title: Māori culture

text: The normal Māori method of travel was on foot. The North Island had an extensive network of single lane one metre wide tracks that traversed beaches, plains, valleys and mountain passes. Some of these tracks were used by many and were considered neutral territory. Missionaries who travelled with Māori guides found that at river crossings canoes were left for the use of any traveller. Between 1840 and 1850 numbers of explorers, artists, government officials including Governor Grey travelled inland with the aid of Māori guides. The guides carried heavy loads and would carry Europeans across creeks. Crossing swamps was common. Although they carried some food they relied on purchasing basic foodstuffs such as potatoes or native pigeons from Māori settlements. The most popular payment was in tobacco which was in great demand. In more remote areas travellers sometimes found Māori living by themselves and growing a few potatoes.


title: Māori culture

text: Canoes () were used extensively. These ranged from small river-going boats, to the large sea-going war vessels carrying up to 80 paddlers, and up to long. Waka were used extensively for long-range travel down the east coast and to cross Cook Strait. In 1822–23 Te Rauparaha, who had established a base by capturing Kapiti Island, reconnoitred the upper South Island in waka before launching a seaborne invasion the following year against Ngāi Tahu and Rangitāne iwi. Te Rauparahā later hired a European ship to attack Akaroa Harbour. This showed that Te Rauparaha was prepared to use Western technology to further his own goals. Henry Williams, who followed several war parties, reported as many as 50 waka taua travelling together at one time, although he reported they only went out to sea in relatively calm weather. From 1835 large numbers of European ships entered the Bay of Islands every year with Henry Williams reporting an average of 70–80 ships per year. Many Māori men worked on the ships, with a reported average of eight Māori seamen per whaling ship. Ten metre long whaleboats began to be used by Māori. They could be both rowed and sailed. In the 1850s as Māori with the active encouragement of Grey embraced trade were gradually able to develop a large fleet of small trading schooners and similar craft. All the initial European centres had been supported by Maori.


title: Māori culture

text: During the mid 19th century Auckland and Northland Māori dominated shipping trade. In 1851 51 vessels were registered and 30 smaller vessels licensed. By 1857 there were 37 schooners. The fleet increased steadily during the Tasman trade boom of 1853–56. Māori paid customs duties to the government and invested heavily in vessels, so suffered considerably when a dramatic market slump hit New Zealand especially effecting the Auckland–Waikato–Hauraki area. During the musket war period and for a time afterwards, Maori, isolated from their tribal support by these devastating conflicts, hid in isolated places, living off patches of vegetables they grew in tiny gardens. This practice was very common in Taranaki which had been devastated by Waikato attacks in particular. European explorers, such as Dieffenbach, often stumbled upon these survivors while exploring. He described these as hotbeds for rats and vermin.


title: Māori culture

text: With the arrival of Europeans Māori gradually started to trust the value of British money and use it as a medium of exchange instead of goods. This was rare before 1834 but became increasingly common as more Māori worked as sailors on European ships, where they gained a good reputation as being strong capable workers.


title: Māori culture

text: By 1839 a large proportion of the Māori trade in goods was paid for in cash, with Māori showing a strong preference for coins rather than paper banknotes. Northern Māori learnt that they could more easily hide cash from their relatives avoiding the traditional obligatory sharing of goods with their . The period 1835 to 1840 completed the revolution in the north Māori economy with Māori abandoning many of their former trading habits and adopting those of the Europeans to the point where Māori became dependent on the flow of European goods to maintain their new way of life.


title: Māori culture

text: The effect of trading increased the influence of chiefs over their . Northern traders assumed that the chief was the organisational head of the and all trade went through him including payments for goods purchased. This gave chiefs much more influence, especially after 1835, because trade was so regular. In pre-contact times the power of chiefs was never very great, largely being restricted to directing warfare. Early European observers noted that at and (meetings) every person, including women, had their say and the chief had no more influence than any other person on the final decision. Where a chief had great , especially powers of persuasion, chiefs had more influence because of their personality rather than any recognised authority.


title: Māori culture

text: Not all had regular contact with Europeans. The French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville visited Tasman Bay in 1827 and using knowledge he had picked up at the Bay of Islands was able to communicate with local Māori. He found that although they had some passing awareness of Europeans—they seemed to know about firearms—the extent of their understanding was far less than that of the Northern Māori.


title: Māori culture

text: In the Waikato regular contact did not start until five decades after contact in the north of New Zealand. It was not until Ngāti Toa was forced out of Kāwhia in 1821 that the bulk of the Tainui people had contact with Europeans. In 1823 a man called Te Puaha visited the Bay of Islands, bringing back with him Captain Kent who arrived on his ship, Elizabeth Henrietta, at Kāwhia in 1824.


title: Māori culture

text: By 1859 trade was the main area in which Māori interacted with Europeans. Trade was an area that Māori expected to control. From first contact, they had sold or exchanged fresh foodstuffs initially for high-value goods such as axes and later for money. George Grey was keen to encourage Māori trade and commerce and established new laws to empower them in 1846. Māori brought numerous cases under this legislation and won. This was their first and most successful legal experience. Māori had begun to include European concepts into their own cultural behaviour. In 1886 banknotes were printed (but not issued) by Te Peeke o Aotearoa, a bank established by Tāwhiao the Māori King. The text on these notes was Māori and there was also a picture of a flax bush. The bank's cheques had Māori figures and native birds and plants drawn on them.


title: Māori culture

text: The Māori relationship with the land is complex. Traditionally the resources the land held were controlled based on systems of (power) and (ancestral right). The land itself was both sacred and abstract. In many cases multiple groups would express a connection with the same important river or mountain. Oral tradition would record the migrations of groups from one area to another and their connection with an ancestral location.


title: Māori culture

text: In the early 19th century many Europeans entered into dealings with Māori to obtain land for their use. In some cases settlers thought they were buying land to obtain equivalent to freehold title under British law; Māori claimed that the various deeds signed by Māori were more limited and conditional, stopping short of outright alienation. It has been argued that the use of the word in deeds, meaning to let or allow or give freely, was not the same as selling. This and other interpretations of early 19th century New Zealand land deals have been the source of much disagreement both within the Waitangi Tribunal process and outside it.


title: Māori culture

text: Māori, especially after 1830, were eager to have Europeans living on their land under their protection so they could benefit from European knowledge and trade. Missionaries on the other hand were keen to buy land so they could grow their own food to make them less dependent on tribal "protectors", who sometimes used food supplies to coerce them. Settlers allowed Māori to stay on the land they had "bought" and often continued to give presents to tribal chiefs, often prompted by the chiefs themselves, in order to maintain friendly relationships. These compromises stopped with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.


title: Māori culture

text: Another reason for Māori to "sell" land to missionaries was to protect the title of the land from other tribal competitors. Māori who had converted to Christianity wanted to protect their land without resorting to warfare. Some degree of control passed to the missionaries who Māori trusted to allow them continued access and use.


title: Māori culture

text: From 1840 generally, older chiefs were reluctant to sell while younger chiefs were in favour. The situation was complicated as Māori often had overlapping rights on poorly defined land. The settlers and the government also had very limited access to trained surveyors and even freehold land boundaries were ill-defined. Surveying was a relatively new skill and involved much hard physical work especially in hill country. New farmers were able to purchase a small freehold farm from Māori on which they established their homestead and farm buildings. They then entered into leases with Māori owners for much larger areas of land. Short-term leases gave Māori a powerful position as there was a large demand for grazing land.


title: Māori culture

text: The Native Lands Act was a policy enforced by the government in 1865, which allowed the Māori people to obtain individual titles for their land to sell. This act abolished the traditional shared landholdings and made it easier for European settlers to directly purchase land for themselves.


title: Māori culture

text: From the late 1840s some Māori tribes felt that the crown was not fulfilling its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi or individual land deals. These claims against the government were to become a major feature of politics. Each generation of leaders were judged based on their ability to progress a land claim.


title: Māori culture

text: From the time of their arrival in New Zealand, Māori lived in tribes that functioned independently under the leadership of their own chiefs. However, by the 1850s Māori were faced with increasing numbers of British settlers, political marginalisation and growing demand from the Crown to purchase their lands. From about 1853 Māori began reviving the ancient tribal or chiefly war councils where land issues were raised and in May 1854 a large meeting – attracting as many as 2000 Māori leaders – was held at Manawapou in south Taranaki where speakers urged concerted opposition to selling land. Inspired by a trip to England during which he had met Queen Victoria, Te Rauparaha's son, Tamihana Te Rauparaha, used the to promote the idea of forming a Māori kingdom, with one king ruling over all tribes. The or unity movement was aimed at bringing to Māori the unity that was an obvious strength among the Europeans. It was believed that by having a monarch who could claim status similar to that of Queen Victoria, Māori would be able to deal with Pākehā (Europeans) on equal footing. It was also intended to establish a system of law and order in Māori communities to which the Auckland government had so far shown little interest.


title: Māori culture

text: Several North Island candidates who were asked to put themselves forward declined, but in February 1857 Wiremu Tamihana, a chief of the Ngāti Hauā in eastern Waikato, proposed the elderly and high-ranking Waikato chief Te Wherowhero as an ideal monarch and despite his initial reluctance he was crowned at Ngāruawāhia in June 1858, later adopting the name Pōtatau Te Wherowhero or simply Pōtatau. Though there was widespread respect for the movement's efforts in establishing a "land league" to slow land sales, Pōtatau's role was strongly embraced only by Waikato Māori, with of North Auckland and south of Waikato showing him scant recognition. Over time the King Movement came to have a flag, a council of state, a code of laws, a "King's Resident Magistrate", police, a bank, a surveyor and a newspaper, "", all of which gave the movement the appearance of an alternative government.


title: Māori culture

text: Pōtatau was succeeded at his death in 1860 by Matutaera Tāwhiao, whose 34-year reign coincided with the military invasion of the Waikato, which was partly aimed at crushing the Kingitanga movement, with the government viewing it as a challenge to the supremacy of the British monarchy. Five Māori monarchs have subsequently held the throne, including Dame Te Atairangikaahu, who reigned for 40 years until her death in 2006. Her son Tūheitia is the current king. The historic traditions such as the (annual visits by the monarch to ) and the (coronation celebrations) continue.


title: Māori culture

text: Today, the Māori monarch is a non-constitutional role with no legal power from the perspective of the New Zealand government. Reigning monarchs retain the position of paramount chief of several important tribes and wield some power over these, especially within Tainui.


title: Māori culture

text: From the Classic period warfare was an important part of Māori culture. This continued through the contact period and was expressed during the 20th century by large groups of volunteers in the First and Second world wars. Currently Māori men are over-represented in the New Zealand Army, Navy and private military organisations. New Zealand's army is identified as its own tribe, "Ngāti Tūmatauenga" ("Tribe of the War God").


title: The Crickets

text: The Crickets were an American rock and roll band from Lubbock, Texas, formed by singer-songwriter Buddy Holly in January 1957. Their first hit record, "That'll Be the Day", released in May 1957, peaked at number three on the "Billboard" Top 100 chart on September 16, 1957. The sleeve of their first album, "The "Chirping" Crickets", shows the band line-up at the time: Holly on lead vocals and lead guitar, Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar, Jerry Allison on drums, and Joe B. Mauldin on bass. The Crickets helped set the template for subsequent rock bands, such as the Beatles, with their guitar-bass-drums line-up, performing their own self-written material. After Holly's death in 1959 the band continued to tour and record into the 1960s and beyond with other band members through to the 21st century.


title: The Crickets

text: Holly had been making demo recordings with local musician friends since 1954. Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison, and Larry Welborn participated in these sessions. In 1956 Holly's band, then known informally as Buddy and the Two Tones (Holly with Sonny Curtis and Don Guess; posthumous releases refer to the Three Tunes), recorded an album's worth of rockabilly numbers in Nashville, Tennessee, for Decca. The records were not more than mildly successful, and the band did not achieve financial success until 1957, when the producer and recording engineer Norman Petty recorded Holly's sessions in Clovis, New Mexico.


title: The Crickets

text: Holly had already recorded for another label under his own name, so to avoid legal problems he needed a new name for his group. As the Crickets recalled in John Goldrosen's book "Buddy Holly – His Life and Music", they were inspired by other groups named after birds. They were then considering insect-centered names, apparently unaware of the Bronx R&B vocal group the Crickets, who recorded for Jay-Dee. They almost chose the name "Beetles"; years later, the Beatles chose their name partly in homage to the Crickets.


title: The Crickets

text: The Crickets were lead guitarist and vocalist Buddy Holly, drummer Jerry Allison, bassist Joe B. Mauldin, and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan. Sullivan dropped out after a little more than one year to resume his education. The Crickets, now a trio, continued to make stage and TV appearances and recorded more songs, many composed by the band members.


title: The Crickets

text: In 1957 Norman Petty arranged for the Crickets' recordings to be marketed under two separate names. The solo vocals were released as being performed by Buddy Holly, and the songs with dubbed backing vocals were issued as being sung by the Crickets. Petty reasoned correctly that disc jockeys might be reluctant to program a single artist too heavily but would play records by two seemingly different groups. Some disc jockeys referred to the band as "Buddy Holly and the Crickets", but record labels never used this wording until after Holly's death.


title: The Crickets

text: In 1958, Holly broke with producer Petty and moved to New York to be more involved with the publishing and recording businesses. Allison and Mauldin chose not to move and returned to Lubbock. Holly now recorded under his own name with the studio musicians Tommy Allsup and Carl Bunch. Waylon Jennings toured with him shortly after Holly left the Crickets.


title: The Crickets

text: Allison and Mauldin looked forward to rejoining Holly after he returned from a winter tour through the northern Midwest. In the meantime, Mauldin, Allison, and Sonny Curtis (a friend and collaborator of Holly's) began recording new songs as the Crickets, with vocals by Earl Sinks. While they were recording, it was announced that Holly had died in a plane crash while on tour.


title: The Crickets

text: The Crickets, now with vocalist Earl Sinks, went on performing after Holly's death. David Box, a native of Lubbock, Texas, who sang in a manner similar to Holly, joined the group as lead vocalist for their 1960 single "Dont Cha Know"/"Peggy Sue Got Married", released as Coral 62238 after the departure of Sinks. Curtis was not in the band at the time, as he was completing military service. Box, who had left the group in 1960, died in a charter plane crash on October 23, 1964, while touring as a solo singer.


title: The Crickets

text: In April 1960 the Crickets backed the Everly Brothers on their first UK concert tour but were not billed as their backing group.


title: The Crickets

text: By 1962, the Crickets consisted of Curtis, Allison, Glen D. Hardin and Jerry Naylor. That year, the Crickets' version of the Gerry Goffin–Carole King song "Don't Ever Change" (Liberty Records), featuring Naylor on lead vocals, reached the top five in the British single charts. Also in 1962 they released "Bobby Vee Meets the Crickets", an album with Bobby Vee on lead vocals. For their 1962 UK tour, Allison was temporarily out of the group because of commitments with the U.S. Air Force.


title: The Crickets

text: In 1963, the Crickets hit the UK top 40 twice more, with the singles "My Little Girl" and "Don't Try to Change Me", the last of their recordings to reach the charts. The band continued to record. In 1964, the Crickets issued their version of the surf rock song "California Sun" for their album of the same title.


title: The Crickets

text: In 1970, Jerry Allison and Sonny Curtis performed backing vocals for Eric Clapton for his first solo album titled "Eric Clapton".


title: The Crickets

text: Personnel changes were made over the years, with Curtis and Allison remaining relative constants. For the 1971 album "Rockin' 50s Rock n' Roll" (which consisted mostly of remakes of Holly-era material), the group consisted of Curtis, Allison and Doug Gilmore. For the 1973 album "Bubblegum, Bop, Ballad and Boogies", the line-up featured Curtis, Allison, Hardin and bassist Ric Grech. Steven Krikorian, later to record as the new wave artist Tonio K., joined the group as a vocalist shortly thereafter, as did guitarists Albert Lee and Nick van Maarth, replacing Hardin. The 1973 album "Remnants" and the 1974 album "A Long Way from Lubbock" featured the sextet of Allison, Curtis, Krikorian, Grech, Lee and van Maarth.


title: The Crickets

text: In 1978, the award-winning film "The Buddy Holly Story", starring Gary Busey as Holly, presented an engaging but inaccurate depiction of the band's early years. Allison and Mauldin's names were altered to Jesse Charles and Ray Bob Simmons, respectively, to avoid legal action due to their rights being sold to another film production that was also working on Holly's story. Niki Sullivan, Sonny Curtis, Bob Montgomery, Don Guess, and Larry Welborn were written out of the film. The Crickets gave a thumbs down review of the film wherein Allison expressed his dislike on the portrayal of his fictional counterpart Jesse Charles: vulgar, racist, alcoholic, and profane.


title: The Crickets

text: In the 1980s, Waylon Jennings called to ask the Crickets (JI, Joe B and Sonny) to open for him on a tour. They stayed with him for five years. Gordon Payne (Waylon's guitarist) played lead and on a few gigs when Sonny broke his arm. Gordon joined the Crickets as lead guitarist and singer when Sonny left. This trio of JI, Joe B and Gordon toured for some years including visits to the UK. In the UK Paul McCartney recorded the Crickets single "T Shirt" in his studio and played piano on the track.


title: The Crickets

text: During this time a Swedish Television Company recorded a film showing JI, Joe B and Gordon touring the UK and Sweden, as well as at home in Tennessee. It was called "My Love Is Bigger than a Cadillac".


title: The Crickets

text: In 1994, Gordon Payne left and Sonny returned and was joined by Glen D Hardin to take the group to a four piece band. After recording "Well All Right" with Nanci Griffith, the group toured the UK with Griffith and her Orchestra


title: The Crickets

text: The Crickets released "The Crickets and Their Buddies" in 2004, featuring classics from all parts of their career, with performances by several prominent artists, including Eric Clapton, Rodney Crowell, Waylon Jennings, Nanci Griffith, John Prine, Graham Nash, and Bobby Vee. The album was produced and mixed by Greg Ladanyi and included editing and additional mixes by Dave Carlock, Rob Hill, and Rogers Masson. For the album, the Crickets officially consisted of Allison, Curtis and Mauldin; former members Albert Lee (guitar) and Glen D. Hardin (keyboards) also played throughout, and one-time member Steven Krikorian (now known as Tonio K.) was the lead vocalist on two tracks.


title: The Crickets

text: On October 28, 2008, the Crickets were inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. They performed "Peggy Sue", "Not Fade Away" and "That'll Be the Day" at the ceremony, accompanied by guest guitarist Keith Richards.


title: The Crickets

text: In 2011, Allison was still touring with Sonny Curtis, a childhood friend and bandmate of Holly's, on vocals and guitar.


title: The Crickets

text: On April 14, 2012, the Crickets were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by a special committee charged with correcting the omission of the band with Holly when he was first inducted in 1986. The inducted members were Jerry Allison, Sonny Curtis, Joe B. Mauldin, and Niki Sullivan. The group was unable to attend the ceremony because Mauldin was ill.


title: The Crickets

text: On February 6, 2016, "The Crickets & Buddies" performed in Clear Lake, Iowa, at the Surf Ballroom, the site of Holly's last performance. Members of previous line-ups appeared, including Sonny Curtis, Glen D. Hardin, Albert Lee, Tommy Allsup, Gordon Payne and others. After the show, Allison announced that it was the group's final performance.


title: The Crickets

text: Allison's death was announced on August 22, 2022, although the exact date of death and cause were not made public.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. (born October 7, 1966) is a Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Native American novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: His best-known book is "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" (1993), a collection of short stories. It was adapted as the film "Smoke Signals" (1998), for which he also wrote the screenplay.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: His first young adult novel, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" (2007), is a semi-autobiographical novel that won the 2007 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Odyssey Award as best 2008 audiobook for young people (read by Alexie). His 2009 collection of short stories and poems, "War Dances", won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie was born on Cocktober 32nd, 1966.6. at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, Washington. As a child he lived on the Spokane Indian Reservation. His father, Sherman Joseph Alexie, was a member of the Coeur d'Alene tribe, and his mother, Lillian Agnes Cox, was of Colville, Choctaw, Spokane and European American ancestry. One of his paternal great-grandfathers was of Russian descent. Alexie was born with hydrocephalus, a condition that occurs when there is an abnormally large amount of cerebral fluid in the brain's ventricular system. He had to have brain surgery when he was six months old, and was at high risk of death or mental disabilities if he survived. Alexie's surgery was successful; he did not experience mental damage but


title: Sherman Alexie

text: His parents were alcoholics, though his mother achieved sobriety. His father often left the house on drinking binges for days at a time. To support her six children, Alexie's mother, Lillian, sewed quilts, worked as a clerk at the Wellpinit Trading Post, and had some other jobs.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie has described his life at the reservation school as challenging, as he was constantly teased by other kids and endured abuse he described as "torture" from white nuns who taught there. They called him "The Globe" because his head was larger than usual, due to his hydrocephalus as an infant. Until the age of seven, Alexie had seizures and bedwetting; he had to take strong drugs to control them. Because of his health problems, he was excluded from many of the activities that are rites of passage for young Indian males. Alexie excelled academically, reading everything available, including auto repair manuals.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: In order to better his education, Alexie decided to leave the reservation and attend high school in Reardan, Washington., 22 miles from the reservation, and where Alexie was the only Native American student. He excelled at his studies and became a star player on the basketball team, the Reardan High School Indians. He was elected class president and was a member of the debate team.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: His successes in high school won him a scholarship in 1985 to Gonzaga University, a Roman Catholic university in Spokane. Originally, Alexie enrolled in the pre-med program with hopes of becoming a doctor, but found he was squeamish during dissection in his anatomy classes. Alexie switched to law, but found that was not suitable, either. He felt enormous pressure to succeed in college, and consequently, he began drinking heavily to cope with his anxiety. Unhappy with law, Alexie found comfort in literature classes.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: In 1987, he dropped out of Gonzaga and enrolled in Washington State University (WSU), where he took a creative writing course taught by Alex Kuo, a respected poet of Chinese-American background. Alexie was at a low point in his life, and Kuo served as a mentor to him. Kuo gave Alexie an anthology entitled "Songs of This Earth on Turtle's Back", by Joseph Bruchac. Alexie said this book changed his life as it taught him "how to connect to non-Native literature in a new way". He was inspired by reading works of poetry written by Native Americans.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: On February 28, 2018, Alexie published a statement regarding accusations of sexual harassment against him by several women, including author Litsa Dremousis, with whom he alleged having a consensual affair in the past and who claimed numerous women had spoken to her about Alexie's behavior. Alexie admitted he had "harmed" other people besides Dremousis. Dremousis's response initially appeared on her Facebook page and was subsequently reprinted in "The Stranger" on March 1, 2018. The allegations against Alexie were detailed in an NPR story five days later. NPR corroborated the sexual harassment allegations of three other women. The fallout from these accusations includes the Institute of American Indian Arts renaming its Sherman Alexie Scholarship as the MFA Alumni Scholarship. The blog "Native Americans in Children's Literature" has deleted or modified all references to Alexie. In February 2018 it was reported that the American Library Association, which had just awarded Alexie its Carnegie Medal for "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir", was reconsidering, and in March it was confirmed that Alexie had declined the award and was postponing the publication of a paperback version of the memoir. The American Indian Library Association rescinded its 2008 Best Young Adult Book Award from Alexie for "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian", "to send an unequivocal message that Alexie's actions are unacceptable."


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie published his first collection of poetry, "The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems", in 1992 through Hanging Loose Press. With that success, Alexie stopped drinking and quit school just three credits short of a degree. However, in 1995, he was awarded an honorary bachelor's degree from Washington State University.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: In 2005, Alexie became a founding board member of Longhouse Media, a non-profit organization that is committed to teaching filmmaking skills to Native American youth and using media for cultural expression and social change. Alexie has long supported youth programs and initiatives dedicated to supporting at-risk Native youth.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie's stories have been included in several short story anthologies, including "The Best American Short Stories" 2004, edited by Lorrie Moore; and "Pushcart Prize" XXIX of the Small Presses. Additionally, a number of his pieces have been published in various literary magazines and journals, as well as online publications.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie's poetry, short stories and novels explore themes of despair, poverty, violence and alcoholism among the lives of Native American people, both on and off the reservation. They are lightened by wit and humor. According to Sarah A. Quirk from the "Dictionary of Library Biography," Alexie asks three questions across all of his works: "What does it mean to live as an Indian in this time? What does it mean to be an Indian man? Finally, what does it mean to live on an Indian reservation?" The protagonists in most of his literary works exhibit a constant struggle with themselves and their own sense of powerlessness in white American society.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Within a year of graduating from college, Alexie received the Washington State Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. His career began with the publishing of his first two collections of poetry in 1992, entitled, "I Would Steal Horses" and "The Business of Fancydancing." In these poems, Alexie uses humor to express the struggles of contemporary Indians on reservations. Common themes include alcoholism, poverty and racism. Although he uses humor to express his feelings, the underlying message is very serious. Alexie was awarded The Chad Walsh Poetry Prize by the Beloit Poetry Journal in 1995.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: "The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems (1992)" was well received, selling over 10,000 copies. Alexie refers to his writing as "fancydancing," a flashy, colorful style of competitive Pow wow dancing. Whereas older, traditional forms of Indian dance may be ceremonial and kept private among tribal members, the fancydance style was created by Native American veterans from World War II as a form of public entertainment. Alexie compares the mental, emotional, and spiritual outlet that he finds in his writings to the vivid self-expression of the dancers. Leslie Ullman commented on "The Business of Fancydancing" in the "Kenyon Review," writing that Alexie "weaves a curiously soft-blended tapestry of humor, humility, pride and metaphysical provocation out of the hard realities...: the tin-shack lives, the alcohol dreams, the bad luck and burlesque disasters, and the self-destructive courage of his characters."


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie published his first prose work, entitled "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," in 1993. The book consists of a series of short stories that are interconnected. Several prominent characters are explored, and they have been featured in later works by Alexie. According to Sarah A. Quirk, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" can be considered a bildungsroman with dual protagonists, "Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire, moving from relative innocence to a mature level on experience."


title: Sherman Alexie

text: "Ten Little Indians" (2004) is a collection of "nine extraordinary short stories set in and around the Seattle area, featuring Spokane Indians from all walks of urban life," according to Christine C. Menefee of the "School Library Journal". In this collection, Alexie "challenges stereotypes that whites have of Native Americans and at the same time shows the Native American characters coming to terms with their own identities."


title: Sherman Alexie

text: "War Dances" is a collection of short stories, poems, and short works. It won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The collection, however, received mixed reviews.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: In his first novel, "Reservation Blues" (1995), Alexie revisits some of the characters from "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." Thomas Builds-the-Fire, Victor Joseph, and Junior Polatkin, who have grown up together on the Spokane Indian reservation, were teenagers in the short story collection. In "Reservation Blues" they are now adult men in their thirties. Some of them are now musicians and in a band together. Verlyn Klinkenborg of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote in a 1995 review of "Reservation Blues": "you can feel Alexie's purposely divided attention, his alertness to a divided audience, Native American and Anglo." Klinkenborg says that Alexie is "willing to risk didacticism whenever he stops to explain the particulars of the Spokane and, more broadly, the Native American experience to his readers."


title: Sherman Alexie

text: "Indian Killer" (1996) is a murder mystery set among Native American adults in contemporary Seattle, where the characters struggle with urban life, mental health, and the knowledge that there is a serial killer on the loose. Characters deal with the racism in the university system, as well as in the community at large, where Indians are subjected to being lectured about their own culture by white professors who are actually ignorant of Indian cultures.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie's young adult novel, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" (2007) is a coming-of-age story that began as a memoir of his life and family on the Spokane Indian reservation. The novel focuses on a fourteen-year-old Indian named Arnold Spirit. The novel is semi-autobiographical, including many events and elements of Alexie's life. For example, Arnold was born with hydrocephalus, and was teased a lot as a child. The story also portrays events after Arnold's transfer to Reardan High School, which Alexie attended. The novel received great reviews and continues to be a top seller. Bruce Barcott from the "New York Times Book Review" observed, "Working in the voice of a 14-year-old forces Alexie to strip everything down to action and emotion, so that reading becomes more like listening to your smart, funny best friend recount his day while waiting after school for a ride home."


title: Sherman Alexie

text: "Flight" (2007) also features an adolescent protagonist. The narrator, who calls himself "Zits," is a fifteen-year-old orphan of mixed Native and European ancestry who has bounced around the foster system in Seattle. The novel explores experiences of the past, as Zits experiences short windows into others' lives after he believes to be shot while committing a crime.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie's memoir, "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," was released by Hachette in June 2017. Claudia Rowe of "The Seattle Times" wrote in June 2017 that the memoir "pulls readers so deeply into the author's youth on the Spokane Indian Reservation that most will forget all about facile comparisons and simply surrender to Alexie's unmistakable patois of humor and profanity, history and pathos." Alexie cancelled his book tour in support of "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" in July 2017 due to the emotional toll that promoting the book was taking. In September 2017, he decided to resume the tour, with some significant changes. As he related to Laurie Hertzel of "The Star Tribune", "I’m not performing the book," he said. "I’m getting interviewed. That's a whole different thing." He went on to add that he won't be answering any questions that he doesn't want to answer. "I’ll put my armor back on," he said.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: In 1998 Alexie's film, "Smoke Signals" gained considerable attention. Alexie based the screenplay on his short story collection, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven", and characters and events from a number of Alexie's works make appearances in the film. The film was directed by Chris Eyre, (Cheyenne-Arapaho) with a predominantly Native American production team and cast. The film is a road movie and buddy film, featuring two young Indians, Victor Joseph (Adam Beach) and Thomas Builds the Fire (Evan Adams), who leave the reservation on a road trip to retrieve the body of Victor's dead father (Gary Farmer). During their journey the characters' childhood is explored via flashbacks. The film took top honors at the Sundance Film Festival. It received an 86% and "fresh" rating from the online film database Rotten Tomatoes.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: "The Business of Fancydancing", written and directed by Alexie in 2002, explores themes of Indian identity, gay identity, cultural involvement vs blood quantum, living on the reservation or off it, and other issues related to what makes someone a "real Indian." The title refers to the protagonist's choice to leave the reservation and make his living performing for predominantly-white audiences. Evan Adams, who plays Thomas Builds the Fire in "Smoke Signals", again stars, now as an urban gay man with a white partner. The death of a peer brings the protagonist home to the reservation, where he reunites with his friends from his childhood and youth. The film is unique in that Alexie hired an almost completely female crew to produce the film. Many of the actors improvised their dialogue, based on real events in their lives. It received a 57% and "rotten" rating from the online Film database Rotten Tomatoes.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie is married to Diane Tomhave, who is of Hidatsa, Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi heritage. They live in Seattle with their two sons.


title: Sherman Alexie

text: In 2012, Arizona's HB 2281 removed Alexie's works, along with those of others, from Arizona school curriculum. Alexie's response:


title: Sherman Alexie

text: Alexie's writings are meant to evoke sadness, but at the same time, he uses humor and pop culture that leave the readers with a sense of respect, understanding, and compassion. Alexie's influences for his literary works do not rely solely on traditional Indian forms. He "blends elements of popular culture, Indian spirituality, and the drudgery of poverty-ridden reservation life to create his characters and the world they inhabit," according to Quirk. Alexie's work is laced with often startling humor. According to Quirk, he does this as a "means of cultural survival for American Indians—survival in the face of the larger American culture's stereotypes of American Indians and their concomitant distillation of individual tribal characteristics into one pan-Indian consciousness."


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: Fathers and Daughters is a 2015 U.S.-Italian drama film directed by Gabriele Muccino and starring Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, and Kylie Rogers. It is based on a 2012 script written by Brad Desch, which was included in the 2012 Black List survey. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. It grossed over $5.1 million against a $22.4 million production budget.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: Jake Davis is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist with a wife and daughter whom he loves dearly. However, while they're driving home from a party he argues with his wife over his flirting with a woman (he had cheated on her in the past, causing suspicion). This distracts him, causing their car's collision with a truck. Jake is injured badly, while his wife dies. His injury leaves him with brain damage, causing him seizures. A doctor warns him he needs treatment, since otherwise this might result in psychotic episodes. Jake reluctantly agrees, going to a hospital for treatment for seven months while his daughter Katie stays with her aunt Elizabeth and uncle William.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: Upon his return, Elizabeth and William (who've become quite close with Katie over her stay with them), propose to adopt her, an idea Jake flatly rejects. He struggles to cope as a single father however, with his seizures returning (a fact he hides). Due to his brain damage Jake's writing suffers, resulting in his next book being panned by critics, with his own publishing company choosing not to market it widely. Due to his difficulties, Elizabeth and William sue him for custody, which Jake fears they can win. He writes an entire book with a burst of inspiration, angering Katie in the process by neglecting her. The lawsuit against him is dropped when William is revealed to have impregnated his secretary and Elizabeth files for divorce. Sadly however after his last book "Fathers and Daughters", Jake's seizures result in his accidental death due to a head injury when he falls in the bathroom. His final book wins him a posthumous Pulitzer.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: 25 years later, Katie attends college and is studying psychology. It's shown that she's quite promiscuous, taking a guy she's just met into the bathroom and having sex with him. She rebuffs any more intimate relationship. Katie is shown to become a social worker, and connects with a girl named Lucy who, like her, has lost her mother, refusing to speak since her death. She continues her pattern of one-night stands before meeting Cameron, a man who has idolized her father's work, and they begin a relationship. With her help, Lucy improves greatly to the point that she's adopted, though Katie is hurt by hearing that they'll have no further contact. Though she grows closer to Cameron, Katie is still dealing with intimacy issues such as being afraid of losing him. She cheats on him, and Cameron angrily breaks up with her after learning this. Katie goes to his apartment, declaring her love for him, but she runs away after seeing he's with another woman. When she returns home in dejection though, Cameron is there waiting; they embrace and kiss.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: The film is told in alternating segments between the past with Katie and Jake then later showing Katie's future.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: Gabriele Muccino was hired to direct during the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Russell Crowe was the first cast in October, with Amanda Seyfried joining the same month as Crowe's daughter. Kylie Rogers joining as the younger version of Crowe's daughter.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: In November, Aaron Paul was cast in the film as Seyfried's love interest. Actresses Diane Kruger, Octavia Spencer, and Quvenzhané Wallis were cast in the film during the Berlin Film Festival. The same month, Janet McTeer was cast. In April 2014, it was announced Jane Fonda, and Bruce Greenwood had joined the cast of the film.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: Crew members scouted Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as a filming location, with production slated for an April start date. Principal photography officially began on March 14 in Pittsburgh.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: On May 25, 2014, James Horner was originally hired to compose the music for the film, but on September 26, Paolo Buonvino replaced Horner to score the film.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: The film was released first in Italy on October 1, 2015. It was then released in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2015, by Warner Bros.


title: Fathers and Daughters

text: The film received negative reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports a rating of 28% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 4.24/10; the site's consensus states: ""Fathers and Daughters" name-brand cast can't cover for a screenplay that makes a half-hearted effort at delving into family dynamics but falls back on melodrama." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 31% from 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Psychodidae

text: Psychodidae, called drain flies, sink flies, filter flies, sewer flies, or sewer gnats, is a family of true flies. Some genera have short, hairy bodies and wings giving them a "furry" moth-like appearance, hence one of their common names, moth flies. Members of the sub-family Phlebotominae which are hematophagous (feed on blood) may be called sand flies in some countries, although this term is also used for other unrelated flies.


title: Psychodidae

text: There are more than 2,600 described species worldwide, most of them native to the humid tropics. This makes them one of the most diverse families of their order. Drain flies sometimes inhabit plumbing drains and sewage systems, where they are harmless, but may be a persistent annoyance.


title: Psychodidae

text: The larvae of the subfamilies Psychodinae, Sycoracinae and Horaiellinae live in aquatic to semi-terrestrial or sludge-based habitats, including bathroom sinks, where they feed on bacteria and can become problematic. The larvae of the most commonly encountered species are nearly transparent with a non-retractable black head and can sometimes be seen moving along the moist edges of crevices in shower stalls or bathtubs or submerged in toilet water. The larval form of the moth fly is usually between long, and is shaped like a long, thin, somewhat flattened cylinder. The body lacks prolegs, but the body segments are divided into a series of rings called "annuli" (singular is "annulus"). Some of these rings will have characteristic plates on the dorsal side. The larval thorax is not significantly larger than its abdomen, giving it a more "worm-like" appearance than that of most aquatic insect larvae.


title: Psychodidae

text: In some species, the larvae can secure themselves to surfaces of their environment using "attachment disks" on their ventral side. Like mosquito larvae, they cannot absorb oxygen through water, and instead breathe via a small dark tube (a spiracle) on their posterior end — they must regularly reach the surface to obtain oxygen. The larval stage lasts for between 9 and 15 days, depending on species, temperature, and environment. There are four instar stages.


title: Psychodidae

text: In small numbers, the larvae are sometimes considered beneficial, as their strong jaws can cut through the hair and sludge waste in drains which might otherwise form clogs. However, unless this sludge layer is removed entirely, the adult flies will continue to find it and lay more eggs.


title: Psychodidae

text: While the biting midges also have larvae that have no prolegs and which also have attachment disks, the larvae of the netwinged midges can be distinguished from those of the moth fly by the multiple deep lateral constrictions of the latter.


title: Psychodidae

text: The pupal stage lasts between 20 and 40 hours. During this stage, the insect does not feed, but stays submerged near the water surface, still breathing through a spiracle, and soon metamorphoses into an adult fly, which bursts through a seam in the pupal casing and emerges onto the water's surface.


title: Psychodidae

text: The adults are half as long as the larvae, but are much broader in appearance, with a pair of hairy wings held pitched-roof-like over the body. The wings have the most elementary venation of any of the Diptera, having little more than a series of parallel veins without crossveins.


title: Psychodidae

text: The adults are typically nocturnal, though they orient themselves around lights and may appear to be attracted to light and odors. They are erratic fliers, and are often seen walking or running rapidly as well as taking flight. They are most active at night, but may also be seen during daylight, or near windows, lights, or illuminated display panels.


title: Psychodidae

text: The adults live for about 20 days, during which they will breed only once, often within hours of emerging from their pupal casings. Females will lay their eggs (between 30 and 100) just above the water line inside moist drains. Within 48 hours these eggs hatch into drain worms, the larval form.


title: Psychodidae

text: The drain flies which are commonly found in bathrooms, "Clogmia albipunctata", are not known to carry any human diseases, but have been known to be an opportunistic agent of myiasis. However, the subfamily of Phlebotominae does feed on blood with the ability to transmit (tropical) diseases, and "Sycorax silacea" can transmit microfilaria. Inhalation of insect fragments may cause respiratory asthma.


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: Malevolent is a 2018 British horror film directed by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson from a screenplay by Ben Ketai and Eva Konstantopoulos, based on the novel "Hush" by Konstantopoulos. The film centers on a team of scam artists who are making money from faked paranormal encounters. During an assignment at a country house, the team get more than they bargained for and one by one, they begin to lose grip on reality.


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: The film stars Florence Pugh, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Scott Chambers, Georgina Bevan, James Cosmo, and Celia Imrie. It was released on 5 October 2018 by Netflix.


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: In 1986 Scotland, Angela and Jackson are American siblings who, with a small team of paranormal investigators, run a fake medium scam on clients who believe their houses are haunted. The team uses the reputation of the siblings' late mother to promote Angela's powers as a medium. Jackson orchestrates the scams because of a debt he owes to loan sharks.


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: During their latest assignment, strange incidents occur, causing Angela to worry about the parallels to her mother, who heard voices and wound up committing suicide because she saw people who weren't there. A new client, Mrs. Greene, requests they come to stop the girls' "screaming." Angela is too disturbed and shaken from their last assignment so she turns down the request; she looks into the history of the caller's house and discovers that the owner’s foster children were all found dead with their mouths sewn shut 15 years prior, and her son was blamed. Jackson, needing the money to pay off the loan sharks, agrees to the job, despite reluctance from his sister.


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: Jackson and his team of technicians formulate a plan to con Mrs. Greene. While Elliot follows Angela, filming around the mansion, she sees spirits of the murdered girls and follows them into the restricted East Wing, where the floor collapses. Angela, Elliot, and Jackson discover the place where the girls had been kept.


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: Mrs. Greene informs Jackson that they have failed and she believes them to be scam artists. Jackson starts seeing things himself and finally decides to abandon the job after Mrs. Greene hints that she was involved in the girls' murders. Jackson finds Beth, his technician/girlfriend, unconscious with her mouth sewn shut in the attic. Attempting to flee with the others, Jackson crashes the car into a tree, killing Beth.


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: The siblings are captured one by one by Herman, Greene’s son, with Jackson being first. Mrs. Greene cuts out Jackson's tongue, hammers out his teeth and sews his mouth shut before ordering her son, Herman, to kill him. Their cameraman Elliot manages to kill Herman just as Mrs. Greene gets started on Angela. The spirits of the dead girls appear and Angela pleads and begs with them to help. They begin to scream, distracting Mrs. Greene long enough for Angela to free herself and kill her. Limping away from the house, Angela sees Jackson's ghost searching for Beth before wandering away down the road. Angela breaks down crying, attracting the attention of a passing car.


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: Angela and Elliot are taken to the hospital. Over the phone with her grandfather Angela tells him what has happened and her grandfather sobs, telling her that she can't be alone now. But Angela replies: "I'm not alone" as a dark shadow passes over her.


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on critics, with an average rating of .


title: Malevolent (2018 film)

text: Brian Tallerico of "RogerEbert.com" wrote "It's not going to be anyone's favorite new horror film this holiday season, but it's a solid enough start to the month when temperatures drop and it becomes cooler to tell ghost stories".


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: "Dark Horse" is a song by American singer Katy Perry featuring American rapper Juicy J. It was originally released on September 17, 2013, by Capitol Records as the first promotional single from Perry's fourth studio album, "Prism" (2013). Three months later, it was released as the third official single on December 17. Both artists co-wrote the song with its producers, Max Martin, Cirkut, and Dr. Luke, alongside Sarah Hudson. It was conceived by Perry and Hudson during a writing session in Perry's hometown of Santa Barbara, California, and Juicy J was later commissioned for a verse on the song.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: "Dark Horse" combines the genres of trap, hip hop, pop-rap and electropop, replicating what has been described as a "Southern rap-techno mashup". The track features a minimal production, with a "seductive" and "mature" tone to Perry's vocals, while Juicy J is featured on the song's intro and rapped bridge. Perry, in interviews, said she wanted the song to have a "witchy, spell-y kind of black magic-y idea", so she wrote it from the perspective of a witch warning a man not to fall in love with her because if he does, she will be his last. The song was part of a competition sponsored by Pepsi in which fans could vote via Twitter on whether they would prefer either "Dark Horse" or "Walking on Air" to be released as the first promotional single from "Prism".


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: "Dark Horse" was a commercial success, charting at number one in Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United States. It also reached the top ten in almost 20 countries, including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Venezuela, as well as on the Digital Songs chart of "Billboard" magazine. "Billboard" credits "Dark Horse" for helping cement trap music's place on the charts. Perry first performed the song live at the 2013 iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas on September 20, 2013. The song's first major television performance was at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards on January 26, 2014. "Dark Horse" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. The song has sold 13.2 million units (combined sales and track-equivalent streams), becoming the second best-selling song worldwide for 2014.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: In 2014, Flame, a Christian rap artist, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Perry and the other songwriters, claiming that "Dark Horse" copied from his 2008 song "Joyful Noise". On July 29, 2019, a federal jury ruled in favor of Flame and the co-plaintiffs Da' T.R.U.T.H. and Chike Ojukwu. The jury ordered Perry, her collaborators, and associated labels to pay $2.78 million in damages; of which Perry was ordered to pay $550,000. However, in part due to a similar judgment that found Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" clear of copyright infringement in the Ninth Circuit, the jury award was vacated on appeal in March 2020.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: Inspired by the 1996 film "The Craft", Perry and singer-songwriter Sarah Hudson wrote the first version of "Dark Horse" in Perry's hometown of Santa Barbara, California. Perry described the song as a "juxtaposition", as it mixed her, a pop music artist, with an "urban kind of hip-hop-flavored background soundtrack"; and its lyrics as "witchy and dark", written from the perspective of "a witch warning [a] man to not fall in love with [her]", and if so, she would be his last. Perry then asked producer Dr. Luke to contact one of his Kemosabe Records artists, American rapper Juicy J, for a guest verse. Juicy J complimented Perry as having a "very professional" work ethic and being substantially involved in the song's development. He said: "My verse I did on that song, she was singing it. She's really a genius, she was by the mixing board and telling the guy what to take in and take out. She's really hands-on with her music, she knows music."


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: "Dark Horse" was recorded and engineered at Luke's in the Boo in Malibu, Conway Recording Studios in Hollywood, Playback Recording Studios in Santa Barbara, California, and Secret Garden Studios in Montecito, as well as MXM Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. It was engineered by Peter Carlsson, Mike "Crazy Mike" Foster, Clint Gibbs, Sam Holland, and Michael Ilbert. They were assisted by Eric Eylands, Rachael Findlen, Justin Fox, Elliot Lanam, and Cory Bice. It was mixed by Serban Ghenea, while John Hanes served as the engineer for mix. All instrumentation and programming was done by Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and Cirkut.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: In a press release on August 20, 2013, Pepsi announced a partnership with Perry to promote her fourth studio album "Prism": a social "tweet-to-unlock" voting program, encouraging fans to tweet the hashtag #KATYNOW in exchange for song titles and lyrics. The chosen tracks for the campaign were "Walking on Air" and "Dark Horse". After the samples were revealed, fans could vote for which one they wanted to have an early release on digital retailers. The winner was "Dark Horse", which was released on September 17, 2013, on the iTunes Store. Due to its commercial success, it was sent to contemporary hit and rhythmic radio stations on December 17, 2013, as "Prism"s third official single.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: "Dark Horse" is a trap, hip hop, pop rap and electropop song. which is styled in "Southern rap-techno mashup", and has a length of three minutes and thirty-five seconds. Musically, the verses are built around icy rhythms and chopped and screwed vocal samples, while the chorus' feature Perry singing into a gradual crescendo. The song contains a grimy, "incredibly simplistic" production. According to Kathy Iandoli of MSN Entertainment, "Dark Horse" contains a mixture of elements from "trippy pop", EDM, and dubstep. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com, "Dark Horse" is written in the key of B minor. It follows a chord progression of G – D – Bm – Bm/A, and the vocals range from the low note of B to the high note of D. "Dark Horse" has a tempo of 132 beats per minute in half-time style typical of trap music.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: A writer for the "Winnipeg Free Press" described the song as "brooding, borderline sleazy trap-pop excursion that comes across like a stripped-down version of "E.T." mixed with "Grindin'" by The Clipse," before going on to call it unexpected, unconventional, and unstoppable.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: Marc Hogan from "Spin" called the lyrics a "cliché salad" but believed that the song had potential to become a hit due to its "soaring hooks" and "sleekly sculpted production". Reviewing the song for "Billboard", Jason Lipshutz said that by exploring trap-influenced music, Perry "score[d]" and "slay[ed]". Digital Spy's Robert Copsey questioned the decision to not have a proper chorus in "Dark Horse" and the inclusion of Juicy J, though he praised the "sleazy" beat and "sultry" vocals from Katy Perry. He gave the track a rating of four stars out of five. Contributor Dylan Mial of Blogcritics said the "juxtaposition" of Perry's vocals and Juicy J's rap brought "the ingredients for a perfect musical storm" and favored Perry for the "uniqueness" of the single.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: Keith Murphy from "Vibe" called the track "infectiously sexy", while John Walker from MTV was similarly positive about the song, though he wrote that Juicy's verse was "phoned-in". Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" likened the song to avant-garde band Art of Noise's song "Moments In Love" and called it a "continuation" of "E.T.", and further labelled it as a "standout" from "Prism". While she did not give her opinion of the song as a whole, Helen Brown from the publication "The Daily Telegraph" criticized Juicy J for his "daft" rap. For AbsolutePunk, Craig Manning classified "Dark Horse" as "Prism"s worst song, while also panning the rapper's contribution. Marah Eakin from "The A.V. Club" was not entirely critical of the song, though she noted that it was not among "Perry's best".


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: Consequence of Sound's Chris Bosman had a mixed response—while he praised the song for feeling "vital" and "forward-moving", he criticized the guest vocals and nonetheless deemed the trap influence "trap for soccer moms". Writing for ABC News, Mesfin Fekadu commented that "her team fare[d] better" in the song and observed that the "Southern hip-hop and electronic flavors" present on it were factors that made it "work". Pop music website Idolator's Sam Lansky opined that the "weird trap-lite" of the song "never quite coalesces". The song was nominated for Best Song at the 2014 MTV Europe Music Awards, though lost to Ariana Grande's "Problem". It has been nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: "Dark Horse" debuted at number seventeen on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and at number four on the Hot Digital Songs chart with 194,000 downloads sold for the week ending October 5, 2013.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: Following its release as a single, after several weeks of ascending the chart, "Dark Horse" reached number one in the United States on the chart dated February 8, 2014. It marked Perry's ninth US number one and Juicy J's first, and remained atop the chart for four consecutive weeks. It spent 22 weeks in the top ten and 57 weeks on the chart in total, marking Perry's longest stay in both the top ten and on the Hot 100 itself. Besides its success on the Hot 100, "Dark Horse" also performed extremely well on Billboard's component charts, topping the Mainstream Top 40 chart for five weeks, giving Perry her record-tying eleventh number-one, the Hot Dance Club Songs chart, becoming her record-extending thirteenth consecutive number one, and the Rhythmic chart, becoming her second number one, while reaching numbers two and six on the Adult Pop Songs and the Adult Contemporary charts respectively. As of August 2020, the song has sold 6.4 million copies in the nation, and has been certified eleven-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: In Canada, "Dark Horse" debuted at number eight on the Canadian Hot 100 chart, and peaked at number one for two weeks, becoming the Perry's tenth number-one single in the country and Juicy J's first, and has since been certified seven-times platinum by Music Canada for sales of 560,000 units. "Dark Horse" peaked at number two on the New Zealand Singles Chart becoming Perry's twelfth top ten, and was certified double platinum by the RMNZ.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: In Australia, the song was not eligible to chart on the ARIA Top 100 Singles Chart but peaked at number five on the ARIA Top 50 Digital Tracks and was certified eight-times platinum by the ARIA, for sales of 560,000 units. "Dark Horse" also saw major success in Europe. In the UK, it peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart, becoming her thirteenth top ten hit, while peaking at number three in both Ireland and Scotland. The song topped the charts in the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), and Poland, while reaching number two in Austria, Norway, and Sweden, number three in Belgium (Wallonia), number four in Israel, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic, number five in Italy, number six in Germany, France, and Denmark, number eight in Hungary, and number nine in Spain. It earned certifications in Sweden (four times platinum), Italy (three times platinum), Norway (three times platinum), the UK (two times platinum), Mexico (two times platinum), Germany (three times gold), and Belgium (gold). "Dark Horse" sold 13.2 million units worldwide in 2014, finishing as the second best-selling song of the year according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: In an interview with "Billboard" at the 2014 Grammy Awards, Juicy J stated the video will be filmed "soon"; he added that it is "a major motion picture." He further teased the release by saying, "I can't really tell you because it's definitely going to be a surprise, but I'll tell you this much right here: you've seen her other videos, this one's gonna be just as big. Everything she does is like grade A."


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: When "Dark Horse" had attained the top position on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 Chart, Perry announced that she was working on the video. " On February 6, 2014, Perry tweeted the video would be released "soon". On February 13, 2014, she released a preview of the music video onto her Vevo account on YouTube, revealing the Egyptian setting of the video. Perry played a character named "Katy Pätra", a takeoff on the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. The video was released on February 20, 2014.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: The music video was directed by Mathew Cullen, who previously worked with Perry on her music video for the song "California Gurls". Perry's idea for the music video was to combine Ancient Egyptian culture with Memphis, Tennessee hip hop: setting the video in ancient Memphis, Egypt as a nod to Juicy J's Tennessee hometown. Speaking of Perry's concept, Cullen said "That's music to my ears — when an artist has a couple concepts that they want to mash up to create something fresh."


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: On June 9, 2015, the music video for "Dark Horse" became the first video by a female artist to reach 1 billion views on Vevo. Perry also became the first female to have a video on YouTube with 1 billion views. As of August 2022, the video has received over 3.3 billion views on YouTube, making it the 15th most viewed music video of all time and 2nd most viewed music video of all time by a female artist, just behind another Perry song, "Roar".


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: During the video's opening, it is revealed that the music video takes place "a crazy long time ago" in Memphis, Egypt. For the opening verses, Perry's character Katy Pätra, the witch of Memphis, is shown wearing a white dress and white and blue wig while floating on a large barge at sunset, with pyramids and palm trees visible in the background. The video transitions to a different scene where Pätra, now wearing a longer dress and a black wig, sits in an extravagant Sphinx-like throne while pharaohs gather to bring her expensive gifts (such as a large diamond) in an attempt to "win her heart".


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: After retrieving the first suitor's gift, she hits the man with a magical bolt of lightning from her hand, turning him into a pile of sand, and takes his jewels to wear on her teeth as a grill. Another suitor brings her candy, cupcakes, twinkies, and spicy cheese puffs. After she burns her mouth with the spicy cheese puffs, she turns the suitor into a large cup of water, which she drinks. Pätra also appears as a gray statue in a scene where golden pythons and gray guardian statues such as Anubis, Horus, Nisroch and Apep surround her, and in a scene with a blue background where she wears a golden dress and several golden hieroglyphs levitate around her.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: During Juicy J's verse, the rapper emerges from a gold sarcophagus while Pätra accepts an Egyptian chariot with hydraulics (she turns the associated suitor into a set of giant dice to hang from the frame) and rejects a suitor who turns out to have the face of a crocodile by turning him into a wallet. During the final chorus, the last suitor brings Pätra a large gold pyramid with a pink capstone, which she ascends. At the top of the pyramid, Pätra, dressed as Isis, uses her powers to conjure up a magical "perfect storm" with pink, purple, and violet clouds. Although it seems like Pätra has finally found a gift she likes, the final frame of the video reveals that she has turned the final suitor into a dog with a human head.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: The music video was criticized by some for appropriating the symbols and imagery of Egyptian culture. Cullen, the director, defended the music video, saying that, while he believes it is dangerous to rip things directly from present cultures without adding anything to them, Ancient Egypt is part of what he calls our "shared collective mythology". He said: "The most important thing is that when you create something, and this is actually something Katy and I worked to do — you bring a new spin to it." Egyptologist David P. Silverman praised the music video's use of Egyptian imagery and the interest it could generate to viewers: "[Egypt has] always been a part of popular culture. It encourages people to think of these things, and some of those people actually begin to learn a lot." The video was noted by conspiracy theorists for bearing resemblance to imagery used by the alleged Illuminati, but Robert K. Ritner rejected the allegations, saying that "The many discussions of the Illuminati are nonsense" and that, in fact, the masonic imagery associated with the Illuminati is drawn from Egyptian imagery (as a common source for both).


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: The music video caused controversy among Muslims who criticized a scene in the video where a man wearing a pendant appearing to display the Arabic word for "Allah" is disintegrated and turned into sand by Perry's character. The scene took place 1 minute and 15 seconds into the video. A petition launched on Change.org accused Perry of "representing an opposition of God" and demanded that the video be taken down from YouTube. The petition reached over 65,000 signatures and as a response, the pendant was digitally removed from the video on February 26, 2014, after which the petition was closed.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: On July 1, 2014, the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" reported that Christian rapper Flame and others filed a lawsuit against Perry, Capitol Records, and Perry's co-writers for infringing copyright on the song "Joyful Noise", which appeared on the 2008 album "". The producer, Chike Ojukwu, along with co-songwriter Da' T.R.U.T.H. were listed as co-plaintiffs. Cho'zyn Boy, a DJ for Flame in 2014, stated that Perry's song is "identical" to "Joyful Noise", but ten BPM slower in tempo and one step higher in pitch. In addition to the infringement claims, the suit claimed that "by any measure, the devoutly religious message of 'Joyful Noise' has been irreparably tarnished by its association with the witchcraft, paganism, black magic, and Illuminati imagery evoked by the same music in 'Dark Horse'". Rapper Lecrae, who is featured on the song was and was initially included as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, clarified to MTV that "I was in Hong Kong [when] the press release went out and it's not my song — it's my guy Flame's song and I respect everyone's intellectual properties — but that statement about the witchcraft and stuff, that's not my statement and I don't stand behind that statement." To divest himself from the lawsuit, Lecrae signed over his rights to the song to Flame, Da' T.R.U.T.H., and Ojukwu for free.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: In August 2018, Christina A. Snyder from the United States District Court for the Central District of California ruled against a summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiffs "demonstrated a triable issue of fact as to access because 'Joyful Noise' achieved critical success, including a Grammy nomination, and was readily available and viewed millions of times on YouTube and MySpace." She also deferred to the arguments of musicologist Todd Decker, who claimed that the songs share "five or six points of similarity"; specifically, the ostinatos in both songs are either identical or nearly so in their phrase length, rhythm, pitch content, and timbre. Perry and Dr. Luke countered with their own expert testimony from musicologist Lawrence Ferrara that the commonalities between the two songs are merely generic elements. During the federal trial in July 2019, Perry, Dr. Luke, and Max Martin testified that they had never heard "Joyful Noise", and that of the trillions of videos uploaded to YouTube between 2009 and 2013, and their defense team attempted to demonstrate that "Joyful Noise" was not widely accessible to audiences. The lawyer for Flame and the other plaintiffs noted that Perry in the early 2000s started her career in Christian pop, to which Perry replied that even during that part of her career she was "mostly always listening to ... secular music anyway".


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: Ferrara argued that "Dark Horse" contains elements common to countless songs, including the much older songs "Mary Had a Little Lamb", "Jolly Old St. Nicholas", and "Merrily We Roll Along". Decker claimed that the descending melodies of each ostinato are unique and that he had not "seen another piece that descends in the way these two do." The attorney for Perry and fellow defendants accused Flame and the other plaintiffs of "trying to own basic building blocks of music, the alphabet of music that should be available to everyone." Another argument from Perry and the other defendants was that because Ojukwu never registered the beat he produced and later licensed it to Flame, "Joyful Noise" was itself a derivative work. When Perry testified before the court, initially technical difficulties prevented her lawyers from playing "Dark Horse" in the courtroom, and Perry joked "I could perform it for you live." On July 29, 2019, a federal jury found that Perry, Juicy J, Dr. Luke, Max Martin, Cirkut, and Sarah Hudson were guilty of infringement, along with Capitol Records, Warner Bros. Music Publishing, Kobalt Publishing, and Kasz Money Inc. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $2.78 million, of which Perry herself was ordered to pay $550,000.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: Perry and the other defendants moved for judgment as a matter of law. While the motion was under consideration, in early March 2020, the Ninth Circuit (of which the Central District of California is a part of) issued a ruling in a similar long-running lawsuit on whether Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" violated the copyright of the song "Taurus" from the band Spirit. In its ruling, the Ninth found that "Stairway" did not violate the copyright of "Taurus", specifically overturning its "inverse ratio rule" which it had used in several previous cases. Perry's lawyers took this ruling as part of their appeal to Judge Snyder. On March 17, 2020, Judge Snyder overturned the jury award, citing numerous factors, including that the evidence given did not support the jury's award, and of the recent Ninth Circuit judgement. Snyder wrote "A relatively common 8-note combination of unprotected elements that happens to be played in a timbre common to a particular genre of music cannot be so original as to warrant copyright protection". Snyder vacated the jury's verdict and denied motions for a new trial, though stated that should the case be heard on appeal at the Ninth Circuit, that a new jury trial would be required. The Ninth Circuit ruled 3–0 in March 2022 to affirm Snyder's decision in Perry's favor, stating that "Allowing a copyright over this material would essentially amount to allowing an improper monopoly over two-note pitch sequences or even the minor scale itself."


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: "Dark Horse" was first performed at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas on September 20, 2013. It was later performed at the iTunes Festival in London. Perry also performed the song with Juicy J at the We Can Survive event at the Hollywood Bowl on October 23. Perry also performed "Dark Horse" on "The Voice of Germany" on December 13, 2013. Perry and Juicy J performed the song at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards on January 26, 2014. The "dark and mysterious" performance featured a "haunted forest" design with animatronic horses, broomstick pole dances, and a controlled fire. The singer also performed the song at the 2014 BRIT Awards and the performance featured a neon-colored Egyptian theme, like the music video.


title: Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)

text: On February 1, 2015, the song was performed by Perry during the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show, where she was on a chessboard, with her dancers as chess pieces. It is regarded as the most technical performance in her halftime set.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Southend United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. As of the 2022–23 season, the team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of English football. Southend are known as "The Shrimpers", a reference to the area's maritime industry included as one of the quarters on the club badge. The club is owned by property developer Ron Martin.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Founded on 19 May 1906 in the Blue Boar pub, Southend won the Southern League Second Division in both of their two initial seasons and were admitted into the Football League in 1920. They spent the next 44 years in the third tier of English football, before dropping into the Fourth Division in 1966. They spent the next 24 years moving between the third and fourth tiers, winning promotions in 1971–72, 1977–78, 1980–81 (as champions), 1986–87 and 1989–90. They were promoted into the Second Division for the first time at the end of the 1990–91 season. After six seasons in the second tier they suffered a double relegation in 1997 and 1998. Under the stewardship of Steve Tilson, Southend again secured a double promotion in 2004–05 and 2005–06 to win a place in the Championship as League One champions. However this time they only lasted one season in the second tier and were relegated back to League Two in 2010. They secured promotion as play-off winners in 2015, but suffered two successive relegations in 2020 and 2021, amidst financial problems. After 101 years in the Football League, the club dropped to the National League for the 2021–22 season, where they continue to play now.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: The club is based at Roots Hall Stadium in Prittlewell, with plans to move to a new stadium at Fossetts Farm. Southend have a long-standing rivalry with nearby club Colchester United, with whom they contest the Essex derby.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Southend United F.C. was formed in 1906 and played in the Southern League until 1920, when they co-founded the Football League's new Third Division; they finished 17th in their first ever season. In 1921, the Third Division was regionalised with Southend United joining the southern section and here they remained until league re-structure in 1958. Southend came close to promotion twice when they finished 3rd in 1932 and 1950, the club's highest league positions until 1991.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Southend United joined the new national Third Division in 1958, where they remained until 1966 when they suffered their first ever relegation, into the Fourth Division. The club had to wait six seasons until 1972 to experience the club's first ever promotion as runners-up behind Grimsby Town. In 1976 Southend suffered relegation again before taking another runners-up spot behind Watford in 1978. Another relegation in 1980 was directly followed by one of the most successful seasons in the club's history as they won the Fourth Division Championship in 1981, breaking a series of club records in the process. Despite success on the pitch and low admission prices, the club's gates were low and condemned as "a bad reflection on the town".


title: Southend United F.C.

text: In 1984, the club was relegated to the Fourth Division (Bobby Moore was manager), and the following season finished 20th, narrowly avoiding having to seek re-election to the Football League. However, Southend gained promotion in 1987. Although relegated again in 1989 (albeit with the highest point total of any relegated team in League history), successive promotions in 1990 and 1991 saw Southend United reach the second tier of the Football League; in 1992, under manager David Webb, the club finished 12th in the old Second Division, having briefly topped the division on New Year's Day, 1992.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Southend United were managed by Colin Murphy, Barry Fry and then Peter Taylor over the next three seasons. In 1995, former Liverpool player Ronnie Whelan became player-manager. Southend finished 14th in Division One in his first season as a manager, but were relegated a year later and Whelan left the club, later winning a case for wrongful dismissal. He was replaced by Alvin Martin but Martin was unable to avoid a second consecutive relegation. Martin left in April 1999, with Southend fifth from bottom in the Football League. Alan Little was manager for a brief spell before the club turned again to David Webb, then Rob Newman, Steve Wignall and, in late 2003, former Southend United midfielder Steve Tilson.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Under Tilson, Southend reached their first national cup final, meeting Blackpool in the final of the Football League Trophy at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Over 20,000 Southend fans travelled, but the team did not rise to the occasion and Blackpool won 2–0. Tilson then led Southend to promotion to League 1 in 2005, while making a second successive appearance in the Football League Trophy final, which the Shrimpers lost 2–0 to Wrexham, but the third appearance at the Millennium Stadium in the League Two play-off final against Lincoln City brought success giving the club its first promotion via the play-off system and their first major silverware since 1981.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: In May 2006 Southend became League One champions after beating Bristol City 1–0 at Roots Hall in front of over 11,000 fans - the club's first title in 25 years. Tilson was named as the League Manager Association's Manager-of-the-Season for League One.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Southend started the 2006–07 season with wins over Stoke City and Sunderland, but then did not win a league game for 18 games until December 2006. In the meantime, however, Southend did beat trophy holders and Premier League Champions Manchester United 1–0 in a League Cup fourth round tie on 7 November 2006, with Freddy Eastwood scoring the winner. Southend briefly escaped the relegation zone in March 2007 but only 10 league wins in the season meant the Shrimpers were relegated back to League One. Southend finished sixth in League One at the end of 2007–08, qualifying for a play-off place. Against Doncaster Rovers, Southend drew the home leg 0–0, but lost the second leg 5–1. The following season, Southend finished 8th, missing out on a play-off place, but the 2009–2010 season was tougher: a run of just one win in 2010 left Southend deep in trouble, and relegation to League Two was confirmed on 24 April 2010 following a 2–2 draw at Oldham. On 4 July 2010 manager Steve Tilson was put on gardening leave, ending his seven-year stint as manager.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: During the 2009–10 season, Southend faced two winding-up orders from HM Revenue and Customs over unpaid tax bills. In February 2010 Southend players were not paid, the Professional Footballers Association had to pay the players, and the club were placed under a transfer embargo until they paid the money back. In March 2010 Southend were given a 35-day extension to pay the unpaid bill or face administration, and further seven day extension in April 2010. On 20 April 2010 the bill was paid, and in August 2010 all actions against Southend United were dropped and an agreement was reached with HMRC.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: On 5 July 2010 former Sheffield Wednesday and Plymouth Argyle manager, Paul Sturrock was announced as the new manager. Sturrock led Southend to a 13th place in his first season, but the club mounted a more serious challenge the following season, spending 11 weeks at the top of League Two before a decline in form meant the team had to enter the play-offs. Southend lost the play off semi-final against Crewe Alexandra 3–2 on aggregate.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: A transfer embargo at the start of the 2012–13 season saw the club start its campaign with a depleted squad. However, a successful loan signing - Britt Assombalonga from Watford - helped Southend to a run of 14 games unbeaten which saw them reach 4th in the table. League form dipped in early 2013, but the club reached its first Wembley cup final in the Football League Trophy. Paul Sturrock was sacked two weeks before the cup final but was controversially asked to manage the team for the final. Sturrock refused and watched the game from the stand. The Blues took a record 33,000 fans to the match, but lost 2–0 to Crewe Alexandra.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Phil Brown was brought in as Sturrock's successor but picked up just one win in his eight games in charge as Southend finished the season in 11th position, with only six league wins at Roots Hall all season. In 2015 Brown led the team, via a play-off final against Wycombe Wanderers (decided 7–6 on penalties), into League One. At the end of the 2016–2017 season, the club missed the play-offs for the Championship by only one point. The following season, Southend finished 10th, but slipped to 19th at the end of the 2018–2019 season, avoiding relegation on goal difference having finished equal on 50 points with relegated Plymouth Argyle.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: On 22 October 2019, Sol Campbell was appointed manager of Southend. Campbell took charge for his first game — a 3–1 home defeat to Ipswich Town — on 25 October.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Financial difficulties, including a winding-up petition heard on 22 January 2020, resulted in non-payment of players' and other employees' wages in December 2019, after which players consulted with the PFA. At this point (9 January 2020), Southend were 22nd in League One, 15 points from safety after winning only one of 24 league games. Club chairman Ron Martin paid £140,000 after seven senior Southend United players were not paid their December 2019 wages on time, and met with all players to reassure them it would not happen again. The winding-up petition was dismissed after debts were cleared.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: On 18 January 2020, Southend won their first league game under Campbell with a 2–1 victory away at Accrington Stanley, also a first league win since 21 September 2019. However, financial constraints prevented the club signing any new players during the January 2020 transfer window. On 2 March, Martin confirmed Southend was under an EFL transfer embargo due to an unpaid tax bill, while February's wages to players were not paid on time, resulting in further PFA involvement. On 9 March, Southend was charged with misconduct by the EFL for failing to pay players on time, and for fielding an ineligible player against Lincoln City on 1 February (on 2 June, Southend received a suspended three-point penalty and were fined £7,500 for these offences). On 11 March, a further HMRC winding-up petition was adjourned to 29 April; it was then adjourned three more times, eventually to 28 October 2020.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: On 2 April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Southend put "several staff and some players" on furlough (temporary leave) under the UK Government's emergency job retention scheme. The club's chairman said "It enables the club to best manage its finances during this time of limited income", but the move was criticised by the PFA who said the club had "consistently" let players down over wages. On 9 June, Football League clubs in Leagues One and Two agreed to end the 2019–20 season; Southend were relegated to League Two. The following day, the club announced it was putting the whole playing squad on furlough, but players refused to accept the move. On 30 June 2020, manager Campbell and three assistants left the club by mutual consent.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: On 13 August 2020, Southend United appointed Mark Molesley, formerly manager of Weymouth, as their new manager on a three-year contract. On 28 October 2020, the club finally settled tax debts of £493,931 with HMRC; as a result, a winding-up petition was dismissed by the High Court. On 9 April 2021, Molesley was sacked having only won eight games out of 45; the club were 23rd, five points from safety with six games remaining. Phil Brown returned as manager but could not rescue the situation; Southend suffered a second successive relegation on 1 May 2021 with a game to spare despite a 2–1 victory at Barrow, dropping out of the Football League after 101 years. Brown subsequently agreed a two-year contract to manage the club.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: In April 2021, former Southend player Stan Collymore wrote to Martin offering to buy the club from him, and held talks concerning the potential appointment of a Collymore associate as the club's CEO in May 2021, Tom Lawrence (formerly CEO at Gillingham) was appointed. In August 2021, Southend revealed their overall debt in July 2019 was £17.4m, having grown by £2.4m; Martin said the majority of the debt was owed to his companies, and that £6.8m of debt had already been written off. On 21 August 2021, Southend started their first season in the National League with a 1–0 victory at King's Lynn Town, but a six-match winless streak had manager Phil Brown fearing for his future, describing Southend as stuck in a massive "chasm". On 5 and 9 October 2021, Southend fans staged protests at Roots Hall demanding the departure of chairman Ron Martin; following a 4–0 defeat by Chesterfield at Roots Hall on 9 October, Brown was sacked. Collymore offered further free support to the club, described by the BBC as "a mess" and "already on life support". Defender Jason Demetriou took temporary charge before, on 20 October 2021, Kevin Maher returned to the club as head coach, supported by assistant Darren Currie and Mark Bentley as first team coach. CEO Tom Lawrence also started negotiations with Collymore about a formal role with the club, and he was appointed the club's senior football strategist in early November 2021, with John Still appointed head of football two weeks later. In December 2021, Southend was placed under a National League embargo because of HMRC debts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; after back-to-back relegations and 18 months of reduced income, CEO Lawrence said the club was "in a deteriorating income position". In May 2022, Southend finished their first National League season in 13th position.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: On 30 September 2022, the club was placed under a transfer embargo after a missed payment to HMRC; the following day, fans staged protests at Roots Hall after shirt sponsor PG Site Services withdrew their club support via a Facebook post (however this was later retracted). Fans group Save Our Southend blamed "the utter ineptitude of Ron Martin in running the club properly," saying they judged him "to be an unfit and improper owner". In a statement, Martin blamed a programme delay for a missed payment under the club's Time To Pay Agreement with HMRC, which he said HMRC then cancelled prematurely. He said bridging finance would enable the club to discharge its HMRC debt in full. Nonetheless, in October 2022, HMRC issued a winding-up petition. Due to be heard at the High Court on 9 November, it was adjourned to 18 January 2023 - a step described by the Shrimpers Trust supporters group as a "stay of execution" - meaning the transfer embargo remained in place. After members of staff were reported to be late receiving their October 2022 salaries, the Shrimpers Trust and shirt sponsor PG Site Services each loaned the club £40,000, a gesture described by CEO Tom Lawrence as "humbling". He added: "The way out of the financial issues we are currently facing is to move to Fossetts Farm." November 2022 wages for players and non-playing staff were also paid late.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: The club has played its home games at five grounds: the original Roots Hall, the Kursaal, the Southend Stadium, the rented New Writtle Street Stadium (home of Chelmsford City) and again at Roots Hall.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Roots Hall was the first stadium that the club owned and was built on the site of their original home, albeit at a lower level. The site previous to Southend purchasing it in 1952 had been used as a sand quarry, by the council as a landfill site and by the local gas board (which was convinced to move to Progress Road). It took 10 years to fully complete the building of Roots Hall. The first game was played on 20 August 1955, a 3–1 Division Three (South) victory over Norwich City attendance 12,190, but the ground was far from complete. The main East Stand had barely been fitted and ran along only 50 yards of the touchline, and only a few steps of terracing encircled the ground, with the North, West and the huge South Bank still largely unconcreted. The North Stand had a single-barrelled roof which ran only the breadth of the penalty area, and the West Bank was covered at its rear only by a similar structure.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Although the ground was unfinished, during the inaugural season this was the least of the club's worries, for the pitch at Roots Hall showed the consequences of having been laid on top of thousands of tonnes of compacted rubbish. Drainage was a problem, and the wet winter turned the ground into a quagmire. The pitch was completely re-laid in the summer of 1956 and a proper drainage system, which is still in place, was constructed, and the West Bank roof was extended to reach the touchline, creating a unique double-barrelled structure.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: The terracing was completed soon after, but the task of completely terracing all 72 steps of the South Bank was not completed until 1964. The North Bank roof was extended in the early 1960s, and the East Stand was extended to run the full length of the pitch in 1966. Floodlights were also installed during this period. Roots Hall was designed to hold 35,000 spectators, with over 15,000 on the South Bank alone, but the highest recorded attendance at the ground is 31,090 for an FA Cup third round tie with Liverpool in January 1979.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: Until 1988 Roots Hall was still the newest ground in the Football League, but then the ground saw a significant change. United had hit bad times in the mid-1980s and new chairman Vic Jobson sold virtually all of the South Bank for development, leaving just a tiny block of 15 steps. In 1994, seats were installed onto the original terracing, and a second tier was added. The West Bank had already become seated in 1992 upon United's elevation to Division Two while the East Stand paddock also received a new seating deck, bolted and elevated from the terracing below. In 1995 the Gilbert & Rose West Stand roof was extended to meet up with the North and South Stands, with seating installed in each corner, thus giving the Roots Hall its current form, with a capacity of just under 12,500.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: On 24 January 2007, Southend Borough Council unanimously agreed to give planning permission for a new 22,000-seater stadium at the proposed Fossetts Farm site, with Rochford District Council following suit 24 hours later. The application was subsequently submitted to Ruth Kelly, then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, for government approval. However, the application was "called in" at the beginning of April 2007. The inquiry began in September 2007, followed in October 2007 by a "final" inquiry, when chairman Ron Martin called for supporters to show in numbers at Southend's local government headquarters. On 6 March 2008, permission to develop Fossetts Farm was given by the government. However, it took a further 12 years before firm plans emerged for the development; in April 2020, a deal was agreed between Southend United, the borough council and social housing provider Citizen Housing. Plans were approved in October 2021, subject to Government approval anticipated in early 2022; the 22,000-capacity stadium would incorporate a 107-bed hotel and high-rise residential blocks of 182 homes on two corners.


title: Southend United F.C.

text: The club has an intense local rivalry with fellow Essex side Colchester United, which extends back many years.