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Radical gardening: politics, idealism & rebellion in the garden (2011)
Book
Mckay, G. (2011). Radical gardening: politics, idealism & rebellion in the garden. London: Frances Lincoln

'War is the natural occupation of man … war-and gardening.' Winston Churchill to Siegfried Sassoon, 1918 In the common public perception, contemporary gardening is understood as suburban, as leisure activity, as television makeover opportunity. I... Read More about Radical gardening: politics, idealism & rebellion in the garden.

Community music: history and current practice, its constructions of ‘community’, digital turns and future soundings (2011)
Report
McKay, G., & Higham, B. (2011). Community music: history and current practice, its constructions of ‘community’, digital turns and future soundings

The UK has been a pivotal national player within the development of community music practice. In the UK community music developed broadly from the 1960s and had a significant burgeoning period in the 1980s. Community music nationally and internationa... Read More about Community music: history and current practice, its constructions of ‘community’, digital turns and future soundings.

Community arts and music, community media: cultural politics and policy in Britain since the 1960s (2010)
Book Chapter
Mckay, G. (2010). Community arts and music, community media: cultural politics and policy in Britain since the 1960s. In K. Howley (Ed.), Understanding Community Media (41-52). London: Sage

This chapter considers ways in which ‘community’ has been understood and constructed in arts and media movements concerned with a progressive social change agenda in Britain since the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. This will help us to... Read More about Community arts and music, community media: cultural politics and policy in Britain since the 1960s.

‘Crippled with nerves’: popular music and polio, with particular reference to Ian Dury (2009)
Journal Article
McKay, G. (2009). ‘Crippled with nerves’: popular music and polio, with particular reference to Ian Dury. Popular Music, 28(3), 341-365. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143009990109

This article looks at a remarkable cluster of popular musicians who contracted and survived poliomyelitis (‘infantile paralysis’) epidemics through the twentieth century, and ways in which they managed and, to varying extents, explored their polio-re... Read More about ‘Crippled with nerves’: popular music and polio, with particular reference to Ian Dury.

Introduction: (Post-)subculture theory, and practice in East-Central Europe (2009)
Book Chapter
Mckay, G., & Goddard, M. (2009). Introduction: (Post-)subculture theory, and practice in East-Central Europe. In G. McKay, C. Williams, M. Goddard, N. Foxlee, & E. Ramanauskaite (Eds.), Subcultures and New Religious Movements in Russia and East-Central Europe (3-14). Oxford: Peter Lang

This section of the book contains essays which explore recent and current subcultural and related practices and formations in a geographical spread across Eastern Europe, the Baltic states and Russia. We are concerned with presenting material that fo... Read More about Introduction: (Post-)subculture theory, and practice in East-Central Europe.

Consumption, Coca-colonisation, cultural resistance--and Santa Claus (2008)
Book Chapter
Mckay, G. (2008). Consumption, Coca-colonisation, cultural resistance--and Santa Claus. In S. Whiteley (Ed.), Christmas, Ideology and Popular Culture (50-70). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

In what ways has the iconography and practice of Christmas been shaped, understood and consumed as an American experience? This chapter explores explains and questions the ideological valence of Christmas in part as an American socio-economic and cul... Read More about Consumption, Coca-colonisation, cultural resistance--and Santa Claus.

A soundtrack to the insurrection : street music, marching bands and popular protest (2007)
Journal Article
McKay, G. (2007). A soundtrack to the insurrection : street music, marching bands and popular protest. Parallax, 13(1), 20-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/13534640601094817

What happens in social movements when people actually move, how does the mobile moment of activism contribute to mobilisation? Are they marching or dancing? How is the space of action, the street itself, altered, re-sounded? The employment of street... Read More about A soundtrack to the insurrection : street music, marching bands and popular protest.

Circular breathing: the cultural politics of jazz in Britain (2005)
Book
McKay, G. (2005). Circular breathing: the cultural politics of jazz in Britain. Durham NC and London: Duke University Press

In Circular Breathing, George McKay, a leading chronicler of British countercultures, uncovers the often surprising ways that jazz has accompanied social change during a period of rapid transformation in Great Britain. Examining jazz from the foundin... Read More about Circular breathing: the cultural politics of jazz in Britain.

The social and (counter)cultural 1960s in the USA, transatlantically (2005)
Book Chapter
McKay, G. (2005). The social and (counter)cultural 1960s in the USA, transatlantically. In C. Gruenenberg, & J. Harris (Eds.), Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis and the Counterculture in the 1960s (35-62). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press

In this chapter I want to look at the counterculture of the 1960s, primarily at the American phenomenon, with specific reference to political, social and cultural questions. I am conscious that these are not so easily distinguished—that, in fact, for... Read More about The social and (counter)cultural 1960s in the USA, transatlantically.

Subcultural and social innovations in the campaign for nuclear disarmament (2004)
Journal Article
McKay, G. (2004). Subcultural and social innovations in the campaign for nuclear disarmament. Peace Review, 16(4), 429-438

In times of war and rumours of peace, when ‘terrorism’ and ‘torture’ are being revisited and redefined, one of the things some of us should be doing is talking and writing about cultures of peace. In what follows, I ask questions about the place of c... Read More about Subcultural and social innovations in the campaign for nuclear disarmament.

Issues in Americanisation and culture (2004)
Book
(2004). N. Campbell, J. Davies, & G. Mckay (Eds.), Issues in Americanisation and culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Americanisation--the cultural, political and economic influence of the USA--has played an important role in the shaping of modern Europe. This has been the case since the 19th century, when new and old worlds were negotiating fundamental issues such... Read More about Issues in Americanisation and culture.

Senseless acts of beauty: cultures of resistance since the sixties (1996)
Other
McKay, G. (1996). Senseless acts of beauty: cultures of resistance since the sixties. London and New York

McKay takes us on a vivid journey through the endlessly creative counterworld of punks, ravers, travellers, tribes, squatters and direct-action protesters of every kind. "The secret history of the last two decades.' Jon Savage

Interview with drummer Colin Bailey, who worked with Winifred Atwell in the 1950s
Other
Mckay, G. Interview with drummer Colin Bailey, who worked with Winifred Atwell in the 1950s

Bailey was born in Swindon in 1934. Now lives in California. In Australia in the early 1960s he was a member of the Australian Jazz Quartet. Became an American citizen in 1970. Playing, recording and touring nationally and internationally with Atwell... Read More about Interview with drummer Colin Bailey, who worked with Winifred Atwell in the 1950s.

Trad jazz in 1950s Britain—protest, pleasure, politics—interviews with some of those involved
Other
McKay, G. Trad jazz in 1950s Britain—protest, pleasure, politics—interviews with some of those involved

These are transcriptions of interviews and correspondence undertaken as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Board (now Council)-funded project exploring the cultures and politics of traditional jazz in Britain in the 1950s. The project ran throu... Read More about Trad jazz in 1950s Britain—protest, pleasure, politics—interviews with some of those involved.

Community music: a handbook
Book
Mckay, G. P. Moser, & G. McKay (Eds.), Community music: a handbook. Lyme Regis: Russell House

A book of ideas, a catalogue of experience, a mass of personal stories, a collection of inspiring musical exercises and a historical perspective. Community musicmaking is exploding across Britain and this book will help you develop new insights into... Read More about Community music: a handbook.

Jazz in Britain: interviews with modern and contemporary jazz musicians, composers and improvisers
Other
jazz musicians, composers and improvisers

I undertook these interviews in 2002-2003 as part of the research project I was working on, Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain. The primary outcome of the project was a book of the same title (published by Duke University Pr... Read More about Jazz in Britain: interviews with modern and contemporary jazz musicians, composers and improvisers.

Interview with David Rohoman
Other
Mckay, G. Interview with David Rohoman

Drummer, member of Kilburn and the High Roads (mid-1970s) and before that Kripple Vision (early 1970s). Interviewed as part of the AHRC-supported research for Shakin' All Over: Popular Music and Disability. Rohoman is a disabled musician, who first m... Read More about Interview with David Rohoman.

Annotated bibliography of community music research review, AHRC connected communities programme
Report
Mckay, G., & Higham, B. (2011). Annotated bibliography of community music research review, AHRC connected communities programme

This research review, consisting of a 90-entry annotated bibliography, was produced as part of an AHRC Connected Communities programme project entitled Community Music, its History and Current Practice, its Constructions of ‘Community’, Digital Turns... Read More about Annotated bibliography of community music research review, AHRC connected communities programme.