
*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, Lisa Law, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, Jill Drower, Peter Coyote and Johnny Marr in conversation. *Listen live on Saturdays at 9.00am on London’s premier independent station Soho Radio or via catch-up on all major podcast providers: *The Bureau is now collected at The British Library Sound Archive
Episodes

Monday Nov 27, 2023
How to Expand Your Consciousness Part 3: The Dreaming
Monday Nov 27, 2023
Monday Nov 27, 2023
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.
*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.


Saturday Nov 11, 2023
Remembering the Crazy Diamond
Saturday Nov 11, 2023
Saturday Nov 11, 2023


Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
How To Expand Your Consciousness Part 2: Tripping
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
*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.
#tripping #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #truth #madness #counterculture #drug #lsd #ayahuasca #neuroscience #consciousness

Sunday Aug 20, 2023
The Music of the Cults
Sunday Aug 20, 2023
Sunday Aug 20, 2023
*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.

#counterculture #cults #cultleaders #newage #thenewage #secretsocieties #jimjones #jonestown #marshallapplewhite #heavensgate #thechildrenofgod #manson #charlesmanson #davidberg #scientology #guru #godbody #thehorsehospital

Sunday Jul 23, 2023
So You Say You Want a (Sexual) Revolution?
Sunday Jul 23, 2023
Sunday Jul 23, 2023
*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.
*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.

Sunday Jun 25, 2023
A Short History of The Pagan
Sunday Jun 25, 2023
Sunday Jun 25, 2023
#pagan #counterculture #wicca #heathen #dionfortune #psychedelicsound #witch #esoteric #thegoldendawn #aleistercrowley #magic #pre-christian


Sunday Jun 11, 2023
The ’4000 Year Old Rock ’n’ Roll Band’
Sunday Jun 11, 2023
Sunday Jun 11, 2023

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

Saturday May 27, 2023
The Life and Psychedelic Times of the 13th Floor Elevators
Saturday May 27, 2023
Saturday May 27, 2023


Sunday Apr 30, 2023
The London Psychonauts
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Well that was certainly true of some of the subjects of this episode.


Saturday Apr 01, 2023
Moss Side Story - with Barry Adamson
Saturday Apr 01, 2023
Saturday Apr 01, 2023


Sunday Mar 19, 2023
The Life and Times of Peter Coyote 2: Buddhism in Babylon
Sunday Mar 19, 2023
Sunday Mar 19, 2023


Monday Mar 06, 2023
The Life and Times of Peter Coyote 1: Diggers to Dharma Bums
Monday Mar 06, 2023
Monday Mar 06, 2023
*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.


Saturday Feb 18, 2023
The Divided Self of R.D. Laing
Saturday Feb 18, 2023
Saturday Feb 18, 2023
*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.
*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


Sunday Jan 08, 2023
Flashing On the Sixties: Part 1
Sunday Jan 08, 2023
Sunday Jan 08, 2023
Images copyright Lisa Law
#Dylan, #TheVelvetUnderground, #JanisJoplin, #TheBeatles, #OtisRedding, #PeterFonda, #DenisHopper, #TimothyLeary, #RamDass, #AllenGinsberg, KenKesey, thehogfarm, themerrypranksters, #wavygravy, #peter,paulandmary #haightashbury, #hippies, #psychedelicmushrooms, #lisalaw

Sunday Nov 20, 2022
Punk, Porn and Performance
Sunday Nov 20, 2022
Sunday Nov 20, 2022
*And she was there at the formation of Adam and the Ants and the Monochrome Set.
*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..


Sunday Nov 06, 2022
Tripping the Light Fantastic
Sunday Nov 06, 2022
Sunday Nov 06, 2022


Monday Oct 24, 2022
The Last of the Merry Pranksters
Monday Oct 24, 2022
Monday Oct 24, 2022
*And at the end we hear some very positive news about a question that I suspect is troubling many of us


Monday Sep 12, 2022
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Monday Sep 12, 2022
Monday Sep 12, 2022


Monday Aug 15, 2022
Sowing the Seeds of Love
Monday Aug 15, 2022
Monday Aug 15, 2022



Monday Jul 04, 2022
Birth, Death - and Frestonia
Monday Jul 04, 2022
Monday Jul 04, 2022


Monday Jun 20, 2022
Women, Sex, Counterculture
Monday Jun 20, 2022
Monday Jun 20, 2022
*Sign up for The Bureau Newsletter: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC
#SydBarrett #Pink Floyd #Groupies #Frigidity #abortion #Ozmagazine #TheFemaleEunuch #germainegreer #jennyspires #theexplodinggalaxy

Monday May 23, 2022
On the Farm with Allen Ginsberg
Monday May 23, 2022
Monday May 23, 2022

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

Monday May 09, 2022
Albion Dreaming - A Brief Trip Through the History of British LSD
Monday May 09, 2022
Monday May 09, 2022

* Sign up for The Bureau Newsletter to get countercultural treats https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC
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Sunday Apr 24, 2022
On the Road ... with Johnny Marr
Sunday Apr 24, 2022
Sunday Apr 24, 2022

* The Bureau Home https://www.bureauoflostculture.com
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Monday Mar 28, 2022
The Exploding Galaxy
Monday Mar 28, 2022
Monday Mar 28, 2022
* 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

Sunday Mar 13, 2022
A Countercultural History of Camden Town
Sunday Mar 13, 2022
Sunday Mar 13, 2022
* Bureau Home www.bureauoflostculture.com
* Bureau Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bureauoflostculture/
* The Bureau Newsletter https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC

Sunday Feb 27, 2022
Countercultural Broadcasting: Urban Pirate Radio
Sunday Feb 27, 2022
Sunday Feb 27, 2022
* 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
Follow Us:
* Bureau Home www.bureauoflostculture.com
* Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bureauoflostculture/
* Get the Bureau Newsletter https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC

Tuesday Jan 18, 2022
The Lives and Times of Michael Moorcock - Part 1
Tuesday Jan 18, 2022
Tuesday Jan 18, 2022
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We'd love to hear from you.
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Sunday Nov 21, 2021
Blondie, The Bowery and The Blank Generation
Sunday Nov 21, 2021
Sunday Nov 21, 2021
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We'd love to hear from you.
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Monday Oct 25, 2021
The Art and Craftiness of Sampling
Monday Oct 25, 2021
Monday Oct 25, 2021
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We'd love to hear from you.
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Monday Sep 13, 2021
Child of the Counterculture
Monday Sep 13, 2021
Monday Sep 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
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We'd love to hear from you.
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Thursday May 27, 2021
The UFO Club
Thursday May 27, 2021
Thursday 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.
Peter’s blog on London and counterculture:
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We'd love to hear from you.
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Sunday Jan 03, 2021
Days of the Underground: The Life and Times of Hawkwind
Sunday Jan 03, 2021
Sunday Jan 03, 2021

Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
Which One’s Pink? Managing the Counterculture
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020

Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
The Man Who Turned On the World - Hollingshead Pt.1
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020

Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Barney Bubbles: Designing the Counterculture
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020

Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
High Weirdness: Psychedelic Visions in 70s America
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
‘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:
For more on Bureau Of Lost Culture

Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
The Secret History of Mescaline
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
Wednesday Sep 16, 2020
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