Episodi
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The Waterboys' MIKE SCOTT grew up in the '60s in Edinburgh and said: âI accepted the incredible happenings of that decade â with all its rapid evolution, colour, revelations and magic â 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 adventuresUniversal Hall Findhorn Foundation #thewaterboys #mikescott #brucespringsteen #findhorn #findhornfoundation #steveearle #fionaapple #ladbrokegrove #thewholeofthemoon #dennishopper
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She says: ‘I was reared Catholic but got over it, was born male but got over it, stopped sleeping with boys about the time I stopped being one and am much happier than I was when I was younger'.
ROZ KAVENY is a poet, a novelist, a writer of science fiction, a reviewer, a cultural critic, a literary journalist and a celebrated activist.
She has also been a sex worker - a hustler - as she would say, and has been both celebrated and denigrated.
She was born a boy in 1949, became a woman all the way back in 1982 and has led a very countercultural life indeed.
This is part of her story. It's a wild and at times shocking ride. It gives an insight into what it was like to come of age as trans in an era before even being gay was legalised in the UK.
Note: contains descriptions of sexualabuse.
#trans #transgender #rozkaveney #sexchange #genderdismorphia #gender #hustlers #gendersurgery
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Episodi mancanti?
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This morning I sat in my house, took a twenty pound note from my wallet, lit a match and set the note on fire.
Why? How did I feel as I watched it burn? Was it a waste, an immoral or stupid thing to do - or was it a deeply countercultural act?
Jon Harris, came to the Bureau to talk about his life - as a pornographer, as a rock 'n' roll tour manager, as a bankrupt - and, most importantly, as The High Priest of The Church of Burn.
We try to understand what money is, what it might be and what burning it can mean.
We hear of Jon's own history of burning money and of the rites of The Church of Burn. Of course The KLF get a mention, as does Serge Gainsbourg and Youth of Killing Joke as we explore the history of the intentional sacrificial destruction of somethign that mainstream culture seems built around and compleltey obsessed with.
The Church of Burn
Jon's substack
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I have often been asked about the music that plays during the Bureau episodes. Most of it is from two albums by The Real Tuesday Weld: 'Junskshop Melodies' (which will be released in 2025) and 'Songs For Crow' which has just been released. Detaisl HERE
#money #moneyburning #cash #currency #churchofburn #daisycampbell #johnhiggs #youth #killingjoke #klf #theklf #thekfoundation #sergegainsbourg
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What is a mystic, what is mysticism, what is the mystical?
Many of us have sense that there is something mystical, or at least mysterious, underpinning things, some countercultural force that defies explanation but survives even in our 24/7 social-media drenched, junked up internet world of money, career and self promotion.Philosophy, along much modern science and many formal religions, poo-poos the mystical - relegating it to the woo-woo, of interest only to the less sophisticated, the superstitious - or the deluded.
Yet our guest Simon Critchely is a Professor of Philosophy. He came to the Bureau to suggest that modern philosophy has got it wrong, that mystical experiences offer a practical way to deepen the sense of our lives, whether through mainstream spiritual connection, by taking part in mind-altering experiences - or just by opening to the mystical in ordinary life. We hear about some of the extraordinary mystics of the past, talk about how the arts can point to the mystic, and digress into ecstasy, sex, drugs and rock and roll, Jesusâs foreskin, William Blake, the covid pandemic, Nick Cave and Wim Wenders,More on Simon and the book On Mysticism, the Experience of Ecstasy #counterculture #mysticism #nickcave #philosophy #mysticalexperience #relics #saints #heretics #consciousness #truth #madness -
Genesis P-Orridge was a performance artist, neo Pagan, Industrial music innovator, the co-founder of COUM, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV and an arch provocateur. He was variously described as a wrecker of civilisation, transgressive and blasphemous, accused of being a Satanist and of sexually abusing his children (a lie - in fact he was a loving father and grandfather), and claimed to be a threat to society. He could be both very alarming and very kind. In later life Genesis became infamous with attempts to unite as a âpandrogyneâ, a single entity, with partner Lady Jaye through the use of extreme surgical body modification intended to make them physically resemble one anotherFilmaker David Charles Rodrigues, director of S/HE IS STILL HERE an extraordinary, moving film based around interviews made in the last months of Genesis's life, came to the Bureau to talk about the Cut Up technique, William Burroughs, Bryon Gysin, The Exploding Galaxy, industrial music, the Satanic Panic and much more in the life and death of a deeply countercultural artist. #genesis p-orridge #throbbinggristle #coum #psychictv #thetempleofpsychicyouth #industrialmusic #templeofpsychicyouth #pandrogyne #coseyfannitutti #chrisandcosey #williamburroughs #bryongysin #cutup #thecutuptechnique #ica #censorship #transgressive #satanicpanic #ladyjaye #thexxplodinggalaxy
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In the turbulent late 1970s, six-year-old Susanna Crossman moved with her mother and siblings from a suburban terrace to a crumbling mansion deep in the English countryside. They would share their new home with over fifty other residents - idealists from all over the world - armed with worn paperbacks on ecology, Marx and radical feminism and drawn together by utopian dreams of remaking the world. They did not leave for fifteen years. This was not a hippie commune or a new age retreat but a community run on radical socialist Marxist principles. Yet, however noble the intentions of the adults, was this suitable place - a suitable home - for a child to grow up?Susanna wrote a book to try to answer that question and came to the Bureau to tell us all about it - and about the pleasures and perils of growing up in the fallout of the Utopian Dream. More on SusannaMore on her book Home Is Where We StartMore on British Intentional Communities #communes #counterculture #punk #radical #utopia #alternativecommunities #intentionalcommunities #esoteric #hippie #marxist
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The Joy of Sex was published in 1972 and for years, was rarely out of the bestseller lists, generating sequels, revised editions and a lot of imitators - so how could it be countercultural?For two reasons: firstly that Dr Alex Comfort who wrote it was a deeply countercultural figure, and second, because its publication represents the moment when the sexual revolution of the countercultural years of the late '50s and â60s, threw off its remaining clothes and dived naked into the bourgeous middle class mainstream. And it changed a lot of peoplesâ live - well their sex lives at any rate. Social justice journalist activist and anarchist Eric Laursen, author of Polymath: The Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort, came to The Bureau to tell of the poet, novelist, doctor, biologist, gerontologist, anarchist, scientific humanist, public intellectual, pacifist and activist who also happened to write the worldâs most famous guide to lovemaking.. For More on Eric For More on Polymath: The Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort #sex #sexguide #thejoyofsex #alexcomfort #thesexualrevolution #counterculture #sexmanual #sandstone
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*Every society is a high society. Getting high has been a pursuit of civilisations throughout time. *Every day, people drink coffee in European cafes, chew betel nut in Indonesian markets, nibble coca leaf on Andean mountainsides and smoke tobacco in every nation on earth. *Mind-altering drugs have been part of virtually every human culture that has ever existed - from prehistory to the present day. They have shaped cultures, kick-started global trade, transformed our understanding of the mind, built empires and threatened the fabric of society. *Cultural historian and writer on the psychoactive Mike Jay returned to the Bureau to tell us why For more on Mike and his book High Society
#drugs #drugwar #opiumwars #psychoactive #opium #heroin #mescaline #lsd #cocaine #khat #betel #psychedelics #highsociety #gettinghigh #addiction #cartels
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âImaÂginÂaÂtion thrives in darkÂnessâ
We talk about The Undergound often at the Bureau - not Londonâs subterranean rail sytem, but the countercultural alternative society of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.
But that is just one of the undergrounds - the underworlds - that are the subject of this episodeDizzying ossuaries, freakish creatures of the deep sea, astounding colors of agates, lava and crystals, mind bending organic structures of mycorrhizal fungi, caverns, crevices, burrows, bunkers, burial chambers, ghistly shipwrecks, religous hellscapes and surrealist dreamscapes, natural and constructed subterranean realms and the imagined and unconscious worlds of dreams and the human psyche.
Image Alchemist Stephen Ellcock came to take us on a deep dive journey down under with his truly astonishing, visually stunning guide book Underworlds, a volume in five sections covering both the real and the imaginary, moving between continents and time periods and disciplines such as philosophy, biology, art history and literature. We talk of how the actual physical world beneath us has fed our fears, visions and imagination â and conversely, provoked us to imagine a mythic, esoteric, mysterious underground - the afterworld of the dead, of the fairies and of the psychogical unconscious. For more on Stephen and his amazing work -
*In 1918, Billie Carleton, a West End actress, came off stage, went partying with friends, returned to her flat and was found dead the next morning - apparently of a cocaine overdose. A few years later, Frieda Kimpton, a dancer in Soho bars, committed suicide - with cocaine. These events blew up into a huge media dope drama - with a cast of characters includes villians - Brilliant Chang, a Chinese restaurant proprietor and Edgar Manning, a black jazz drummer - and victims, Billie, Frieda and the other 'Dope Girls'. *Around them, in the Soho streets off Shaftesbury Avenue, there swirled a raffish group of seedy and entitled hedonists. Britain was horrified and fascinated, and so the drug underground and the moral panic about it, was born amid a gush of exotic tabloid detail. *MAREK KOHN whose newly revised cult classic Dope Girls has inspired an upcoming BBC TV series, came to the Bureau to tell us how the panic about drugs that kicked off on the 1920s (bringing in drug laws that are still with us today), was more about the fear of newly emancipated women in society and an imagined menace of foreigners bound on enslaving them, than about any damage done by the drugs themselves. *More about Dope Girls HERE*More about Marek HERE*More about the upcoming BBC series Dope Girl #drugs #psychedelics #cocaine #opium #morphine #druglaws #counterculture #drugculture #drugunderground #soho #overdose #dopegirls #dope #drugunderground
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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 âselling 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 -
When musician ARTHUR RUSSELL died in 1992, at age 40, of complications related to HIV-AIDS, he was an obscure figure â though a legend in the 70s and 80s underground music scenes at downtown New York clubs such as The Loft and Paradise Garage.
RICHARD KING, author of 'Travels Over Feeling'(Faber) a poignant and evocative visual chronology of Arthur's life and times, came to the the Bureau to tell us about him and why he matters.
Despite his prodigious output, his inability to finish songs, and the genre-busting uniqueness of much of his music, meant that he released only two albums under his own name in his lifetime. But in the decades since his death, a series of posthumous releases have generated a deep love and admiration in many who have been lucky to come across his music.
We also get into indie record shop culture, music sobbery, the underground New York club scene of the mid seventies and ask the question: 'How do you know when, a song, a book or a piece of art is finished?'
Thanks to Dan Papps at Faber, to Steve Knutson of Audika Records and Cat Corrigan of Beggars Banquet who have posthumously released much of Arthur's unpublished work, for permission to include his music.
We also included two selections from Matt Wolfâs film 'Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell'
Image by Joel Sokolov/Courtesy of Audika Records #arthurrussell #newyorkclubs #avantagarde #philipglass #audikarecords #richardking #faber #hiv #music -
They helped inspire a whole generation of young ravers and lit the fuse for what was to blow up with Technival and Burning Man - as well as more mainstream festivals across Europe and the US - but their (counter)cultural contribution remains largely unacknowledged in their home country. Marc Angelo Harrison, one of the orginal founders of the peopleâs sound system, techno, free party, DJ collective Spiral Tribe came to the Bureau to tell some of their story - and about his own journey up and down the spiral. His book A Darker Electricty published by uber-cool electronic music publisher Velocity Press is a rollocking, rumbuctious, beautifully written testament to a deeply countercultural spirit and time. We dive deep into the free party scene of the early 90s and talk squatting, sound systems, Ladbroke Grove, doing things for free, police brutality, the 'new ageâ travellers, the tragedy of Castle Morton, ongoing inspiration, community - and the power of bass.. A Darker Electricity- Mark's bookA Darker Electricity- The Audio bookFree Party: A Folk History - Aaron Trinderâs wonderful documentary of the last 80s and early 90s free festival scene #festivals #counterculture #freefestivals #spiraltribe #squatparty #travellers #newagetravellers #battleofthebeanfield #hippie #castlemorton #techno #drugs #lsd #soundsystem #raveculture #raves #breakbeat #stonehenge
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*Whatever happened to the Greek Gods? if you are a teenager living half way up a 1970s tower block listening to Drill, should you even care?
*On this epside we travel in time and space to Ancient Greece, the classical psycho-geographic birthplace of Western Culture (and therefore of counterculture), specfically to the mythic landscape of Epidavros and the sacred temple of Asclepius.
*Our guide and guest is Sarah Janes, one of Britain's foremost lucid dreamers, explorer and teacher of ancient mysteries.
*We hear how the Temple of Asclepius's treatment of the sick involved diet, excercise, theater - and comedy - in addition to surgery and medicine.
*We revisit the subject of dreams, nightmares and countercultural consciousness - and hear why the gods are still with us, whether we ignore them or not.
âąAnd the Scottish band The Proclaimers make a surprise apearance....
For more on Sarah and her work
#dreaming #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #truth #madness #counterculture #sleep #luciddreaming #dreams #neuroscience #consciousness #nightmares #epidavros #ancientgreece #greekgods #asclepius #jung #ecstasy #thegods
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How Queer Culture Shaped Pop Culture
"The 1972 version of David Bowie didnât spring from nowhere. Although he refused to affiliate himself explicitly with gay liberation, he had found both artistic and social inspiration in the gay world, in particular the renewed sense of freedom and possibility that rippled through the British gay subculture in the early 1970s."
We finally lured the award-winning, bestselling author, pop-culture, punk penman Jon Savage to the Bureau to talk about his life and epic new book The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Resistance Shaped Popular Culture (1955â1979)
It's an electrifying, massively entertaining - and at times, tragic - look at key moments in music history between 1955 and 1979, which helped move gay culture from the margins to the mainstream and changed the face of pop forever â from the ambiguous sexuality of stars such as Little Richard in the 1950s through to David Bowie, glam rock and Sylvesterâs âYou Make Me Feel(Mighty Real)'.
We talked about all that, about Punk, Joy Division, Tony Wilson, Johnny Marr, Factory Records and about how Jon grew up in the London of the late '50s and '60s, how he became a writer during one of the most exciting times for music journalism in the '70s and '80s - and about his own Secret Public Life..
More on the book here
More on the compilation album here
More on Jon here
#homosexuality #sex #london #queer #gayliberation #musichistory #sexuality #gay #tomrobinson #gladtobegay #queerculture #counterculture #punk #comingout #homesexuality #joydivision #theclash #sex #johnnymarr #factoryrecords #johnnymarr #faberandfaber #littlerichard #glf #gayliberationfront #bisexuality #pride #london #queer #gayliberation #lgbtq #sexuality #gay #thesecretpublic #musicpress #gaydisco #jonsavage #thesmiths #bowie
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'Health care is a right, not a privilege'
*Whilst many of his fellow physicians became business entrepeneurs rather than healers, Dr. Dave opened the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic in 1967, ministering to the thousands of young people and hippies flocking to San Francisco during the Summer of Love.
*Over the years, the patients using the clinic shifted from idealistic hippies with STDs and bad trip experiences to those with serious drug addictions, Vietnam veterans with heroin habits and early AIDS patients - the dispossessed and the marginalised cast adrift by the mainstream culture and excluded by the health industry.
*We hear about Charles Manson, the CIA, mind control, the history of Haight Ashbury, drugs and the darkening of the hippie dream. And we hear about the events and vision that made Dave turn his back on academic fame and fortune to pursue the countercultural life.
*His small office at 558 Clayton St. helped launch the free clinic movement, which has expanded to over 1,200 clinics around the US all built upon his principle of health care as a right, not a privilege.
#counterculture #drug #lsd #acid #haightashbury #thegratefuldead #psychedelic #sanfrancisco #dr.dave #charlesmanson #CIA #MKUltra #medicine -
*"Punk taught us the future had only just begunâ 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
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*Julie Taylor was a police officer who gave her name to 'OPERATION JULIE', the biggest drug bust in UK history and one which resulted in the conviction of over a hundred individuals involved in the trafficking of LSD, including some of the most prolific chemists of the era. *Christine Bott was a practising doctor living a classic 1970s rural countercultural life in mid Wales, growing organic vegetable, rearing goats and ministering to the local community. She also happened to be part of the biggest LSD manufacturing gang in UK history, an activity that led to her arrest under the Operation Julie bust and imprisonment amongst 'the 36 most dangerous women in Britain' - including the child murderer Myra Hindley. *Whilst much has been made of Operation Julie in articles, books and even a musical in recent years, Christine's story, like many of those of women in the counterculture, has been largely sidelined - until now. *Before she died, her friend KATE HAYES promised her that she would tell it - and she has kept that promise by publishing two books: 'The Untold Story of Christine Bott' and 'After Julie: The Kemp Tapes', the latter a record of the only interviews with Christine's partner Richard Kemp, the chemist who invented 'The Microdot' (generally recorded as the best LSD in Christendom. *Both were driven by a desire to change the world for the better, to save the planet and, however naive their actions may have been, they held to that vision and paid the price for it. *Kate came to the Bureau to tell us how it all came about and how Christine survived - and even thrived - despite the darkness of prison. Its truly gripping stuff. For more on Kate and the books #tripping #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #operationjulie #christinebott #counterculture #drug #lsd #acid #richardkemp #myrahindley #psychedelic #microdot #tripping #druglaw #timleary
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*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 Powerâ 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
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*Who do the green roads and wide open spaces of Albion belong to? *This episode is a story is about a collision of two cultures - the counterculture of the twin tribes of urban free party ravers and new age travellers - and the mainstream culture of landowners, the legal authorities, English Heritage and right-wing politicians. *In the first of a series on '80s and '90s counterculture, Aaron Trinder, director of the documentary 'Free Party: A Folk History' came to the Bureau to tell how that collision played out in the years between 1985 and 1992 when extra-ordinary free festivals and parties built on youthful passion, music, community, dancing, the desire to connect with the ancient landcape - and drugs - were violently suppressed. *We hear of the brutal police tactics at 'The Battle of the Beanfield' and at Britiain's largest ever free rave at Castle Morton; how legislation has curtailed the culture of the travellers, the use of common land and ancient rights of access, and we note that whilst free festivals have been crushed, commercial festivals have become an essential part of the the mainstream culture, the entertainment industry and the economy. *Upcoming: Mark Angelo Harrison on Spiral Tribe More on Aaron's film 'Free Party a Folk History' #festivals #counterculture #freefestivals #spiraltribe #squatparty #travellers #newagetravellers #battleofthebeanfield #hippie #castlemorton #techno #drugs #lsd #soundsystem #raveculture #raves #StonehengeFreeFestival #stonehenge
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