Bureau of Lost Culture: Recent Episodes
Stephen Coates
The Bureau of Lost Culture broadcast curious, rare, half-forgotten, half-remembered countercultural stories, oral histories and tales from the underground.
Join host Stephen Coates and a wide range of guests including musicians, writers and cultural commentators like Billy Bragg, Michael Moorcock, Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore in conversation.
Listen live on Sundays at 11.00am on London’s premier independent station Soho Radio or via catch-up on all major podcast providers: https://linktr.ee/BureauOfLostCulture
The Bureau is now also collected at The British Library Sound Archive
For more on the Bureau: www.bureauoflostculture.com
The Bureau produce publications, films, events, broadcasts and installations that tell half-forgotten or lost narratives driving human endeavour. We create immersive experiences with unique perspectives that connect people to hidden stories. +
We celebrate the self-made, inventiveness and ingenuity driven by need. +
We resonate with those who have taken risks to go against the establishment, beyond censorship and outside the forbidden. +
She's 82 but is firing on all cylinders, still crazy after all these years, as Paul Simon sang, well, still crazy enough to believe the world can be changed for the better, that it's her duty to try to make that happen and crazy enough in her youth to try to levitate the Pentagon. Born into a communist family in Brooklyn, NANCY KURSHAN was involved in Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War protests while at high school, became, along with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, one of the founders of The Yippies, the theatrical protest group whose activities included trying to run a pig for president and all sorts of other countercultural shenanigans. She travelled to North Vietnam with a women-only group during the war, became involved with The Weather Underground, then in prison reform, worked in social work and youth education for years and hasn't stopped continuing to push against the status quo ever since. For Nancy's books Levitating the Pentagon and Out of Control Goodbye to All That - Robin Morgan's polemic on the treatment of women in the counterculture ---Comrade! We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes If you can contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HEREStephen #Counterculture #protest #civilrights #peteseeger #HUAC #communistpartyofamerica #anti-vietnamwarprotest #vietnamwar #theweatherunderground #abbiehoffman #jerryrubin #chicago8 #activsim
There are some images that don’t simply record history—they change it.
On the morning of 11 June 1963, at a busy crossroads in Saigon, Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk, calmly sat down in the lotus position while fellow monks poured petrol over his robes. He struck a match and, as the flames engulfed him, he remained perfectly still.
The Associated Press photographer Malcolm Browne captured the moment; within hours the photograph had travelled around the world and in the years since has become one of the defining images of the 1960s: one that shocked governments, altered international opinion about Vietnam, inspired artists and activists and introduced many people to a very different understanding of Buddhism.
In this episode, I’m joined by Canadian-born US-based Professor James Shields, one of the leading scholars of Buddhist ethics and engaged Buddhism. We explore the story behind that extraordinary photograph, the long history of self-sacrifice in Buddhist tradition and how these dramatic acts have been understood over the centuries.
We branch out into the wider history of self-immolation as political protest and ask: if Buddhism generally rejects both violence and suicide, how does it distinguish between self-sacrifice and self-destruction? And what might it have to say about contemporary debates surrounding euthanasia and assisted dying?
It’s a conversation about protest, conscience and the extraordinary power of a single human act to change the course of history.
For more on James and his work To see our gallery of the top ten images that changed the Counterculture, go HERE Can you contribute to this crazy endeavour to build an archive of counterculture and underground stories? Help us keep this place ad- and sponsor-free and join our Patreon HERE You can join for free and receive regular articles, updates and news about our events Stephen Photo: Malcolm Browne
Roc Sanford is a British writer, artist and climate activist whose life has been a countercultural journey from an alternative childhood through academia to a remarkable experiment in off-grid living and ecological resistance as a catalyser for Extinction Rebellion and Ocean Rebellion. For more than three decades he has been associated with the remote Hebridean island of Gometra, where he lives much of the year without mains electricity, running water or many of the conveniences of modern life. Roc was born to parents who deliberately turned away from wealth and privilege and chose to live closer to the working-class world they wanted to understand and write about. Amongst other works, his mother Nell Dunn was the author of Poor Cow and Up the Junction, and his father Jeremy Sanford was the author of Cathy Come Home, all made into groundbreaking hugely influential British New Wave films by Ken Loach in the 60s. Their life choices carried Roc from Belgravia, to Chelsea to Battersea, and then to a remote valley in Wales where the family lived a very alternative life. We hear about that and get into the tensions that can emerge when idealism meets reality. We hear about Roc's unusual schooling, his years during the AIDs crisis in New York, studyomg the ideas that shaped his thinking about perception, systems, and the way we interpret the world. And we head to Soho, meet Francis Bacon and Genesis P Orridge again, and hear about his first brush with British law. Roc has led - is leading - a big countercultural life - so this is the first part of a double-header conversation. More on Roc, his work and life ---Hello! If you can contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that means a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes, not just financial. Stephen
In the company of historian of drugs, MIKE JAY, we journey back to the first psychedelic age - not the 1960s, but the 1790s, when Britain was at the forefront, at the frontier, of gonzo psychedelic science.
We explore the world of the 'Pneumatic Institution' in Bristol, a community of scientists, poets, philosophers, and industrial entrepreneurs who formed a kind of proto-counterculture led by the extraordinary talents of polymath Thomas Beddoes and the boy genius Humphry Davy.
We hear about Davy's use of nitrous oxide - laughing gas - and the self-experiments and consciousness-expanding trips he and his friends experienced as a gateway to radical societal ideas and revolutionary thought, laying the groundwork for later countercultures and today's psychedelic renaissance.
More on Mike and his book Free Radicals: How a Group of Romantic Experimenters Gave Birth to Psychedelic Science.
---If you can contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that means a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes, not just financial. Stephen
Ever thought the so-called ‘golden decade’ of the 1960s was only about peace and love? Think again. Beneath the surface, it was riddled with violence, paranoia, and chaos, even in its most iconic moments.
So says James Riley, a writer whose work explores the darker edges of late-1960s and 1970s counterculture. His 'The Bad Trip' is an acclaimed study of apocalypse, occultism, paranoia and the collapse of the hippie dream at the end of the 1960s.We examine the romanticised narrative of peace, love, and idealism, revealing how beneath the surface lurked a shadow of violence, paranoia, and societal fractures. How figures like Charles Manson emerged not as aberrations, but as products and archetypes of the era. We talk Jung, LSD, The Trickster archetype, Manson, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the committee for The Summer of Love, to see how the darkness beneath the light reveals more about human nature than the utopian stories we often tell, and how it was the inspiration for some truly great art. For the list of countercultural films we discuss - and more - go HERE --- If you can contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that means a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes, not just financial. Stephen #Counterculture
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This is the second part of our conversation with Joe Rush, the initiator, mentor, and driving force behind The Mutoid Waste Company, that extraordinary countercultural endeavour to turn the waste of our industrial civilisation into art, performance, street theatre - and a way of life.
If you haven’t heard the first part, you might want to start here:
https://bureauoflostculture.podbean.com/e/20th-century-mutoid-man-part-1/
This time, we covered a huge amount of ground — Joe's personal story, the birth of the Mutoids and the UK counterculture of the ’80s and ’90s: squatting. We hear about the Peace Convoy, the Battle of the Beanfield, the free festival scene, the warehouse party scene, and how those worlds were pushed into exile in Europe, where they helped spark whole new cultural movements of festivals, parties, and creative rebellion including 'Tanghenge', the repurposing of abandoned Soviet MIG fighter jets after the fall of The Berlin Wall and much more..
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen
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The Weather Underground, The Baader-Meinhof Group, The Red Brigade, Carlos the Jackal, The Japanese Red Army.
The counterculture has always had a shadow side. There have been bad actors, casualties, the needle and the damage done - and in this episode, we dive into the world of revolutionary and political violence, exploring how radical groups emerged from countercultural movements and evolved into what my guest Jason Burke describes as Revolutionists Jason is an award-winning British author and journalist, currently serving as the International Security Correspondent for The Guardian. He is widely regarded as one of the preeminent experts on modern radicalisation, terrorism, and global security, reporting from hotspots around the world. His latest book, The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s, is an extraordinary sweeping history of the period 1968–1979, a decade defined by a global explosion of secular, leftist political violence. The Revolutionists were the orphans of the 1960s, young people who grew up in a 1950s existential vacuum of consumerism and a 1960s idealistic overload. When the student protests of 1968 failed to topple the global order, a radicalised minority concluded that the "System" was too resilient for peaceful protest. Violence and spectacle in a 'theatre of terror' might be the answer. It's an incredible story - and links the counterculture, through 9/11 with events taking place in the Middle East right now. --- If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that means a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes, not just financial. Stephen #counterculture #terrorist #terrorism #revolution #revolutionists #TheWeatherUnderground, #TheBaader-MeinhofGroup, #TheRedBrigade, #TheJapaneseRedArmy #Baader-Meinhof #carlosthejackal
Beyond the official story, the myth, of the Second World War — its maps and medals, courage and sacrifice — there is another hidden narrative. Written in rare memoirs, or in letters and diaries never meant to be read by us, it tells of a kind of underground culture that was secret, transgressive, forbidden
With millions of young men and women on military service, the transitory nature of life under threat of sudden and violent death created a charged atmosphere in which conventional boundaries loosened. In London the darkness of the blackout became both cover and catalyst.
Writer and cultural critic Luke Turner, is the author of the beautiful book Men at War, Loving, Lusting, Fighting, Remembering 1939-1945, a book that excavates the sexual undercurrents of wartime Britain, how the social upheaval of wartime had a profound effect on the sex lives of British men in particular— in the city, in barracks, in prison of war camps.
This is a story that feels less like military history and more like testimonies from an underground scene — improvised, poignant usually invisible - and later to be deliberately repressed..
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen IMAGE: Cecil Beaton /Imperial War Museum
sex #war #military #queerhistory #londonhistory #blitz #transgressive
If you had been at the Glastonbury Festival in 1987, you may have seen a familiar silhouette emerging in the dawn light - upright monoliths arranged in a circle. Was it Stonehenge - magically transferred here across the Salisbury plain?
No, it was ‘Carhenge'- a circle of upright cars, their chassis standing like monoliths, the archaeology of the automobile age
And imagine ‘Tankhenge', a gateway made from abandoned Soviet tanks assembled in Berlin just after the fall of the Berlin Wall — the wreckage of the Cold War turned into a piece of anarchic sculpture
Or imagine a huge mechanical creature crawling across the desert at the Burning Man festival in Nevada
These strange and spectacular visions all come from the same source: The Mutoid Waste Company— a collective that, since the early 1980s, has been transforming the debris of industrial civilisation into giant sculptures, mutant vehicles and temporary worlds built from waste.
This is the first part of our conversation with Joe Rush, the artist at the centre of it all. It takes us into the world of late 1970s West London, the punk years, the alternative communities and squats of the People's Republic of Frestonia, and the signpist along the way to becoming a Mutoid...
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen Photograph: Courtesy of Guy Mayhew
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In the heart of London’s Bloomsbury, behind a scruffy turquoise door, the world lies folded into drawers.
Here are maps that survived wars, regimes, and revolutions — not because they were valued, but because they were forgotten. Some were reused when paper was scarce - a map of Cuba mounted on the reverse of a Second World War map of Berlin, the roads of one ruined city shining faintly through another place entirely, a haunting map of Hiroshima printed just weeks before destruction.
Britain’s only Professor of Cartography, James Cheshire's book The Library of Lost Maps, explores the hidden collection of thousands of maps in a room at University College London. He joins us to tell us why paper maps still matter. Maps tell us what was ignored, how ideology, hope and catastrophe have been drawn onto paper; they tell us how power wanted the world to look, and they reveal hidden patterns in everyday life.And when map libraries disappear, it isn’t just paper that vanishes — it’s memory. ---If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #maps #maplibrary #hiroshima #ordnancesurvey #mapping #cartography #johnsnow #tubemap
This is the second part of a conversation with Alaura O’Dell / Mistress Mix, formerly known as Paula P-Orridge.
In the first part, we traced Alaura’s journey from meeting the musician and cultural provocateur Genesis P-Orridge, as a 15-year-old schoolgirl in East London, to becoming a central actor in the underground art band Psychic TV and the occult network Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY).
While public accounts often focus on TOPY’s founder, Genesis P-Orridge, we heard about Alaura's role in the organisation — not just as a participant, but as an organiser and practitioner, the one “who handled the workings”: the practical magick behind the grand metaphysical ideas.
In this episode, we rejoin Alaura and Genesis as they are in Kathmandu with their kids. Caress and Genesse. Back in Britain, the police have raided their home, prompted by unfounded accusations of moral deviance and child abuse in the media, during the infamous 'satanic panic'of the 1980s.
We hear how they embarked on a life in exile in California, finding unexpected refuge with the family of Winona Ryder and entering a new West Coast countercultural milieu that included encounters with Timothy Leary and Terence McKenna. before hearing about Alaura's life after Psychic TV, TOPY and Genesis.
Psychic TV, was a multimedia art and music project that blurred boundaries between performance, ritual, and experimentation in sound and imagery, imbued with a sense of magick (in both the occult and transformative senses)
Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY),was a loosely structured global network of artists, occultists, and seekers that emerged in the 1980s.
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #AlauraODell#PaulaP’Orridge#GenesisP’Orridge#TempleOvPsychicYouth
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Over the last century, the word Shaman has been embraced by artists, hippies, psychonauts and spiritual rebels.
In the 1960s and 70s, shamanism had become a kind of countercultural shorthand for altered states, secret, magical knowledge, and ways of seeing outside rationalism, capitalism, and institutional power.
Shamans appeared in underground books, on psychedelic record sleeves, in communes and consciousness-raising circles. Writers like Carlos Castaneda blurred the line between ethnography and spiritual fiction. Psychedelics were framed as modern shamanic initiation rites.
But as shamanism was absorbed into Western counterculture, the messy realities of the original shamanic cultures - land, lineage, service to the community, and sometimes danger - were replaced with personal visions, journeys and individual transformation.
Our guest today is social anthropologist Max Carocci whose work looks at how this happened. His latest book, Shamans: The Visual Culture, is an incredible portrait of the original shamanic worlds with an eclectic array of the sacred objects, tools, clothing and images shamans have made, along with the way they been photographed, filmed, and mythologised.
Max is especially interested in how these images have turned the shaman into a symbolic figure — part spiritual rebel, part cypher for Western longing — while the original shamans continue to live under pressure from colonialism, repression and environmental loss.
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #counterculture, #shamanism, #shaman, #tuvan, #galba, #newage, #spiritualisn, #magic, #ancestor
This is the second part of a conversation with the poet, musician and thinker Penny Rimbaud, co-founder, with Steve Ignorant, of the anarcho-punk band and activist art collective Crass Crass emerged as a band in 1977, but quickly became something more complex, rejecting rock stardom, record industry norms, releasing records on their own label and using their platform to challenge war, nationalism, consumerism, sexism, and state violence. In this second part of the interview, we about the events that led to Crass and hear more about Dial House, an old rambling farmhouse in rural Essex, a long-running experiment in collective life — part commune, part refuge, part creative hub. It was here, where he still lives, that Penny's music, philosophy, artwork, debate, and daily survival are entangled.
And we hear about the founding of the Stonehenge Free Festival and the death of Wally Hope, cultural terrorism, Penny's work since Crass, and his thoughts on art, spirituality and the self.
Music played: Futility and The Soldier’s Dream (The War Poems of Wilfred Owen)
So What (Crass)
The Song of Self (With Louise Elliot)You Brave Od Land (With Youth) For more on Penny and his work ---
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #counterculture #crass #pennyrimbaud #anarchism #capitalism #dialhouse #artschool #wallyhope #stonehengefreefestival
The sea, its myths, and the supernatural is the theme of this special New Year edition of the Bureau when we leave behind our usual waters to set sail into the past of a very unusual counterculture. For most of human history, the sea has been both a road and a riddle. It promises fortune and freedom — but it also swallows ships whole. And in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as Britain’s empire spread across the globe, the sea became seen, not just as a physical frontier, but as a psychic one — a vast, perilous deep where faith, science, fear, and fantasy collided.
This is the story the British cultural historian Karl Bell tells in The Perilous Deep: A Supernatural History of the Atlantic, his epic study of sailors’ lore, ghost ships, sea monsters, superstitions, omens and uncanny maritime experiences.
We hear about 'the caul' - the protective embryo of an unborn baby said to keep sailors safe, the 'jonah', a scapegoat eyed suspiciously by those on board as responsible for the ship's misfortunes, H P Lovecraft, cross-dressing pirates and more.
This is not a history of battles or trade routes, but of dreams, fantasies and terrors — of the sea as it existed in the minds of those who sailed upon it
The Perlious Deep: A Supernatural History of the Atlantic
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen
In early 1990s South London — a time when rave culture was mutating and London’s squats were pulsing with creativity, Aphex Twin, Global Communication, Nightmares on Wax, Autechre,Andrea Parker, Scanner — could be found DJ-ing and performing in spaces where a strange new sound-world was blooming.
This is the story of Telepathic Fish, the ambient afterparty scene created by the Openmind Collective. Telepathic Fish parties and club rooms were DIY countercultural happenings with turntables, psychedelic installations, living-room lamps, photocopied zines and a lot of imagination, becoming a meeting place for bohos, ravers, multimedia explorers and a new wave of electronic musicians.
Now, as a new vinyl compilation and a beautifully illustrated 20-page booklet, The Telepathic Fish has resurfaced to rave reviews, Kevin Foakes — DJ, designer, archivist and cultural custodian — returns to the Bureau to talk squat party ‘finstallations’, Aphex Twin, Mira Calix, illegal Roundhouse raves, ambient zines and what DIY culture can do when technology, community and youthful imagination collide.
The Telepathic Fish Compilation
For Kevin / DJ Food
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #ambientmusic #aphextwin #autechre #miracalix #orbital #theorb #counterculture #diyparties #diyculture #telepathicfish #djfood
There are figures in counterculture whose names appear only in the margins of the story — whose influence is eclipsed, overshadowed, even dismissed, by more mythologised personalities.
Alaura O’Dell — known to many under her earlier name, Paula P-Orridge - is a musician, artist, occult practitioner, and was a co-conspirator in the band Psychic TV
For a long time, Alaura was described almost exclusively in relation to her then-husband, the arch provocateur and musician Genesis P-Orridge but she joined us to talk about life before Genesis, the formative years of Psychic TV: the chaos, the energy, the experiments with magick and media, the turbulent times of TOPY - Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth - the global network of seekers and outsiders, where she was not merely a participant but an organiser — the one who handled the workings, the practical magic behind the grand metaphysical gestures.
Alaura’s life didn’t end when she parted ways with the band, with Genesis, or with the Temple. In fact, in many ways, it began anew. We will be hearing more about that in the second part of our interview in a future episode.
For more on Alaura and connect with her here (as Mistress Mix)
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #psychictv #TheeTempleOvPsychickYouth #paulp-orridge #genesisp-orridge #throbbinggristle #satanist #satanicpanic #counterculture #coseyfannitutti #occult
We are on the brink of a new nuclear age - the energy crisis, the push towards net zero and the gargantuan power requirements of AI demand it - or so we are told. But here in Britain, the old nuclear age isn’t just a historical footnote - it’s etched into the very landscape. Tom Bolton went on an epic journey around the UK to explore the extraordinary, imposing locations in that landscape, from the 16 vast concrete cathedral-like power stations on remote coasts to the hidden nuclear missile silos that cast a long, physical, cultural and environmental shadow over Albion - past, present, and into the distant future.
His extraordinary new book, Atomic Albion: Journeys Around Britain's Nuclear Power Stations, not only maps the physical geography of Britain’s atomic ambitions, but also digs into their psychic, mythic and cultural impact.
With great power comes great responsibility, as Spider-Man's Uncle Pete said. And of course, where there is state power, there has always been countercultural dissent, quite rightly in this case, because the power we unleashed by splitting the atom could bring us to the very brink of oblivion..
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #atomic #atomicage #nuclear #nuclearpower #nuclearweapons #atombomb #powerstaions #albion #atomicalbion #counterculture
When the filmmaker David Lynch died earlier this year, fans created shrines filled with coffee, doughnuts, cigarettes and blue roses; a level of spontaneous mourning more common for dead rock stars or royalty than filmmakers. His auctioned belongings sold for staggering sums, almost as if they were relics, showing how many people felt deeply connected to his work.
Why?
David was that unusual figure - an artist who had mainstream success but seemed to remain defiantly and deeply countercultural.
How?
And, this was a man who had an adjective - ‘Lynchian’ - named after him
But what does that mean?
The writer and cultural historian John Higgs, returns to the Bureau. His new book ‘Lynchian: The Spell of David Lynch’ tries to answerthose questions while taking a deep dive intothe hidden depths of Lynch's films - where beauty and horror, dream and reality, suburban innocence and lurking evil co-exist; where simple pleasures—coffee, pie, music—take on a sacred resonance in contrast to violence and decay. Where we can take a journey into darkness and out again - changed.
And we dig into art, consciousness, dreaming, ideas and the writer's life in these changing times.
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #DavidLynch
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Penny Rimbaud , who has spent more than half a century living the ideals that most of us only talk about, has been described as an activist philosopher, an anarchist, a Zen Buddhist. Though he would likely not recognise those descriptions, he is certainly a poet, a musician, an artist.
Born Jeremy John Ratter in 1943, in the late 1960s, together with artist Gee Vaucher, he founded Dial House, an open community and creative refuge in rural Essex. It became both a home and a hub — a living experiment in anarchism, art, and radical living, from which emerged Crass, a band that tore apart punk’s nihilism and replaced it with a fierce moral energy: anti-war, anti-sexism, anti-consumerism — but pro-peace, pro-freedom, and defiantly DIY.
Their black-and-white graphics, polemical lyrics, and uncompromising stance made them one of the most influential and challenging acts of their time.
When Crass disbanded in 1984, Penny kept on creating, often with Gee. He became a prolific poet, writer, and spoken-word performer, continuing to explore themes of love, pacifism, and spiritual autonomy.
Now in his eighties, he still lives and works at Dial House — still questioning authority, still seeking truth through art and language.
We range back and forth across Penny's personal history and his thoughts on culture, capitalism, art and the very notion of the self.
In his own words:
“There is no authority but yourself.”
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During this conversation, we hear:
'Dulce et Decorum Est’ - from What Passing Bells (The War Poems of Wilfred Owen)
‘How?’ - from How?
‘Of Summer's Passing' - with Peter Vukomirovic - from Of Summer's Passing
'Oh America' - with Youth - from Oh America
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #counterculture #crass #pennyrimbaud #anarchism #capitalism #dialhouse #artschool #
We walk the streets every day — and through parks, across squares and pavements and along beaches, and mountains, over 'The Commons' — without much thought for who really owns them.
These apparently public spaces have often been battlegrounds over public rights. From the rural enclosures that fenced off England’s open fields, through the city squares where protesters have clashed with police, to the gated plazas and shopping malls of today — the story of The Commons is the story of who belongs, who is excluded, who can gather, and who makes the rules.
In this episode, we’re diving into that story with historian Katrina Navickas, whose book Contested Commons: A History of Protest and Public Space in England traces how people have fought, for centuries, to claim, reclaim and defend shared space.
We hear about The Chartists, about The Greenham Common protests, Occupy, Reclaim the Streets, trespassing and hear some surprising answers to the question 'Who Owns The Ground Beneath Our Feet?'
We finish with a recording of 'The World Turned Upside Down' by the wonderful Leon Rosselson
If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #trespassing #thecommons #commonland #theclearances #protest #thechartists #occupy #reclaimthestreets #counterculture
As musician and activist BILLY BRAGG makes a welcome return as a voice of countercultural sanity, we revisit the Lost History of Skiffle as he takes us on an extraordinary whirlwind tour through the music that the counterculture forgot. Along the way, we hear about the emergence of The Teenager in post-war Britain, the massive impact of Rock Around the Clock, the Soho espresso bar culture of the 50s and the birth of British youth culture. We explore why Skiffle, which soundtracked that youth culture for a few intense years and was the inspiration for musicians in The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who and The Rolling Stones, has been oddly forgotten. And Billy explains why, as the first British DIY musical revolution, Skiffle provided the template for the Punk movement of the 70s that was to inspire him. Along the way, we get educated about the post-war 'trad jazz' movement, the cultural stranglehold of the BBC - and the terrific transformatory power of a guy - or a girl - with a guitar. For more on Billy and his book Roots, Radicals and Rockers:https://www.billybragg.co.uk/product/roots-radicals-and-rockers-how-skiffle-changed-the-world-hardback-signed-by-billy/ #skiffle #billybragg #beatles #rock'n'roll #teenager #1950 #musichistory
In the old towns and villages of Britain, before the police, before the tabloids, before social media shame-storms, there were other ways to deal with those who stepped outside the rules. Noisy ways. Cruel ways. Dangerous ways - the 'Rough Music' rituals — part punishment, part performance, part pagan magic — at the dark edge where community, cruelty and celebration collide.
Liz Williams, the Glastonbury-based author, folklorist and pagan, came to the Bureau to talk about them. Her latest book Rough Music: Folk Tradition, Transgression and Alternative Britain, explores often violent, forgotten traditions of noise, mockery, and ritual humiliation — and how they ripple forward into today’s counterculture, protest movements, and online doxing. And we hear about some other, less cruel, but deeply strange British rituals that cling on: the annual Cheese-Rolling at Cooper’s Hill, The Burryman’s Parade in Scotland and the yearly Shin Kicking competition in the Cotswolds.. #folklore #tradition #albion #cruelty #shaming #doxing #skimmington #roughmusic #counterculture
Iceland is one of the last remaining Western countries where a substantial proportion of the population believes in the presence of other beings - The Hidden Folk.
For centuries, and until fairly recently, ghosts, revenants, trolls and elves were regarded as an integral part of everyday life. Their stories were shared during the long nights of winter gatherings, and they felt just as real to Icelanders as the people sitting beside them.
Ethnologist Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir came to the Bureau to talk about the role of these mythical and supernatural beings in Icelandic society and landscape. Her book 'Ghosts, Trolls and the Hidden People: Icelandic Folktales’ opens the door to the astonishing and eerie world of folk legends in the various settings of farm, wilderness, darkness, church, ocean and shore.
We hear about her own family's ghost, how to recognise a magical being, how to scare off a troll and how construction projects in Iceland can still be delayed or rerouted in order to take account of the Hidden Folk.
folklore, #iceland, #icelandicfolklore, #trolls, #elves, #ghosts, #supernatural, #supernaturalbeings, #sorcery #ghoststories, #counterculture
They called them the voices of the dead. Whispers in the static. Words in the hiss. Messages that—so believers said—slipped through the veil between worlds and onto magnetic tape
The story of Electronic Voice Phenomenon, or EVP begins in the late 1950s, when Swedish artist Friedrich Jürgenson was out in the countryside recording birdsong. On playback, he heard not only the birds but what he swore were voices—some speaking to him directly, including that of his deceased mother.
Latvian-born psychologist Konstantin Raudive took up the work, making thousands of recordings and publishing his 1971 book Breakthrough, which brought EVP to wider public attention and cemented its place in paranormal lore.
We explore the history and the practice of EVP—its roots in spiritualism and its connection to the technology of sound recording with Rikard Friberg von Sydow whose research examines how we preserve and interpret recorded sound, and Carl Michael von Hausswolff — Swedish sound artist, composer, and curator who has incorporated EVP into his artistic practice for decades.
William Burroughs, Genesis P-Orridge, Lars Von Trier, Nigel Kneale and David Lynch also get a look in..
Thanks to Carl Michael von Hausswolff — for the archive audio and his recording.
Friedrich Jürgenson #Konstantin Raudive #paranomal #numberstations #EVP #electronicvoicephenomenon #William Burroughs #Genesis P-Orridge, #LarsVonTrier #NigelKneale #DavidLynch #twinpeaks
Amongst its pages, there are many familiar names—Oscar Wilde, Quentisn Crisp, Sappho, James Baldwin, Freddie Mercury — but also many we might not expect: Florence Nightingale, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, J. Edgar Hoover, Eleanor Roosevelt, Tchaikovsky, Greta Garbo, Richard the Lionheart, even Abraham Lincoln, along with 1000 other stories of artists, generals, politicians, kings, despots and many more figures drawn from 5000 years of hidden culture.
Keith Stern came to the Bureau to talk about his extraordinary encyclopaedia ‘Queers in History’, what drove him to write it, and why it matters.
The book is more than a who’s-who of queer life —it’s a challenge to the official version of the past, a reminder of how history gets made, unmade, and remade, depending on who’s telling the stories, inviting us to consider how queerness has always existed, and has contributed to the culture.
And we get into the subject of whether Gandalf was Queer - yes, we really do…
What does it mean to be naked, in body or in spirit? Why has human nudity so often been revered, feared, sexualized, or weaponised?
This episode was recorded on July 17 - International Naked Day. Our guest Philip Carr-Gomm is a writer, psychologist, spiritual teacher, and for 30 years, leader of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids—one of the largest Druid organisations in the world.
His book A Brief History of Nakedness (Reaktion, is a rich, wide-ranging exploration of the role nudity has played in religion, protest, art, and performance, from the ancient world to the modern era. He takes us through everything from Christian flagellants and naked monks to contemporary naturists and political activists who’ve used nudity to make bold statements.
We get into all that, into druidry, the difference between being naked and nude, Lady Godiva, naked Counterculture, Adam and Eve, John and Yoko, Breasts not Bombs, The Naked Rambler - and streaking.
And Philip tells why we should all get our kit off and shares some tips on how to get more naked…
Allen Ginsberg by Richard Avedon
counterculture #johnandyoko #naked #nakedness #nude #nudity #naturist #druid #druidry #streaking #ladygodiva #breastsnotbombs #OBOD #nakedrambler
This is a special edition when The Bureau meets Jason Woodbury of Aquarium Drunkard for a joint transmission. Los Angeles-based online music magazine Aquarium Drunkard is a one-of-a-kind map to the sprawling and often overwhelming landscape of independent music.
Founded in 2005 and piloted for over twenty years by Justin Gage, it has served as a curator, a passionate advocate, and a community for those seeking sounds beyond the mainstream.
The Aquarium Drunkard podcast - Transmissions - hosted by Jason Woodbury, has become a massive resource for deep dives into music and culture via conversations and with an amazing range of musicians and cultural figures including Jeff Bridges, Jim Jarmusch, John Lurie, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Devendra Banhart, Lee Ranaldo, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Shirley Collins, Gina Birch of the Raincoats and many, many more.
Jason and I decided to make a joint transmission to talk about Aquarium Drunkard and Bureau of Lost Culture, and why we do it. As well as writing for AQ, Jason writes for Pitchfork and Stereogum, is the creative director of WASTOIDS audio network, makes radiophonic sound collage, and he is a musician himself, so, of course, one of the first questions I ask him his how he gets it all done - especially as he has two dogs at his home in the Sonoran desert. There is a bit of mutual back scratching, but we soon get onto the much more important topics of: the best time for creative work, not eating in your twenties, smoking, dreaming, the collective unconscious, David Lynch who really owns The Beatles song Yesterday, AI, consciousness, the most emotional moments from shows, the power of conversation and storytelling, who we'd really like to interview and what's next..
Elmyr De Hory was the greatest art forger of all time. By the time he was exposed in 1967, it's estimated he had created over 1000 works that had been sold as by Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, Derand, Duffy, and various other modern masters, and many of which remain undetected in institutions and private collections around the world. But does it matter if we believe it's a Picasso and we enjoy it as such? Mark Forgy came to Europe as a 20-year-old backpacker in 1969, bumped into Elmyr on a quayside in Ibiza, and lived with him for seven of the years between his exposure as the greatest art forger of all time in 1967 and his suicide in 1976. It was a whirlwind life of culture, glamour, intrigue, Hollywood stars, dodgy writers, and psychopathic villains, all of which can be glimpsed in the extraordinary Orson Welles film ‘F For Fake’. Welles visited Elmyr in Ibiza and used his life for a meditation on the poetry of what 'fake' means, of what truth means, of what facts mean in comparison with a good story, a great image, an extraordinary performance. Mark came to the Bureau to tell us all about it and to muse on whether the products of Elmyr's undeniable genius were really any less authentic than the art world itself. In our time of fakery, epic frauds, fake news, fake gurus, fake identities, deep fakes, 'my truth not THE truth', feelings over facts, a time when the distinction between Reality and AI-generated content is getting very difficult to spot, this story seems very prescient.. Mark's book The Forger's ApprenticeOrson Welles' 'F For Fake' Photographs courtesy Mark Forgy/ #ElmyrDeHory
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artforgery
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artworld
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fernandlegros#markforgy
The ancient temple of Stonehenge is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world and one of the most visited sites in the UK. Yet, despite hundreds of years of archaeological investigation and speculation, to some extent it remains a mystery. And it is a mystery that is deep at the heart of the British psyche, for Stonehenge has been a gathering place for thousands of years, and remains a nexus where prehistoric culture, mainstream culture and counterculture interact - and sometimes collide. 40 years ago, in June 1985, an incident occurred near Stonehenge that saw the largest mass arrest of civilians in Britain's history. Over 1000 police, many in riot gear, some with their IDs covered so they couldn't be held accountable for what happened, clashed with a raggle-taggle convoy of travellers, hippies and bohemian folk heading towards the Stones to hold the free Festival, which had happened at Stonehenge every year since the early 70s. It was brutal Women with babies were dragged from their mobile homes, others were pulled through smashed windscreens. Vehicles were trashed. People were truncheoned to the floor. There were huge numbers of arrests, but in the end, virtually nobody was found guilty of a crime, although the police themselves were subsequently taken to court and lost. Matt Pike came to the Bureau to tell us all about it. Matt has an official role at Stonehenge, as a guardian of the stones, as a guide to visitors and is the official writer in residence of the site. He also has an unofficial role as social historian and archivist of a huge amount of information, oral testimonies and lesser-known histories of Stonehenge and the things that has happened there, including 'The Battle of the Beanfield', the shameful incident 40 years ago, when the British state turned its security forces on its own people as a warning to the counterculture of the times. Matt's Youtube ChannelMatt's Instagram Photos: Andy Worthington#Stonehenge
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Doug McKechnie is an unsung pioneer of electronic music, a visionary who traversed the fringes of sound and consciousness at a time when technology, art, and radical thought were colliding to reshape culture. Emerging from the explosive counterculture scene of San Francisco in the late 1960s, Doug was one of the first musicians to experiment extensively, and the very first to play live, with the Moog synthesiser, using it not merely as an instrument but as a portal into new dimensions of experience. "I wasn’t interested in playing melodies. I wanted to find out what electricity sounded like when it told the truth.”
He didn’t just make music—he made experiences. He played marathon sets in warehouses, at acid-fueled happenings, art galleries, planetariums, and with The Grateful Dead.
His performances were long-form, trance-like explorations of voltage, feedback, and consciousness—music as transformation.
“Those shows weren’t performances. They were portals”
His music lay largely hidden for decades until re-released by VG+Records
Doug's Music:
The Complete San Francisco Moog: 1968-72San Francisco Moog: 1968-72 Vol. 2With Thanks to Lee Gardner at VG+
DougMcKechnie #BureauOfLostCulture #lighshows #sanfrancisco #thegratefuldead #frankoppenheimer #goldengatebridge #ElectronicMusicHistory #ModularSynths #MoogMusic #Psychedelic60s #VintageSynthesizers #UndergroundSounds #modularFrequencies #alanwatts
Sunshine + Love, Beats + Drugs How did a sleepy island off the coast of Spain, metamorphose from an artistic, countercultural haven into the global epicentre of electronic dance music, lighting the touch paper that caused the explosion of club culture? Alexis Petridis, chief music writer for The Guardian, and Dean Chalkley, one of the UK’s leading photographers of British subculture (both seasoned ravers), witnessed this extraordinary rise from the underground at Mixmag, the clubbers’ bible, and have documented the subsequent transformations. Alexis takes us on a trip through the island’s bohemian past and tells how its unique combination of natural beauty, 60s counterculture and 70s glamour set the scene for an extraordinary pop cultural explosion in the 80s and 90s that would resonate through the Western world. The photographs in Dean’s new book ‘Back in Ibiza 1998 - 2003’ , taken in the heat of many magic moments, capture the golden age of happy, all-in-it-together, 24 hour party people, bacchanalian excess, and sunkissed beach life the island offered before the corporate monsters of superstar DJs, big brands and VIP lounges swallowed it whole. For more on DeanAlexis on music Alexis on Club Culture Images courtesy Dean Chalkley#BureauOfLostCulture, #IbizaClubCulture, #Rave, #BalearicBeats, #90sClubScene, #80sClubScene, #IbizaHistory, #AcidHouse #CultureUnderground, #Dancemusic, #LostCultureFound,#mdma, #pasha, #nickyholloway, #superstardjs
The Bearded Lady, Zip the Pinhead, Major Tom Thumb, The Elephant Man, The Hottentot Venus - we delve into one of the more controversial corners of popular entertainment: the world of Victorian freak shows — where the abnormal, the extraordinary, and the misunderstood were paraded as spectacle and sold as wonder. But who were these so-called “freaks” - vulnerable human oddities driven to make a living the only way they could, cictims of exploitation, or pioneers of performance who found power in their difference?
We’re joined by Dr. John Jacob Woolf, historian and author of 'The Wonders: Lifting the Curtain on the Freak Show, Circus and Victorian Age', a book that offers a deeply researched, empathetic, and eye-opening look at the lives behind the wonderful posters, at the performers who captivated crowds and challenged Victorian notions of normality.
We explore Freakery and ask who are the modern freaks? Who do we gawp, marvel and laugh at? More on John and hs work #counterculture #bureauoflostculture #lostculture #freaks #freakshow #victorian freakshow #davidlynch #elephantman #ptbarnum #josephmerrick
"I was never going to be a nice little white girl" she says. Instead, she became an underground star, had hit records with the 2-Tone band The Selector, became a style-icon, an actor, a TV Presenter - and author. Whilst Margaret Thatcher was reshaping Britain and promoting her very own particular vision of what it meant to be British, in the urban jungle of Coventry, a young woman whose image couldn't be more different than Maggie's, was presenting a radically different vision of what it meant to be British Belinda Magnus, born on 23 October 1953 was given away as the baby of a white unmarried mother and an unknown black father. She was adopted by a white family and re-named Pauline Vickers. Growing up in a completely white neighbourhood as the only person of colour, she experienced first-hand the often racist attitudes of the time. She came to the Bureau to talk about all that, how she overcame it, her life as a star of the 2-tone musical scene with her band Selecter, and how, along the way, she became Pauline Black For more on Pauline Image by Dean Chalkley #PaulineBlack
2ToneRevolution
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WomenInMusic
PunkAndPolitics
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Alan Moore first gained recognition in the 1980s with his work for the comic 2000 AD, and DC Comic's Swamp Thing. He went on to create Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Batman: The Killing Joke, From Hell, an extraordinary take on the Jack the Ripper story, and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman.
He's often been at odds with publishers and with Hollywood, and in recent years has removed himself from the mainstream, focusing on writing novels, esoteric pursuits, and the practice of a particular kind of Magic.
This is a slightly unusual episode.
It's a recording of an event we held last October as part of our London Month of the Dead festival. It features, Alan in conversation with the writer Gary Lachman and the artist John Coulthart.
The occasion was the publication of 'The Bumper Book of Magic'. a kind of modern grimoire, which Alan had written with his friend the late Steve Moore (no relation), another writer of comics and fellow magic practitioner. It is a book that took 20 years to come to publication. John Coulthard was the main artist and designer of the book.
Alan is somewhat of a recluse these days so it was great to have him with us to talk about the book, about his friend Steve Moore, about his practice of Magic, and about the unconscious, dreams, consciousness and creativity.
Gary Lachman, a previous guest on this show, was once the bass player for Blondie before he put down the plectrum and picked up the pen, gave up rock'n'roll for writing, and has become the U.K.'s foremost writer on the Esoteric
John Coulthart is a wonderful graphic artist who worked with Alan on many projects and is a cultural phenomenon in his own right
We also hear from the audience with questions to Alan about his practice of magic.
Our previous episode with Alan on Counterculture
counterculture, #alanmoore, #johncoulthard, #garylachman, #dreams, #magic, #magick, #magik, #paracelsus, #glycon, #stevemoore, #2000AD, #grimoire
The evolutionary leap from ape to human was precipitated by primates eating psychoactive fungi, there is an ancient shamanic lineage of psychedelic plant use in the West, mushrooms have their own consciousness, drinking Reindeer piss can get you high.. there are many myths about magic mushrooms. Meanwhile, we are living through a kind of psychedelic renaissance: psilocybin is often in the press, hailed as a potential treatment, for depression, addiction, grief, psychosis - and a way to be more productive and well-adjusted. What to make of it all? Has the counterculture gone mainstream? Never mind The Age of Aquarius, is this The Age of the Mushroom? Andy Letcher is a British scholar, author, activist and musician. His work explores the intersections of psychedelics, culture, paganism and folk traditions, and 20 years ago he published 'Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom'. He came to the Bureau to discuss it, how things have changed since he wrote it - and the myths behind the magic. For more on Andy#bureauoflostculture #magicmushroom #psilocybin #terencemckenna #psychedelic #grahamwasson #mariasabina #libertycaps #tripping #psychoactive
The giant stone heads of the fantastically remote Easter Island have gazed out mysteriously for over a 1000 years, fascinating the world since Dutch sailors came across them in the 18th century. They were created by some lost civilisation it was said, or perhaps they may not have been made by humans at all, but by extra-terrestrial visitors. Most commonly the story has been that the original people who made them brought about their own complete destruction in a kind of unintentional eco-suicide - a narrative that acts as a moral fable, a warning against our own selfish destruction of the planet's resources. But is that really true? James Grant Peterkin, historian, author and educator lived on Easter Island amongst its people for 20 years. He is one of the very few outsiders to speak their language of Rapanui and to be accepted in their community. He came to the Bureau to talk about how he came there, why he stayed and to dispel some of the myths, tell some of the truths about a very particular, and very peculiar lost culture. James's thoughts on the Easter Island statue in the British Museum #easterisland, #rapanui, #stoneage #polynesia #earthmystery #esoteric #archaeology #statues #island
Tangier was a magnet for artists, writers, musicians, and political exiles throughout the mid-20th century, amongst them the writers Paul Bowles and William Burroughs From 1924 to 1956 the city operated as an international zone under the joint administration of several European powers. This status created an environment of legal ambiguity, which, combined with the city’s strategic location at the crossroads of Africa and Europe, made it a haven for those seeking escape from the constraints of conventional society The zone had a sense of lawlessness and freedom, attracting a diverse mix of expatriates, spies, smugglers, and avant-garde intellectuals. The city’s permissive attitude towards drugs, homosexuality,and radical political thought made it a particularly alluring destination for members of the counterculture. Composer and writer Paul Bowles, settled there and drew members of the Beat Generation to the city to be inspired, to complete their projects and to live the Moroccan dream. Few lived in human dialogue with the locals, operating rather as economically priveleged colonial bohemians William Burroughs' time in Tangier in the 1950s deeply influenced his novel Naked Lunch. Burroughs saw the city as a place where the constraints of Western morality could be discarded in favor of a more experimental and uninhibited lifestyle. He christened it THE INTERZONE Although the Tnagier International Zone officially ceased to exist in 1956, its mythos lived on in literature, music, and the enduring image of Tangier as a place where the world’s outsiders could find a home Multimedia artist and curator Abdelaziz Taleb, director of The Arab Media Lab Project has taken a deep dive into the Interzone - both its reality and its myth, exploring the blurred line between the two. He came to the Bureau to talk about it, the often untold influence of Moroccans on the Beats, and the mystery of Tangier. For more on Aziz and the Interzone Project and Here #counterculture, #thebeatgeneration, #thebeats, #tangier, #thetangierinternationalzone, #thetangierinterzone, #interzone, #burroughs, #bowles, #williamburroughs, #paulbowles, #heroin, #nakedlunch, #thearabmediaproject, #allenginsberg, #jakckerouac,#mohammedchakri, #bryingyson, #brianjones, #joujouka,#morocco
Teddy Boys (and Teddy Girls)emerged in Britain in the early 1950s, becoming the UK's first distinct youth subculture. Born in the aftermath of World War II, these working-class teenagers rejected post-war austerity and embraced a bold, rebellious style of dandyish suits, long drape jackets, narrow trousers, velvet collars, patterned waistcoats - and of course pomaded quiffed hair for the boys and equally sharp threads for the girls. Musican and writer Max Decharne, author of 'Teddy Boys: Post-War Britain and the First Youth Revolution’, came to the Bureau to talk about the Teddys - and about Mods, Punk, the masssive influence of Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock and of the impact the working class have had on British fashion. The Teds became notorious in the media - associated with violence, for clashes with rival gangs and for their alleged involvement in the 1958 Notting Hill riots. But was that really the case? Or was it because, as working class upstarts they rattled the middle and upper class establishment?
Embracing American rock'n'roll, they became the foundation for future youth movements, proving that teenagers could form their own cultural identity, shaping Britain’s rock and roll scene and inspiring later subcultures like the Mods and Rockers.
For More on Max For his musicFor more on the book Ken Russell's wonderful images of Teddy Girls #teddy #teddyboys #teddygirls #quiff #rock'n'roll #billhaley #rockaroundtheclock #streetstyle #youthculture
Scar-faced, ex-jailbird Frank Norman was part of the '50s and '60s Soho bohemian set and friends with Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, Dylan Thomas and other habitues of the infamous Colony Room club. After being abandoned as a child, growing up in institutions, and working as a fairground worker, he landed in Soho, became a petty criminal and spent time in prison where he learned to paint and write. Back in Soho on leaving jail, astonishingly he became a succesful author, writer of the smash hit cockney musical 'Fings Aint What They Used To Be’, the acclaimed prison memoir Bang to Rights, and several novels - but never painted again. In the early '60s he penned 'Soho Night and Day', a evocative survey of the area in its seedy, cosmopolitan prime, with photographs by his pal Jeffrey Bernard (later to become the most famous alcoholic in London). Frank's grandson, Joe Daniel, came to talk Bureau to talk about him and about the bohemian low-life of Soho in the '50s and '60s. If you are listening to this in early 2025, and can be in London, we have curated an exhibtion in Soho of Frank's never before shown prison paintings:See BEHIND BARS- Frank Norman’s Prison Paintings for details The republished wonderful Frank Norman and Jeffrey Bernard book Soho Night and Day #soho #london #bohemian #colonyclub #colonyroom #Lucien Freud, #FrancisBacon #DylanThomas #FrankNorman #JeffreyBernard #murielbelcher #outsiderart
The Waterboys' MIKE SCOTT grew up in the '60s in Edinburgh and said: “I accepted the incredible happenings of that decade — with all its rapid evolution, colour, revelations and magic — as the normal order of things". At the age of 4 he had his first mystical experience and remembers that from the minute he bought "Last Night in Soho" by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich in 1968 he knew he had to live a life in music.
In the years since he has toured the world with The Waterboys and as a solo artist, had hit records with The Whole of the Moon, This is the Sea and Fishermans Blues and has released 15 albums. Mike has been unashamedly open about the importance of spirituality in his life - even when that has been deeply unfashionable in the mainstream culture. Now, The Waterboys have a new record about to land. It features Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle and Fiona Apple and it's a song cycle around the life of legendary actor and countercultural polymath Dennis Hopper.
Mike came to the Bureau to talk about all of that, his time at the Findhorn Foundation, Life, Death and Dennis Hopper - and much more.
For Mike and his work, music and adventures
Universal Hall Findhorn Foundation #thewaterboys #mikescott #brucespringsteen #findhorn #findhornfoundation #steveearle #fionaapple #ladbrokegrove #thewholeofthemoon #dennishopper
She says: ‘I was reared Catholic but got over it, was born male but got over it, stopped sleeping with boys about the time I stopped being one and am much happier than I was when I was younger'.
ROZ KAVENY is a poet, a novelist, a writer of science fiction, a reviewer, a cultural critic, a literary journalist and a celebrated activist. She has also been a sex worker - a hustler - as she would say, and has been both celebrated and denigrated.
She was born a boy in 1949, became a woman all the way back in 1982 and has led a very countercultural life indeed. This is part of her story. It's a wild and at times shocking ride. It gives an insight into what it was like to come of age as trans in an era before even being gay was legalised in the UK. Note: contains descriptions of sexualabuse. #trans #transgender #rozkaveney #sexchange #genderdismorphia #gender #hustlers #gendersurgery
This morning I sat in my house, took a twenty pound note from my wallet, lit a match and set the note on fire.
Why? How did I feel as I watched it burn? Was it a waste, an immoral or stupid thing to do - or was it a deeply countercultural act?
Jon Harris, came to the Bureau to talk about his life - as a pornographer, as a rock 'n' roll tour manager, as a bankrupt - and, most importantly, as The High Priest of The Church of Burn.
We try to understand what money is, what it might be and what burning it can mean.
We hear of Jon's own history of burning money and of the rites of The Church of Burn. Of course The KLF get a mention, as does Serge Gainsbourg and Youth of Killing Joke as we explore the history of the intentional sacrificial destruction of somethign that mainstream culture seems built around and compleltey obsessed with.
The Church of Burn
Jon's substack
I have often been asked about the music that plays during the Bureau episodes. Most of it is from two albums by The Real Tuesday Weld: 'Junskshop Melodies' (which will be released in 2025) and 'Songs For Crow' which has just been released. Detaisl HERE
money #moneyburning #cash #currency #churchofburn #daisycampbell #johnhiggs #youth #killingjoke #klf #theklf #thekfoundation #sergegainsbourg
What is a mystic, what is mysticism, what is the mystical?
Many of us have sense that there is something mystical, or at least mysterious, underpinning things, some countercultural force that defies explanation but survives even in our 24/7 social-media drenched, junked up internet world of money, career and self promotion.
Philosophy, along much modern science and many formal religions, poo-poos the mystical - relegating it to the woo-woo, of interest only to the less sophisticated, the superstitious - or the deluded.
Yet our guest Simon Critchely is a Professor of Philosophy. He came to the Bureau to suggest that modern philosophy has got it wrong, that mystical experiences offer a practical way to deepen the sense of our lives, whether through mainstream spiritual connection, by taking part in mind-altering experiences - or just by opening to the mystical in ordinary life. We hear about some of the extraordinary mystics of the past, talk about how the arts can point to the mystic, and digress into ecstasy, sex, drugs and rock and roll, Jesus’s foreskin, William Blake, the covid pandemic, Nick Cave and Wim Wenders,
More on Simon and the book On Mysticism, the Experience of Ecstasy #counterculture #mysticism #nickcave #philosophy #mysticalexperience #relics #saints #heretics #consciousness #truth #madness
Genesis P-Orridge was a performance artist, neo Pagan, Industrial music innovator, the co-founder of COUM, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV and an arch provocateur. He was variously described as a wrecker of civilisation, transgressive and blasphemous, accused of being a Satanist and of sexually abusing his children (a lie - in fact he was a loving father and grandfather), and claimed to be a threat to society. He could be both very alarming and very kind.
In later life Genesis became infamous with attempts to unite as a “pandrogyne”, a single entity, with partner Lady Jaye through the use of extreme surgical body modification intended to make them physically resemble one another
Filmaker David Charles Rodrigues, director of S/HE IS STILL HERE an extraordinary, moving film based around interviews made in the last months of Genesis's life, came to the Bureau to talk about the Cut Up technique, William Burroughs, Bryon Gysin, The Exploding Galaxy, industrial music, the Satanic Panic and much more in the life and death of a deeply countercultural artist. #genesis p-orridge #throbbinggristle #coum #psychictv #thetempleofpsychicyouth #industrialmusic #templeofpsychicyouth #pandrogyne #coseyfannitutti #chrisandcosey #williamburroughs #bryongysin #cutup #thecutuptechnique #ica #censorship #transgressive #satanicpanic #ladyjaye #thexxplodinggalaxy
In the turbulent late 1970s, six-year-old Susanna Crossman moved with her mother and siblings from a suburban terrace to a crumbling mansion deep in the English countryside. They would share their new home with over fifty other residents - idealists from all over the world - armed with worn paperbacks on ecology, Marx and radical feminism and drawn together by utopian dreams of remaking the world.
They did not leave for fifteen years. This was not a hippie commune or a new age retreat but a community run on radical socialist Marxist principles. Yet, however noble the intentions of the adults, was this suitable place - a suitable home - for a child to grow up?
Susanna wrote a book to try to answer that question and came to the Bureau to tell us all about it - and about the pleasures and perils of growing up in the fallout of the Utopian Dream. More on SusannaMore on her book Home Is Where We StartMore on British Intentional Communities
The Joy of Sex was published in 1972 and for years, was rarely out of the bestseller lists, generating sequels, revised editions and a lot of imitators - so how could it be countercultural?
For two reasons: firstly that Dr Alex Comfort who wrote it was a deeply countercultural figure, and second, because its publication represents the moment when the sexual revolution of the countercultural years of the late '50s and ‘60s, threw off its remaining clothes and dived naked into the bourgeous middle class mainstream. And it changed a lot of peoples’ live - well their sex lives at any rate. Social justice journalist activist and anarchist Eric Laursen, author of Polymath: The Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort, came to The Bureau to tell of the poet, novelist, doctor, biologist, gerontologist, anarchist, scientific humanist, public intellectual, pacifist and activist who also happened to write the world’s most famous guide to lovemaking.. For More on Eric For More on Polymath: The Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort #sex #sexguide #thejoyofsex #alexcomfort #thesexualrevolution #counterculture #sexmanual #sandstone
Every society is a high society. Getting high has been a pursuit of civilisations throughout time. Every day, people drink coffee in European cafes, chew betel nut in Indonesian markets, nibble coca leaf on Andean mountainsides and smoke tobacco in every nation on earth. Mind-altering drugs have been part of virtually every human culture that has ever existed - from prehistory to the present day. They have shaped cultures, kick-started global trade, transformed our understanding of the mind, built empires and threatened the fabric of society. Cultural historian and writer on the psychoactive Mike Jay returned to the Bureau to tell us why For more on Mike and his book High Society
“Imagination thrives in darkness”
We talk about The Undergound often at the Bureau - not London’s subterranean rail sytem, but the countercultural alternative society of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.
But that is just one of the undergrounds - the underworlds - that are the subject of this episode
Dizzying ossuaries, freakish creatures of the deep sea, astounding colors of agates, lava and crystals, mind bending organic structures of mycorrhizal fungi, caverns, crevices, burrows, bunkers, burial chambers, ghistly shipwrecks, religous hellscapes and surrealist dreamscapes, natural and constructed subterranean realms and the imagined and unconscious worlds of dreams and the human psyche.
Image Alchemist Stephen Ellcock came to take us on a deep dive journey down under with his truly astonishing, visually stunning guide book Underworlds, a volume in five sections covering both the real and the imaginary, moving between continents and time periods and disciplines such as philosophy, biology, art history and literature. We talk of how the actual physical world beneath us has fed our fears, visions and imagination – and conversely, provoked us to imagine a mythic, esoteric, mysterious underground - the afterworld of the dead, of the fairies and of the psychogical unconscious. For more on Stephen and his amazing work
In 1918, Billie Carleton, a West End actress, came off stage, went partying with friends, returned to her flat and was found dead the next morning - apparently of a cocaine overdose. A few years later, Frieda Kimpton, a dancer in Soho bars, committed suicide - with cocaine. These events blew up into a huge media dope drama - with a cast of characters includes villians - Brilliant Chang, a Chinese restaurant proprietor and Edgar Manning, a black jazz drummer - and victims, Billie, Frieda and the other 'Dope Girls'. Around them, in the Soho streets off Shaftesbury Avenue, there swirled a raffish group of seedy and entitled hedonists. Britain was horrified and fascinated, and so the drug underground and the moral panic about it, was born amid a gush of exotic tabloid detail. MAREK KOHN whose newly revised cult classic Dope Girls has inspired an upcoming BBC TV series, came to the Bureau to tell us how the panic about drugs that kicked off on the 1920s (bringing in drug laws that are still with us today), was more about the fear of newly emancipated women in society and an imagined menace of foreigners bound on enslaving them, than about any damage done by the drugs themselves. More about Dope Girls HEREMore about Marek HEREMore about the upcoming BBC series Dope Girl #drugs #psychedelics #cocaine #opium #morphine #druglaws #counterculture #drugculture #drugunderground #soho #overdose #dopegirls #dope #drugunderground
In 1964 he was a working class hippie student crossing Haight Street, a road in San Francscso, when hit by a vision - and life as he knew it was over
In 1994, he was a multi-millionaire new-age entrepeneur crossing Wilshire Boulevard, a road in Los Angeles, when hit by a car - and life as he knew it was over.
In the years in between, along with the co-founder of The Yippies Abbie Hoffman, counter-culture icon, anti-war activist, new age/self-help proponent, social-networking pioneer and all round troublemaker JERRY RUBIN helped articulate the voice of young America in the '60s and early '70s. He was arrested countless times, carried out many extrardinary protests that used performance art, pranks and provocation including an attempt to levitate The Pentagon and regularly hung out with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in New York.
Unlike Hoffman, who lived off grid for several years following a drug bust, died by suicide in 1989 and was canonized as a countercultural saint, Rubin was accused by many of “selling out" - the worst thing a 1960s radical could do - and as a consequence got written out of the hippie history books. Well that is until our guest for this episode wrote the biography, 'Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, An American Revolutionary' PAT THOMAS, archivist, uber re-issue producer, countercultral author and music journalist returned for the third timr to the Bureau. Previously he was here to talk about The Black Panthers and Allen Ginsberg,and this time, he traced Jerry Rubin's journey from high school journalist to stoned political freak and multi-millionaire entrepeneur. Along the way, we hear about The Yippies(the Youth International Party), The Chicago 8, John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the early 70s, EST training - and selling out And we debate the question: 'Once a revolutionary always a revolutionary?' Pat's book:'Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, An American Revolutionary' Check out this Rubin related playlist #jerryrubin #abbiehoffman #theblackpanthers #blackpower #yippies #theyippies #thebeats #allenginsberg #timothyleary #activism #socialism #revolution #levitatethepentagon #eldridgecleaver #bobdylan #nixon #johnandyoko #vietnam #anti-war #protest #johnlennon #haightashbury #thechicago8
When musician ARTHUR RUSSELL died in 1992, at age 40, of complications related to HIV-AIDS, he was an obscure figure — though a legend in the 70s and 80s underground music scenes at downtown New York clubs such as The Loft and Paradise Garage.
Despite his prodigious output, his inability to finish songs, and the genre-busting uniqueness of much of his music, meant that he released only two albums under his own name. But in the decades since his death, he has generated a deep love and admiration in many who have been lucky to come across his music.
RICHARD KING, author of 'Travels Over Feeling'(Faber) a poignant and evocative visual chronology of Arthur's life and times, came to the the Bureau to tell us about him and why he matters.
We also get into indie record shop culture, music sobbery, the underground New York club scene of the mid seventies and ask the question: 'How do you know when, a song, a book or a piece of art is finished?'
Thanks to Dan Papps at Faber, to Steve Knutson of Audika Records and Cat Corrigan of Beggars Banquet who have posthumously released much of Arthur's unpublished work, for permission to include his music.
We also included two selections from Matt Wolf’s film 'Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell'
Image by Joel Sokolov/Courtesy of Audika Records
They helped inspire a whole generation of young ravers and lit the fuse for what was to blow up with Technival and Burning Man - as well as more mainstream festivals across Europe and the US - but their (counter)cultural contribution remains largely unacknowledged in their home country. Marc Angelo Harrison, one of the orginal founders of the people’s sound system, techno, free party, DJ collective Spiral Tribe came to the Bureau to tell some of their story - and about his own journey up and down the spiral. His book A Darker Electricty published by uber-cool electronic music publisher Velocity Press is a rollocking, rumbuctious, beautifully written testament to a deeply countercultural spirit and time. We dive deep into the free party scene of the early 90s and talk squatting, sound systems, Ladbroke Grove, doing things for free, police brutality, the 'new age’ travellers, the tragedy of Castle Morton, ongoing inspiration, community - and the power of bass.. A Darker Electricity- Mark's bookA Darker Electricity- The Audio bookFree Party: A Folk History - Aaron Trinder’s wonderful documentary of the last 80s and early 90s free festival scene #festivals #counterculture #freefestivals #spiraltribe #squatparty #travellers #newagetravellers #battleofthebeanfield #hippie #castlemorton #techno #drugs #lsd #soundsystem #raveculture #raves #breakbeat #stonehenge
*Whatever happened to the Greek Gods? if you are a teenager living half way up a 1970s tower block listening to Drill, should you even care?
*On this epside we travel in time and space to Ancient Greece, the classical psycho-geographic birthplace of Western Culture (and therefore of counterculture), specfically to the mythic landscape of Epidavros and the sacred temple of Asclepius.
*Our guide and guest is Sarah Janes, one of Britain's foremost lucid dreamers, explorer and teacher of ancient mysteries.
We hear how the Temple of Asclepius's treatment of the sick involved diet, excercise, theater - and comedy -* in addition to surgery and medicine.
*We revisit the subject of dreams, nightmares and countercultural consciousness - and hear why the gods are still with us, whether we ignore them or not.
•And the Scottish band The Proclaimers make a surprise apearance....
For more on Sarah and her work
dreaming #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #truth #madness #counterculture #sleep #luciddreaming #dreams #neuroscience #consciousness #nightmares #epidavros #ancientgreece #greekgods #asclepius #jung #ecstasy #thegods
How Queer Culture Shaped Pop Culture
"The 1972 version of David Bowie didn’t spring from nowhere. Although he refused to affiliate himself explicitly with gay liberation, he had found both artistic and social inspiration in the gay world, in particular the renewed sense of freedom and possibility that rippled through the British gay subculture in the early 1970s."
We finally lured the award-winning, bestselling author, pop-culture, punk penman Jon Savage to the Bureau to talk about his life and epic new book The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Resistance Shaped Popular Culture (1955–1979)
It's an electrifying, massively entertaining - and at times, tragic - look at key moments in music history between 1955 and 1979, which helped move gay culture from the margins to the mainstream and changed the face of pop forever – from the ambiguous sexuality of stars such as Little Richard in the 1950s through to David Bowie, glam rock and Sylvester’s ‘You Make Me Feel(Mighty Real)'.
We hear about all that and about how Jon grew up in the London of the late '50s and '60s, how he became a music writer during one of the most exciting times for music journalism in the '70s and '80s - and about his own Secret Public Life..
More on the book here
More on the compilation album here
More on Jon here
#homosexuality #sex #london #queer #gayliberation #musichistory #sexuality #gay #tomrobinson #gladtobegay #queerculture #counterculture #punk #comingout #homesexuality #joydivision #theclash #sex #johnnymarr #section28 #littlerichard #glf #gayliberationfront #bisexuality #pride #london #queer #gayliberation #lgbtq #sexuality #gay #thesecretpublic #gladtobegay #gaydisco
'Health care is a right, not a privilege' Whilst many of his fellow physicians became business entrepeneurs rather than healers, Dr. Dave opened the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic in 1967, ministering to the thousands of young people and hippies flocking to San Francisco during the Summer of Love. Over the years, the patients using the clinic shifted from idealistic hippies with STDs and bad trip experiences to those with serious drug addictions, Vietnam veterans with heroin habits and early AIDS patients - the dispossessed and the marginalised cast adrift by the mainstream culture and excluded by the health industry. We hear about Charles Manson, the CIA, mind control, the history of Haight Ashbury, drugs and the darkening of the hippie dream. And we hear about the events and vision that made Dave turn his back on academic fame and fortune to pursue the countercultural life. His small office at 558 Clayton St. helped launch the free clinic movement, which has expanded to over 1,200 clinics around the US all built upon his principle of health care as a right, not a privilege. #counterculture #drug #lsd #acid #haightashbury #thegratefuldead #psychedelic #sanfrancisco #dr.dave #charlesmanson #CIA #MKUltra #medicine
"Punk taught us the future had only just begun” he says*
For him that future was to include the bands Killing Joke, The Orb, Brilliant and The KLF; starting various record labels; hit records; producing and remixing a massive range of artists including Paul McCartney, The Verve, Tom Jones, Maria McKee, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, Guns N' Roses, Primal Scream, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Art of Noise, Crowded House, Erasure, U2, INXS, and the Suns of Arqa- and a Grammy for his recent work with Toots and the Maytalls But running beneath it all is a deeply countercultural spirit. *Uber-Music producer and druid Youth(Martin Glover)returned to the Bureau to talk about his life and times. We get deep into punk, post-punk, London as 'The City of Revelation', psychgeography, The Sacred Thames, squatting, the South London Arts Lab, druidry, turning Stonehenge off, having an epiphany, burning money, sampling other people's records, the second summer of love, the creative process, drugs - and, of course, counterculture. #psychogeography #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #thepyramids #yout #counterculture #drug #lsd #acid #martinglover #theorb #psychedelic #klf #druidry #killingjoke #occult
Julie Taylor was the police officer who gave her name to 'OPERATION JULIE', the biggest drug bust in UK history and one which resulted in the conviction of over a hundred individuals involved in the trafficking of LSD, including some of the most prolific chemists of the era. Christine Bott was a practising doctor living a classic 1970s rural countercultural life in mid Wales, growing organic vegetable, rearing goats and ministering to the local community. She also happened to be part of the biggest LSD manufacturing gang in UK history, an activity that led to her arrest under the Operation Julie bust and imprisonment amongst 'the 36 most dangerous women in Britain' - including the child murderer Myra Hindley. Whilst much has been made of Operation Julie in articles, books and even a musical in recent years, Christine's story, like many of those of women in the counterculture, has been largely sidelined - until now. Before she died, her friend KATE HAYES promised her that she would tell it - and she has kept that promise by publishing two books: 'The Untold Story of Christine Bott' and 'After Julie: The Kemp Tapes', the latter a record of the only interviews with Christine's partner Richard Kemp, the chemist who invented 'The Microdot' (generally recorded as the best LSD in Christendom. Both were driven by a desire to change the world for the better, to save the planet and, however naive their actions may have been, they held to that vision and paid the price for it. Kate came to the Bureau to tell us how it all came about and how Christine survived - and even thrived - despite the darkness of prison. Its truly gripping stuff. For more on Kate and the books
#tripping #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #operationjulie #christinebott #counterculture #drug #lsd #acid #richardkemp #myrahindley #psychedelic #microdot #tripping #druglaw #timleary
When musicians might be viewed as revolutionaries and revolutionaries might be considered pop culture icons Crate digger / rock critc / reissue producer and archivist extraordinaire Pat Thomas came to the Bureau to tell how black power intersected with counterculture and influenced folk, rock, soul and jazz in the years between 1965 and 1975. We hear astonishing stories from his book 'Listen, Whitey: The Sights and Sounds of Black Power’ and some amazing sounds from the accompanying album issued by Light in the Attic inlcuding tracks by John and Yoko, Dylan, The Watts Prophets and Elaine Brown. And we learn how the Black Power Movement, and the Black Panthers in particular, moved from militant political action to community activism whilst interacting with the wider counterculture - and how many of their adherants used a pencil, a book of poetry, a typewriter or a musical instrument to bring about change beyond violent revolution. #counterculture #rockagainstracism #backpanthers #blaclpower #angeladavis #racism #thebeats #oakland #tomothyleary #activism #socialism #revolution #rockrevolution #eldridgecleaver #bobdylan #motown
Who do the green roads and wide open spaces of Albion belong to? This episode is a story is about a collision of two cultures - the counterculture of the twin tribes of urban free party ravers and new age travellers - and the mainstream culture of landowners, the legal authorities, English Heritage and right-wing politicians. In the first of a series on '80s and '90s counterculture, Aaron Trinder, director of the documentary 'Free Party: A Folk History' came to the Bureau to tell how that collision played out in the years between 1985 and 1992 when extra-ordinary free festivals and parties built on youthful passion, music, community, dancing, the desire to connect with the ancient landcape - and drugs - were violently suppressed. We hear of the brutal police tactics at 'The Battle of the Beanfield' and at Britiain's largest ever free rave at Castle Morton; how legislation has curtailed the culture of the travellers, the use of common land and ancient rights of access, and we note that whilst free festivals have been crushed, commercial festivals have become an essential part of the the mainstream culture, the entertainment industry and the economy. Upcoming: Mark Angelo Harrison on Spiral Tribe* More on Aaron's film 'Free Party a Folk History' #festivals #counterculture #freefestivals #spiraltribe #squatparty #travellers #newagetravellers #battleofthebeanfield #hippie #castlemorton #techno #drugs #lsd #soundsystem #raveculture #raves #StonehengeFreeFestival #stonehenge
What was it like to live in a commune? What was it like to grow up in a commune?
NANCY THOMPSON came to the Bureau to tell us. She was born in The Shrubb Family Commune - one that was set up in a big old farmhouse in rural Norfolk in 1970 - and, remarkably, one that is still going today.
In the early to mid '60s many Western cities were magnets drawing the young and hip in from the regions, shaking off the austerity of the '50s, joining their urban peers in experimenting with new and radical ways of loving and living. Communes and squats sprung up all over places like London.
But as the '60s drew to a close, there was a reverse movement and many left the cities heading back out into the shires to try to build a new kind of sociey in the quieter, slower life of village and market town.
Some settled in North Suffolk and South Norfolk, an open countryside of low hills and wide plains with few towns and many villages where a commune movement had been established from 1965.
Nancy's is a complex, tumultous tale - at times a rather bewildering tapestry of overlapping relationships and familes, the British class system, rural life, travellers, gypsies and the gentry, encounter groups, blackmail, rogue psychiatrists, lsd - and horses..
For more on the British commune and intentional community culture of the 60s and 70s see below
The countercultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s in Britain gave rise to a surge of communal living experiments known as hippy communes or intentional communities. These collectives emerged as an alternative to mainstream society, rejecting consumerism, conventionality, and materialism in favor of a more liberated, eco-friendly, and cooperative way of life.
The origins of this communal living trend can be traced back to the mid 60s, when a confluence of social, political, and cultural factors created an environment ripe for such experiments. The rise of the hippie counterculture, and the burgeoning environmental and back-to-the-land movements all contributed to the growth of communal living arrangements.
One of the earliest and most influential British hippy communes was Findhorn in Scotland, established in 1962 by Peter and Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean. Originally a small caravan park, Findhorn evolved into a thriving spiritual community centered around principles of sustainability, meditation, and harmony with nature. Its success inspired many other like-minded groups to establish their own communes across Britain.
As the movement gained momentum in the late 1960s, a wave of new communes emerged, each with its own unique philosophy and approach to communal living. Some, like The Diggers in Cornwall and the Laurieston Hall community in Scotland, focused on self-sufficiency through organic farming and sustainable living practices. Others, like the Freestone community in Essex and the Newbold Trust in Worcestershire, emphasized artistic expression, alternative spirituality, and personal growth.
Many of these communes adopted a back-to-the-land ethos, seeking to reconnect with nature and escape the constraints of urban living. They often established themselves in rural areas, repurposing abandoned farmhouses, old mills, or purchasing inexpensive land to build their communities from scratch. This allowed them to embrace a more self-reliant and environmentally conscious lifestyle, growing their own food, generating their own energy, and living off the land as much as possible.
While each commune had its own unique character and rules, they shared several common principles. Communal living, non-hierarchical decision-making processes, shared resources and responsibilities, and a commitment to peace and environmentalism were hallmarks of these communities. Many also embraced alternative lifestyles, such as polyamory, nudism, or open relationships, challenging traditional societal norms.
As the 1970s progressed, the hippy commune movement faced various challenges, including internal conflicts, financial struggles, and external criticism from more conservative segments of society. Some communes disbanded or evolved into more structured communities, while others managed to endure and adapt to changing times.
One notable example of a long-lasting commune is Braziers Park in Oxfordshire, founded in 1950 and still active today. While not initially a traditional hippy commune, it embraced many of the same principles in the 1960s and 1970s, becoming a hub for alternative living, education, and environmental activism.
Another enduring community is the Findhorn Foundation, which has grown from its humble beginnings into a thriving eco-village and spiritual center, attracting visitors and residents from around the world.
Beyond the more well-known communes, countless smaller collectives and intentional communities also emerged during this period, often existing independently or flying under the radar. These included urban squatting communities, housing co-operatives, and alternative living arrangements that embraced the communal ethos without necessarily adopting the full-fledged "hippy" lifestyle.
These communities served as laboratories for experimentation, pushing the boundaries of what was considered acceptable or possible, and leaving an enduring legacy that continues to influence various aspects of modern life.
Many of the principles and practices pioneered by these communities, such as sustainable living, cooperative decision-making, and alternative education, have been adopted and adapted by various organizations and movements.
The communal living ethos has remained alive, albeit on a smaller scale, with contemporary intentional communities and eco-villages continuing to explore alternative ways of living and coexisting with nature.
communes #counterculture #findhorn #findhornfoundation #utopia #alternativecommunities #intentionalcommunities #esoteric #hippie #shrubbfamily #globaltruckingcompany #drugs #lsd #psychiatry
Being the further adventures of English musician broadcaster and LGTBQ activist TOM ROBINSON, as he gets deeply involved in the gay counterculture of London in the '70s whilst on his journey to having a huge hit with the song 2-4-6-8 Motorway
We hear about the genesis of another hit - (Sing if You're)Glad to Be Gay - a remarkable, unprecedented protest song that climbed into public consciousness in the late 70s (despite the best efforts of some in the establshment), and about Tom's later hit War Baby.
We talk about the desperate times in between, about his activism - not only for the queer commmuity but as part of the Rock Against Racism movement - and how he had to face one his greatest challenges in coming out for a second time, risking the disapproval of the very community he had fought for for many years…
And we learn about Stonewall, the UK’s ’Sus Law' and get some terriffic tips for songwriters aspiring stars.. For More on TomFor More on Glad to Be Gay#homosexuality #sex #suslaw #section28 #stonewall #glf #gayliberationfront #bisexuality #pride #pridemarch #london #queer #gayliberation #quaker #sexuality #gay #tomrobinson #gladtobegay #suicide #counterculture #cafesociety #comingout #homesexuality #morality
TOM ROBINSON is an English songwriter who rose to fame in the 70s as an LGBT and anti-racist campaigner. He has released over 20 albums and is an award-winning much-loved broadcaster who has made many programs on all six BBC radio channels. In this, the first of two programs, we trace his story from troubled youth through a suicide attempt and recovery in an alternative community to coming out in the gay counterculture of '70s London. We hear about his early activism and music, signing to Konk records with Ray Davies of The Kinks and his journey toward a huge hit with the song 2-4-6-8 Motorway. Next time: the writing of the extraordinary, perennial protest song Glad To Be Gay, more activism, more hits with War Baby and Listen to the Radio and taking further risks on the way to becoming who you really are. Tom's first band Cafe SocietyFor More on Tom#homosexuality #sex #london #queer #gayliberation #quaker #sexuality #gay #tomrobinson #gladtobegay #suicide #counterculture #cafesociety #comingout #homesexuality #morality
YOUTH, producer of a huge range of artists (including Kate Bush, Crowded House, The Orb, KLF, The Verve, Guns ’n’ Roses and Primal Scream) and Jesse Goodman of the Allen Ginsberg Estate come to the Bureau to talk of the beat poet’s impact on music and the British counterculture. We hear about Youth's 'Iron Horse' project and two albums of interpretations of Ginsberg's Fall of America poems by an astounding range of artists and we get deep into counterculture, the power of poetry, creativity and the possibility of a third summer of love..--Youth and Jesse will be with us in March, when we are presenting a program of happenings to celebrate Ginsberg's London Life. See the EVENTS page for full details.--In May 1965, Allen arrived in London and gave a free reading at Better Books in Charing Cross Road. It was an event described by poet-provocateur Jeff Nuttall as "the first healing wind on a very parched collective mind” and one that provided the impetus for the International Poetry Incarnation at Royal Albert Hall, a hugely significant catalyst for the first British Summer of Love.
Music featured prominently in Ginsberg’s work - both in his self-accompanied performances and live collaborations with artists including Dylan, Paul McCartney and Patti Smith - and in the inspiration it has had on the wide range of musicians who have set it to music.
Ginsberg In London Events Youth’s Iron Horse AlbumYouth at The Horse Hospital March 15thThe Fall of America albums Volume 1 and Volume 2Images courtesy of the John Hopkins Estate
Britain’s own Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street was once alive with the sound of hammered pianos, and sung melodies and choruses. Its songwriters knocked out tunes on the fly and rushed to the street to sell them to pay for the next round of drinks.
In the '60s, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks came here, so did Donovan and Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Elton John, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. A popular rendezvous was La Gioconda, an Italian cafe which most visited at some point or other – David Bowie was said to practically live there.
Later when Malcolm McLaren was looking for a rehearsal space for The Sex Pistols, he was delighted to find room in Denmark Street, installing his upstarts in the heart of the traditional music industry - like Greek soldiers inside the Trojan Horse. Journalist Pete Watts returns to The Bureau to tell us tales of this lost street of dreams - and at least of one nightmare. Pete's wonderful book on Denmark Street is HERE #hipgnosis #pink floyd #london #pop music #london #musichistory #counterculture #soho #musicpublishing #music #1960s #jimihendrix #thesexpistols #davidbowie #the kinks #the beatles #DenmarkStreet #tinpanalley
Warning: this episode contains discussions of sexual and other adult themes.
Julie Peakman is a historian of eighteenth-century culture who specialises in the study sexuality and pornography.
She is the author of 'Sexual Perversions, 1670-1890', 'Whore Biographies 1700-1825', The Development of Pornography in 18thC England' and many other books.
She came to the Bureau to discuss her latest: 'The Pleasure's All Mine - A History of Perverse Sex' which contains many affecting stories of how benign sexual difference has, in the past, lead to what we would now perceive as unjust and brutal persecution.
'Perversion' has been defined as 'showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable' or 'contrary to the accepted or expected standard or practice' - rather like 'counterculture'.
It has at different times included masturbation, male and female homosexuality, cross-dressing, bestiality, sadomasochism, necrophilia, incest, exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, even straight-up vanilla heterosexual sex in certain circumstances.
Julie's conviction is that the very word and concept of 'perversion' has reached its expiry date - we discuss.
#perversion #sex #london #pornography #fetish #bdsm #sexuality #gay #necrophilia #incest #masturbation #bestiality #prostitution #flagellation #homesexuality #morality
In this, the second of a two parter, we hear more of the crazy countercultural life and times of The Incredible String Band - from the inside looking out - with Rose Simpson Rose was one quarter of the band during what many regard as their creative and countercultural peak in the late 60s and early 70s. •Her memoir 'Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden' is an incredible story, relating how she rocketed (as a student without any particular interest in music or the counterculture), via an accidental meeting in a Scottish mountain cottage, to photoshoots in American Vogue and playing at Woodstock - and then came all the way back again. It's a fascinating tale, not just because the ISB were fascinating in themselves, but because it is beautifully told with a wealth of detail about a time that is usually dominated by mens' voices. •She had many psychedelic adventures along the way, narrowly escaped getting involved in Scientology and then - and then left it all behind. And she knows where the sitars are buried... We dived into drugs, communal life, the ups and downs of free love, the catastrophe of the cult, making it up as you go along, the mysterious life and disappearance of Rose's bandmate Licorice, going full on and far out. Rose's memoir 'Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden' (published by Strange Attractor) Adrian Whittaker's compilation book Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending* Thanks to Peter Neal for the audio clips from his film Be Glad for the Song has No Ending #tripping #psychedelics #london #consciousness #scotland #scottishcounterculture #counterculture #drug #lsd #music #joeboyd #1960s #scientology #rosesimpson #incrediblestringband #begladforthesonghasnoending #woodstock #stephenduffy #hippie*
They were artists, myth makers, story tellers, tribe leaders, psychedelic troubadours; they pioneered "world music” with albums like The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter; they experimented with theater, drugs, film and lifestyle and inspired The Beatles, The Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Pet Shop's Neil Tennant, The Lilac Time and many, many others. They lived the hippie dream of communes and free love, dressed like mediaeval princes and princesses, were the very essence of the Scottish counterculture, played Woodstock, became cult stars, were acid evengeleists; gathered a following, a tribe that stayed loyal to them long after they had gone..
In this, the first of a two parter, Adrian Whittaker who compiled the epic new book Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending and Peter Neal who made the film Be Glad for the Song has No Ending back in 1970, take us on a trip through the crazy countercultural life and times of The Incredible String Band. Thanks to Peter for the audio clips from his film Be Glad for the Song has No Ending #tripping #psychedelics #london #consciousness #scotland #scottishcounterculture #counterculture #drug #lsd #music #joeboyd #1960s #scientology #thelilactime #incrediblestringband #begladforthesonghasnoending #woodstock #stephenduffy #hippie
He was friends with Burroughs and Ginsberg, wrote their biographies along with those of The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Frank Zappa, Charles Bukowski, Jack Kereouc and penned books on The Beat Hotel, Pink Floyd, The Stones - amongst about 70 others. Barry Miles (known just as Miles) came back to the Bureau to tell us all about it. We hear how he set up Indica Gallery where Lennon met Yoko, started International Times - the bible of the underground - was instrumental in the UFO club and the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream and jow his wife Sue gave Paul McCartney his first hash brownie - and that was just the sixties. We will do the seventies next time.. #tripping #psychedelics #london #consciousness #beathotel #thebeats #counterculture #drug #lsd #memory #pinkfloyd #1960s #barrymiles #indica #lennon #mccartney #ginsberg #burroughs #betterbooks
*Niels Bohr discovered the structure of the atom in a dream, Coleridge wrote Kubla Khan after a dream, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was inspired by a dream,
Hergé ’s 'Tintin in Tibet' - the first of many Tintin stories - the same.
*Keith Richards claimed to have dreamed the riff to 'Satisfaction', Paul McCartney the melody to 'Yesterday’ - the most covered pop song in history. Hell, even Aphex Twin says that 70% of his album 'Selected Ambient Works Volume II' was written whilst lucid dreaming
This episode is all about The Dreaming - and our guide is one of the UK’s foremost dream researchers: SARAH JANES.
We talk about dreaming as countercultural consciousness, lucid dreaming, dreams and psychedelics, neuroscience, dreams as creative inspiration, the imagination, sleep cycles, REM, memories in dreams, alchemy, wet dreams, the dream space as the underworld - and dreaming as preparation for the afterlife.
*Sarah gives some great tips on how to become a lucid dreamer, tells us about her work - and drops a couple of mind bombs on us.
*For more on Sarah and her amazing work #dreaming #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #truth #madness #counterculture #sleep #luciddreaming #dreams #neuroscience #consciousness
•Cult icon, enigma, recluse, crazy diamond, he was the founding member of one of the world’s most famous and succesful rock groups, but the life of Syd Barrett is full of unanswered questions. •Was he a drug casualty of the sixties? Did he walk away from the pressures of the commercial music world? Did he suffer from an undiagnosed mental illness, did his muse abandon him? Was it a combination of these - or was it something more mysterious, something we can never really understand? •'Have You Got It Yet?’, an extraordinary new film about Syd, pieces together his comet-like rise to pop stardom, his creative and destructive impulses, breakdown, his exit from Pink Floyd and his subsequent life alone, all set against the social context of the psychedelic swinging sixties. It is built around interviews with Syd’s friends, lovers, family and former band mates Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Nick Mason. It is, as much as a tribute, a film about memory, friendship, lost youth, regret and the enduring power of music. •Roddy Bogawa, the award winning co-director of the film and a crazy diamond in his own right, came to the Bureau to talk about 'Have You Got It Yet?’ - and to try to answer some of the questions about Syd. •And along the way, we dig deep into London in the '60s, LA in the '70s, punk, underground films - and of course, counterculture. •For more details on the film Have You Got It Yet•For more about Roddy*Join our cult Thanks, as ever, to Jenny Spires for connecting us with Roddy. #tripping #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #truth #madness #counterculture #drug #lsd #memorey #pinkfloyd #sydbarrett #haveyougotityet? #crazydiamond #darksideofthemoon #wishyouwerehere #shineonyoucrazydiamond #ufoclub #madcap
Psychedelics have made a comeback but they remain deeply mysterious. They may be now seen as potential 'breakthrough therapy' for mental illness but we still have only a vague idea how they work, and there is a limit to what studies in labs can reveal. Any one who has used them knows that to really understand them, we must broaden our experience of what they actually are.
Neuropsychologist ANDY MITCHELL decided to investigate for himself, taking ten different drugs in ten different settings - from a London neuroimaging lab to the Colombian Amazon via Silicon Valley and his friend's basement. Along the way, in a picaresque, deeply strange and often wild odyssy, he encountered scientists and gangsters, venture capitalists and con men, psychonauts and shamans. In this episode - Number 100 - we follow him and wonder if, whilst big pharma is closing in and whilst psychedelics are being hailed (and monetised), can they still be countercultural, transformatory, consciousness raising? Can in fact they still be just .. fun? Andy's book TEN TRIPS*Join our cult#tripping #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #truth #madness #counterculture #drug #lsd #ayahuasca #neuroscience #consciousness
*He is perhaps the biggest name in Russian rock music, famous as the leader of the band Aquarium throughout his homeland and 'Outer Russia’ (as the huge and growing number of Russian emigres are called), but he is now listed as a “foreign agent” - basically an anti-patriot, a traitor, for criticising Russia’s war
*Aquarium were pioneers of the clandestine homegrown rock scene that was born in early '70s USSR before emerging from the underground to become the pied pipers of perestroika, selling millions of albums (but usually getting paid nothing).
After a long and illustrous career, Boris Grebenshikov now lives in London and in response to the conflict has put together an extraordinary compilation aiming to help children in Ukraine - and for the friends and fans he has had to leave behind. The album features a star-studded ensemble including Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, Jethro Tull, Marianne Faithful, Marc Almond, The Waterboys, Jackson Brown, Crowded House and many others.
We talk of the USSR in the 60s, cultural censorship,the power of music, the KGB arresting your friends, being back on the outside yet again - and we hear selections from the 'Heal the Sky’ album. Thanks to Alex Kan for making this happen. For more details and to support the project: Heal The SkyLet us know where you are at (a few questions about you)Get Our Bulletin #counterculture #music #ussr #soho #aquarium #ukraine #russia #war #borisgrebenshikov #perestroika #coldwar #russinemeigre #russianrock
•He’s played with Jimi Hendrix, Sonny Boy Williamson, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Jimmy Page, Billy Cobham, Spencer Davies, Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart, John McLaughlin, Tom Jones, Eric Burdon and many, many more.
•With Julie Driscoll he had a huge hit with a masterful psychedelic rendition of Dylan's "This Wheel's on Fire” •He's been hailed as the godfather of acid jazz, sampled by hip hop stars and nominated for a Grammy Award. •At 82, BRIAN AUGER is still moving, grooving, sharp as a pin - and 'beginning again' as he says. •We hear his extraordinary story and of the sign posts pointing the way on his musical journey - from the London Blitz - through the Soho jazz clubs of the 60s - to Venice Beach. •Thanks to Greg Boroman and Karma Augur for making this happen. For More on Brian * For more on the Auger Incorporated Archive release Let us know where you are at(a few questions about you)*Get Our Bulletin #counterculture #music #hammondorgan #soho #sohoclubs #soho #sohohistory #londonhistory #juliedriscoll #brianauger #hendrix #6oslondon #acidjazz
Under the counter-culture.. They were handmade illegal obscene books, a little like early punk zines, typewritten mimeographed manuscripts with two or three pornographic stories or a novella. Many contained drawings or photographs and were sold in post-war London and provincial second hand bookshops Thousands were produced, but only a small proportion survive today. Titles like Orgy Twins, Lust and Agony in Double Domination Nunnery Versus Fuckery or Discipline in the Home gave a sense of the contents to eager suburban punters wanting their share of the sexual revolution. Archaelogist and curator of forgotten, neglected, stigmatised or hidden phenomena, Dr. HELEN WICKSTEAD, who has written first major study of The Soho Typescripts (or The Soho Bibles as they have become known), takes us through the door and under the counter to take a peep through the curtain at a lost world of smut, desire and money.
And we talk about Mickey Mouse having sex, the secret room of The British Museum, the private case of The British Library, a prehistoric phallus, erotic fish, police corruption, The Obscene Publications Act, Holywelll Street - and pornography as counterculture.. For more of Helen
Let us know where you are at(short survey about You)Join Us #counterculture #pornography #porn #sohobibles #sohotranscripts #soho #sohohistory #londonhistory #zines #sex Images courtesy of Helen Wickstead /Dave Notaro
Philosophy as Counterculture? For thousands of years, humans have been trying to expand this mysterious thing called consciousness, not only by drugs, dancing, art and spiritual practice but just by thinking, talking and arguing. Is philosophy for anyone - or just for the elite in their ivory towers and universities? Can it be of the street, can it be counterculture? We try and find out - in the company of philosopher Robert Rowland Smith, author of several books including The Reality Test and the bestseller Breakfast with Socrates and pracitioner of a kind of encounter group called Constellations. Robert leads us through what philosophy means now and we get deep into how the living and the dead can communicate, the expansion of unconsiousness, R D Laing on madness,and whether Jacques Derrida was a psychedelic. And we hear some deep words of wisdom from David Lynch For more on Robert and his work*Join our cult #counterculture #derrida #davidlynch #philosophy #constellations #scorates #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #truth #madness
*Their number encompasses the darkest bogeymen of countercultural nightmares- including Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh and the Reverend Moon -as well as saintly figures devoted to the good of others; outright charlatans, narcissistic psychopaths, deluded New Age prophets as well as genuine gurus.
Since the 1950s, certain charismatic individuals have taken it upon themselves to collect others around them in ‘cults’, rejecting mainstream religion and society in favour of a claim to secret knowledge of the path of liberation. The consequences have often been disastrous, involving the devotees actually getting liberated from their money, freedom - and sometimes, their lives. Artist and archivist MICAH MOSES has spent twenty years not only studying cults, new religious movements and individuals of a spiritually inspired nature, but broadcasting their soundtracks to a wider world.
Micah came to the Bureau ahead of his ‘GODBODY' exhibition around the theme of the New Age showing in London at The Horse Hospital in September 2023. This episode of the Bureau contains a selection of strange, esoteric and sometimes sinister sounds from the vast archive he has gathered over the years.
For more on Micah’s WFMU Music of Mind Control radio show For the GODBODY exhibition *Join our cult
counterculture #cults #cultleaders #newage #thenewage #secretsocieties #jimjones #jonestown #marshallapplewhite #heavensgate #thechildrenofgod #manson #charlesmanson #davidberg #scientology #guru #godbody #thehorsehospital
Roger Huddle is a born and bred Londoner, a working class music-mad mod who grew up in the 50s, got radicalised in the 60s and became a co-founder of one the most successful activist groups of the 70s - Rock Against Racism (RAR). RAR was a political and cultural movement which emerged in 1976 in reaction to a rise in racist attacks on the streets of the United Kingdom and increasing support for the far-right National Front at the ballot box. •Between 1976 and 1982 RAR activists organised national carnivals and tours, as well as local gigs and clubs throughout the country bringing together black and white fans in their common love of music. The musicians came from all pop music genres including some of the UK's biggest post-punk and Reggae artists including The Clash, Misty in Roots, Elvis Costello and X-Ray Spex. Roger came into the Bureau to tell us all about it and to school us in the London club scene of the 60s, radical socialism, agit prop, agit-pop, cultural revolution - and William Morris. •For more on Roger: •For more on RAR and Syd Shelton check out the film White Riot •Image courtesy: John Sturrock
counterculture #rockagainstracism #rogerhuddle #sydshelton #thenationalfront #racism #thebeats #london #walthamstow #williammorris #socialism #revolution #rockrevolution #theclash #agitprop #trotsky
The pill, Profumo, pornography. Love, liberation and libido. Larkin, Lady Chatterley, Lolita,
*No era in recent history has been both more celebrated and more vilified than the 1960s.
*For some it was a time when music, fashion and drugs enabled young people to express their individuality and freedom and their hopes and dreams of a better world. For others, it marked the advent of the permissive society, the undermining of authority, family values and common decency.
*And at the heart of this continuing controversy was ..sex.
*PETER DOGGET, journalist, cultural critic and writer, whose book 'Growing Up: Sex in the 60s' takes an unflinching look at the dark underbelly of the sexual revolution, came into the Bureau to explain that while the orgiastic hedonism, ever-changing partners and polymorphous perversity of countercultural myth was enjoyed by a tiny minority, the vast majority of the British population could only gawp from the sidelines, still living in a world with a moral code that stretched back to the Victorian Age.
We talk about the battle between two opposing forces: the urge to free the body from guilt, and the desire to control, cannibalise and exploit that liberation for profit or pleasure - plus VD, groupies, The Beatles miniskirts, Germaine Greer and Jane Birkin (RIP).
For more on Peter and his work Get our Counterculture newsletter *The Bureau of Lost Culture Home
sex #counterculture #sexualrevolution #sexualliberation #libido #permissivesociety #thepill #miniskirt #hippie #commune #blowup #janebirkin #sergegainsbourg #nabokov #freelove #sohoradio
*As the 60s turned into the 70s, and as some of the technicolour idealistic visions of the first summers of love started to fade, many of the denizens of those decades began to seek Utopia outside the cities of America and Europe.
*Communes and communities sprang up in rural areas of America and Europe as spiritual seekers, hopeful hippies, fugitives, folkies, freaks and wild wanderers on the seas of fate tried to create new societies, living by their own values - often away from the watchful eye of the authorities.
After experiencing a personal catastrophe, musician and writer DAVID BRAMWELL set off in search of salvation by exploring some of the alternative and intentional communities where folk are still trying to build utopia. He came across all sort of strange things and people along the way in an odyssey that took in a 1950s caravan on the northern shores of Scotland, a dominatrix community in the Czech republic and a time machine hidden in a vast underground temple in Italy. And he came in to the Bureau of Lost Culture to tell us all about it… *Check out David book 'The No. 9 Bus to Utopia', other writing and countercultural projects.
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damanhur #counterculture #findhorn #findhornfoundation #utopia #alternativecommunities #intentionalcommunities #esoteric #hippie #commune #esalen #christiania #pan #devas #cosmic #sohoradio
'This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius' claimed the first song in the hippie musical Hair in 1967. And perhaps it was. As thousands gathered at Stonehenge to welcome the summer solstice sunrise and hundred of thousands gathered at the Glastonbury festival, Ethan Doyle White came to the Bureau of Lost Culture to talk about Paganism. Glastonbury itself is regarded by many as a ‘pagan place’ and many of those 8000 people who gathered at Stonehenge might describe themselves as 'pagans' - part of a counterculture that has roots going back to the pre-Christian era. But what does Pagan mean? Where did the word come? We take a trip through pagan history and ask what do modern pagans believe, think and do? We hear about Wicca, Heathens and Druids and delve into earth mysteries, magic, the New Age and psychogeography.. *Happy Solstice Brother and Sisters For more on Ethan and his beautiful visual history of the Pagan Get our Counterculture newsletter The Bureau of Lost Culture Home
pagan #counterculture #wicca #heathen #dionfortune #psychedelicsound #witch #esoteric #thegoldendawn #aleistercrowley #magic #pre-christian
*In a remote village in the Ahl Srif tribal area of Northern Morocco, dwell a collective of Sufi musicians. They play a form of trance music which is used for healing. Timothy Leary called them The 4,000-year-old Rock’N’Roll band - rather superficial hyperbole perhaps - though it is true that what The Master Musicians of Joujouka play is thousands of years old - and shares something in common with the wildest and most inspired of rock music. Record producer, film-maker and Beat historian Frank Rynne, who co-organises their annual festival, came to the Bureau to tell the strange and wonderful story of the musicians of Joujouka, their culture and their interaction with the counterculture of the 50s and 60s We hear about Tangier at the time - and the life there of Beat artists Bryon Gysin and William Burroughs with digressions into the dark side of bohemia - along with the story of doomed Rolling Stone Brian Jones who came to record the Master Musicians shortly before his death.
For more on the Master Musicians of Jojouka Get our Counterculture newsletter The Bureau of Lost Culture Home
joujouka #counterculture #themastermusiciansofjoujouka #sufi #brianjones #psychedelicsound #psychedelicrock #williamburroughs #briongyson #rollingstones #beatgeneration #thebeats
They were psychedelic outlaws holing up in hill country hideouts to escape police harassment, dealing drugs to survive and blasting out a mix of LSD evangelism, mystical philosophy and grooved up rock’n’roll. In their short existence, The 13th Floor Elevators succeeded in blowing the lid off the musical underground, logging early salvos in the countercultural struggle against state authorities, and turning their deeply hallucinatory take on jug-band garage rock into a new American institution called psychedelic music. Paul Drummond author of 'Eye Mind - the Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators’ deemed the band significant enough to spend eight years of his life researching and writing about them - along with producing the definitve compilations of their work. We dig into their craziness - and into Janis Joplin, LSD, peyote, Antonin Artaud, mayhem, madness, music and more. For More on Paul and his work#13thfloorelevators #counterculture #the13thfloorelevators #lsd #acid #psychedelicsound #psychedelicrock #occult #psychedelic #peyote #rokyerickson #esoteric
If they were a cult, they were a very British cult. In the 1920s if you had seen strangely attired groups of people walking in formation along southern England's pagan pathways and round its prehistoric stone circles, you may have encountered The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift.
They shared their initials - and a predeliction for arcane symbols, pointy hoods and cloaks - with the Ku Klux Klan but that's where the similarities end.
They thought they were spiritual samurai, rebuilding Britain after the Great War with magical rituals, outdoor living and utopian vision. They were clean-living proto-new age weekend hippies directed by a messianic autocratic visionary and produced extraordinary art and craft of graphics, symbols, costumes. They remain one of our most fascinating and forgotten countercultural groups. They also inspired a '70s rock opera.. Annebella Pollen, author of a wonderful book on the Kindred, came to the Bureau to tell us all about them and about some of the other strange esoteric groups that flourished in between the world wars. The episode contains music from Chris Judge Smith and Maxwell Hutchinson's rock opera Kibbo Kift For Bella’s book: The Kindred of The Kibbo Kift Join us at the Bureau of Lost Culturehttps://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC Listen to all our showswww.bureauoflostculture.com Photo: Angus Macbean#london #counterculture #naturism #greenshirts #havelockellis #hgwells #aleistercrowley #occult #kibbokift #thekindredofthekibbokift #cults #cult #occult #esoteric #camping
"You do it to yourself" sang Radiohead
Well that was certainly true of some of the subjects of this episode. Historian of the mind MIKE JAY returns to the Bureau to tell of the intrepid scientists, artists, writers and thinkers who were experimenting with psychoactive substances and recording their experiences in the Victorian age and onwards. But the notion that researchers might partake of drugs if they were going to have something valuable to say about them became unacceptable. And we hear about the first British psychedelic experiences of Aleister Crowley, W B Yeats, Havelock Ellis and Maude Gone along with some of the lesser known London Psychonauts huffing ether, chloroform and nitrous oxide in the pursuit of knowledge during the 19th century counterculture. For Mike's book: Psychonauts: drugs and the making of the modern mind Join us at the Bureau of Lost Culturehttps://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC Listen to all our showswww.bureauoflostculture.com #london #drugs #psychoactive #psychedelic #humphreydavy #wbyeats #aleistercrowley #occult #jameslee #morphine #heroin #opium #hashish #nitrousoxide #science
Do you believe it's possible to know the future? Deep in the heart of the countercultural 60s, when the boundaries of consciousness were being explored and pushed forward, when human achievements were coming thick and fast, a psychiatrist and a rather un-counterculural science journalist, prompted by a terrible disaster, carried out a peculiar experiment with time.. Writer SAM KNIGHT comes to the Bureau to tell their strange story and that of The Premonition Bureau - an attempt to harness the intuitions of the British public in order to predict - and possibly avoid - disasters. Visions of the future, foresight, foretelling, divination and prophecies have populated myth, literature and history - the notion that time is not linear is even gaining currency in science, but is it really possible to anticipate what has not yet happened? We talk about all this and about writing, listening, the placebo and nocebeo effects, about psychic research. voodoo death phenomenon and the writing of his wonderful book. Sam's book 'The Premonition Bureau'
https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571357567-the-premonitions-bureau/
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The Story of the Brompton Time Machinehttps://soundcloud.com/the-real-tuesday-weld-1/the-brompton-time-machine Jeff Edwards - the last child to be pulled from the Aberfan wreckage. #premonitions, #time, #aberfan, #mentalhealth, #london #vision, #prophecy, #disaster, #peterfairley, #jcbarker, #psychiatry, #counterculture, #premonitionbureau, #foresight, #precognition #dreams
He was a member of some of the most influential post punk bands: Magazine, The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds. He's collaborated with a whole range of artists including Nick Cave, Diamanda Galas, David Lynch, Jarvis Cocker, Atticus Ross and Depeche Mode. He's written film scores, made films himself, made many solo records and recently published an extraordinary memoir of youth: 'Up Above the City and Down Beneath the Stars.’ The Jazz Devil Barry Adamson came to the Bureau to talk about his life and times - and about bones, about being an outsider, about Manchester in the 70s, about Punk, luck, trouble - and about heroin addiction. And we discuss the alchemical process of turning darkness into artness and signposts and signal moments along the way. For more on Barry http://www.barryadamson.com Join us at the Bureau of Lost Culturehttps://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC All showswww.bureauoflostculture.com#manchester #barryadamson #magazine #thebirthdayparty #thebadseeds #nickcave #howarddevoto #theclash #punk #postpunk #heroin #davidlynch #jazzdevil
From heroin to Hollywood, Babylon to Buddhism.Here is the second part of our conversation with the writer, countercultural activist, Zen priest and erstwhile movie star PETER COYOTE at his farm in Sebastopol California. Last time, we left him isolated and lost in the throes of drug addiction as the countercultural dream had started to turn sour. Now we pick up the story in the American communes of the early 70s, hear how he transitioned to become a successful actor appearing in over 160 films, and dig deep into counterculture, creativity, charisma, drugs, buddhism, how he navigated Hollywood Babylon. And Peter gives some amazing advice for actors, artists - and for all of us With thanks to Jenny Spires.* Join the Bureau of Lost Culture for countercultural news, stories and special eventshttp://www.bureauoflostculture.com For more on Peter and his workhttp://www.petercoyote.com#counterculture #thediggers #petercoyote #psychedelic #mescaline #peyote #haightashbury #freefamil #london #hellsangels #kenkesey #zen #america #heroin #drugaddiction**
You've probably seen him in a film - he’s performed in more than 130 as an actor for some of the world’s greatest directors including Roman Polanski, Pedro Almodovar, Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderberg, or maybe you have heard his voice - he's an Emmy Award-winning narrator of over 200 documentaries.He is a writer, a poet, an ordained Buddhist priest who has been practicing Zen for over 50 years. But that's not the half of it - as we find out in this, the first of two episodes charting the extraordinary life of PETER COYOTE. We did deep into the American counterculture, Hells Angels in London, heroin addiction, radical theatre groups The Diggers, the Free Family, the birth of the communes, mescaline and how the atom bomb created rock and roll. AND Peter reads some of his poems fro his collection 'The Tongue of a Crow' With thanks and appreciation to Jenny Spires for connecting us. #counterculture #thediggers #petercoyote #psychedelic #mescaline #peyote #haightashbury #freefamil #london #hellsangels #kenkesey #zen #america
*In 1965 the psychiatrist R.D.LAING formed a commune in an East London community centre called Kingsley Hall where the psychotic and the schizophrenic could live on equal terms with their carers. There were no locks and no anti-psychotic drugs but there were all-night therapy sessions, dinners with visiting mystics and high grade LSD available to any who chose to take it
The Neuro-psychiatrist Anthony David came to the Bureau to talk about Laing and about how his groundbreaking book The Divided Self propelled him into the status of a countercultural guru. He grew his hair, he wore beads, he toured America speaking to large audiences and was asked to pronounce on all sorts of matters far beyond the subject of madness. We dig into Laing's life and work, successes and shadows, the subjects of mental health and psychedelics, talk about Van Gogh, David Bowie, Syd Barrett and the links between creativity and madness. And we hear about Tony's own work in London with those suffering from acute mental disorders.For Tony's book 'Into the Abyss'https://oneworld-publications.com/work/into-the-abyss/For the Bureau of Lost Culture http://www.bureauoflostculture.com#rdlaing, #madness, #psychedelics, #mentalhealth, #london #schizophrenia, #psychosis, #thedividedself, #sydbarrett, #bowie, #psychiatry, #counterculture, #kingsleyhall, #anthonydavid, #vangogh
In the swinging 1960s, after nearly a century of colonisation, Cambodia was ready to rock. Young musicians from the countryside flocked to the vibrant cosmopolitan capital city of Phnom Penh. The city was a melting pot of sound: old fashioned rock’n’roll, early heavy metal, crooners and swooners and love duets. Then on 17th April 1975, the music stopped. the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh and began a genocide. Around 90% of the musicians died in the killing fields. *DEE PEYOK joins us to talk about 'Away From Beloved Lover'(Granta), her extraordinary book detailing the lost world of amazing music that flourished between 1955 and 1970 in Cambodia.
*And we hear of Dee’s own journey - an extraordinary odyssey into the heart of darkness - and light - in search of this lost world.
For more on Away From Beloved Lover: https://granta.com/products/away-from-beloved-lover/
For The Bureau of Lost Culture: www.bureauoflostculture.com
Cambodia #KhmerRouge, #Sinsisamouth, #DeePayok, #PhnomPenh, #killingfields, #surfrock, #censorship, #Cambodiarocks, #Vietcong, #genocide #vietnamwar
Feeding the Woodstock thousands, acid, the Summer of Love, the Haight Ashbury, Timothy Leary, anti-Vietnam war protests, the problems of free love and living in communes, the Monterey pop festival, The Diggers, Wavy Gravy, Owsley, Bob and Sarah Dylan, Peter Coyote, helping Dennis Hopper though a bad trip..
In this episode we sat down again with 80 year old photographer LISA LAW in her home in Mexico to hear more extraordinary tales from the her life on the frontiers of counterculture. We take up the tales as Lisa arrives in San Francisco in 1967, follow her behind the scenes at the Woodstock, Texas and Monterey Pop festivals, through the ups and downs of family life and motherhood whilst always taking photographs of a society in the turmoils of radical change. Thanks to Roger Burton for the introduction to Lisa. For more on Lisa, her film, book and images: www.flashingonthesixties.com/For more on the Bureau: www.bureauoflostculture.com Images copyright Lisa Law #Dylan, #TheVelvetUnderground, #JanisJoplin, #TheBeatles, #OtisRedding, #PeterFonda, #DenisHopper, #TimothyLeary, #RamDass, #AllenGinsberg, KenKesey, #thehogfarm, #themerrypranksters, #wavygravy, #peterpaulandmary #haightashbury, #hippies, #psychedelicmushrooms, #lisalaw, #vietnamwar
Dylan, The Velvet Underground, Janis Joplin, The Beatles, Otis Redding, Nico, Peter Fonda, Denis Hopper, Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Allen Ginsberg and many, many more - Lisa Law's images are extraordinary. But then her story is extraordinary. On Christmas eve, Lisa sat in her home in Yelapa, Mexico and recounted some of her countercultural life and times in this, the first of two episodes that provide an unparalleled glimpse into the music scenes of the 60s and 70s and California's blossoming counterculture. We hear about the American folk revival ,beatniks, bohemians, Mexican shamans and the weird and wonderful world of hippy communes in New Mexico, some of the many moments that she lived, witnessed, and recorded on the frontier of society on the brink of cultural change. For more on Lisa's life, images, book and documentary: www.flashingonthesixties.com/*For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture: www.bureauoflostculture.com
Images copyright Lisa Law
Dylan, #TheVelvetUnderground, #JanisJoplin, #TheBeatles, #OtisRedding, #PeterFonda, #DenisHopper, #TimothyLeary, #RamDass, #AllenGinsberg, KenKesey, thehogfarm, themerrypranksters, #wavygravy, #peter,paulandmary #haightashbury, #hippies, #psychedelicmushrooms, #lisalaw
Starting in 1966, LLOYD JOHNSON helped change the look of rock ’n' roll fashion. In the decades since, he has sold his clothes to Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, Jack Nicholson, David Bailey, The Clash, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Johnny Marr, Nick Cave,The Stray Cats and The Pretenders amongst many others - and to a multitude of street smart, cool kids.His designs have appeared on many record sleeves including albums by Rod Stewart and Madness, in videos like George Michael’s" Faith”, in the films Quadrophenia and Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law and Mystery Train, and as stage costumes for David Bowie.The Face said he is one of the crucial figures in the development of British style. He just says: 'I created what I saw as stage-wear for the street.Lloyd came into the Bureau to share some of his stories. And we hear about growing up in Hastings, Kensington Market, the Kings Road, Mods vs Rockers, Fred Astaire, Freddy Mercury, model aeroplanes and much, more from a life lived in clothes for over 50 years. Thanks to Roger Burton for the intro to Lloyd. Image: Lloyd outside Johnson The Modern Outfitters 1975 (sourced by Paul Gorman for the show he curated at Chelsea Space in 2012 https://www.chelseaspace.org/archive/johnson-pr.html) *Join us to get our newsletter and hear more tales from the underground, the counterculture and the upside down. www.bureauoflostculture.com#RodStewart #Madness #GeorgeMichael #Quadrophenia #JimJarmusch #DavidBowie #KeithRichards #BobDylan #JackNicholson #DavidBailey #TheClash #IggyPop #TomWaits #JohnnyMarr #NickCave #TheStrayCats #ThePretenders #lloydjohnson #larocka
During the Cold War era, the songs that Soviet citizens could listen to were ruthlessly controlled by the state. But a secret underground subculture of music lovers and bootleggers defied the censors, building recording machines and making their own extraordinary discs of forbidden jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, and Russian music, cut onto used hospital x-ray film. Today’s special guest is, er… me, Stephen Coates My new book BONE MUSIC details how the x-ray bootleggers worked, and reveals for the first time, the hidden history of their archivist precursors in Budapest. Who were they? Why did they do it and how was this Roentgenizdat (private pressing on xray) even possible? Cultural Commentator TRAVIS ELBOROUGH returns to the Bureau and we swap seats so that he can run the show We dig deep into the culture of the Soviet X-Ray Underground, the character of the bootleggers, cold war culture, cultural repression and ask if Bone Music has anything to say about current censorship in Russia. For More on BONE MUSIC the book: https://www.x-rayaudio.com/bonemusicbook*The Bureau of Lost Culture: https://www.bureauoflostculture.com #bonemusic #x-rayaudio #xrayaudio #sovietunion #coldwar #forbiddenculture #roentgenizdat #bonerecords #rockonribs #
She worked as a go-go dancer, stripper and glamour model. She's been a performance artist of masochistic tangos and twisted mambos, a ballroom dance teacher, a street arts choreographer and a punk-rock drummer. She worked with Throbbing Gristle, Genesis P Orridge, Monte Cazzaza, and Derek Jarman. And she was there at the formation of Adam and the Ants and the Monochrome Set. Dorothy Max Prior joins us to talk about her wonderful book '69 Exhibition Road Twelve True-Life Tales from the Fag End of Punk, Porn & Performance’ published by Strange Attractor Press.
*We hear about gay London in the 70s, the derelict city, bedsit land, fetish wear, rubber miniskirts, Westwood and Mclaren, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Roxy, The Monochrome Set, her own band Rema Rema and of course Stuart Leslie Goddard, better known as Adam Ant..
*For more on Max’s book: http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/69-exhibition-road/ The Bureau of Lost Culture: https://www.bureauoflostculture.com
counterculture #punk #thesexpistols #theclash #remarema #theroxyclub #dorothymaxprior #adamant #adamandtheants #themonochromeset #london
*You couldn’t turn up at at any self respecting psychedelic hangout, countercultural club, happening, be-in or even disco in the late sixties and seventies without being immersed in the cosmic cloud of swirling dreamy liquid images, shapes and colours of the light shows illuminating and enhancing the music.
*Our counterculural companion in arms, Kevin Foakes, DJ Food, turntablist, graphic designer-par-excellence - and now author - returns to the Bureau to talk about his wonderful new book 'Wheels of Light’, published by Four Corners Books - a visual voyage through the history of British light show from 1970 to 1990, and a gorgeous multi-coloured sensory experience in itself, bursting with amazing images and art.
*If we took a trip in a time machine we might find them a little primitive given the multi media hi-tech laser extravaganzas we've got used to, but back in the days of love, the psychedelic light shows were genuinely revolutionary, mind bending, consciousness enhancing and state altering - particularly if augmented by a large dose of LSD.
*We hear about lighting up the UFO club, Pink Floyd and Soft Machine and we are joined by Neil Rice, co-founder of Optikinetics, one of the main suppliers of the projectors and gizmos that created the psychedelic light shows of the 60s and 70s - and by Jennie Caldwell, practicing light jockey for many bands in the subsequent summers of love of the 80s and 90s, including those cosmic warriors on the edge of time, Hawkwind.
For More on Kev / DJ Food: https://www.djfood.org For Kev’s 'Wheels of Light’ book: https://www.fourcornersbooks.co.uk/books/wheels-of-light/ *The Bureau of Lost Culture: https://www.bureauoflostculture.com
lightshow #hawkwind #pinkfloyd #sydbarret #UFOclub #softmachine #psychedelic #lsd #ravescene #summeroflove #tripping
In the summer of 1964, a very strange vehicle was seen making its way across America. it was a school bus covered in psychedelic colours, driven by NEAL CASSADY, a beat generation character made famous in JACK KEROUAC'S beat generation classic On the Road and piloted by KEN KESEY, the best selling author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The bus contained a raggle-taggle crew of crazy psychonauts calling themselves The Merry pranksters allegedly dispensing LSD in orange kool aid to all and sundry in attempt to turn on America. In this episode, we leave Soho to travel to the far west of the USA, to a farm in Oregon to meet KEN BABBS the last of The Merry Pranksters. We talk of all sorts of things - Ken Kesey, the Magic Trip and the Acid Tests of course, plus Kerouac, Ginsberg, Viet Nam, Timothy Leary, spontaneity, the good life and dreams.
*And at the end we hear some very positive news about a question that I suspect is troubling many of us
*For The Bureau of Lost Culture https://www.bureauoflostculture.com
bureauoflostculture #kenkesey #kenbabbs #tarot #themerrypranksters #kerouac #ginsberg #themagicbus #lsd #acid #tomwolfe #counterculture #psychedelic #thegratefuldead #acidtests #nealcassady #beatgeneration
It is a tale of lost treasure, it is a tale of a lost - or rather forgotten - artist, a mystic, a cockney visionary. •Curator Jonathan Allen comes to the Bureau to tell of AUSTIN OSMAN SPARE and the strange and wonderful Tarot Deck that lay for decades in the archives of The Magic Circle, undisturbed and forgotten. •Now a growing influence on artists, writer and chaos magick practitioners including Alan Moore and Jimmy Page, Spare became largely unnoticed in his lifetime. •We hear of his curious, occult life in South London, his riches to rags story, cartomancy, divination and the discovery that may just change his future. •And we hear of the efforts to bring that future into the present through a campaign by Strange Attractor Press that will make Spare's extraordinary visionary Tarot available for mystics, art lovers, collectors and the curious..
•For the Austin Spare Tarot Deck Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strangeattractoruk/austin-osman-spare-occult-tarot-deck-and-book •For the book Lost Envoy http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/lost-envoy/ •For The Bureau of Lost Culture https://www.bureauoflostculture.com
bureauoflostculture #austinspare #austinosmanspare #tarot #lostenvoy #strangeattractor #strangeattractorpress #alanmoore #jimmypage #williamblake #pankhurst #mervynpeake #magiccircle #themagiccircle #tarotdeck #cartomancy #chaosmagick #magick #conjuring #southwark
Performance artist, actor and underground cabaret star Madame LePustra leads us on a journey back in time in search of the Berlin Cabaret and Kabarett of Weimar Republic era Berlin. We learn of the strange and progressive Golden Years of the 1920s when queer and trans identiities were accepted, even feted, within an underground culture that briefly flowered in the city between the wars. We meet some of the extraordinary women performers who pushed artistic, theatrical and social boundaries before the Nazis jackbooted the doors of the clubs and theatres and brought the era to a tragic close. And we hear of Madame Le Pustra’s work to remember and reinterpret the times through their re-imagined ‘Cabaret of the Nameless’.
For more on Madame Le Pustra https://madamelepustra.com The Bureau of Lost Culture https://www.bureauoflostculture.com Image courtesy Madame Le Pustra / Michel Dierickx
berlincabaret #weimarcabaret #madamelepustra #cabaretofthenameless #counterculture
*"Teenage savages go wild in a jungle of lust and lawlessness!"
Countercultural commentator and writer JOHN HIGGS comes to the Bureau. We head out into the feverish febrile pheromone filled phase of self consciousness, sex drugs and rock’n’roll known as adolescence as we investigate the birth of the teenage in the late 40s and 50s. Was it all really kicked off by Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti? *We chart the rise of youth culture on both sides of the Iron Curtain and debate that while ‘all you need is love’, ‘you can’t always get what you want’ as we trace counterculture through beats, mods, hippies, punks, ravers, grunge and britpop, touch down briefly on gender politics and the death of Kurt Cobain and wonder if 70 will one day be the new seventeen. For more on John https://johnhiggs.com The Bureau of Lost Culture https://www.bureauoflostculture.com
counterculture #littlerichard #teenage #rockandroll #kurtcobain #beatles #rollingstones #hippie
Musician and actor TOM WAITS is one of the great countercultural artists of our time, His '70s albums documented low life America in an LA that no longer exists Filmmaker Alex Harvey, author of 'Song Noir: Tom Waits and the Spirit of Los Angeles’ comes to the Bureau to tell how Waits mined a rich seam of the city’s low-life locations and characters, letting the place feed his dark imagination. *We hear how Tom blended real life with the mythic, turning autobiographical details into songs that were both romantic and disturbing - and created a vision of LA as the warped, narcotic heart of his nocturnal explorations.
For more on Alex http://alexanderharvey.org/ For Song Noir: http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789146639 For more on Tom Waits: http://www.tomwaits.com/ For The Bureau of Lost Culture https://www.bureauoflostculture.com
counterculture #tomwaits #rickieleejones #thetropicana #LA #kathleenbrenan
Timothy Leary may have wanted to cause a revolution your head with LSD, The Beatles in your heart with Love, but countercultural activist and entrepreneur CRAIG SAMS went for the Gut. After bringing himself back from death’s door by curing the amoebic dysentery and hepatitis he contracted on the Central Asia hippie trail, he embarked on a mission to change the world and raise consciousness through food. We sit down with him for a feast of of fabulous food fables from feeding the freaks at The UFO club and the first Glastonbury festival, to opening Seed, London's first macrobiotic restaurant and the go-to healthy eatery for John and Yoko, The Stones and many other denizens of the London underground. Also on the menu: how he went on to found Whole Earth foods and then Green and Blacks Chocolate, how macrobiotics will improve an LSD trip, how changing the way we eat can save us - and the planet - and how, at nearly eighty, he is still living the countercultural life.
For More on Craig: https://www.craigsams.com Join us at The Bureau of Lost Culture https://linktr.ee/bureauoflostculture
counterculture #macrobiotic #johnandyoko #thebeatles #greenandblacks #wholeearth #craigsams
*DJ and broadcaster BOBBY FRICTION drops by the Bureau to tell the tale of how, in the early 90s, a bunch of British kids from immigrant families ripped it up, mixing their traditional musical roots with drum and bass, electronic beats and urban sounds to form a new countercultural genre all their own - the Asian Underground.
*We hear how the scene was a kind of counterpart to the way Western counterculture adapted and was inspired by Eastern mysticism and culture.
*It's a personal take by someone who was there at the beginning and who has been championing the scene ever since, soundtrack by some choice musical cuts to soundtrack the tale.
We dig deep into all sorts of other stuff too: growing up in 70s London, racism on the city streets, Bhangra, 'ghazals', ABBA, Prince, daytime gigs, Sikh culture. radical politics, why 'Black' was cool but 'Asian' was apparently not in London club culture.
*And Bobby makes a plea for the British to ras lie the vision of becoming one people celebrating their diversity rather than splitting back into tribes.
For more on Bobby: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rydpz For London Month of the Dead: https://www.londonmonthofthedead.com For Continental Drifts: https://www.continentalDrifts.co.uk The Bureau of Lost Culture: https://www.bureauoflostculture.com
*He is widely recognised as one of the best comic book writers in the English language with works like From Hell, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Killing Joke, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Swamp Thing. He's the author of modern literary classics, including Jerusalem, a 1,266-page experimental epic novel, that have led to his legendary status and critical acclaim.
He is also an occultist, a ceremonial magician and an anarchist. ALAN MOORE beamed into the Bureau for an afternoon conversation about counterculture - in his own life and work and in the past, the present and in the future. We also dig deep into the 60s, the 70s, Thatcherism, Britpop, the power of The Arts Lab, why he doesn’t watch the adaptions of his work, the power of limitations to foster creativity and much much more. Alan’s storytelling course on BBC Maestro: https://www.bbcmaestro.com LONDON MONTH OF THE DEAD http://www.londonmonthofthedead.com THE REAL TUESDAY WELD http://www.tuesdayweld.com Join us and support our wild endeavours https://www.bureauoflostculture.com
alanmoore #michaelmoorcock #counterculture #artslab #london #malcolmmclaren
The People's Republic of Frestonia, a countercultural micronation, was formed in three streets in North Kensington in the heady years of late seventies London. Long before the Occupy movement, a group of squatters, radicals, artists and activists decided to fight back against a local authority bent on evicting them from their homes and declared the area independent of the UK. Drawing huge media interest, some derision and lot of goodwill, they had their own passports, stamps and theatre and even applied to join the United Nations. One of them, the psychotherapist Josefine Speyer, Frestonia's minister of Culture, comes to visit the Bureau for an hour or so to tell us what it was all about - and all about the countercultural journey she made to live there from her youth in Germany. We hear of communes in Berlin and Scotland, travelling in a gypsy caravan in Wales, home births and hash cookies in a cow shed and of some of the many alternative projects initiated by her radical activist husband Nicholas Albery. And we learn how they came to found the Natural Death Centre, blowing the lid on the secretive cabal that controlled the funeral industry and returning death and dying back to where it belongs - with the people.. For more about Frestonia: http://www.frestonia.org A list of Micronations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronations
For the Natural Death Centre: http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk More on Josefine: https://deathcafe.com/profile/25/
The Sexual Revolution? Yes. Liberation? Maybe. Penis Envy? NO!
*Youth culture in the sixties was progressive in so many ways but when it came to the relations between the sexes, it was perhaps much more traditional than it liked to admit.
*Sleeping around, Syd Barret, Pink Floyd, Groupies, Frigidity, the Pill, abortion, Oz magazine and of course The Female Eunuch make their appearance as we dig deep into what it was like growing up as a young woman in the underground scene of swinging sixties London.
*Author Jill Drower, once a member of The Exploding Galaxy experimental dance commune returns to the Bureau along with beat traveller, model and singer Jenny Spires as we ask if the story of counterculture has largely been one told by men about men.
For Jill's book: The Exploding Galaxy: Performance Art, LSD and Bent Coppers in the Sixties Counterculture’ Sign up for The Bureau Newsletter: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC
SydBarrett #Pink Floyd #Groupies #Frigidity #abortion #Ozmagazine #TheFemaleEunuch #germainegreer #jennyspires #theexplodinggalaxy
*We take a creep through dimly lit London streets populated with prostitutes, bohemians, charlatans, junkies, spiritualists, drunkards and lost souls following magician, author, occultist and drug fiend ALEISTER CROWLEY,'The Great Beast’, as he prowls Piccadilly in pursuit of pleasure, power and yet more prostitutes.
*'Do What Though Wilt shall be the whole of the law’
*Our guide is Phil Baker, author of ‘City of The Beast’, part Crowley biography, part psychogeographic odyssey and part London gazetteer. We seek the man beneath the myth, the flaneur beneath the fiend and ask why do many still find the often deplorable Crowley so intriguing, even inspiring?
*Along the was we get fascinating glimpses into a lost era, a shadowy underworld of Victorian and Edwardian counterculture, Sex Magick, ether, drugs and .. snails..
*For The City of the Beast book : http://strangeattractor.co.uk/news/city-of-the-beast/
For the O.T.O https://oto-usa.org/ Sign up for The Bureau Newsletter: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC
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crowley #aleistercrowley #counterculture #magick #thegoldendawn #london #prostitution #occult #ether #666 #O.T.O.
In 1969, the poet, Beat generation godfather, countercultural guru and political activist ALLEN GINSBERG bought a farm in upstate New York to provide a creative hub and rehab refuge for his friends - a collection of poets, artists, washed-up drunks, strung-out junkies, ne’er do wells and exhausted underground figures, all reeling after the intensity of the 60s. One, his lifelong friend and biographer Barry Miles, chronicler of the counterculture, returns to the Bureau to tell of a bucolic summer he spent with Ginsberg and an assortment of crazy characters on the farm, archiving the poet's vast collection of tape recordings. *We also visit The Chelsea Hotel and meet some the equally crazy characters who lived and loved there in 1970s Manhattan including Janis Joplin, Arthur Miller and Leonard Cohen - and along the way we discuss The Beats, Buddhism, Burroughs - and beards.
*Thanks to Stephen Cleary and The British Library Sound Archive for providing the recordings of Allen and to Peter Hale of The Ginsberg Estate for permission to use them.
For More on Miles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Miles The Allen Ginsberg Project: https://allenginsberg.org *Sign up for The Bureau Newsletter: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC
- The Bureau Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bureauoflostculture/
*The British Library Sound Archive: https://sounds.bl.uk
ginsberg #kerouac #williamburroughs #beatpoets #beatgeneration #counterculture
Experimental treatment of the insane, secret tests by MI5 with volunteers thinking they were helping find a cure for the common cold, Cold War weapon research by the Ministry of defence on unsuspecting troops - the early history of LSD in the UK was rather inauspicious. And then all hell - or heaven - broke loose.. Britain's foremost psychedelic historian ANDY ROBERTS returns to the Bureau to take us on a trip through the revolutions in the head caused by Acid from the 1950s to now. Along the way we meet some of the characters who experimented, manufactured, dealt, swallowed and were transformed by it - as well as those who tried to stop them - including an unlikely Breaking Bad style pharmacist in Islington, The Microdot Gang and even the Kray Twins.. *So sit back, relax, blow out the candles and kick off your sandals … (thanks The Lilac Time), tune in, turn and ...
*Andy and Albion Dreaming: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Albion-Dreaming-popular-history-Britain/dp/1905736274 * Sign up for The Bureau Newsletter to get countercultural treats https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC
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*The Real Tuesday Weld https://www.tuesdayweld.com
- From Colin Wilson to Tony Wilson, Patti Smith to Mark E Smith, what was it like coming of age in the counterculture of Manchester in the 60s, 70s and 80s?
* Johnny Marr has just released his latest record and his band's on tour with Blondie. He's worked with Billie Eilish on the Academy award winning theme for the Bond blockbuster No Time to Die and with all sorts of other artists including Hans Zimmer, Modest Mouse, The The and The Pretenders. * He’s had chart hits with Electronic, and, oh yeah, he co-piloted one of the best loved and influential British bands of all time - The Smiths. * We don’t really talk about that - but we do dig deep into archetypal psychology, northern peak experience, clothes, records, books, youth culture and reading the road signs along the way to your destiny..
- Image credit: Andy Cotterill
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For More on Johnny: https://johnnymarr.com
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He stepped off a plane from Barbados onto a wet and windy runway at Heathrow airport in 1965 aged 12.
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Now he’s a DJ, multi-instrumentalist and producer of hundreds of records spanning reggae, lovers rock, soul, dub, punk and pop.
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Dennis Bovell's life in music is populated by a countercultural cornucopia of artists as wide ranging as Linton Kwesi Johnson, The Slits, Madness, Bananarama, the Pop Group, Fela Kuti, Orange Juice, Marvin Gaye, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Dexy’s Midnight Runners and most recently, Radiohead, The Animal Collective and Spoon.
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He's even got an MBE.
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We dig into all that - or as much as we can - plus Hendrix, sound systems, cutting dub plates, sound clashes with Lee Scratch Perry, police harrasment, wrongful imprisonment and the youthful joys of eating breadfruit on the beach.
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For More on Dennis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Bovell
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In 1967 and and 1968, an ordinary north London house contained an Exploding Galaxy - a psychedelic commune and carnival of theatrical performers, artists and performance poets bent on transforming the city through spontaneous happenings, countercultural interventions and street activism..
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One of them was only 15 years old. Now all grown up, JILL DROWER comes to the Bureau to talk about her time at 99 Balls Pond Road as a Galaxy member - how the whole crazy endeavour came about - and how it exploded into and out of existence
Alson the way we visit The UFO club, The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream, hear about ‘scrudging’ , bent coppers intent on busting hippies for being hippies and the lost dream of peace, love and understanding that once might have changed everything.
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For More on The Exploding Galaxy http://www.djfood.org/category/bureau-of-lost-culture/
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For Kev's amazing psychedelic DJ FOOD archive https://djfood/org
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- Withnail and I, Poets, Spiritualists, Irish, Spanish and Hugenot immigrants, Serial Killers, Artists, Railway workers, William Blake, Rimbaud and Verlaine, Walter Sickert, Sex, Drugs, Rock’n’Roll, Music Hall, Folk, Britpop, Levitation, The Roundhouse, Cecil Sharp House, The New Jerusalem, Markets, Markets, Markets..
- Writer, researcher and walker of Lost Rivers Tom Bolton leads us up and out of The Bureau to wander through the streets and stories of the London Borough of Camden - for decades, the down and dirty end of the countercultural city - in search of the strange spirits that still pervade its highways and byways.
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For more on Tom and his work https://tombolton.co.uk
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Ninja Tune head honcho and Coldcut co-pirate Jonathan More returns to the Bureau to talk about his adventures hi-jinxing and hi-jacking the airwaves in the Wild West of South London.
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For the second in our trilogy on illicit broadcasting, we hear tales of DJ derring-do during the birth Of Kiss Fm, once one of the coolest of the urban pirate radio stations and its transition to the commercial mainstream.
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And in the mix, we debate how the mainstream is dependent on the underground, the culture feeds on the counterculture, and along the way go crate-digging into how Jon caught the disease of collecting vinyl, putting on warehouse parties, life-changing meetings in London taxis, pirate TV, Coldcut's Solid Steel show - and nuclear power station ephemera..
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For Jon and Coldcut http://coldcut.net
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Jon’s Soho Radio show Out to Lunch https://sohoradiolondon.com/profile/jon-more/
Thanks for audio samples and info:
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DJ Food https://www.djfood.org/
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The Pirate Radio Archive https://www.thepiratearchive.net/
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AMFM.0rg https://www.amfm.org.uk/
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Death is Not the End https://deathisnot.bandcamp.com/album/london-pirate-radio-adverts-1984-1993-vol-1
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Cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline and LSD were not enough to fulfil Joey Mellen’s quest to expand his consciousness to the furthest limits 'in search of the miraculous'. So in 1968 he used an electric drill to self-trepan himself by boring a hole into his skull. Now a delightful and very lively 82, Joey visits the Bureau to tell how an upper middle class English public schoolboy tuned in, turned on and dropped out, became a psychonautic beatnik and carried out the act of self surgery that made him infamous in countercultural London. Along the way we dig deep into acid evangelism, how to avoid bad trips, the blood chemistry of the ego and the strange life of Bart Hughes, the dutchman whose theories inspired Joey, Amanda Fielding and various others to seek enlightenment through trepanation. And we ask Joey if he acheived his goal of getting high and never coming down. This episode was sponsored by the artist known as The Real Tuesday Weld Joey’s book Bore Hole Get the Bureau's Newsletter
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The last violet seller in Piccadilly Circus, the Canvey Island Oil refinery, the bascule chamber of Tower Bridge, the song of The Muffin Man. In the twelve years before his early death in 2021, Ian Rawes engaged in a Quixotic endeavour to capture - and collect - the sound of London. With over 2000 field recordings, historical audio pieces, sound maps, writings and images, The London Sound Survey he created is an idiosyncratic but wonderfully accessible, evocative and often arresting series of sonic snapshots that aim to track a changing city. Tony Herrington of The Wire magazine comes to the Bureau to remember Ian and celebrate his work. We hear various selections from the Sound Survey and talk counterculture, field-recording, bells, anarcho-punk activism - and of course, independent music publishing, along the way. SIGN UP TO JOIN US The London Sound Survey Website
Tony's obituary for Ian
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Multi-award winning writer, musician, editor, essayist and inventor of the multiverse, Michael Moorcock, beams into the Bureau for the first episode exploring his deeply countercultural life in literature and London It’s an action-packed hour involving The Beats, William Burroughs, Soho, J G Ballard, Tarzan, Conan the Barbarian, anarchists, a Rolls Royce, myth, skiffle, fanzines, comics and books, books books. We hear how a precocious teenage Michael sets out on a career that led to the writing of over a hundred books and the creation of the well-loved characters including Elric and Jerry Cornelius who inhabit them, and we hear a revelation that will surprise even die-hard Moorcock afficionados..
For more on Michael http://www.multiverse.org
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We revisit the wonderfully odd, lost culture of the coin-operated machines that allowed ordinary people to make a record of their voice long before the advent of tape or digital recording.(Jack White has been using one, The Voice O Graph, more recently to produce terrific lo- fi caught-in-the-moment records, including an album with Neil Young).
We are joined by oral historian and broadcaster Alan Dein to hear a selection of recordings of strange, moving ghostly voices from his collection and learn how the records were used to send messages home from the war, record visits to tourist destinations or to capture the sounds of loved ones in a way that had never been possible before.
For more on Alan’s award winning work https://www.facebook.com/alan.dein
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Image courtesy Museum of London
DIANA CRAWSHAW's countercultural journey took her from a small north Yorkshire town to the centre of swinging London and the glamour of St Tropez; from selling, designing and making clothes in 60s London's hippest boutiques Lord Kitchener's Valet, Mr Freedom and Paradise Garage,to reading palms at the Holland Park office of Richard Branson.
One of our most modest and delightful guests, Diana tells tales of her times with the designers that dressed the great the good and the glitterati, including David Hockney, Picasso, Rock Hudson, The Beatles, Elton John and Freddie Mercury. We hear how she set out to find herself, how she made Dennis Hopper cry and how she fixed Raquel Welch’s hot pants.
Diana reads palms at Wilde Ones in the Kings Road https://wildeones.com/tarot-readings/
Thanks to Paul Gorman http://www.paulgormanis.com
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Writer, film maker, poet, flaneur, metropolitan shaman, curator of lost cultures, beat aficionado, and underground poet Iain Sinclair takes us on a walk through his life in the counterculture. We have brief encounters with Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock, Peter Ackroyd, J.G.Ballard and Nicholas Hawksmoor as we hear tales of the poetry underground, life working as a Hackney council gardener, blacklegging in the London docks, cigars in Clerkenwell, an epic ancestral journey from Leadenhall Market to Peru, DIY-publishing, writing, writing, writing, and of course The City, as we circle towards hearing Iain reading selections from Lud Heat, the epic 1975 piece that was destined to become the root text of London psychogeography. For more on on Iain and his work: www.iainsinclair.org.uk
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Gary Lachman, the original bass player of Blondie (as Gary Valentine), returns to the Bureau to tell of his time in the New York underground music scene of the 1970s. Now the UK’s foremost writer on the esoteric, with 24 books under his belt including works on Aleister, Crowley, Jung, Gurdjieff, Magick and the occult, Gary was once deep in the heart of New York's 'Blank Generation'. We hear about living with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein in a loft on The Bowery, playing CBGB and Gotham's underground clubs, hanging with The Ramones and Patti Smith, touring with Television and Iggy Pop and living the countercultural life on the Lower East side in the years before and beyond new wave.
For more on Gary www.garylachman.co.uk
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Soho and Chelsea have always been hailed as the epicentres of swinging London.
But there was a third, and now rather forgotten place which gave birth to The Cool - a place that was the home to one of the most influential jazz clubs of the 50s before providing a launchpad for The Rolling Stones and the bourgeoning British R+B and psychedelic scenes of the 60s. It was a place that went onto to host an extraordinary roster of artists including Cream, The Yardbirds, pre-Bowie David Jones, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Jimmy Page, Genesis, Yes and many, many others before morphing into a hippy commune in the 70s.
Author Andrew Humphreys comes to the Bureau to tell the strange story of Eel Pie Island - a bucolic bit of London in the middle of the river Thames - an island which for 15 years played an essential role in the history of British counterculture.
For more on Andrew and his book Raving Upon Thames http://www.paradiseroad.co.uk
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Jon More, one half of cut-and-paste collage kings Coldcut and co-founder with Matt Black of Ninja Tune record label, joins turntablist, crate digger Strictly Kev of DJ Food as we dig deep into the wild and wonky world of sampling - the borrowing, plundering, adapting and re-imagining of existing audio, songs and sounds to create new audio, songs and sounds.
Sampling might have started off as a countercultural underground cut-and-paste technique used by experimental artists but it ended up powering a huge amount of hip-hop tunes and some very big hit records.
We hear some of Jon and Kev's favourite sampling selections, learn about the creative use of the tape recorder pause button, and delve into sound art, musique concrète and pop cultural pick-pocketing down the ages.
For more on Jon and Coldcut http://coldcut.net
For more on DJ Food / Strictly Kev https://www.djfood.org
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The bootleg record was a phenomena that emerged in the heady days of the late 60s and survived to the early 80s - a kind of countercultural entrepreneurial activity that was rendered completely obsolete by the internet. Bootleggers, often a cross between music fans and black marketeers, were practitioners of ‘disorganised crime’ distributing music illicitly on vinyl, cassette and cd whilst being pursued by record labels around the world from Compton to Camden.
In this episode (a reboot of a Soho Radio show from 2018), we are joined by cultural commentator and lover of all things vinyl, Travis Elborough, to dig deep into the wild world of the dodgy pirates, counterfeits, unsanctioned outtakes, demos and live recordings that included the music of artists from Judy Garland through to the Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan and from The Sex Pistols and Television and to Elliot Smith.
For more on Travis www.traviselborough.co.uk
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Forty years ago, in the late summer of 1981, a group of women walked from Wales for over a hundred miles carrying a hand-made banner proclaiming their protest against American nuclear cruise missiles that were to be sationed in the UK. Their march to the US military base at Greenham Common led to the establishment of a camp that, for nearly two decades, drew women from all over the world to make their voices heard in the name of peace - and inspired fellow protestors internationally
Artist, activist and banner maker Thalia Cambpell one of the original marchers and founders of the camp, visits the Bureau to tell tales of dancing on nuclear silos, clashes with the authorities and the creation of vibrant protest art amongst the mud and mayhem.
And we are joined by historian Charlotte Dew, author of 'Women For Peace: Banners From Greenham Common’, a book published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the protests that presents image of the amazing banners made by Thalia and her fellows celebrating the collective power of women, women’s art and the history of peace campaigning.
For more on the book, the banners and the bomb www.fourcornersbooks.co.uk/books/women-for-peace-banners-from-greenham-common/
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A Zelig, a holy fool, a trickster, a black magician, a sociopath, a charlatan, a genius, a fabulist, a junkie, an alcoholic, a secret agent, a police informer, a disruptor, an often loveable preacher of Love who didn't actually seem to know what it meant?
LSD evangelist Michael Hollingshead might or might not have been all of these, but he was certainly a father.
What is it like to be the child of such a person?
Comedian Vanessa Hollingshead and writer Jeannie Hilton tell the dark and intense story of Vanessa’s tumultuous life with Michael, the working class Englishman who, according to his own claim, 'turned on the world' - or at least, many of those who did - including Timothy Leary and The Beatles - and who, like many who have advocated universal love and cosmic enlightenment, led a tragic and toxic personal life.
It's a wild and crazy trip, at times funny, at times disturbing. Be warned!
To find out more about The Divine Rascal film project www.thedivinerascal.com
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The ghosts of William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, John Giorno and Bob Cobbing make an appearance at the Bureau - as curator Steve Cleary plays us a selection of super rare recordings from the British Library Sound Archive.
The Archive is one of the biggest curated resources of audio in the world and includes over 1 million discs, 185,000 tapes, and many other sound and video recordings from around the globe Steve takes us on a wander through its unparalleled counterculture collection.
We also hear from the capital's foremost chronicler of the counterculture, Barry Miles, on Burroughs' life in London - along with a live recording of the beat writer at Manchester's Hacienda, a sampling of his cutups, some deeply strange sound poems and a wonderful recording of Kerouac jazz scatting at Neal Cassidy’s house.
For more on the British Library Sound Archive https://sounds.bl.uk
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Bird markets, sacred springs, border crossings, silk weavers, street drummers, games with headless goats, anti-aircraft rockets, courtyard songs and refugee choirs..
Documentary maker Monica Whitlock returns to the Bureau to paint an evocative sonic picture of the people and places she encountered whilst working in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan as the BBC’s foreign correspondent for Central Asia.
We hear some of the extraordinary archive of field recordings, conversations and music she collected whilst living and travelling in Tashkent, Samarkand and Andujan and while crossing the borders between a family of ancient states. And we learn something of these regions with their deep rooted tribal loyalties as they were being reborn and reformed in the ruins of the Soviet empire.
For more on Monica: http://www.story-scapes.com
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PIRATE RADIO first erupted in the UK in the early 1960s when stations such as Radio Caroline and Radio London started to broadcast from ships moored offshore or disused WW2 forts in the north sea. They were set up by wildcat entrepreneurs and music enthusiasts to meet the growing demand for the pop, rock and underground music not catered for by the BBC who had a monopoly on the airwaves.
Music writer ROB CHAPMAN returns to the Bureau to tell the story of this first golden age of illicit broadcasting. We hear of the extraordinary life of pirate-in-chief Ronan O’Rahilly anarchist founder of Radio Caroline, of legendary broadcaster John Peel and his ground breaking show ‘The Perfumed Garden’, and of the oddities of life aboard the radio ships precariously sailing the airwaves.
Initially, the stations got round the law because they were broadcasting from international waters to delighted young people across the country before they ran foul of the authorities and were shut down in 1967. But their impact lived on: the government caved into youth demand for pop music with the creation of Radio 1 and many of the pirate radio DJs including Tony Blackburn, Kenny Everett, Johnnie Walker, Emperor Rosko went on to mainstream success with the BBC and commercial stations of the seventies and beyond.
For more on Rob http://www.rob-chapman.com
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In these days of constantly CCTV-surveilled, property over-developed London patrolled by health and safety wonks and paranoid private security forces, the wild world of the inner city squat party seems an impossibility.
DJ, veteran of a thousand festivals and squat party promoter WILL WILES comes to the Bureau to tell tales of acid house daring do, breaking into a variety of buildings (including Newcastle's 19th century Tyne Bridge), rigging up electricity and lights and installing sound systems for DJs to thrill and delight a community of underground ravers dusk 'til dawn before vanishing again on Monday morning.
We hear of cooking up ketamine in the kitchen, police raids, psychic dance floor camaraderie and the exploits of tech-savvy wily, piratical, psychedelic pioneers carrying on their subversive activities right under the noses of the authorities and bemused neighbours - motivated by music, madness and a deep belief in the counter-cultural spirit.
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Forbidden! Taboo! Shouldn’t be allowed!
Do you ever find yourself censoring yourself? Not saying quite what you think, feel or believe in case it is disapproved of?
Human rights lawyer ERIC BERKOWITZ comes to the Bureau to talk about his epic new book 'Dangerous Ideas: A History of Censorship from Ancient Times to Fake News.
It's a thrilling read, full of sometimes comical, often alarming and always thought-provoking human stories - from that of the ancient Chinese emperor who destroyed any works implying there had ever been a better era than his own, to the current Chinese leader's attempts to have Winnie the Pooh banned (after his and the bear's resemblance was pointed out). The UK and the US don’t fare too well either.
Why have books, films, images words and ideas always been censored by those in power? Are there times when they should be? Does censorship ever work?
Eric digs deep into the touchiness of tyrants, into our current issues around blame, shame and cancel culture and why he thinks that almost nothing should be censored. We explore why countercultural ideas are so necessary for the culture and why they are only really dangerous when denied expression.
For more on Eric and the book www.ericberkowitz.com
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The Cold War is ending, the Soviet Empire is crumbling. In Central Asia, new countries are being born - or built - in the ruins: Kazakstan, Krygystan, Tajakstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
Allegiances and borders are shifting, overshadowed by the ghosts of ancient kingdoms. Exciting times. New histories in the making. And it all needs reporting.
Documentary maker MONICA WHITLOCK visits the Bureau to tell tales of her times as the Central Asian foreign correspondent for the BBC.
And what tales they are: lost treasure; Polish cemeteries in the Uzbek desert; tiny paintings on matchboxes smuggled from gulags; state murder and a last desperate dash across the runway, fleeing Tashkent after being accused of abetting terrorists.
This episode features some of Monica's collection of field recordings.
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London’s East End and Soho were the centres of a unique musical culture in the years between the 20s and the 50s.
Award wining oral historian and radio producer ALAN DEIN returns to the Bureau to tell stories of songs that soundtracked that world and feature on ‘Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World', the album of super rare tunes by London jewish jazz artists he has unearthed.
We hear tales of poverty and glamour, Soho gangsters, ghettos, vaudeville swing, comedy, cuisine and cabaret - and of some of the musicians who escaped the squalid streets of Whitechapel to become international stars. And we discuss what it means to be an oral historian, the power of story and how much radio still matters.
For more on Alan’s work https://www.facebook.com/alan.dein
For Don't Log off https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jxzy9
For the ‘Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World’ album https://jwmrecords.bandcamp.com/releases
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Journalist and counterculture commentator Peter Watts joins us to talk about The UFO Club, the massively influential short-lived London club of the late 1960s established by Joe Boyd and John "Hoppy” Hopkins.
It featured light shows, poetry readings, avant-garde art by Yoko Ono and many rock acts (Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Procul Harem) who later became massive.
For a brief two year period, it acted as the epicentre of the whirligig of summer of love underground London with a 'who's who of the counterculture' guest list and set the standards for psychedelic fashion and design.
Peter’s blog on London and counterculture:
www.greatwen.com
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We return for Part 2 of a trip through the English Underground scene of the 1960s and 1970s led by musician and pied piper Nick Laird Clowes of The Dream Academy.
Nick tells of his extraordinary youth deeply immersed in the political, musical and alternative scenes of West London. We hear about meeting Iggy Pop in a toilet, Nick Drake's guitar, the demise of Syd Barrett and dinner with Andy Warhol amongst many other terrific tales of living the countercultural life.
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
For more on Nick www.nicklairdclowes.com
We take a romp through the underground alternative and music scene of the 1960s in the first half of a two part episode. Our guide is musician and Nick Laird Clowes who regales us with stories of running away to the Isle of Wight festival, dj-ing at The Roundhouse, meeting John Lennon amongst many countercultural characters of the day and much, much more.
All this before an age when most of us had even smoked a cigarette - and all before his days of pop stardom with The Dream Academy.
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
For more on Nick https://www.nicklairdclowes.com
Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday Dizzy Gillespie, Rod Stewart, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Eric Clapton, the Moody Blues, Mick Fleetwood, Pink Floyd, Georgie Fame, Ginger Baker, Long John Baldry, the Small Faces … the roll call of those who played in the Soho basement called The Flamingo is a who's who of 50s and 60s cool. Journalist and author Pete Watts takes us on a trip through time and down the stairs of 33 Wardour Street to hear stories of one of London's most important lost and legendary venues. We hear how the Flamingo was hugely influential on up and coming musical stars of the 60s like Pete Townsend and The Rolling Stones, how it played an influential roll in the history of black music in the city and how you can perhaps still catch its spirit in the gents’ loos of the Irish theme pub that now occupies the site..
For more on Pete Watts: the great wen
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He has published Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Robert Crumb, J G Ballard, Hunt Emerson, Eddie Campbell, Brian Bolland, Dave McKean, Martin Rowson and Melinda Gebbie amongst others.
His publishing house Knockabout Comics has put out books on marijuana, magic mushrooms and many other aspects of alternative living from West Wales to Ladbroke Grove. And he's fought the law (though the law has frequently won).
With special guest DJ Food / Kev Foakes, we flick through the pages of the countercultural life of Tony Bennett hearing tales from the wild world of underground publishing, radical bookshops, obscenity trials, censorship, customs busts - and, of course a crazy cornucopia of comics, including Gilbert Shelton’s hippy-slacker masterwork The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.
For more on Tony and Knockabout Comics https://www.knockaboutcomics.com
For more on DJ Food https://www.djfood.org
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
What do Morrissey, Dorothy Parker, Le Corbusier, Harold Lloyd, Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol, Alan Ginsberg, Michael Caine, Gloria Steinem, Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Jarvis Cocker have in common? Like around 65% of the British population they needed some sort of vision correction - aka glasses. Writer and cultural commentator Travis Elborough returns to the Bureau to talk about his forthcoming book: 'Through the Looking Glasses: The Spectacular Life of Spectacles’ (Little Brown). We take a long look at the wonderful and wonky world of glasses from the Middle Ages to the present - along with a cast of spec. wearing monks, artisans, foppish dandies, wonks, nerds, bohemians, bands, spies and film stars as we examine the story of eyewear through the lens of the counterculture. For more on Travis and his work https://traviselborough.co.uk
For more on Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
Cold War Spy meets The Fab Four in the USSR When Leslie Woodhead was asked by Granada TV to film a new young music group in a club in Liverpool in 1962, he had no idea what he was in for - and neither had the rest of the world. He was witnessing the birth of a phenomenon that was about to have a huge impact on both the culture and the counterculture. But by then he had already had another extraordinary experience - serving a stint as a cold war spy, learning Russian on a remote Scottish pig farm and spending time eavesdropping on Soviet pilots from West Berlin. These experiences continued to influence his life as a multi-award winning film maker, finally coalescing in his documentary ‘How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin’. In this episode, we trace the almost unbelievable transformational effect the Fab Four had on young Russians in the 60s and 70s - an effect that many believed was more significant than all the cold war western propaganda and the threat of nuclear attack combined, in helping to bring about perestroika and the fall of the Soviet empire. For more on Leslie and his work https://www.lesliewoodhead.com
For more on Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
She was a singer, songwriter, musician, muse, model, actress and artist. She had roles in several films, including Fellini's La Dolce Vita and Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls, fronted The Velvet Underground, made many albums solo and toured for over two decades. She inspired many other artists including Bjork, Siousxie, Iggy Pop and Morrissey. Yet NICO’s life has often been reduced to a series of myths about junkiedom, decay, difficult behaviour and wasted talent. Rock ’n’ Roll historian Jennifer Otter Bickerdike comes to the Bureau to set matters straight and talk about her upcoming book 'You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico’(Faber). We dig into fandom, fables and why female musicians, junkies and artists in the counterculture have been treated differently, even mythologised differently, than their male counterparts; and why Iggy Pop is still so cool and why Nico still matters.
For more on Jen and the book https://www.jenniferotterbickerdike.com
For more on Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
Beatniks, Bootboys, Black GIs; Suedehead, Ska, Subculture; Rude Boys, Reggae, Racism; Football Hooliganism and Fashion. Artist, film maker, writer and activist STEWART HOME comes into the Bureau to talk about Skinhead, an enduring subculture that generally gets left out of the countercultural history. We also dip into overlapping areas of mod, punk, politics, northern soul, two tone - and doctor marten boots - as we explore the complex contradictions, roots and evolution of Skin style. For more on Stewart Home and his work https://www.stewarthomesociety.org
For more on Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
"The Sun Machine is Coming Down and We’re Gonna Have a Party" CHRIS TOFU artistic director of Continental Drifts, lies down on the Bureau’s couch for a session of psycho(delic)analysis. We take a rambling trip through the British free festival scene of the 70s, 80s and 90s - with deviations into the lost worlds of Europe’s squatting scene, the new age travellers and guerilla gigs. And we hear about Chris’s crazy countercultural life getting lost at Stonehenge as a wide-eyed 15 year old from Devon, being 'Bez’ in anarcho-punk-celtic-squattng band Tofu Love Frogs and gigging in a thousand fields along the way.
The image is courtesy the incomparable ALAN LODGE To see his extraordinary archive of images of festivals and alternative culture: www.alanlodge.co.uk
For more on Continental Drifts https://continentaldrifts.co.uk/about-us/
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Image Courtesy of Alan Lodge https://alanlodge.co.uk
The story of SYD BARRETT, the doomed original founder of Pink Floyd has fascinated, obsessed and mystified generations of fans for decades. The tragic trajectory of the psychedelic poster boy who had it all and ’lost it’ has all the hallmarks of an icarus myth. Yet, as our guest writer ROB CHAPMAN tells us, the myth has totally eclipsed the man, the legend obscured the legacy. Rob's 2010 biography ‘A Very Irregular Head’ - the first to be authorised by Syd's family - set out to right the balance, to tell the human truths about a tragic but talented artist. Rob joins us to talk about the new book he has edited: ‘The Lyrics of Syd Barrett’ (Omnibus Press) that gives a wonderful insight into the mind and art of someone who was yes, a crazy diamond but also a countercultural experimenter, an innovator and a psychedelic poet. Along the way we did into the meaning of counterculture and fandom and hear about a newly resurrected poem of Syd's For more on Rob Chapman http://www.rob-chapman.com/pages/profile.html
For the official Syd Barrett site http://www.sydbarrett.com
BILLY BRAGG pays a visit to the Bureau to lead us on an extraordinary whirlwind tour through the music that the counterculture forgot. Along the way we hear about the emergence of The Teenager in post-war Britain, the massive impact of Rock Around the Clock, the Soho espresso bar culture of the 50s and the birth of British youth culture. We explore why Skiffle, which soundtracked that youth culture for a few intense years and was the inspiration for musicians in The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who and The Rolling Stones, has been oddly forgotten. And Billy explains why, as the first British DIY musical revolution, Skiffle provided the template for the Punk movement of the 70s that was to inspire him. Along the way, we get educated about the post war 'trad jazz' movement, the cultural stranglehold of the BBC - and the terrific transformatory power of a guy - or a girl - with a guitar. For more on Billy and his book Roots, Radicals and Rockers: https://www.billybragg.co.uk/product/roots-radicals-and-rockers-how-skiffle-changed-the-world-hardback-signed-by-billy/ Billy's Top Five Skiffle Tunes https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZtMpev7GhPIi-e2ajPxUd_FVyUQxMBbB
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
Forget California, swinging sixties London or the Paris riots for a moment, Estonian filmmaker Terje Toomistu joins us to talk about the hippie movement of the Soviet Union.
It had all the characteristics of Western hippiedom: long hair, groovy music, esoteric spirituality and drugs. The only thing missing perhaps was the radical public politics that would have pushed the repressive Soviet authorities into drastic, brutal action
Terji’s film, with its super groovy soundtrack of rare tunes, provides a fascinating glimpse into a moving, daring subculture that flourished east of the Iron Curtain.
More about the Soviet Hippies film and Terje www.soviethippies.com
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45 years ago, two working class South Londoners took over a decrepit seedy gay bar in Neal Street, then a rather desolate and deserted part of central London. At a time when the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the UK antics had resulted in a virtual blanket ban on venues hosting anything associated with the word ’Punk’, they provided a home for an astonishing array of bands including The Clash, The Police, The Jam, Wire, XTC, The Damned, Generation X, The Stranglers, Siouxie and the Banshees and many, many more. Their tenure lasted for just 100 intense, crazed nights before they were kicked out, but The Roxy became a punk legend. Susan Carrington and Andrew Czezowski enter the Bureau to talk about their life in music, clubs and the counterculture - from meeting at a mod night at the Locarno Ballroom in Streatham in the 60s to opening The Fridge, one the of the longest running and most influential clubs of the 80s, 90s and 00s. We will return to the latter in a future episode, but today we hear their tales of The Roxy, of managing The Damned and Generation X and of the DIY can-do punk spirit that has infused all their adventures in the underground. For more on Susan and Andrew and their book about The Roxy check out www.roxyclub.co.uk
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
Hawkwind: Never in fashion but never out of it, piratical pagan proto-punks, avatars of the underground, figureheads of the free festival scene, innovative heralds of the rave generation, cosmic space rockers with street fighter spirit - there is no one like them.
We meet with Joe Banks author of “Hawkwind: Days Of The Underground – Radical Escapism In The Age Of Paranoia” (Strange Attractor Press) to explore the story of a much loved band that have gradually come to win the respect of many of the most cynical of critics - perhaps partly just by virtue of still being around, but mainly by sticking to their fiercely independent, idiosyncratc, anti-corporate, psychedelic ethos.
And we return to the West London musical, social melting pot we have previously explored with Nick Laird Clowes to uncover the fertile countercultural ground that gave birth to Hawkwind and in which they played such an important role.
For more on Joe Banks https://www.daysoftheunderground.com
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Various musicians have started out in the underground and left it behind for commercial mainstream success. Few have deliberately taken the opposite route back into the counterculture - and rarely as repeatedly as our guest Stephen Duffy. Stephen formed, and left, Duran Duran, had chart success in both the 80s and the 90s as a solo artist and then again in the 00s as songwriter / producer for Robbie Williams - with whom he toured the enormodromes of the world. But each time, he turned around and returned to the folk underground roots of his early inspirations with his band The Lilac Time. We take a gentle personal trip through the counterculture soundtracked by some of those inspirations. And we hear how the folk underground - and The Lilac Time - have quietly kept going whilst musical genres have come and gone. And we wonder if the counterculture is still alive and twitching, or if it was killed in the 80s .. by Gary Numan..
For more on Stephen and The Lilac Time including their recent and upcoming releases www.stephenduffy.com
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One afternoon in the mid 1960s, Pete Jenner left off marking exam papers at the London School of Economics and popped into the Marquee club. There was a band playing, They changed his life - and he changed theirs. Pete enters the Bureau of Lost Culture to tell us about discovering The Pink Floyd, the band he and Andrew King guided from darlings of the underground to early commercial success. But that was just the beginning. We hear about Pete' early life as the son of a radical vicar and how politics and music blended in his involvement in the early days of the West London Underground scene: The London Free School, The Tabernacle, The UFO club and the start of the Hyde Park festivals. We learn about the tragic disintegration of Syd Barrett who Pete and Andrew King chose to back whilst Pink Floyd went onto to global stardom, and we learn something about the ins and outs of a life spent in music, fostering the careers of Marc Bolan, Roy Harper, Ian Drury, The Clash and Billy Bragg amongst many others..
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
ROGER BURTON started out working on a farm and ended up running a Horse Hospital. No, he’s not a vet but has spent most of his life clothing, collecting and curating the counterculture. Along the way, he has designed shops for Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, provided the clothes for Quadrophenia, and Absolute Beginners, dressed the New Romantics, styled 100s of pop videos and given a leg up to many fringe artists (inc. me). We dig deep into Rebel Threads, his amazing book and collection of youth culture clothing from the 1920s - 1980s, hear about the birth of Mod, selling gear to the Kings Road boutiques of the 60s and 70s and how the actual 18th century Horse Hospital he runs has provided a venue for 27 years worth of unparalleled radical, fringe gigs, film, exhibitions and happenings in central London. And how, despite wide support across both the mainstream culture and the counterculture, it is facing closure due to the usual sad London story of property developer greed.)
For more on Roger, Rebel Threads and The Horse Hospital http://thehosrsehospital.com
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Chick.Trip.Dope, Pad. Heavy. Cool. Scene. Man. Beat. Freak. Weed. Bang. Square. Blast. Cat. Gas! In an action packed episode, we spend a Soho afternoon with 'Mr Slang’ Jonathon Green discussing his amazing life in the counterculture, writing for Rolling Stone and the underground magazines including IT, OZ and Friends. Then we dig deep into his ground breaking catalogue of the counterculture: ‘Days in the Life: Voices from the English Underground' with its interviews of over a hundred figures involved in the counterculture including Paul McCartney, Barry Miles and Jenny Fabian. And, as Jonathon is our foremost lexicographer of slang, he takes us on wander into the weird and wonderful world of countercultural language, exploring where all those hippie and beatnik words came from and discovering why ‘Fuck' is not in fact a swear word.
For more on Jonathon’s books http://jonathongreen.co.uk For more on Jonathon’s Slang Dictionaries https://greensdictofslang.com
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Peter Whitehead was an innovative English writer and filmmaker who documented the counterculture in London and New York in the late 1960s. His film Wholly Communion captured The International Poetry Incarnation, a groundbreaking event at The Royal Albert Hall in 1965 that was to prove pivotal in the evolution of the underground scene. The film featured poetry readings by Beat poets including Allen Ginsberg, Michael Horovitz, Adrian Mitchell and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and established Whitehead as the London counterculture’s 'Man With a Movie Camera’. Film event producer Marek Pytel walks us through Whtehead's life and work including the iconic 'Tonite Let's All Make Love in London’ documentary that helped define the "swinging London" scene of the sixties with psychedelic performances and interviewees including Pink Floyd, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Mick Jagger, Vanessa Redgrave, Lee Marvin, Julie Christie, Allen Ginsberg, Eric Burdon, Michael Caine and many others. We hear how Whitehead went onto film with The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix and to make provocative work about the countercultural protest movement in late 60s New York before making an extraordinary career swerve. For More on Marek Pytel's work see www.realityfilm.co.uk
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
One our foremost living writers on the esoteric, Gary Lachman, enters the Bureau purportedly to talk about one of our most important, if rather forgotten, dead writers on the esoteric, T C Lethbridge. We do get around to exploring Lethbridges's various incarnations as a rogue psychic archaeologist, dowser and parapsychologist but only after some serious digressions into Gary’s various incarnations including his time playing bass for Blondie in mid 70s New York. We hear how he was escorted out of David Bowie’s loft apartment by two glamorous bodyguards after a disagreement over Lethbridge, delve into the meaning of ‘Counterculture’ and dip into the subject of precognitive dreaming before finishing up with a story about a hedgehog. In other words, there’s something for everyone..
For more on Gary Lachman and his work https://garylachman.co.uk
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Journalist Tom O Neill, author of 'Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties’, joins us to reveal the truths, untruths, secrets and conspiracies behind the most famous crime of the 60s. The Tate-Labianca murders and the subsequent trial of 'The Manson Family' were among the events that marked the turning of the countercultural tide and the darkening of the hippy dream. Tom tells how a straightforward 1999 magazine commission to write an anniversary piece on the murders turned into a 20 year investigative odyssey that revealed a devastating story of corruption, deception, lying and abuse - and that was just from the authorities. Was Manson a CIA asset gone rogue? We are not fans of conspiracy theories but Tom's research reveals an extraordinary and deeply worrying web involving the CIA, the Beach Boys, LSD, hypnotism, doctors, psychologists and bent lawyers.
For more on Tom and the book: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/tom-oneill/chaos/9780316477574/
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
We return for the second part of our trip through the terrific, tortuous and terrible times of Michael Hollings(acid)head with psychedelic historian Andy Roberts.
We reconnect with Hollingshead as he is returning to England to set up the London Psychedelic Centre in Chelsea. He has introduced Timothy Leary to LSD and thus played a momentous part in the history of the counterculture in the USA.
But that was just one event in a picaresque life involving 'turning on' various celebrities including Paul McCartney, Donovon and a cold war spy, living in Scottish communes, the back-stabbing of various friends, being beastly to women and taking more and more LSD.
Hollingshead goes on the run - on acid. Hollingshead defends himself in court - on acid. Hollingshead serves a prison sentence - on acid. Andy, whose biography, Divine Rascal, is the first full account of the man, leads us to the end of the labyrinthine life of a character who was one part psychedelic, one part psychopathic.
For more on Andy Roberts and ‘Divine Rascal' http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/divine-rascal/
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
In the first of an occasional series of broadcasts around the subject of LSD, psychedelic historian Andy Roberts takes us on the first part of a trip through the extraordinary life and times of Michael Hollingshead. Hollingshead's assertion that he ‘turned on the world’ may be wildly immodest, but he did introduce Timothy Leary (and many others) to acid and thus played an essential role in the evolution of the counterculture in the USA and the UK.
He remains relatively forgotten - and his home town of Darlington does not figure in the topography of Acid culture - despite his tremendous consciousness changing exploits. But he was no saint. Andy, whose book Divine Rascal is the first biography of Hollingshead, charts the idiosyncracies and rise and fall of a man variously described as a Zelig, holy fool, trickster, black magician, sociopath, charlatan, genius, fabulist, junkie, alcoholic, secret agent, police informer, disruptor and sex mad preacher of Love who didn't actually understand love.
To be continued.
For more on Andy and ‘Divine Rascal' http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/divine-rascal/
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
Writer and cultural commentator Paul Gorman takes us on an exploration of the countercultural designer Barney Bubbles. It is an extraordinary story, magic and tragic by turn. Bubbles, who, despite his effervescent alias, was so modest that he declined to have his name included on the many extraordinary album covers he designed, has rather faded from public awareness since his untimely suicide. But he remains much admired by lovers of album cover art and has influenced a growing coterie of graphic designers. Paul, who has championed him with a biography and three exhibitions, traces his life and work from the hard boiled world of advertising and commercial graphics in the 60s, through the psychedelic West London underground scene of the early 70s, to the post punk era of Stiff Records and beyond. Along the way we hear of some of the outpourings of the cornucopia that was Bubbles’ mind, including the designs of Frendz magazine, the Hawkwind Tarot, The Specials' Ghost Town video - and those album covers.. And we hear about Paul’s own journey and, as usual, speculate on the nature of this creature called ‘counterculture’.
For more on Paul Gorman https://www.paulgormanis.com
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Enter the labyrinth. Perambulator and psycho-geographer Robert Kingham leads us down the twisting, turning tunnels and lost highways of the London labyrinth to meet author, mystic and cockney visionary Arthur Machen. We explore Machen’s odd life and books - and some strange parts of the city - as we uncover the ways he was to influence the folk horror movement and countercultural cult authors H P Lovecraft and Alan Moore. We ask: Was Machen the first London psycho-geographer? Did he really take a packet of currant biscuits with him on his epic perambulations through the sleeping city? Where is the labyrinth?
For more on Robert and Minimum Labyrinth minimum labyrinth
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‘America’s leading scholar of High Strangeness’ Dr.Erik Davis, enters the Bureau.
We hear about Erik’s career charting the highs and lows of counterculture, esoterica and psychedelia in America and meet three of the most influential radical psychedelic characters of 1970s - the writers / thinkers / lunatics Philip K Dick, Terence McKenna and Robert Anton Wilson.
Each had extraordinary mystical experiences in the heady days of early 1970 countercultures which kickstarted an incredible outpouring of radical theories, fiction, speculations, conspiracy theories and consciousness exploration.
We hear about radical politics, drugs, strange new religions, environmentalism, cults and the darkening of the psychedelic dream as the sunny uplands of the 1960s turn into the confused melting pot of the 1970s.
For more on Erik Davis:
www.techgnosis.com
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Mike Jay, the UK’s foremost historian of psychoactive plants, joins us to talk about the deeply strange hallucinogen/drug/medicine/sacrament mescaline - a substance derived from the peyote cactus.
Whilst other psychedelic compounds are more popular - and much more in the news - Mike tells us why mescaline was actually the very first psychedelic.
We hear strange stories of drug use in 19th century London, Native American medicine ceremonies - and Bovril..
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
More about Mike's work
www.mikejay.net
We tell the story of the music fans and bootleggers who ran the risks of imprisonment to defy the Soviet censor for the sake of the songs they loved.
We learn how they made records of forbidden tunes by building home-made recording machines and re-purposing x-rays illegally obtained from Soviet hospitals.
We hear how they did it with selections of music drawn from various x-ray records and hear the words of a surviving bootlegger - and we explore what it actually takes to cut music onto x-ray film.
For More on X-Ray Audio
www.x-rayaudio.com
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We meet with film director Olivia Litchenstein and BBC Russian Arts presenter Alexander Kan to hear about the extraordinary musician Sergey Kuryokhin, ‘the Soviet Punk Frank Zappa’ who with his underground cohorts in Leningrad tried to soundtrack perestroika as the cold war crumbled around them.
Olivia tells of the strange circumstances of the making of the BBC TV series Comrades during the twilight of the Soviet Empire, with tales of tapes smuggled in diplomatic bags and a bizarre intervention by Ronald Reagan.
Alex tells of his friendship with Kuryokhin, an incredibly talented, charming musical provocateur whose live performances astonished Russian audiences. And we learn of the bizarre prank Kuryokhin played on National TV claiming Lenin was a magic mushroom, just one of many dadaist interventions he made before his tragically early death.
The Comrades program featuring Sergey Kuryokhin: https://youtu.be/ibY2lXdgdnM
For more on The Bureau of Lost Culture:
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This Episode explore three stories of cold war era radio in the USSR: Soviet Radio Jammers, the Russian ‘Woodpecker’ and the Soviet Radio Hooligans
We meet with Russian broadcaster Vladimir Raevsky to talk about radio jamming in cold war era Soviet Union.
As East and West super powers square up to each with nuclear weapons, a parallel invisible war is being fought in the airwaves.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on broadcasting propaganda and music into the Soviet Union - and on attempting to block them from being heard.
Stephen tells the strange story of the ‘Russian Woodpecker’, a dystopian broadcasting station near the Chernobyl nuclear reactor and alleged attempts to brainwash the West using radar.
BBC Russian Arts correspondant Alex Kan, sits in a London cafe and tells of the brave young ‘Radio hooligans' who broadcast their own individual pirate radio shows during his youth in the USSR.
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For the first, and probably the last, time the bureau are joined by a member of royalty - Prince Michael of Sealand The Principality of Sealand claims a population of 27, is around 4500 m2 and lies 7.5 miles off the coast of the UK - it is situated on a World War Two Maunsell fort and claims to be an independent sovereign state. It is one of several micro-nations dotted around the globe and its history is an extraordinary David and Goliath narrative worthy of a Bond movie. Sealand's ruler, Prince Michael, regales us with tales of his extraordinary father, nautical derring do and astonishing childhood adventures on the high seas. We hear about the early days of pirate radio, abductions, kidnappings, sawn-off shotguns, invasions by helicopter and how to become a citizen - or even a lord or lady - of the The Smallest Country in the World.
For more on Sealand https://sealandgov.org
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Was counterculture possible in the oppressive, repressive circumstances of the Soviet Union?
Join us as we meet with broadcaster, author and cultural commentator Artemyi Troistsky - the 'Russian John Peel’ - to find out.
We hear some entertaining, comical, tragic, moving and frankly strange stories including tales of the ‘Stilyagi' Soviet Hipsters, the first disco in Moscow, Che Guevara and Lenin as a mushroom.
And we hear how rock music evolved in secret before breaking into the light as perestroika transformed Soviet society.
For more on Art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemy_Troitsky
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com
We meet with writer Barry Cain, punk correspondent for Record Mirror during the incendiary years 1977 - 1979.
Barry tells of his London journey from a Kings Cross council estate to touring with the Sex Pistols, The Clash and the greatest bands of the punk generation.
We hear of early meetings with The Stranglers, Sid Vicious and John Lydon, a fantatsical financial fraud perpetrated on a transatlantic flight with The Damend’s Rat Scabies and evenings recording Malcolm McLaren’s secret memoirs
Barry Cain is journalist and author of ’77 Sulphate Strip: An Eyewitness Account of the Year that changed everything’ amongst other books.
He co-founded the influential Flexi Pop magazine and has written extensively on pop music.
For more on Bureau of Lost Culture
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In this episode, we meet with radical doctor Sam Hutt who ministered to countercultural London in the 1960s and with Hank Wangford, English Country and Western singer par excellence.
Sam tells us about growing up in a 1950s communist household in a posh part of London. We hear stories of sixties Soho and psychedelic marmite, about buying heroin from Boots and about prescribing cannabis for some very famous musicians.
We learn how Sam frequented underground clubs like The Flamingo, dropped acid, made one of the greatest psychedelic singles of all time, hung out with rock stars and witnessed the tragic decline of Syd Barrett
Hank tells how Sam Hutt became Hank Wangford after a broken love affair. We hear how he and Keith Richards were turned onto country music by Gram Parsons and about his days as part of the Red Wedge anti-Thatcher movement in the 1980s - all along with two tunes recorded live at Soho Radio.
For more on Hank Wangford
www.hankwangford.com
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We meet with legendary drummer and songwriter John Alder / Mohammed Abdullah, best known as Twink, who played for the In Crowd, Tomorrow, The Pink Fairies, The Pretty Things, Hawkwind, The Aquarian Age, Pink Wind and Stars - amongst others legendary acts.
One of the foremost figures of the late sixties London music scene, he tells us what it was like - from the inside.
We hear what Jimi Hendrix said to him when they jammed at The UFO club, about Syd Barrett’s tragic last gig and about a life beating out the rhythm of the counterculture from Colchester to Morocco and back again.
You can find out more about Twink’s legacy at www.thinkpink50th.com
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