Bureau of Lost Culture

*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 #

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

*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  

*In the summer of 1964, a very strange vehicle was seen making its way across America. it was a school bus covered in psychedelic colours, driven by NEAL CASSADY, a beat generation character made famous in JACK KEROUAC'S beat generation classic On the Road and piloted by KEN KESEY, the best selling author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.   *The bus contained a raggle-taggle crew of crazy psychonauts calling themselves The Merry pranksters allegedly dispensing LSD in orange kool aid to all and sundry in attempt to turn on America.   *In this episode, we leave Soho to travel to the far west of the USA, to a farm in Oregon to meet KEN BABBS the last of The Merry Pranksters.   *We talk of all sorts of things - Ken Kesey, the Magic Trip and the Acid Tests of course, plus Kerouac, Ginsberg, Viet Nam, Timothy Leary, spontaneity, the good life and dreams. *And at the end we hear some very positive news about a question that I suspect is troubling many of us   *For The Bureau of Lost Culture https://www.bureauoflostculture.com    #bureauoflostculture #kenkesey #kenbabbs #tarot #themerrypranksters #kerouac #ginsberg #themagicbus #lsd  #acid #tomwolfe #counterculture #psychedelic #thegratefuldead #acidtests #nealcassady #beatgeneration     

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

*Performance artist, actor and underground cabaret star Madame LePustra leads us on a journey back in time in search of the Berlin Cabaret and Kabarett of Weimar Republic era Berlin.   *We learn of the strange and progressive Golden Years of the 1920s when queer and trans identiities were accepted, even feted, within an underground culture that briefly flowered in the city between the wars.   *We meet some of the extraordinary women performers who pushed artistic, theatrical and social boundaries before the Nazis jackbooted the doors of the clubs and theatres and brought the era to a tragic close.   *And we hear of Madame Le Pustra’s work to remember and reinterpret the times through their re-imagined ‘Cabaret of the Nameless’.   For more on Madame Le Pustra https://madamelepustra.com  The Bureau of Lost Culture https://www.bureauoflostculture.com Image courtesy Madame Le Pustra  / Michel Dierickx    #berlincabaret #weimarcabaret #madamelepustra #cabaretofthenameless #counterculture

*"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

*Musician and actor TOM WAITS is one of the great countercultural artists of our time, His '70s albums documented low life America in an LA that no longer exists   *Filmmaker Alex Harvey, author of 'Song Noir: Tom Waits and the Spirit of Los Angeles’ comes to the Bureau to tell how Waits mined a rich seam of the city’s low-life locations and characters, letting the place feed his dark imagination.   *We hear how Tom blended real life with the mythic, turning autobiographical details into songs that were both romantic and disturbing -  and created a vision of LA as the warped, narcotic heart of his nocturnal explorations.   *For more on Alex http://alexanderharvey.org/ *For Song Noir: http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789146639 *For more on Tom Waits: http://www.tomwaits.com/ *For The Bureau of Lost Culture https://www.bureauoflostculture.com  #counterculture #tomwaits #rickieleejones  #thetropicana #LA #kathleenbrenan

*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

*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