Bureau of Lost Culture

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

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

One our foremost living writers on the esoteric, Gary Lachman, enters the Bureau purportedly to talk about one of our most important, if rather forgotten, dead  writers on the esoteric, T C Lethbridge.   We do get around to exploring Lethbridges's various incarnations as a rogue psychic archaeologist, dowser and parapsychologist but only after some serious digressions into Gary’s various incarnations including his time playing bass for Blondie in mid 70s New York.  We hear how he was escorted out of David Bowie’s loft apartment by two glamorous bodyguards after a disagreement over Lethbridge, delve into the meaning of ‘Counterculture’ and dip into the subject of precognitive dreaming before finishing up with a story about a hedgehog.   In other words, there’s something for everyone..   For more on Gary Lachman and his work https://garylachman.co.uk   For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com

Journalist Tom O Neill, author of 'Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties’, joins us to reveal the truths, untruths, secrets and conspiracies behind the most famous crime of the 60s.   The Tate-Labianca murders and the subsequent trial of 'The Manson Family' were among the events that marked the turning of the countercultural tide and the darkening of the hippy dream.   Tom tells how a straightforward 1999 magazine commission to write an anniversary piece on the murders turned into a 20 year investigative odyssey that revealed a devastating story of corruption, deception, lying and abuse - and that was just from the authorities.   Was Manson a CIA asset gone rogue? We are not fans of conspiracy theories but Tom's research reveals an extraordinary and deeply worrying web involving the CIA, the Beach Boys, LSD, hypnotism, doctors, psychologists and bent lawyers.   For more on Tom and the book: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/tom-oneill/chaos/9780316477574/   For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com

We return for the second part of our trip through the terrific, tortuous and terrible times of Michael Hollings(acid)head with psychedelic historian Andy Roberts.   We reconnect with Hollingshead as he is returning to England to set up the London Psychedelic Centre in Chelsea. He has introduced Timothy Leary to LSD and thus played a momentous part in the history of the counterculture in the USA.   But that was just one event in a picaresque life involving 'turning on' various celebrities including Paul McCartney, Donovon and a cold war spy, living in Scottish communes, the back-stabbing of various friends, being beastly to women and taking more and more LSD.   Hollingshead goes on the run - on acid. Hollingshead defends himself in court - on acid. Hollingshead serves a prison sentence - on acid.    Andy, whose biography, Divine Rascal, is the first full account of the man, leads us to the end of the labyrinthine life of a character who was one part psychedelic, one part psychopathic.   For more on Andy Roberts and ‘Divine Rascal'   http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/divine-rascal/   For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com

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

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

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

‘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: www.techgnosis.com For more on Bureau Of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com

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