The London International
           
Poetry and Song Festival (LIPS) presents A Beat Weekend - see the pictures!

26 - 28 October 2001 - the beat goes on - original poetry, song, film and beat rebellion
Friday Saturday Sunday
info history sponsors
Friday 26 October 2001 @ 7 pm

LIPS' CABARET PARTY and PRESS LAUNCH

TRAFALGAR HOTEL
Trafalgar Sq, London W1 (next to Angus Steak House)

FREE launch party and poetry/music night to kick off a great weekend of Beat celebrations at this gorgeous newly-opened venue, the coolest bourbon bar in the West.
 
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Saturday 27 October 2001 @ 7pm

LIPS' REBEL NIGHT

an evening of poetry, song, comedy and beat rebellion

Hackney Empire's Bullion Room Theatre
117 Wilton Way London E8
Box Office: 020 8985 2424

The evening will be punctuated by the acidic rebel jests of master-comic Jeremy Hardy, and driven by the unstoppable world beat of Jack Kerouac's principal musical collaborator David Amram. A host of international poetic and musical talents include Bragi Olaffson, founder of The Sugarcubes, and the Pollock Bros of Iceland's "band of the century" The Outsiders, and The Netherlands' Bart FM Droog, who join locals Big Steve and Stephanie Arlene. Poetry will be backed by beat daddy Amram, poetry-accompanist of the late Jack Kerouac, greatest poetry-music collaborator alive. The subversive routines of beat comic Lord Buckley (1906-1960) will be rendered by New Yorker Jason Eisenberg. This transatlantic night will feature poets including Ron Whitehead and Frank Messina (USA), Richard Deakin, Jane Bom-Bane, Tania Glyde, Annie Lawson (UK), and climax with maybe the best performance poet in the world, the King of New York, The World Emperor of Slam, the mighty Bob Holman (USA).


Sunday 28 Oct 2001 @ 2pm

LIPS' BEAT AFTERNOON

an afternoon of beat memories, film, music and poetry

 
Carolyn Cassidy and David Amram talking about the Beats - © Bart FM Droog, 2001  

Hackney Empire's Bullion Room Theatre
117 Wilton Way, London E8
Box Office: 020 8985 2424


Featuring a panel including Carolyn Cassady, widow of Neal, and David Amram, two 'Soul Survivors' of the Beat Generation, remembering their friendship with Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady on and off the road. David Amram will present beat films from the hilariously anarchic PULL MY DAISY (narrated by Kerouac, scored by David, filmed by Robert Frank) through to modern classic LOWELL BLUES premiering with a film about Gregory Corso filmed at the Nuyorican Poets Café. David Sandison will read from his forthcoming biography of Neal Cassady, and Geir Svansson will talk about MEGAS, Iceland's premiere singer-songwriter. Amram will accompany latterday beat poets including Charlie Newman, Ron Whitehead, Richard Deakin and the mighty Bob Holman.
Tickets (for both Hackney Empire events)

£8.50 adv. £10 door, £6 concs, £15 double ticket


Sunday 28 Oct 2001 @ 7pm

LIPS' BEAT NIGHT

an evening of lyric and song, original and classic
"keeping the beat flame alive"

OCEAN, 270 Mare St, Hackney E8
Box Office: 020 7314 2800
£8.50 adv. £10 door

The finale of the weekend will be an evening of poetry, lyric and song, and occasional Beat Generation history. We will explore the beat influence on the development of poetry and song, showcasing the lyrical talents of the Bap Kennnedy Band and Rob Spragg and Jake Black (The Larry Love and The Reverend D-Wayne Love - the dark voices of the awesome Alabama 3). Plus Carolyn Cassady, widow of Neal, and one of the great loves of Kerouac's life, and David Amram, Kerouac's principle musical collaborator, will recall Jack Kerouac and legendary "fastest man alive" Neal Cassady. David Amram introduced jazz-poetry to New York, playing with Jack Kerouac in 1957, and has played with Leonard Bernstein, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Thelonius Monk, Willie Nelson, Odetta, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Tito Puente... Seventy years young and bearer of a living tradition, David meets here some of the most vital musicians on the London scene, as well as carrying on with the discipline he developed with Kerouac, that of making a spontaneous musical framework for live poetry.

As well as great bands playing original songs we pay tribute to modern beat masters like Bob Dylan (performed by the superb Peter Jagger) and Van Morrison (performed by the Bap Kennedy Band, back from supporting Van the Man in Belfast). LIPS' BEAT NIGHT will feature an international cast of performance poets headed by The King of New York, the mighty Bob Holman, plus Ron Whitehead and Frank Messina of USA, Bart FM Droog of The Netherlands, and local talents including Richard Deakin and Tania Glyde plus Icelandic poets Bragi Olaffson (formerly of the Sugarcubes) + the Pollock Bros + further routines of Lord Buckley. Five hours of lyric and song - the final night of the LIPS Festival will try to mark the start of a new millenium of poetry and music with the mad ones, the bad ones, the ones who blaze and pop like fabulous yellow roman candles in the night and the crowd sez aaah...


INFORMATION:

Richard Deakin: +44 (0)20 8674 9311
(email: richard@achillesprod.demon.co.uk)

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HISTORY

LIPS was formed in July 2000, in response to a request from directors of the first New York Underground Music and Poetry Festival (Nov. 2000) and of other previous festivals of verse and song to the poet and writer Richard Deakin to originate a London version of the ongoing series of Festivals that had hitherto encompassed various European countries and the USA. Most of these festivals involved David Amram, legendary jazz and world musician, who actually introduced the jazz-poetry format to New York playing with his friend Jack Kerouac in 1957. As part of the LIPS festival David will be discussing his experiences with Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, on an off the road, with Carolyn Cassady, Neal's longsuffering wife and perhaps the love of Jack's life, tales of the Tradition being handed down by two "Soul Survivors" of the Beat Generation.

All these festivals have had a common theme and a thread running through them, contemporary performance poetry with a musical background within a Beat heritage. LIPS (and its two associate companies Fringecore and The Literary Renaissance in the USA), thought it was time they brought the formula, appropriately modified and reborn, to London, so that the poets and musicians involved could reach London audiences and wail with their fellow spoken word and musical artists in a cross-fertilization of the cultures and countercultures involved - and do it for the first time in the coolest city on Earth. LIPS will make London the focal point of an artistic collision between a a core of major international artists and a small army of young pretenders to the thrones of poetry and song.


SPONSORS
Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture - Solvholsgata 4 - 150 Reykjavik - Iceland
Tel.: +354 560 9500 - Fax: +354 562 3068 - postur@mrn.stjr.is
TRAFALGAR HOTEL
Trafalgar Sq, London W1
Fund for Promotion of Icelandic Literature

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