The Layabouts played at the Fifth Estate’s 20th anniversary bash and they’ve reformed for a final concert to celebrate our 50th, Saturday, September 19, in Detroit.

Greetings Fifth Estate Friend :
Our celebration and museum exhibits now have final dates. Although you may not be in Detroit, we hope you’ll join us in spirit to celebrate our 50 years of radical publishing.
Below the celebration details, there is some necessary information for subscribers and others.
Two Detroit museums are offering exhibits of Fifth Estate material focusing both on the early years when we published a weekly and bi-weekly tabloid, but strongly recognizing our current status as an expanding anarchist magazine.
A display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD),You Can’t Print That ! 50 Years of the Fifth Estate, will feature a reconstruction of our 1960s office with pre-computer printing technology, plus art and posters from our entire history.
There will be a festive opening at MOCAD on Thursday, September 10 at the institution’s Mike Kelley Homestead.
The Detroit Historical Museum’s exhibit, Start the Presses : 50 years of the Fifth Estate, featuring back issues, photographs, artifacts, and memorabilia that highlight the history of the Fifth Estate will be open to the public on Saturday, August 29.
Both museums are on Woodward Avenue in the city’s Midtown section.
If you have items from any period of FE history you think would enhance the exhibits, let us know. You may be able to fill in some gaps. Write us at fe[at]fifthestate[dot]org.
On Saturday, September 19, 5-7pm, at the MOCAD venue, there will be a staff reunion to which we invite everyone who had any connection with the Fifth Estate over the years. As of now, we only have the event scheduled, but no arrangements for housing or transportation. If the demand is there, we may address this soon. If you plan to attend, please RSVP so we get an idea of how many people to expect.
There will be a break for dinner and then we’ll reassemble across the street at HopCat, Canfield at Woodward Ave., for a dance/party/concert celebration featuring Detroit’s Layabouts at 830pm.
The band played for our 20th anniversary party, so we thought we’d bring them back for an encore. Members, who are scattered as far away as Mexico, are reconstituting the group for what they say will be the final performance of their 34-year run. The Layabouts played at anarchist gatherings in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Toronto in the 1980s and are known for their radical anarchist lyrics and irresistible ska/rock, dance beat.
And, save energy for more dancing ! Following The Layabouts, it’s The Luddites, who combine everything from folk and rock to Klezmer, Bourbon Street swing, ska, jazz, Latin and Afro-Cuban.
If we get enough interest, we may also have an afternoon walking tour of the area in which the Fifth Estate was born and raised hell in for a good part of its existence. Let us know if you are interested in that. It’s going to be a long day, but a memorable one, but a stroll through the "old neighborhood," might be worth the memories.
That’s the party and the celebration ; now to business.
We’ve been holding off sending subscriber renewal notices until we had our final celebration plans set. We will soon be sending out mail notices if your subscription is expiring. It is subscriptions which have brought us to the 50 year mark in a period when every other publication of that era has quit. You can ensure we hit the century mark by renewing, and if you are not a subscriber, to take one out. Information for renewals and new subscriptions are on our web site at www.fifthestate.org.
The only other note is that we are no longer shipping issues to Canadian distributors so the Fifth Estate will no longer be available on that country’s newsstands. The cost and the hassle are immense so we made the decision to end the trips across the border. Just dealing with the customs agents [mostly on the U.S. side] were enough to make you an anarchist if you weren’t one already.
See you in Detroit ?
Peter Werbe for the staff