Bureau of Lost Culture

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 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 

 

 

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. 

 

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 

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

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

 

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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

 

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

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

 

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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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

The Countercultural World of Iain Sinclair

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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Raving Upon Thames

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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The Art and Craftiness of Sampling

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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Child of the Counterculture

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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William Burroughs and Friends

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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The Lost World of Pirate Radio - Part One

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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London’s Lost World of Yiddisher Jazz

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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The English Underground with Nick Laird Clowes - Part 2

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

The English Underground with Nick Laird Clowes - Part 1

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

Tales from The Flamingo Club

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

 

For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture

www.bureauoflostculture.com 

The Lost History of Skiffle - with Billy Bragg

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 

 

 

Days of the Underground: The Life and Times of Hawkwind

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

 

For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture

www.bureauoflostculture.com

Which One’s Pink? Managing the Counterculture

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

 

Rebel Threads: Dressing the Counterculture

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

 

For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture

www.bureauoflostculture.com 

Days in the Life: The Language of Counterculture

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

 

For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture

www.bureauoflostculture.com 

 

Tonite Let's All Make Love in London: The Films of Peter Whitehead

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

 

The Man Who Turned On the World - Hollingshead Pt.1

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

Barney Bubbles: Designing the Counterculture

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

 

For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture

www.bureauoflostculture.com 

 

Arthur Machen and The London Labyrinth

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

 

For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture

www.bureauoflostculture.com

The Secret History of Mescaline

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

 

Drugs, Doctors and Rock 'n Roll

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

For more on Bureau of Lost Culture

www.bureauoflostculture.com

 

Sweat, Drums and Rock 'n Roll - with Twink

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

For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture

www.bureauoflostculture.com