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Early color footage of The Beatles from 1963
09.17.2011
03:46 pm
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Early color footage of The Beatles, from November 20, 1963. The fabs were on a 6-week tour of the UK and Ireland, when British Pathe caught up with them at the ABC Cinema, Manchester, filming them backstage and perfroming “She Loves You” and “Twist and Shout”.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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09.17.2011
03:46 pm
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A seemingly stoned Sonny Bono warns teenagers about the dangers of marijuana
06.15.2011
01:19 pm
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Sonny Bono seems more than a little stoned in this US government anti-marijuana film from 1968. It includes an hilarious final piece to camera (which looks edited to best comic effect) where Bono trips over his words, as he tells the audience:

“Well now, you’ve heard from both sides of the question, but what you do with your life is up to you.

“If you become a pothead you risk blowing the most important time of your life: your teen age. That unrepeatable time for you to grow up and to prepare for being an adult that can handle problems, and make something meaningful out of life.

“Or, you have the choice to have the courage to see and deal with the world for what it really is - far, far from perfect but for you and for me the only one there is.

“While it’s true that some of you will actually go to the moon and perhaps other planets, it’s also true that in a few short years, this world will be your establishment, and you will be the Establishment and what you do or don’t do about it will be your scene. Your the generation with the brain power and the opportunity to do more for the human needs of this world than any other generation in history.

“Let’s hope your teenage children don’t have too much criticism of what you did or didn’t do because you were on pot.”

O, roll me a fat one Sonny.
 

 
With thanks to Debbie Rochon
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.15.2011
01:19 pm
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Stunning film clips of the Sunset Strip in the mid-60’s
04.21.2011
03:00 pm
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I don’t know the exact provenance of these positively gorgeous stock film clips of the nearly-mythical Sunset Strip area in our beloved city that have been popping up in the last day or two via the Vintage Los Angeles FB group and Youtuber dantanasgirl. What an incredible treat, though. The building on the right in the first clip that bears the words Come to the Party would shortly become the Whisky a Go Go and further down the road Largo would become The Roxy. Certainly two of the more significant and beloved locations for my musical up-bringing! My Grandparent’s house was mere blocks from here, so these images really tweak some early childhood memories as well. Oh, internet….
 

 

 
More clips after the jump…

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Posted by Brad Laner
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04.21.2011
03:00 pm
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Lee Harris - Foot Soldier for Counter Culture
01.27.2011
06:27 pm
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Lee Harris is a playwright, poet, publisher and “foot soldier” of the UK’s counter culture. Born in Johannesburg in 1936, Harris was one of the few whites on the African National Congress, opposing segregation during the time of Apartheid, and was involved with the Congress of the People rally in Soweto in 1955.

Harris arrived in the UK in 1956, to study drama, after college, he had a small part in Orson Welles’ film Chimes at Midnight and later worked in theater. 

A major turning point for Harris came on the 11 June 1965, when he first heard Allen Ginsberg at the decade defining International Poetry Reading at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

We turned up in our thousands to hear some of the best poets of the Beat Generation. When Allen Ginsberg stood up to read his poems you could feel an electric charge in the air. There he was, like an Old Testament prophet, with his long dark hair and bushy beard, his voice reverberating with emotional intensity. Never before in that hallowed hall had such outrageous and colorful language been heard…..Hearing Allen that first time was a revelatory and illuminating experience.

That event and his presence in London that summer, helped kindle the spark that set the underground movement alight in the mid-sixties.

Harris began to write plays with Buzz Buzz and then wrote the critically acclaimed Love Play, which was performed at the Arts Lab in 1967 - a highly important venue for alternative arts, founded by Jim Haynes, where John Lennon and Yoko Ono exhibited and David Bowie performed. It was during this time Harris became acquainted with William Burroughs, Frank Zappa, Ken Kesey and toured with The Fugs.

Harris wrote for the International Times and in 1972 established the first “head shop” Alchemy in London on the Portobello Road, where he sold “paraphenalia” brought back from India and counter culture books.

“I’d started off in the West End before as an anarchist trader selling psychedelic posters in the late sixties you see because I did not know how to make a living. I ended up in the Portobello Road, making chokers, selling chillums, first because that was the in thing with beads.

I had traded at many festivals so it was natural for me and I started to be a sort of medicine head, with Tiger Balm, Herbs and I believed in cannabis as the ‘healing herb’.

It was here that Harris was famously prosecuted for selling cigarette papers. The shop was a focus for alternative culture, and it was here Harris began publishing underground ‘zines, including Jim Haynes, infamous drug-smuggler Howard Marks, and artist, journalist and activist Caroline Coon.
 

 
Part two of ‘Life and Works of Lee Harris’ plus bonus Lee Harris and the Beat Hotel, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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01.27.2011
06:27 pm
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Did Brian Epstein’s Ghost Predict John Lennon’s Assassination in Rare BBC Documentary?
12.08.2010
03:32 pm
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John Lennon 24 Hours is a “rarely seen” BBC documentary following John and Yoko over five days in early December 1969. It’s an intimate and interesting film with some very fine moments - a few you may have seen before, but even so it’s well worth watching.

There’s a spooky moment for Lennon-philes at around 1 minute 20 seconds in part 3 (below), when Lennon reads out a letter from a concerned fan who wrote:

Dear Mr Lennon, From information I received whilst using ouija board I believe there will be an attempt to assassinate you. The spirit who gave me this information was Brian Epstein.

Enjoy!
 
John Lennon 24 Hours - Part 1
 

 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.08.2010
03:32 pm
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The Poppy Family: Beyond the Clouds
07.16.2009
06:58 pm
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Recent discovery and obsession: The late sixties Vancouver, British Colombia band The Poppy Family. Imagine the Mamas and the Papas if they’d gone off their meds, they had sitars and tablas, and they’d been, you know, good. Apparently they had the biggest hit of all time (all Canadian time) in 1969 with “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?” off their album of the same name. I’ve had that album on constant iPhone repeat and it never, ever gets old. It’s classic West Coast pop, but from the opposite end of the coast from California. You can almost hear the gloom creeping in from the Rockies…

Apparently the CD still hasn’t been re-issued, and it’s impossible to find on vinyl?

Posted by Jason Louv
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07.16.2009
06:58 pm
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