co.uk/images/book-ahloaw-mock-final.jpg

I haven't read this review (subscriber only) of a book on Rock Against Racism

it's one of those reviews which largely recounts the story without quite making it clear what comes from the book under review and what comes from the reviewer's own knowledge: it's a good clear sympathetic account that i don't much disagree with. renton is ex-swp, resigned in 2013 (presumably over the way it handed its sex assault crisis, or anyway to coincide with that), but was only 4 or 5 when RAR was set up. so his direct knowledge is probably slim, tho he surely knows ppl who know ppl etc. he comes from a far left but also a quite posh background afaics (e.g. went to eton and oxford).

ruth gregory, who he mentions as one of the co-founders of RAR's magazine temporary hoarding, in fact contributes to HIDDEN LANDSCAPE: she writes a little memoir of the late david widgery, temporary hoarding's other co-founder -- including extracts from some of his pieces. widgery was also a rockwriter in the 60s (for oz and such), plus a revolutionary marxist and an east end GP till he OD'd in the early 90s.

i shd get a copy of this book -- ps lol at the clash being dicks abt billing at a rock against racism festival (RAR said black acts shd always headline)

the cover in its final form

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtKqcz0WoAAlD9X.jpg

(the reds in the JPG are brighter than they appear on the internet, not sure i can do anything abt that tho)

it's this thing (do not read if you hate me)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dtu9LGtWwAArkc8.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dtu9M7BXcAA_7tQ.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dtu9PASW0AAIFMv.jpg

(haven't actually cracked the spine yet since of course the IRON LAW is that you find a mistake on the first page you scan)

Congrats Mark!

Also come to the pub.

i am coming to the pub

Hooray!

Congrats, mark s.

cockfarmers: 365, 366

lol

Well done, Mr Sinkah !

omg geordie! thank you and blimey here you are :D

just been advised: uk buyers shd order from strange attractor rather than MIT (as MIT sends out from america, so there will be a wait PLUS a shipping charge)

order direct from strange attractor:
http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/a-hidden-landscape-once-a-week/

luckily you never told anyone that they could order it from MIT

(https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hidden-landscape-once-week doesn't offer the facility to order it anyway though, but it does have links to booksellers in the US and UK)

well in the uk, via strange attractor is quicker right now (so MIT told me this morning)

the bookstore links from MIT's page say it releases on February 19, so if Strange Attractor are shipping now, that's definitely quicker

Q&A i did for the MIT blog: http://mitpress.mit.edu/blog/unruly-curiosity-uk-music-press-1960s-80s

plus a nice review in IT magazine (a 60s iteration of which features at length in the book): http://internationaltimes.it/always-about-ideas/
"This book is a celebration, a critique, a discussion, a history, a conversation, an intriguing read, and a catalogue of possibilities – what more could you want?”

:)

(ps There are still delays getting hold of it: an admin glitch meaning that after the small pre-release run it may not be around in numbers for a couple of weeks at least…)

You need to will to power it to us

Extract from my intro up at Longreads: https://longreads.com/2019/02/19/three-decades-of-cross-cultural-utopianism-in-british-music-writing/

(a fun thing happening right now on twitter: see which of two of my tweets gets the most attention, my drawing attention to this and a feeble joke i tweeted at much-beloved shitposter THE HELLDUDE aka GUNSMOSLEM -- currently they are neck and neck and this is my literary legacy in a nutshell let's be honest)

londoners the actual real official LAUNCH of this takes place in nine days' time: 19 March at Iklectik, nr Archbishop's Park, London SE1 7LG, inc.a Q&A panel feat.me, savage pencil, bob stanley and MC my podcast co-host Hazel Southwell. Come along and say hi!

go here for details: https://www.facebook.com/events/358489934749708/

I read your intro; it was really interesting and did a good job of fleshing out these weeklies that have floated in and out of a not-unsubstantial portion of the conversations I've had for the past decade and a half at the very least

My copy arrived this morning! Like the chunky size and cover stock, and especially like the lettering on the spine. Great to see so many ILXers listed in the back. Congrats mark s.

Mine just arrived!

i enjoyed it! there were even some quite young people at it lol (some of them left early)

An article on NME history:

https://journals.openedition.org/palimpsestes/4649?lang=en

nice to be cited! the typo in the 13-word quote was not in the book! say hi to eugene from me!

( i will read this later) (im saving it up)

Got some old music press vibes off this interview:

https://newsocialist.org.uk/culture-ordinary-interview-billy-lunn/

Gets a mention here:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/sep/07/beethoven-was-black-why-the-radical-idea-still-has-power-today

nice! only gets two things wrong lol (neither matters much tho both will now get traction *sigh*: i wasn't reporting my conversation, it's from the on-stage interview richard williams did with her at the conference -- and val wasn't officially interviewing reich i don't think, just talking to him informally at some point)

ok i checked my own book lol, and yes, apparently she was officially interviewing him

the screenshot of the relevant passage that andrew male tweeted last year is going quietly viral

(someone has already made the bad val kilmer joke in comments, and someone else the worse "fourth reich" joke)

i got to do a "this blew up here's my soundcloud" tweet :D

(linking to the book, i don't really have a soundcloud)

lol just saw that.

A long time ago I remember B3n W**son doing a Steve Reich is an imperialist - type thing (doubt it was on Wire, probably on his site) which he (ofc!) used to prosecute minimalism with.

the essay cited here (it's linked in googledocs further down the thread, for now at least) is very interesting on the complexities of that (i've only had time to skim it):

And for some more interesting reading on Reich's politics:https://t.co/xzpgtAXLIQ

— Pierce Gradone (@piercegradone) September 8, 2020

Excellent interview with Chris Bohn, touches on lots of aspects of Hidden Landscape, further testimony to that time:

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/06/eastern-bloc-rock

Thanks, and speaking of interviews, when Scott posted his Mark interview re this book in '19. I commented:
Great interview—can see I’m going to have to re-read to catch every bit of it (possibly)–as with Mark’s intro to the anthology (was immediately gratified by his hailing of 80s syncretism, a new age [somebody pointed out that this was in part because of cassettes, rough and ready in areas around the world where record and CD players weren’t feasible}. In contrast to some of his contributors, who dismissed the 80s for plastic on everything, Phil Collins and shoulder pads bleghh).
Fave contributions pretty obvious choices: adventures of Val Wilmer, Cynthia Rose having lunch with Andy and his corsets, Hon. Chas Shaar Murray stylin’, Penny Reel! )thanx so much for link to Mark’s Freaky Trigger on him) Also the intriguing Paul Morely, applecart-upsetter Paul Gilroy, and Mr. Frith on his experience in xgau’s version of the Voice line-edit (goes with what I’ve heard from other survivors).

admin
September 9, 2019 at 2:36 pm

Ah yes, Don, thanks for mentioning Mark’s intro–I would have if I didn’t struggle so much trying to write ANY kind of intro for THIS (I meant to quote a couple bits from it, in fact). It’s really a great thing in itself, wonderfully detailed, lots of open questions.

Here's the whole thing:
https://rockcritics.com/2019/08/09/interview-with-mark-sinker-editor-of-a-hidden-landscape-once-a-week-a-book-about-the-uk-music-press-which-any-critical-person-could-learn-from-and-enjoy/#comments

Came across this tribute to an anarchist organiser who did a lot of work in punk zines.

https://crimethinc.com/2023/02/10/we-remember-jen-angel-a-eulogy