London Calling: a Countercultural History of London Since 1945 Free

FREE LONDON CALLING: A COUNTERCULTURAL HISTORY OF LONDON SINCE 1945 PDF

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This website uses cookies to help us give you the best experience when you visit our website. By continuing to use this website, you consent to our use of these cookies. London has always been a destination for dreamers, and in the past 15 years its literature has also become starry-eyed. Peter Ackroyd's London: the Biography convinced the masses that the city's muck and murk was full of grubby virtue rather than vice. Iain Sinclair's non-fiction, such as London Orbitalalso gained popularity, while compendiums and peculiars, bubbling with love for the city's hidden corners, have sold thousands of copies. London Calling: A Countercultural History of London Since 1945 Miles, the author of books about Jack Kerouac and Frank Zappa, as well as his own memoir of the swinging decade, In the Sixtiesis perfectly placed to keep this vein of London literature alive. He has added much to London Calling: A Countercultural History of London Since 1945 magic of the capital. He was, like so many London romantics, brought up outside it. As a child in Cirencester, he would dream that "the trees and the fields would be blocked out with houses", just like the city he had visited in the early s, full of "red Tube trains running across the rooftops". London Calling maps a city fed and fuelled by outsiders. From here, Miles takes us back to the city's "bomb-shattered streets" and explains how postwar counterculture made its way through the wreckage. This is also, unfortunately, where the book starts to lumber. London Callinghe explains, is about "people who make their art their life", but it is a tough task to weave together the stories of these wayward characters. It doesn't help when a life lived in the counterculture often appears to be a euphemism for a life lived in the boozer. Tales about the dank drinking circles led by the likes of Dylan Thomas who leaves his only copy of Under Milk Wood in the pub and club owners such as Muriel Belcher of the Colony Room are funny but very familiar, as is the cast list of Mick Jagger, Derek Jarman and Gilbert and George. Despite Miles's neat grasp of humour, their stories cascade and fade quickly. It makes the book feel exhausting, rather than exhaustive. Nevertheless, certain people stand out. Very often, these are lost stars that London Calling: A Countercultural History of London Since 1945 sense Miles wants to preserve. Tambimuttu is a great example, a glamorous editor from what was then known as Ceylon, who published Nabokov and Henry Miller in his influential Poetry London magazine and offered work to strangers without having read a word of their writing. Then there is the pop art pioneer Pauline Boty, dead of cancer at 28, and a whole chapter for Leigh Bowery, London Calling: A Countercultural History of London Since 1945 would "give birth" to his bandmate Nicola on stage with their group, Minty. Miles is equally sharp when he unravels the myths of counterculture. Pointedly, he quotes Diana Athill on how rife sex and drugs were in London before even the First World War, and how only the press made it seem new in the s. He also reveals how artists would cynically boost their profiles - Vivienne Westwood slapping a girl at a Sex Pistols gig because she was bored, and the writer Colin Wilson sleeping on Hampstead Heath to cement his reputation as an early Angry Young Man. But the shadow that hangs over this book is that of Miles himself, who in fits and starts is a Miserable Old Man. The book finishes in a perplexing rush, its afterword dealing with a year period from the mids house music boom to "dumbed-down" date, which suggests that the counterculture stopped when he was in his mid-forties. He also argues that a true underground cannot exist in a world of instant culture, but does not mention influential clubs such as the threatened Foundry, in Shoreditch. Nor does he notice that underground newspapers and zines still exist. This lets down a book that can be genuinely inspiring. Next time, Miles would do well to look beyond his purple youth and realise that London's heart still beats. This article first appeared in the 29 March issue of the New Statesman, Hold on tight! Sign up. You are browsing in private mode. London Calling: a Countercultural History of London Since

Barry Miles. London has long been a magnet for aspiring artists and writers, musicians and fashion designers seeking inspiration and success. In London CallingBarry Miles explores the counter-culture - creative, avant garde, permissive, anarchic - that sprang up in this great city in the decades following the Second World War. Here are the heady post-war days when suddenly everything seemed possible, the jazz bars and London Calling: A Countercultural History of London Since 1945 of the fifties, the teddy boys and the Angry Young Men, Francis Bacon and the legendary Colony Club, the s and the Summer of Love, the rise of punk and the early days of the YBAs. The vitality and excitement of this time and years of change - and the sheer creative energy in the throbbing heart of London - leap off the pages of this evocative and original book. A Very British Bohemia. The Stage and the Sets. This is Tomorrow. The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream. The Summer of Love. The Sixties Continued. Bookshops and Galleries. Pop Goes the Easel. The Beat Connection. The Albert Hall Reading. Indica Books and Gallery. Up from Underground. Spontaneous Underground. International Times. Part Three. Other New Worlds. London Calling: A Countercultural History of London Since 1945 Fashion Fashion. COUM Transmissions. New Romantics and NeoNaturists. Leigh Bowery and Minty. Cover Copyright Acknowledgements. The Arts. The Trial of. Angry Young. The Big Beat. The Club Scene.