Bureau of Lost Culture

How to Expand Your Consciousness Part 3: The Dreaming

*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 

Remembering the Crazy Diamond

•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 

How To Expand Your Consciousness Part 2: Tripping

*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

Songs of War and Peace - with Boris Grebenshikov

*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 Sky

*Let us know where you are at (a few questions about you)

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#counterculture #music #ussr #soho #aquarium #ukraine #russia #war #borisgrebenshikov #perestroika #coldwar #russinemeigre #russianrock

 

Riding The Oblivion Express - with Brian Auger

•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

 

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#counterculture #music #hammondorgan #soho #sohoclubs #soho #sohohistory #londonhistory #juliedriscoll #brianauger #hendrix #6oslondon #acidjazz

The Soho Bibles: The Secret Porn of Post-War London

*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)

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#counterculture #pornography  #porn #sohobibles #sohotranscripts #soho #sohohistory #londonhistory #zines #sex 

*Images courtesy of Helen Wickstead /Dave Notaro 

 

How to Expand Your Consciousness Part 1: Philosophy

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

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#counterculture #derrida #davidlynch #philosophy #constellations #scorates #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #truth #madness

 

The Music of the Cults

*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

Rock, Radicals and Racism

*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

So You Say You Want a (Sexual) Revolution?

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

 

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#sex #counterculture #sexualrevolution #sexualliberation #libido #permissivesociety #thepill #miniskirt #hippie #commune #blowup #janebirkin #sergegainsbourg #nabokov #freelove #sohoradio

 

 

Knocking On Heaven’s Door

*As the 60s turned into the 70s, and as some of the technicolour idealistic visions of the first summer 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 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's book 'The No. 9 Bus to Utopia', other writings, radio and countercultural projects.

 

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#damanhur #counterculture #findhorn #findhornfoundation #utopia #alternativecommunities #intentionalcommunities #esoteric #hippie #commune #esalen #christiania #pan #devas #cosmic #sohoradio

A Short History of The Pagan

*'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

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#pagan #counterculture #wicca #heathen #dionfortune #psychedelicsound #witch #esoteric #thegoldendawn #aleistercrowley  #magic #pre-christian

The ’4000 Year Old Rock ’n’ Roll Band’

*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

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#joujouka #counterculture #themastermusiciansofjoujouka #sufi #brianjones #psychedelicsound #psychedelicrock #williamburroughs #briongyson #rollingstones  #beatgeneration #thebeats

The Life and Psychedelic Times of the 13th Floor Elevators

*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

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#13thfloorelevators #counterculture #the13thfloorelevators #lsd #acid #psychedelicsound #psychedelicrock #occult #psychedelic #peyote  #rokyerickson #esoteric 

The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift

*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

 

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Photo: Angus Macbean

#london #counterculture #naturism #greenshirts #havelockellis #hgwells #aleistercrowley #occult #kibbokift #thekindredofthekibbokift #cults #cult #occult #esoteric #camping

The Secret History of Psychonauts

"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 

 

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#london #drugs #psychoactive #psychedelic #humphreydavy #wbyeats #aleistercrowley #occult #jameslee #morphine #heroin #opium #hashish #nitrousoxide #science

The Vision Collectors

*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/

*Sign up for the Bureau of Lost Culture bulletin
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*The Story of the Brompton Time Machine

https://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

Moss Side Story - with Barry Adamson

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, Iggy Pop, 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

 

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#manchester #barryadamson #magazine #thebirthdayparty #thebadseeds #nickcave #howarddevoto #theclash #punk #postpunk #heroin #davidlynch #jazzdevil #nickcave #johnnymarr

The Life and Times of Peter Coyote 2: Buddhism in Babylon

*From heroin to Hollywood, 

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 events

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For more on Peter and his work

http://www.petercoyote.com

#counterculture #thediggers #petercoyote #psychedelic #mescaline #peyote #haightashbury #freefamil #london #hellsangels #kenkesey #zen #america #heroin #drugaddiction 

The Life and Times of Peter Coyote 1: Diggers to Dharma Bums

*Angels in London

*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 from his collection 'The Tongue of a Crow'

 

*With thanks and appreciation  to Jenny Spires for connecting us.

 

Join the Bureau of Lost Culture for countercultural news, stories and special events

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For more on Peter and his work

http://www.petercoyote.com

 

#counterculture #thediggers #petercoyote #psychedelic #mescaline #peyote #haightashbury #freefamil #london #hellsangels #kenkesey #zen #america

The Divided Self of R.D. Laing

*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

The Lost World of Cambodian Rock ’n’ Roll

*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

 

Flashing on the Sixties Part 2

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. During the episode we hear Tim Leary at 'The Human Be In' in San Francisco and the poet Adrian Mitchell reciting his poem To Whom it May Concern (Tell Me Lies about Viet Nam).

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

 

Flashing On the Sixties: Part 1

*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

 

 

La Rocka! The Life and Looks of Lloyd Johnson

*Starting in 1966, LLOYD JOHNSON not only sold clothes to a multitude of street smart, cool kids, but contributed to the very look of rock ’n' roll fashion. In the decades since, he has helped style Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, Jack Nicholson, David Bailey, The Clash, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Barry Adamson, Johnny Marr, Nick Cave,The Stray Cats and The Pretenders.

*On top of that, 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

 

*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 #barryadamson #ThePretenders #lloydjohnson #larocka

Roentgenizdat - The Hidden History of Bone Music

*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 #

Punk, Porn and Performance

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

Tripping the Light Fantastic

*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

 

The Last of the Merry Pranksters

*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 

 

 

The Lost Tarot Deck of Austin Osman Spare

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 

 

 

The Cabaret of the Nameless

*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

Smells Like Teen Spirit

*"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 

The Low Down LA Life of Tom Waits

*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 

Sowing the Seeds of Love

*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 co-founding 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 co-found Whole Earth foods and then Green and Black's 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

The Birth of the Asian Underground

*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 rollicking personal tale by Bobby who was there at the beginning and who has been championing the scene ever since, soundtracked by some choice musical cuts.

 

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 realise 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

Alan Moore on Counterculture

*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 

Birth, Death - and Frestonia

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/

 

 

Women, Sex, Counterculture

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

City of the Beast: Aleister Crowley’s London

*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 

* The Bureau Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bureauoflostculture/

#crowley #aleistercrowley #counterculture #magick #thegoldendawn #london #prostitution #occult #ether #666 #O.T.O. 

 

On the Farm with Allen Ginsberg

*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

 

Albion Dreaming - A Brief Trip Through the History of British LSD

*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 

* The Bureau Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bureauoflostculture/

*The Real Tuesday Weld https://www.tuesdayweld.com

On the Road ... with Johnny Marr

* 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

 

* For More on Johnny: https://johnnymarr.com

 

* The Bureau Home https://www.bureauoflostculture.com

* The Bureau Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bureauoflostculture/

* The Bureau Newsletter  https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC 

The Life and Times of Dubmeister Dennis Bovell

* He stepped off a plane from Barbados onto a wet and windy runway at Heathrow airport in 1965 aged 12.

* Now he’s a DJ, multi-instrumentalist and producer of hundreds of records spanning reggae, lovers rock, soul, dub, punk and pop.  

 

* 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.

* He's even got an MBE.

* 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.

* For More on Dennis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Bovell

 

* The Bureau Home https://www.bureauoflostculture.com

* The Bureau Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bureauoflostculture/

* The Bureau Newsletter  https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC 

The Exploding Galaxy

* 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..

 

* 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.

 

 

* For More on The Exploding Galaxy http://www.djfood.org/category/bureau-of-lost-culture/

 

 

* For Kev's amazing psychedelic DJ FOOD archive https://djfood/org

 

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A Countercultural History of Camden Town

* 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.

 

* For more on Tom and his work https://tombolton.co.uk

 

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Countercultural Broadcasting: Urban Pirate Radio

* 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. 

* 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.
 

* 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..
 

* For Jon and Coldcut http://coldcut.net

* Jon’s Soho Radio show Out to Lunch https://sohoradiolondon.com/profile/jon-more/ 

Thanks for audio samples and info:

* DJ Food https://www.djfood.org/

* The Pirate Radio Archive https://www.thepiratearchive.net/

* AMFM.0rg https://www.amfm.org.uk/

* Death is Not the End https://deathisnot.bandcamp.com/album/london-pirate-radio-adverts-1984-1993-vol-1 

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The Man Who Drilled a Hole in his Head

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

 

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A Soundtrack for a City

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.

 

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The London Sound Survey Website

 

Tony's obituary for Ian

 

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The Lives and Times of Michael Moorcock - Part 1

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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The Lost World of The Self-Made Record

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