John Sinclair‘s 80th birthday today. We mentioned it yesterday but for those who didn’t see that post.
Come celebrate with John and friends at his 80th Birthday Party And Intergalactic Broadcast, broadcasting live out of the Genesee County Compassion Club, Flint, Michigan on the John Sinclair Radio Show on his flagship station, Radio Free Amsterdam (4- 8 pm EDT (9-1 pm GMT – 10-2pm CET))
John’s pretty frail these days but still keeps extraordinary active, hosting a two-hour radio show every week on internet radio and writing a regular column (“Free the Weed” for the Michigan Marijuana Report)
Almost 50 years on from the John Sinclair Freedom Rally
See NORML‘s founder Keith Stroup on that legendary concert – here
See footage from the concert (Steve Gebhart’s 1971 Ten For Two documentary) on The Allen Ginsberg Project – here
See a truly out-to-lunch local Michigan tv interviewer interviewing John about the concert and about his life – or trying to – (from back in December of last year) – here
For more on John check-out his content-rich web-site including his remarkable archives
– and also (for music) his similarly content-rich bandcamp page
“The Last of the Beatnik Warrior Poets’
Here‘s a note on recent publications and recordings
Here’s an overview of his various collections of poetry
His long-awaited meditation on/hommage to Thelonious Monk, always know, was issued in 2020 by the Trembling Pillow Press of New Orleans (who’d previously published his 2011 collection Song of Praise: Homage to John Coltrane)
Volumes I & 2 – “I’m hoping the publication of the first half of this work, started in 1982, will inspire me to go ahead and compose the rest of the poems for volumes 3 & 4,”, John wryly quipped
Monk’s birthday coming up later this month
Here’s John back in 2018 (with Laith Al-Saadi on guitar) at the Hash Bash marijuana rally on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor – “What is Jazz but Spiritual?’