
*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 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

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 Dec 18, 2022
La Rocka! The Life and Looks of Lloyd Johnson
Sunday Dec 18, 2022
Sunday Dec 18, 2022
*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.
*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.
#RodStewart #Madness #GeorgeMichael #Quadrophenia #JimJarmusch #DavidBowie #KeithRichards #BobDylan #JackNicholson #DavidBailey #TheClash #IggyPop #TomWaits #JohnnyMarr #NickCave #TheStrayCats #barryadamson #ThePretenders #lloydjohnson #larocka

Sunday Dec 04, 2022
Roentgenizdat - The Hidden History of Bone Music
Sunday Dec 04, 2022
Sunday Dec 04, 2022


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 29, 2022
The Low Down LA Life of Tom Waits
Monday Aug 29, 2022
Monday Aug 29, 2022


Monday Aug 01, 2022
The Birth of the Asian Underground
Monday Aug 01, 2022
Monday Aug 01, 2022

Monday Jul 18, 2022
Alan Moore on Counterculture
Monday Jul 18, 2022
Monday Jul 18, 2022
*He is also an occultist, a ceremonial magician and an anarchist.


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

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
* The Bureau Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bureauoflostculture/
* The Bureau Newsletter https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC

Monday Apr 11, 2022
The Life and Times of Dubmeister Dennis Bovell
Monday Apr 11, 2022
Monday Apr 11, 2022
* Now he’s a DJ, multi-instrumentalist and producer of hundreds of records spanning reggae, lovers rock, soul, dub, punk and pop.
* 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.

* 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

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 Jan 02, 2022
The Lost World of The Self-Made Record
Sunday Jan 02, 2022
Sunday Jan 02, 2022
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Image courtesy Museum of London


Sunday Nov 21, 2021
Blondie, The Bowery and The Blank Generation
Sunday Nov 21, 2021
Sunday Nov 21, 2021
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Monday Nov 08, 2021
Raving Upon Thames
Monday Nov 08, 2021
Monday Nov 08, 2021
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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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Sunday Aug 29, 2021
William Burroughs and Friends
Sunday Aug 29, 2021
Sunday Aug 29, 2021
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Monday Aug 02, 2021
The Lost World of Pirate Radio - Part One
Monday Aug 02, 2021
Monday Aug 02, 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’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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Monday Jun 07, 2021
London’s Lost World of Yiddisher Jazz
Monday Jun 07, 2021
Monday Jun 07, 2021
For more on Alan’s work
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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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Thursday May 27, 2021
The English Underground with Nick Laird Clowes - Part 2
Thursday May 27, 2021
Thursday 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

Thursday May 27, 2021
The English Underground with Nick Laird Clowes - Part 1
Thursday May 27, 2021
Thursday 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

Thursday May 27, 2021
Tales from The Flamingo Club
Thursday May 27, 2021
Thursday May 27, 2021

Tuesday Feb 02, 2021
The Lost History of Skiffle - with Billy Bragg
Tuesday Feb 02, 2021
Tuesday Feb 02, 2021

Monday Feb 01, 2021
Soviet Hippies
Monday Feb 01, 2021
Monday Feb 01, 2021
Forget California, swinging sixties London or the Paris riots for a moment, Estonian filmmaker Terje Toomistu joins us to talk about the hippie movement of the Soviet Union.
It had all the characteristics of Western hippiedom: long hair, groovy music, esoteric spirituality and drugs. The only thing missing perhaps was the radical public politics that would have pushed the repressive Soviet authorities into drastic, brutal action
Terji’s film, with its super groovy soundtrack of rare tunes, provides a fascinating glimpse into a moving, daring subculture that flourished east of the Iron Curtain.
More about the Soviet Hippies film and Terje www.soviethippies.com
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture:

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

Tuesday Nov 17, 2020
Rebel Threads: Dressing the Counterculture
Tuesday Nov 17, 2020
Tuesday Nov 17, 2020

Sunday Nov 01, 2020
Days in the Life: The Language of Counterculture
Sunday Nov 01, 2020
Sunday Nov 01, 2020

Monday Oct 19, 2020
Tonite Let's All Make Love in London: The Films of Peter Whitehead
Monday Oct 19, 2020
Monday Oct 19, 2020

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

Monday Sep 14, 2020
The History of the Self - Made Record
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Monday Sep 14, 2020
We are joined by oral historian and broadcaster Alan Dein.
We discuss the history, culture and technology of the coin-operated machines that allowed ordinary people to make a record of themselves in the West (and, in adapted bootlegged form, to create records of forbidden music in the Soviet Union) long before the advent of tape or digital recording.
We hear a selection of extraordinary recordings of strange, moving voices from Alan’s 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 X-Ray Audio
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Monday Sep 14, 2020
The Soviet 'Punk Frank Zappa'
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Monday Sep 14, 2020
We meet with film director Olivia Litchenstein and BBC Russian Arts presenter Alexander Kan to hear about the extraordinary musician Sergey Kuryokhin, ‘the Soviet Punk Frank Zappa’ who with his underground cohorts in Leningrad tried to soundtrack perestroika as the cold war crumbled around them.
Olivia tells of the strange circumstances of the making of the BBC TV series Comrades during the twilight of the Soviet Empire, with tales of tapes smuggled in diplomatic bags and a bizarre intervention by Ronald Reagan.
Alex tells of his friendship with Kuryokhin, an incredibly talented, charming musical provocateur whose live performances astonished Russian audiences. And we learn of the bizarre prank Kuryokhin played on National TV claiming Lenin was a magic mushroom, just one of many dadaist interventions he made before his tragically early death.
The Comrades program featuring Sergey Kuryokhin: https://youtu.be/ibY2lXdgdnM
For more on The Bureau of Lost Culture:

Sunday Sep 13, 2020
A Short History of Soviet Counterculture
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Was counterculture possible in the oppressive, repressive circumstances of the Soviet Union?
Join us as we meet with broadcaster, author and cultural commentator Artemyi Troistsky - the 'Russian John Peel’ - to find out.
We hear some entertaining, comical, tragic, moving and frankly strange stories including tales of the ‘Stilyagi' Soviet Hipsters, the first disco in Moscow, Che Guevara and Lenin as a mushroom.
And we hear how rock music evolved in secret before breaking into the light as perestroika transformed Soviet society.
For more on Art:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemy_Troitsky
For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture
www.bureauoflostculture.com

Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Drugs, Doctors and Rock 'n Roll
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
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
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Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Sweat, Drums and Rock 'n Roll - with Twink
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
We meet with legendary drummer and songwriter John Alder / Mohammed Abdullah, best known as Twink, who played for the In Crowd, Tomorrow, The Pink Fairies, The Pretty Things, Hawkwind, The Aquarian Age, Pink Wind and Stars - amongst others legendary acts.
One of the foremost figures of the late sixties London music scene, he tells us what it was like - from the inside.
We hear what Jimi Hendrix said to him when they jammed at The UFO club, about Syd Barrett’s tragic last gig and about a life beating out the rhythm of the counterculture from Colchester to Morocco and back again.
You can find out more about Twink’s legacy at www.thinkpink50th.com
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