Thankfully Sausage fingers decided to parachute in for some quality time with the lil' one over this past long weekend (which was generous) that I might find a quiet corner in London for some mental R & R. I imagine having a fileted fish for a wife prompted this act of gallantry. He didn't have to do it, many men don't, feeling instead that they too deserve time off work, especially on a national holiday. Whatever the motivation, cheers!
I'll start by telling you that I have been reading a book on counter culture in London since 1945 (I didn't start it in 1945 - the book does...Oh you know what I mean) and I can tell you it's been a revelation. I've long been obsessed with the 60s and 70s but this book offers a depth and breadth to the social and cultural movements that have shaped British popular and modern culture that literally blew my mind.
I've been reading up on the 'School of London' artists which include Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach who between them make William Burroughs seem like a jolly normal bloke. These guys lived in the bars, pubs and private drinking clubs in Soho during that anal retentive post war era of the 50s. Then we are taken on a crawl of all the cafes that facilitated the birth of rock n'roll as we know it; Where the likes of Cliff Richard, The Troggs, Tommy Steele and Billy Fury blazed the trail for The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. It's truly fascinating. Right through to the psychedelia of the late 60s and 70s which sees the birth of The Notting Hill Carnival and huge political movements. I cannot tell you how important avant garde bookshops in Charing Cross Road were in this regard. So I won't. But they were.
From there The Pink Floyd first make an appearance during a fund raiser for a 'free' school movement in Notting Hill and another fundraiser for an underground newspaper, The International Times after which time it all goes utterly bonkers for 70s music and art. In fact what the 60s is reputedly remembered for (all the love-ins, the LSD and what not didn't actually happen until the 70s). I'm up to Punk, on the cusp of New Romantics actually - I'll let you know what happens.
In the middle of all this, I had two whole days courtesy of the Silverback to be me for a little while. First off I indulged that insatiable culture beast that needed to see for itself the work of the original bad boys (and girls) of counter culture: Freud, Bacon, Pauline Boty, Hockney, Eduardo Paolozzi and a whole lot more (all with the exception of Freud & Hockney, long gone). So it was off to the Tate Modern & Britain. I wasn't disappointed.
What a world they all lived in, some of them horrible, horrible lives (yet such incredible times) and for some even more humiliating deaths. When I think about the cultural legacy they left, I can't help feeling that the 'establishment' has a lot to answer for.
Don't worry, there is no danger of my developing ideas above my station, becoming so highly strung I might need a stern talking to by the Dalai Lama, for I have since spent the morning cleaning pubes off the bathroom floor after what appears to be a gorrilla's spa day. No, these afternoons of high culture are there for balast believe me.
No comments:
Post a Comment