![Child of the Counterculture]()
September 13, 2021
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
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture and our previous episodes on Hollingshead with psychedelic historian Andy Roberts:
www.bureauoflostculture.com
![William Burroughs and Friends]()
August 29, 2021
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
The Bureau of Lost Culture is dedicated to collecting and recollecting lost, half-forgotten or just rare stories, oral testimonies and sounds.
August 19, 2021
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:
The Bureau of Lost Culture is dedicated to collecting and recollecting lost, half-forgotten or just rare stories, oral testimonies and sounds.
![The Lost World of Pirate Radio - Part One]()
August 2, 2021
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 Reilly, 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
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture
www.bureauoflostculture.com
July 19, 2021
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.
![Cancelled! The Counterculture of Ideas]()
July 6, 2021
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
June 22, 2021
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.
June 7, 2021
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
For the ‘Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World’ album
May 27, 2021
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.
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture
www.bureauoflostculture.com
Peter’s blog on London and counterculture:
www.greatwen.com
May 27, 2021
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
May 27, 2021
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
May 23, 2021
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
