No sooner had I removed their children from them, this spider plant in my study had a bunch more. I think they must have picked up the positive vibes – seen their offspring were being so well looked after…
So many of the blighters to care for!
I picked up some pots in the garden centre and lit up the grow lights a month early. Let’s get these out into the neighbourhood too.
In the past, I waited until my books “Retreat” and “The ‘S’ Word” came out before pulling together complimentary mixes.
However, this time, with “The Garden” my book about the visionary growers and farmers of the counterculture, I am running the mix beforehand as it were to set the mood. I’m also marking the moment today when this book that the team at Repeater and I have been toiling over for years has finally gone to print.
Both “Retreat” and “The Garden” have large discographies in the back. This forms part of my mission to reconnect people’s interest in this music with the ideas to which it was originally conjoined. These ideas were what gave it its power.
Music has become largely divorced from other contexts – to the extent that it’s become part perfume – part wallpaper – a decorative filigree draped over business-as-usual. If you wonder why some contemporary music (let’s face it, a lot of contemporary music) sounds a bit bland and empty – it’s not to do with the format, or the bit rate, or the way it was recorded… The hot music of the past, of the counterculture and other eras, was genuinely communicating something.
Mix is here and below.
The Move: I Can Hear the Grass Grow
An extremely early salvo of hippie plant consciousness released in March 1967 – critical mass not reached until 1969. Roy Wood here makes the connection between taking LSD as prescribed in rural settings, and from thence getting in touch with mother nature on a more cosmic level.
The Grateful Dead: St. Stephen
The Dead denied that this was named after the home-grown spiritual guru Stephen Gaskin of Haight-Ashbury’s then-exploding Monday Night Club. However, I believe this is largely owing to the firm wanting to put some distance between their business and Gaskin’s. Subsequently, Gaskin was the leader at Tennessee mega-commune, “The Farm.”
The Beatles: Mother Nature’s Son
McCartney was The Beatle most in touch with the soil. In “Mother Nature’s Son” he stakes that claim himself. Elsewhere, in Paul’s “Get Back” Jojo leaves his home in Tucson, Arizona “for some California grass” (here, I think, implying San Francisco and marijuana, not the lush countryside). McCartney advises him to go back home to the country, like agricultural philosopher Wendell Berry did, returning from California to Kentucky.
The Incredible String Band: The Half-Remarkable Question
This track was mentioned to me in an interview by the legendary dairy farmer and sustainability guru Patrick Holden. The ISB themselves had strong rural connections, retreating as they did to Temple Cottage in Balmore, in the countryside north of Glasgow. There they worked on the songs on 5000 Spirits (1967) and The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter (1968). But this from their underrated “Wee Tam” LP.
Vashti Bunyan: Window Over the Bay
Bunyan dreamt of having a flock of white sheep, a dreamy-eyed cow, and a cockerel to raise her at dawn. Lorra livestock.
Ron Geesin: Breathe
Roger Waters, accompanying his friend Ron Geesin, laments that “Something is killing the land before your eyes.”
Trees: The Garden of Jane Delawney
UK folk rock from 1970 with a psychedelic edge.
Alicia Bay Laurel: Planting Day Ceremony
Here Alicia was joined by Ramón Sender Barayón, co-founder with Morton Subotnik of the San Francisco Tape Center and her fellow communard at Ahimsa ranch, to craft this lovely hymn to plants.
Joni Mitchell: Woodstock
Like her “Big Yellow Taxi”, “Woodstock” is positively bursting at the seams with luminous and eternally durable imagery. The line, “And we’ve got to get ourselves/ Back to the garden” gives my book its title. But as hippie legend, and Biochar pioneer Craig Sams pointed out to me, Mitchell also sings, “We are stardust/ Billion-year-old carbon.” Let’s not neglect to mention the track’s brooding, portentous sonics: Mitchell’s plaintive vocals soaring high above her Fender Rhodes like an eagle above a smoking, ravaged landscape.
Neil Young: After the Gold Rush
Famous for the line, “Look at mother nature on the run in the 1970s.” Neil has been farming since he bought Broken Arrow Ranch in 1971, where he lived until 2014. He’s been a stalwart supporter of the Farm Aid music festival.
Jackson Browne: Before the Deluge
“Before the Deluge”, with its apocalyptic mood, was from Browne’s 1974 LP “Late for the Sky”. It was picked up by a generation of back-to-the-landers.
Bob Martin: Midwest Farm Disaster
The title track from Martin’s jewel of an LP. Right at the country edge of rock, it was recorded at the same Nashville studio Dylan used. Heartbreakingly documenting the failure of small farms in the Midwest.
John Cale: Hanky Panky Nohow
“The cows that agriculture won’t allow.” Never mind the bullocks.
The Groundhogs: Garden
The garden chokes the house, however Tony McPhee insists, “I’m not going to cut a single blade of grass / My garden will look just like the distant past / Before the days of agricultural land.” Truly rewilded.
Dando Shaft: Rain
Martin Jenkins’ mandolin here like dancing raindrops.
Lal and Mike Waterson: Child Among the Weeds
Devastating and mysterious UK folk rock from this seemingly cursed LP.
Dave and Toni Arthur: The Barley Grain for Me
“The farmer came with a big plough and ploughed me under the sod.”
Paul & Linda McCartney: Heart of the Country
McCartney provides a homely update to his rural narrative.
These Trails: Garden Botanum
Organic Hawaiian psychedelia.
Mort Garson: Plantasia
Exotic synthesised precursor to Stevie Wonder’s soundtrack to “The Secret Life of Plants.”
Dr. Alimantado: Just the Other Day
The good Dr. says that no one wants to be a farmer but advises: “So, be wise there, for you sons an’ daughters of earth / An’ know dat you got to go to the soil to toil, as I would say / ‘Cause, if you no reap, you cyaan not eat.”
Julie Anne: The Gardener
AKA Judy Mowatt, was one of Bob Marley’s I-Threes, and later singer of the roots classic “Black Woman.” “The Gardener” deftly weaves the strands of the hippie, the spiritual, and feminine power into an underappreciated ecological anthem.
R.E.M.: Gardening at Night
This remains my favourite R.E.M. song – saying a lot for a band I loved right up to “Document” (1987) – first they jangled and then they choogled. The original inspiration for “Gardening at Night” was a nocturnal piss-stop – a car’s drunken passengers bundle out into the night air to urinate by the side of the road. Urine, of course, being high in nitrogen is great for stimulating plant growth.
Scott Walker: Farmer in the City
You can take the boy out of the country…
Smog: Let’s Move to the Country
There’s a perhaps unintentional overtone with the motif of moving to the country to retire, “When my travels are through.” It is as though one were taking a step closer to becoming the humus (neither ashes nor dust, please!) that should be our rightful mortal destiny.
Charles Ives: Thoreau
The fourth movement in Ives’ lovely Piano Sonata No. 2, or “Concord Sonata”. The first movement dedicated to Ralph Waldo Emerson also of the same small Massachusetts town where more historic events took place than seems strictly feasible.
Gurdjieff: Kurd Shepherd Dance
The great guru’s memories of rural Armenian folk music patiently notated by his shishya Thomas De Hartmann. For fans of Popol Vuh’s “Hosianna Mantra.”
There’s been a lot of support for RFK Jr from unusual quarters in recent weeks. A number of my acquaintances have expressed hopes for his potential role as director of the Department of Health and Human Services in the otherwise dreaded Trump administration.
RFK Jr is Democratic Party royalty. He’s the nephew of assassinated president John F. Kennedy, and son of the assassinated senator and attorney general Robert F. Kennedy. He ran an independent campaign for president, which was successful in swing states like Michigan but, to the disgust of his family, threw his weight behind Donald Trump. And he has bad form for choosing friends in the past too, hanging out with, at various times, Harvey Weinstein, OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein, and Bill Cosby.
RFK Jr, to his chagrin, is mainly known as a COVID vaccine denier. He does temper this position when he’s scrutinised in public forums, claiming that he just wants to see proper trials for vaccines, but in more intimate surroundings it seems to be a different story. His involvement in a measles’ outbreak in Samoa LOOKS pretty bad.
I don’t have a problem with vaccines. I’ve travelled a lot in the developing world – and you get very blasé about taking them. I took three vaccinations for COVID. I did it out of social responsibility to protect vulnerable people in my household and community, but also (lol) so I could leave the UK on holiday. It didn’t do me any good because I subsequently tested positive for COVID twice. The first time I caught the virus, it was very bad. I was the most ill I have ever been. Whether I should or shouldn’t have taken the vaccine is immaterial to me. It didn’t really make any difference either way – but it was worth doing out of esprit de corps. This is nothing more than my personal opinion, but I don’t think vaccines, which have done modern societies an immeasurable service, pose significant risks.
What does pose significant risks to health? Diet. And diet, especially with regard to nutrition, connects us to farming, because biologically-grown food is more nutritious. And this is where it gets complicated because, even if you disagree with RFK Jr’s position on vaccines, he is simultaneously a staunch opponent of processed foods. Here, in a video with 4.3 million views, he is railing against food additives, singling out Tartrazine. Why on earth are food additives like this still allowed?
The platform he shares with Trump is deregulation: Trump for corrupt ends and to give tax breaks to the richest (speciously) in the name of growth; RFK Jr to support small businesses crushed by expensive bureaucracy. However, it’s ironic that the removal of additives from food is largely going to be one requiring… yup, that’s right… regulation. Indeed, he praises the previous Trump administration for making some additives illegal where the Democrats did nothing.
Even firebrand of the left, senator for Vermont (like being the MP for Brighton), Bernie Sanders has recently found common ground with RFK Jr in a shared focus upon obesity and diabetes. Overlooking processed meat and the absence of micronutrients in chemically-grown food, the true enemy, however, is not additives but something far simpler: sugar. Good luck regulating (or deregulating?) that! It’s closer to a society-wide addiction, a social problem like alcoholism, than anything to do with government.
As well as his interesting approach to foods, RFK Jr also has an impressive grasp of the arguments around organic farming. This is on display in this interview he undertakes with legendary progressive farmer Joel Salatin, the star of Michael Pollen’s landmark book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Salatin, a Republican, talks passionately about his ability to be able to compete with much larger organisations and to be able to leverage technology to reach markets which have been stifled by their local administrations. It is a strategy right out of the small-state play book.
I’ve got to admit that on the back of research I’ve been doing for the past three years, what RFK hints at sounds potentially very interesting. The problem with agriculture in the US and UK is that government subsidies, bolstered by the claim that food security is only possible under the aegis of chemical agriculture, have pumped money into supporting industrial farming. Truthfully, large farms do NOT farm their lands for profit, they farm the government for subsidies. A whole toxic architecture is held in place by these subsidies. This is the principal reason that organic food seems expensive. Yes, their removal would be cataclysmic if it happened quickly. We’ve come so far from the small-farm, local food model, that it’s almost inconceivable that we could turn the clock back. But the current status quo is still a nightmare on many fronts, not least ecologically.
Besides this call for a reduction in state regulation, RFK’s position feels like it ought to be a position taken by a Democrat – and his family background in the blue camp makes sense. However, equally, there is plenty of libertarian anarchism inherent in the idea of growing organic food. The fundamental principle is, after all, that a healthy undisturbed soil creates a healthy plant. That can be construed, as in Sir Albert Howard’s model of the forest manuring itself, or Masanobu Fukuoka’s call for no tillage, as a call for no intervention – a classic right-wing trope. Of course, this ignores the idea and role of composting – which might be equated to lavish state intervention.
Organic cranks have always taken pride in not taking medicines or stimulants, and historically there have been minority elements within the organic movement that have been on the right. Knowing the history, I wouldn’t overemphasise this especially, but it’s a factor.
The libertarian aspect of these ideas have already influenced fringe ecologists such as the beautiful Artist as Family group. This fascinating, radical self-sufficiency collective from Australia who I find entirely enchanting, also, like RFK Jr, adopted an anti-vax position. No, I don’t necessarily agree with them, but unlike so many commentators I’m not fearful of it, and I appreciate the coherency of their logic.
So what’s going to happen as this Trump/RFK Jr saga unfolds? As I understand it, he’s yet to actually secure the nomination. Like the woebegone Pete Hegseth, he might even now fall by the wayside. And if he gets the job, will Trump actually keep him in the role? I can’t see that working. RFK Jr is going to infuriate too many rich and powerful people who the Donald will want to ingratiate. But maybe, just maybe, RFK Jr will hang in there and will have a positive effect! Who would have thought there might be a silver-lining in this dark cloud?
The footballer Les Ferdinand got behind our campaign to save the pitches. This footage was shot by the esteemed Richard Blanshard and edited by me.
Both BBC News and ITN picked up the story, both using some of the footage from this film. We were very grateful for his support.
Selling my records on Discogs has been an intense process. I have parted with 1,866 items since August 7th. There have been ample opportunities for reflection on the past, upon the original activity of finding them in shops, and my historic participation in those musical worlds.
Even though carefully considered, many separations were emotional, and inevitably there were a few regrets. I’ve been fortunate to be able to rectify the handful of mistakes I’ve made. Mostly, though, I’ve been glad that they have gone to new homes.
One unexpected result was that, after not engaging with vinyl for over three years, whether I liked it or not, I was thrust back into its universe. Thinking about it all the time became necessary, not just in practical terms so as to deal with the flow of orders, but to stay on top of my own feelings; to be certain I wasn’t making mistakes.
Having to confront actually parting with this stuff, rather than just having it packed away unconsciously in storage, some attachments became surprisingly pronounced. I didn’t know I felt so strongly about certain items (talismans?) – that I would be compelled to rescue things from the inventory at unusual moments (before breakfast) or in odd places (on a walk over Dartmoor). What stood out most was a deep reverence and affection for the dance music of 1989-1996 that I anthologised in mixes. I’m referring to that run through New York House, Chicago House, Detroit Techno, UK Techno, Hardcore, Jungle, Two-Step, and Grime. The demand for these old records is insatiable…
Not, in the strictest terms a dance music record, one of the last items I rescued from the sale was Holden’s “The Inheritors” LP, which I had bought in 2013. I found an old download code for it in the inner sleeve, which actually worked still. From thence I found my way to this his 2023 album. I also read a nice interview with him conducted by John Doran at The Quietus.
Holden is enchanted by this same era of dance music and the possibilities for a new society that it suggested. Indeed, it’s striking how little of the retro-rave music goes deeper than reviving old technology and fetishising old twelve inches. The reason that music glowed, even as it was at the end crushed into tiny clubs and pirate radio stations, was that behind it was a dream.
Nothing can stay the same and mean the same thing, and where “Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities” dazzles is in its invocation of that elevated optimism in a new form. Holden finds a way to channel that spirit in these troubled times.
I really admire Holden not (apparently) being preoccupied by physical formats, as is evident in his sharing of his collection of digital music and his expression in interview of “an idea for a rhizomatic, decentralised, community owned version of Bandcamp”. I bought this album as a 24bit 48khz FLAC. It sounds better than even a CD ever could, and that did give me food for thought.
Since 2007 I’ve been involved with my local community in EC1, mounting opposition to the threatened overdevelopment of the Finsbury Leisure Centre site.
Although three previous mooted developments have failed, as far as we’re aware this had nothing to do with our campaigning. In each case, it was just luck. Over the years, however, the projected developments have got bigger and bigger, with less and less being left available on the ground for the football pitches and in the way of open space.
Over time, I also came to realise that the development affected me less severely than the footballers or my neighbours around the site, who rely on the pitches to be kept as they are for their light and open space. So my objection has shifted to being more about the community’s needs.
I have done a lot already, even in this round, to put my shoulder to the wheel: tallying up bookings on the pitches, establishing the group’s relations to a chartered surveyor expert in rights-to-light, and attending heated meetings with Islington Council elders. However, I thought that a short documentary would really help get the message out there. I’ve come to know and admire my fellow campaigners, a more diverse bunch you could not imagine, and it was a great opportunity to talk to them all on camera.
If, as we suspect, the council does grant themselves planning permission (what a joke, right?) then having a memento of how this magical space once was, and evidence of how hard we fought to keep it, will be worth something.
If you have a moment – please object here. No need to be a local resident.
This is the seventh and final post picturing my trips to Biodynamic farms in 2023 and 2024.
The background to these visits is the research for my forthcoming book “The Garden”, which is due to be published by Repeater in 2025. There’s a very thoroughly researched chapter on Steiner, agriculture, and the Hippies at the front of it.
I was extremely fortunate to meet, beforehand, director of the Apricot Centre Rachel Phillips. Visiting Devon this summer for my tiny 5-day yearly holiday, I took the opportunity to drop in and see the market garden and CSA she runs with legendary Biodynamic grower Marina O’Connell. I came across Marina’s work some time previously when, visiting Steiner House, I was recommended and bought a copy of her excellent book Designing Regenerative Food Systems.
Nobody was around when, this time with the beautiful Mrs Ingram, we dropped under invitation to see the exquisite site. The pollinator garden of flowers was particularly special and welcome to see. My aunt recently remarked to me that a visit by car to Devon in the sixties would leave a car’s windscreen thick with dead bugs – and that today there will be practically none.
Everything was bursting with life, though there were the telltale signs that the year’s growing season was coming to an end.
This is the sixth instalment of the seven posts on Biodynamic farming.
I came across Jason Warland online – reached out to him – and so when travelling back from a conference in Wales arranged to drop in and see him. He works in the gardens at Ruskin Mill outside Stroud as a therapist helping young people. He’s astonishingly knowledgable about the history of Steiner’s thought, and also on the topic of growing – entirely self-educated as far as I’m aware.
Jason is something of a superstar in his own right, as he contributes a column on Biodynamics to one of Rick Rubin’s channels. I didn’t know this before we met in person, and it was funny when Jason told me, because I suspect I was the first person he’d ever mentioned it to who knew who the world-famous record producer Rick Rubin was.
It was a beautiful evening on Sunday July 7th and we walked up a narrow valley past vegetable gardens, fish ponds, flowforms, past a wood and a pottery workshop. Then we turned left up a steep hill through Park Wood to Gables Farm. This is the main growing centre with whole fields, the characteristic attendant livestock, poly tunnels, and composting site.
Thanks so much to Jason for showing me around. I am so grateful.
The climax of this Biodynamically-packed day was a visit to Emerson College itself. I had a little snoop around, checking out the bookshop, where I found a few reduced-price bargains in a box on the floor.
The previous day I had discovered that the celebrated author and herbalist, Kirsten Hartvig, who is resident at the Rachel Carson Centre at Emerson College, was running one of her amazing nature walks.
Kirsten took us out into the countryside around Emerson College, where we nibbled and chewed an amazing range of local wild plants. In many respects it reminded me of the blogger’s walks we undertook twenty years ago along the Lea Valley (with K-punk and Heronbone), but somehow occurring on a more profound level as our group were truly integrated into, and understanding, the surrounding nature – not just observing the city’s dislocation and rewilding at the periphery.
The star of the tour was the Yarrow which Kirsten swears by and drinks in an infusion many times every day. I bought three plants from her and put them in a large pot on my roof garden. I think one might have been enough because their growth was out of hand, and they ended up choking each other. I’m hoping next year, when it grows back, that I can manage it better.