Festivalized: Music, Politics and the Alternative Culture
By Ian Abrahams and Bridget Wishart
Gonzo Multimedia (Paperback) / Lumoni Press (Digital)
Publication Date: 23rd November 2015
Singer/Songwriter/Performance Artist Bridget Wishart (Hawkwind, Hippy Slags, Demented Stoats, Spirits Burning) and Music Journalist Ian Abrahams (Hawkwind – Sonic Assassins, Strange Boat – Mike Scott & The Waterboys, Record Collector, R2, Vive Le Rock) announce the publication of their ‘talking heads’ book on the British free festival scene of the 70s, 80s and early 90s, Festivalized.
Published in paperback by Gonzo Multimedia and through digital/eBook formats by Lumoni Press, Festivalized surveys the history of the free festivals through the stories and viewpoints of those who were there. Musicians, Stage Organisers, Writers, Band Managers, Attendees, Travellers, and Landowners all bring their eye-witness accounts and first-hand experiences to this vivid document of the alternative culture at play.
Researched through over 50 interviews, including members of notable festival bands such as Hawkwind, Magic Mushroom Band, Ozric Tentacles, The Levellers, Here & Now, Magic Muscle, Mandragora, Zounds, Smartpils, Culture Shock, and 2000DS, and respected counterculture commentators such as Mick Farren and Penny Rimbaud, Festivalized relates the highs and lows, the conflicts and the achievements of the festival scene. From the festivals at Glastonbury, Windsor Great Park and Stonehenge to the travelling Convoy park-ups and the myriad 80s gatherings and on to the last great free festival at Castlemorton in 1992, here is an extensive recounting of the festivals and the characters that inhabited them.
Covering the musical, social and political aspects of the free festivals, Festivalized is an even-handed and comprehensive account of their development out of the 60s counterculture, their peak at Stonehenge in 1984 when a reputed 80,000 revellers gathered on Salisbury Plain, and their decline into hard drugs that saw bands attacked on stage, violent confrontations with the Thatcher government, and alleged infiltration by the security services. Never sentimental, always objective, Festivalized is a valuable and engaging oral history of a scene now vanished, some would argue expelled, from the British countryside.
For further details, review copies, cover images, or to arrange interviews with Bridget Wishart or Ian Abrahams, please email ianabrahams1 [at]yahoo.co.uk.
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