ASSOCIATION OF MUSICAL MARXISTS
Association of Musical Marxists was a left groupuscule which flourished in London 2010-2015. It was founded by Ben Watson and Andy Wilson, who had both cut their political teeth in the Socialist Workers Party. The AMM - deliberately named in order to challenge the best-known brand in “Free Improvisation” - held eighteen meetings and published thirteen books under the Unkant imprint. The idea was to abolish the distinction between music, politics, poetry, talk and drinking. Politics was its downfall - the group failed to agree about Syria - but Watson carries on its musical wing, calling his group AMM All-Stars.
Meetings
AMM1 9-vi-2011 Blue Posts, Rupert Street W1: Launch of Ben Watson's Adorno for Revolutionaries edited by Andy Wilson.
AMM2 6-x-2011 Blue Posts: Launch of Ray Challinor's The Struggle for Hearts and Minds: Essays on the Second World War and Sean Bonney's Happiness: Poems After Rimbaud.
AMM3 15-xii-2011 Blue Posts: with Alan Tomlinson on the history of the trombone; Keith Fisher on the AMM's visit to Hamburg; Sean Bonney; Helen le Bohec reads Baudelaire in French; Ben Watson's "Revolutionary Linguistics: Volosinov versus Saussure".
AMM4 7-vi-2012 Blue Posts: Academic Anguish Meeting with Oscillatorial Binnage, and Nina Power & Sean Bonney versus the AMM.
AMM5 20-xii-2012 Blue Posts: with student activist Owen Holland on guitar; Ben "chewing gum man" Wilson explains his property-defying art practice.
AMM6 13-vii-2013 Jeremy Bentham (fringe meeting of SWP's Marxism 2013): Concerning Delta X/Martin Smith and the Rape Scandal plus Dave Black's "Hegel in 10 Minutes" and Out To Lunch/Paul Seacroft "Eugene Gogol's Dialectic of Philosophy and Organisation".
AMM7 22-vii-2013 Cafe Oto: Launch of paperback edition of Ben Watson's Derek Bailey & the Story of a Free Improvisation (Verso).
AMM8 5-xii-2013 Blue Posts: Xmas Party with Esther Leslie on Walter Benjamin, Robert Dellar from Mad Pride and Oscillatorial Binnage
AMM9 25-v-2014 Lexington: Co-Promotion with Mad Pride - AMM All-Stars (including Alan Wilkinson sax, Sarah Gail Brand trombone), Alternative TV and Ceramic Hobs.
AMM10 1-ix-2014 AMM10 Helene le Bohec plays Helen Macfarlane at the Cock Tavern, Somers Town at launch of Dave Black's Helen Macfarlane: Red Republican with Paul Seacroft (lapsteel).
AMM11 21-i-2015 Housman Books "Capitalism is Bad for your Mental Health" with talks by Robert Dellar (Mad Pride) and Alastair Kemp (Newhaven Journeyman) and music by AMM All-Stars.
AMM12 26-i-2015 Cock Tavern, Somers Town: AMM All-Stars greet events in Greece with music session.
AMM13 16-v-2015 Anarchist Bookfair, Sheffield: AMM All-Stars play at event with Dave Black (on the Situationists), Nathan Bettany (oboe) and Ben Moran Healy (dancing).
AMM14 17-v-2015 Enterprise, Chalk Farm "Gamma Memorial Barbecue" with AMM All-Stars, Spanner-Tate play Zappa and Evil Dick and the Banned Members (including saxophonist Dave Jackson).
AMM15 13-vi-2015 "Manga Crata" at Magna Carta Festival, Clerkenwell
AMM16 23-x-2015 Launch of Peter Sedgwick's Psycho Politics at The Field, communal centre in New Cross; Dave Russell plays guitar.
AMM17 24-x-2015 Cock Tavern: AMM All-Stars play after-party for London Anarchist Bookfair, the response being 'you’ve got to have order in music' and 'fuck off back to Hampstead with your arty-farty crap'.
AMM18 4-viii-2015 Cafe Oto: AMM All-Stars with Jair-Rohm Parker Wells.
Audio (including OTL’s Political Mixes)
Account of the terrible meeting at Historical Materialism which inaugurated the AMM
AMM1 (Blue Posts, 9 June 2011): Worn Paws: The Horny-Handed Sons of Socialist Activism versus the Dead Hand of Idealist Reiteration and the Dirty Hand of Political Opportunism Both:
AMM2 (Blue Posts, 12 October 2011): The Blackledge Grimoire
AMM3 (Blue Posts, 15 December 2011): Boning Up with Baudelaire
AMM4 (Blue Posts, 7 June 2012): Academic Anguish
OTL WASHES UP TO THE HOUR OF POWER (11 November 2012)
AMM5 (Blue Posts, 20 December 2012) with Alan Wilkinson (sax) and Mordecai Watson (harmonica)
AMM6 Jeremy Bentham (fringe meeting of SWP's Marxism 2013)
AMM7 (Cafe Oto, 22 July 2013) ReLaunch of Ben Watson's Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation
AMM9 with ALTERNATIVE TELEVISION (The Lexington, 25-v-2014)
Love at First Parp Shit or Chocolate? Alan's Onboard We Keep Going Otiose BoogalooCulture as Emetic Necessity and Grandiose Finale Angelic Esther Saintly Rob AMM10 with Helene le Bohec (Cock Tavern, 1-ix-2014)BOOKS PUBLISHED BY UNKANT
Ben Watson ed. Andy Wilson Adorno for Revolutionaries (2011)
Ray Challinor The Struggle for Hearts and Minds: Essays on the Second World War (2011)
Sean Bonney Happiness: Poems After Rimbaud (2011)
Jim Higgins More Years for the Locust: The Origins of the SWP (2011)
David Black and Chris Ford foreword by John McDonnell MP 1839: The Chartist Insurrection (2012)
Ben Watson Blake in Cambridge (2012)
Ken Fox AZMUD: An Oily Saga on the Surface of the Wordbath in 5 Expired Generations (2013)
Ben Watson, Ed. Andy Wilson Cosmic Orgasm: The Music of Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram (2013)
Helen Macfarlane ed. David Black Red Republican: Essays, Articles and her translation of the Communist Manifesto (2014)
Robert Dellar Splitting in Two: Mad Pride and Punk Rock Oblivion (2014)
Peter Sedgwick foreword by Helen Spandler, Robert Dellar and Alastair Kemp Psycho Politics: Laing, Foucault, Szasz and the Future of Mass Psychiatry (2015)
Sheila Lahr foreword by Ian Patterson Yealm: a Sorterbiography (2015) Back to AMM Sub FrontBack to AMM