Sorry, Swan Fungus super-fan Bennett, you were saying something about the Packers? I couldn't hear you over the sound of my Giants shredding your cheese-heads. Or was it the hush of the crowd at Lambeau. Oh well, whatever. It was one of those two things. You have to admit, the Giants played pretty solid football [...]

I In 1971, rock critic Robert Palmer set out on assignment for Rolling Stone , to track down the writer's favorite band. This was years before Palmer had penned his iconic tomes on popular music, Deep Blues and Rock & Roll: an Unruly History , but even then the young musicologist and clarinetist had pretty particular taste. The object of his infatuation was a group of musicians who had already caught the eye of Brian Jones and William Burroughs. The later had met the Master Musicians of Joujouka [...]

Accused of being a "black-caped, black-garbed, death-worshipping church" with ranks of mindless "hooded snuffoids," they believed they were visionaries warning of the coming apocalypse. In the wake of the shootings at Columbine and with cult activity on the increase, this could have been ripped from the mainstream headlines throughout 1999. But at the end of the hippie dream, these were the charges levelled at one of the most controversial cults of the Sixties: the Process Church. In 1963, two people met at the L Ron Hubbard Institute of Scientology on Fitzroy Street, London. They were both studying [...]
During the course of the South Bank Centre's Meltdown Festival in previous years, the curator's presence has sometimes been felt as little more than a face on a poster and a vague shadow before their own closing night performance. Not so this year. Every night Ornette Coleman has been on stage, sitting in with the [...]
Back from the James Blood Ulmer gig - on the terrace before the show, these guys were playing - some nifty footwear. Pity they weren't doing the support - the Curse of the South Bank is getting predictable - Shlomo's Harmolodic Bollox this time out. Still, Blood Ulmer was impressive - a great show... review to follow asap...

History tells us that about the year 1090 A. D., the military and religious order or sect of the Assassins was founded in Persia by Hassan ben Sabbat. This diabolical, fanatical, cruel and murderous tribe, although isolated in the mountains of Lebanon, and in the valleys and glens of Persia and Syria became remarkable for its secret murders committed in blind obedience to the will of their chief, and the heinousness of its crimes was bruited the world over. Their numerous acts of cruelty cast dire panic and consternation in the stoutest hearts not only in Asia but in Europe [...]