....and for all you young folks who think that you invented the counter culture.

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Too young to remember it first hand. I was a child of Thatcher Still, at least she politicized me and in a roundabout way it was probably down to her and her cronies that I found St Pauli!

Back on topic... Hippie Hippe Shake by Richard Neville is an interesting read. The story of OZ and the trial etc.

Interesting to note that Felix Dennis was involved in Oz before becoming one of the UK's biggest magazine publishers.

Nico 4 wrote:

Back on topic... Hippie Hippe Shake by Richard Neville is an interesting read. The story of OZ and the trial etc. Interesting to note that Felix Dennis was involved in Oz before becoming one of the UK's biggest magazine publishers.

I enjoyed Hippie Hippie Shake too, though occasionally Neville overstretches himself - for example crediting Marx with Proudhon's dictum "All property is theft". Probably just lazy editing... Still, it's interesting to see how the english hippies became politicized and founded Release and the various agencies to provide legal advice to squatters, etc. Shame he didn't find room to namecheck the Powis Square radicals or the Angry Brigade though as history seems to have pretty much supressed them...

There was an excellent BBC4 documentary on Hawkwind recently which was followed by a contemporary Beeb doc on these makeshift legal advisors. Release's founder Caroline Coon later dated Paul Simenon of The Clash (and is hugely disparaged by their tour manager Johnny Green in his memoirs "A riot of their own"). Amazingly enough some of the more ad hoc agencies still exist too: there's still a squatter's advice centre in Angel Place, Whitechapel in an office above the anarchist bookshop for example.

Felix Dennis strikes me primarily as a "naughty boy" rather than a (leftist) libertarian. His new e-magazine "Monkey" doesn't even make it through the poor filters at my workplace hub it's so loaded (ahem, sorry!) with soft porn.

Ahem... I was just a nipper at school at the time but I remember the stir the school kids issue caused amongst the older groovers in the 5th form (I was a little suedehead at that age - better music, more girls, cooler clothes and I wasn't very political).

I read the Richard Neville book and recently lent it to an older colleague who said that it captured the feel of those times very well. Although he then went on to point out that he spent most of those days under the influence of delta-9 tetra hydra cannabinol.

Hahaha. Before my time too... As Caroline Coon was being turned away by the bouncers at the Clash/Richard Hell & The Voidoids on Hastings Pier for being "too fucking old" this twelve year old was being told to bugger off for being too young. Ho-hum.

I saw Richard Hell and the Voidoids at the Rock Garden in Middlesbrough in 1977 I think. Along with numerous other bands*, It was a hell of a venue!

* The Damned
Wreckless Eric
The Pirates
Elvis Costello
Ian Dury and the Blockheads
Otway and Barrett
Graham Parker and the Rumour
The Skids
Joe Jackson
And many more....

It was next door to a 'normal' nightclub called The Marimba - wonder if they're both still there?