the beatles

The Birth of British Youth Culture

Teddy Boys (and Teddy Girls)emerged in Britain in the early 1950s, becoming the UK's first distinct youth subculture. 
 
Born in the aftermath of World War II, these working-class teenagers rejected post-war austerity and embraced a bold, rebellious style of dandyish suits, long drape jackets, narrow trousers, velvet collars, patterned waistcoats - and of course pomaded quiffed hair for the boys and equally sharp threads for the girls.
 
Musican and writer Max Decharne, author of 'Teddy Boys: Post-War Britain and the First Youth Revolution’, came to the Bureau to talk about the Teddys - and about Mods, Punk, the masssive influence of Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock and of the impact the working class have had on British fashion.
 
The Teds became notorious in the media - associated with violence, for clashes with rival gangs and for their alleged involvement in the 1958 Notting Hill riots. But was that really the case? Or was it because, as working class upstarts they rattled the middle and upper class establishment?
Embracing American rock'n'roll, they became the foundation for future youth movements, proving that teenagers could form their own cultural identity, shaping Britain’s rock and roll scene and inspiring later subcultures like the Mods and Rockers.
For More on Max 
For his music
For more on the book 
Ken Russell's wonderful images of Teddy Girls
 
#teddy #teddyboys #teddygirls #quiff #rock'n'roll #billhaley #rockaroundtheclock #streetstyle #youthculture 

Spirit, Soul and Rock 'n' Roll - with Mike Scott

The Waterboys' MIKE SCOTT grew up in the '60s in Edinburgh and said: “I accepted the incredible happenings of that decade — with all its rapid evolution, colour, revelations and magic — as the normal order of things".
 
At the age of 4 he had his first mystical experience and remembers that from the minute he bought "Last Night in Soho" by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich in 1968 he knew he had to live a life in music.In the years since he has toured the world with The Waterboys and as a solo artist, had hit records with The Whole of the Moon, This is the Sea and Fishermans Blues and has released 15 albums.
 
Mike has been unashamedly open about the importance of spirituality in his life - even when that has been deeply unfashionable in the mainstream culture.
 
Now, The Waterboys have a new record about to land. It features Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle and Fiona Apple and it's a song cycle around the life of legendary actor and countercultural polymath Dennis Hopper.  
Mike came to the Bureau to talk about all of that, his time at the Findhorn Foundation, Life, Death and Dennis Hopper - and much more. 
For Mike and his work, music and adventures
Universal Hall
 
Findhorn Foundation
 
#thewaterboys #mikescott #brucespringsteen #findhorn #findhornfoundation #steveearle #fionaapple #ladbrokegrove #thewholeofthemoon #dennishopper

Rubin and The Yippies

In 1964 he was a working class hippie student crossing Haight Street, a road in San Francscso, when hit by a vision  - and life as he knew it was over
In 1994, he was a multi-millionaire new-age entrepeneur crossing Wilshire Boulevard, a road in Los Angeles, when hit by a car - and life as he knew it was over.In the years in between, along with the co-founder of The Yippies Abbie Hoffman, counter-culture icon, anti-war activist, new age/self-help proponent, social-networking pioneer and all round troublemaker JERRY RUBIN helped articulate the voice of young America in the '60s and early '70s.
 
He was arrested countless times, carried out many extrardinary protests that used performance art, pranks and provocation including an attempt to levitate The Pentagon and regularly hung out with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in New York.
Unlike Hoffman, who lived off grid for several years following a drug bust, died by suicide in 1989 and was canonized as a countercultural saint, Rubin was accused by many of “selling out" - the worst thing a 1960s radical could do - and as a consequence got written out of the hippie history books.
 
Well that is until our guest for this episode wrote the biography, 'Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, An American Revolutionary'
 
PAT THOMAS, archivist, uber re-issue producer, countercultral author and music journalist returned for the third timr to the Bureau.
 
Previously he was here to talk about The Black Panthers and Allen Ginsberg,and this time, he traced  Jerry Rubin's journey from high school journalist to stoned political freak and multi-millionaire entrepeneur.
 
Along the way, we hear about The Yippies(the Youth International Party), The Chicago 8, John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the early 70s, EST training - and selling out
 
And we debate the question:
'Once a revolutionary always a revolutionary?'
 
Pat's book:
 'Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, An American Revolutionary'
 
 
Check out this Rubin related playlist
 
#jerryrubin #abbiehoffman #theblackpanthers #blackpower #yippies #theyippies #thebeats #allenginsberg #timothyleary #activism #socialism #revolution #levitatethepentagon #eldridgecleaver #bobdylan #nixon #johnandyoko #vietnam #anti-war #protest #johnlennon #haightashbury #thechicago8 
 

Post-Punk Druidry - with Youth

*"Punk taught us the future had only just begun” he says
*For him that future was to include the bands Killing Joke, The Orb, Brilliant and The KLF; starting various record labels; hit records; producing and remixing a massive range of artists including Paul McCartney, The Verve, Tom Jones, Maria McKee, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, Guns N' Roses, Primal Scream, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Art of Noise, Crowded House, Erasure, U2, INXS, and the Suns of Arqa- and a Grammy for his recent work with Toots and the Maytalls
 
*But running beneath it all is a deeply countercultural spirit.
 
*Uber-Music producer and druid Youth (Martin Glover)returned to the Bureau to talk about his life and times. We get deep into punk, post-punk, London as 'The City of Revelation', psychgeography, The Sacred Thames, squatting, the South London Arts Lab, druidry, turning Stonehenge off, having an epiphany, burning money, sampling other people's records, the second summer of love, the creative process, drugs - and, of course, counterculture.
 
Check out this playlist of just a selection of Youth's work and music.
 
https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/youth-martin-glover-productor/pl.u-EzbdIa0z2vl
 
 
#psychogeography #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #thepyramids #yout #counterculture #drug  #lsd #acid #martinglover #theorb #psychedelic #klf #druidry #killingjoke #occult

The Sounds of Black Power

*A time when musicians were viewed as revolutionaries and revolutionaries might be considered pop culture icons
 
*Crate digger / rock critc / reissue producer and archivist extraordinaire Pat Thomas came to the Bureau to tell how black power intersected with counterculture and influenced folk, rock, soul and jazz in the years between 1965 and 1975.
 
*We hear astonishing stories from his book 'Listen, Whitey: The Sights and Sounds of Black Power’ and some amazing sounds from the accompanying album issued by Light in the Attic including tracks by John and Yoko, Dylan, The Watts Prophets and Elaine Brown.
 
*And we learn how the Black Power Movement, and the Black Panthers in particular, moved from militant political action to community activism whilst interacting with the wider counterculture - and, though bad things were done, how many of their adherants used a pencil, a book of poetry, a typewriter or a musical instrument to bring about change beyond violent revolution.
 
#counterculture #rockagainstracism #backpanthers #blackpower #angeladavis #racism #thebeats #oakland #tomothyleary #activism #socialism #revolution #rockrevolution #eldridgecleaver #bobdylan #motown #johnandyoko #thewattsprophets 

The Beat Goes On: The Sounds of Allen Ginsberg

YOUTH, producer of a huge range of artists (including Kate Bush, Crowded House, The Orb, KLF, The Verve, Guns ’n’ Roses and Primal Scream) and Jesse Goodman of the Allen Ginsberg Estate come to the Bureau to talk of the beat poet’s impact on music and the British counterculture.
 
We hear about Youth's 'Iron Horse' project and two albums of interpretations of Ginsberg's Fall of America poems by an astounding range of artists and we get deep into counterculture, the power of poetry, creativity and the possibility of a third summer of love..
--
Youth and Jesse will be with us in  March, when we are presenting a program of happenings to celebrate Ginsberg's London Life.  
See the EVENTS page for full details.
--
In May 1965, Allen  arrived in London and gave a free reading at Better Books in Charing Cross Road. It was an event described by poet-provocateur Jeff Nuttall as "the first healing wind on a very parched collective mind” and one that provided the impetus for the International Poetry Incarnation at Royal Albert Hall, a hugely significant catalyst for the first British Summer of Love.
Music featured prominently in Ginsberg’s work - both in his self-accompanied performances and live collaborations with artists including Dylan, Paul McCartney and Patti Smith - and in the inspiration it has had on the wide range of musicians who have set it to music.
Ginsberg In London Events 
Youth’s Iron Horse Album
Youth at The Horse Hospital March 15th
The Fall of America albums  Volume 1 and Volume 2
Images courtesy of the John Hopkins Estate
 

London's Lost Street of Song

Britain’s own Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street was once alive with the sound of hammered pianos, and sung melodies and choruses. Its songwriters knocked out tunes on the fly and rushed to the street to sell them to pay for the next round of drinks.In the '60s, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks came here, so did Donovan and Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Elton John, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. A popular rendezvous was La Gioconda, an Italian cafe which most visited at some point or other – David Bowie was said to practically live there.Later when Malcolm McLaren was looking for a rehearsal space for The Sex Pistols, he was delighted to find room in Denmark Street, installing his upstarts in the heart of the traditional music industry - like Greek soldiers inside the Trojan Horse. 
 
Journalist Pete Watts returns to The Bureau to tell us tales of this lost street of dreams  - and at least of one nightmare.
 
Pete's wonderful book on Denmark Street is HERE
 
 
#hipgnosis #pink floyd #london #pop music #london #musichistory #counterculture #soho #musicpublishing #music  #1960s #jimihendrix #thesexpistols #davidbowie #the kinks #the beatles #DenmarkStreet #tinpanalley

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 

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

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
 
*Let us know where you are at(a few questions about you)
*Get Our Bulletin
 
#counterculture #music #hammondorgan #soho #sohoclubs #soho #sohohistory #londonhistory #juliedriscoll #brianauger #hendrix #6oslondon #acidjazz

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
 
*Get our Counterculture newsletter
 
*The Bureau of Lost Culture Home
 
#sex #counterculture #sexualrevolution #sexualliberation #libido #permissivesociety #thepill #miniskirt #hippie #commune #blowup #janebirkin #sergegainsbourg #nabokov #freelove #sohoradio
 
 

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
http://www.bureauoflostculture.com
 
For more on Peter and his work
http://www.petercoyote.com
 
#counterculture #thediggers #petercoyote #psychedelic #mescaline #peyote #haightashbury #freefamil #london #hellsangels #kenkesey #zen #america

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
 
 

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 #

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 

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