Excellent cultural history....
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Having heard Barry Miles on the radio and read his biography of Paul McCartney (Miles has also written biographies of Frank Zappa, William S Burroughs, Richard Brautigan & Charles Bukowski amongst others) and seen this recommended in a book-chain in Cheltenham I knew I had to read this. I finally got round to reading it after reading Joe Boyd's similarly historically located memoir 'white bicycles - making music in the 1960's', which is of course fantastic, as is the tie-in compilation. Boyd and Miles were both there, so this beats the top-ten list style TV show memoir thang...
Miles' memoir works on several levels - the early sections set in Cheltenham, Stroud & other areas of the Cotswolds are a reminder of what this country was like pre-rock-& roll/sexual revolution. The way nostalgia shows work seem to suggest the country wasn't a throwback to the 19th century, which it was, and Miles beatnik-era is interesting as he comes across teddy boys, proto-hippies, boho-types and the like. The bohemian arcadia vibe here really needs to be mimicked more often, though Pete Doherty has tried. I loved details like South African fruit in a bus station, or the type of literature Miles was attracted to (those cheap Penguin classics), or a kind of loose commune existence - Miles' marriage here seems one of convienience, it gets overlooked later on. & a reference to a 'direct' phone line seems confounding to us techno-assisted souls in the present...
The book starts off as a loose memoir of various proto-hippy individuals, by the time the book gets to London, it becomes a who's who of the Swinging Sixties. Miles' co-founded the Indica bookshop, stocking key 60s texts that were hard to find/banned (there are references to several titles - Ballard's 'Why I Want to...Ronald Reagan', 'The Ticket that Exploded', 'Trout Fishing in America' etc) and crossing paths with key figures/icons of the era: Allen Ginsberg, Paul McCartney, Marianne Faithful, Jane Asher, the Pink Floyd/UFO Club, Frank Zappa, and a particularly hilarious encounter with Captain Beefheart. The sections that mention Syd Barrett have more resonance with his recent death - though his appearances here are in line with the up-beat utopian side, before things went wrong. Here he seems very much part of that revolutionary era when things were ch-ch-changin'. The book continues exploring memories of the art/literary scene, including an amusing reference to Yoko Ono's stinginess over paying for a babysitter, and Miles' experiences running the INTERNATIONAL TIMES, and the problems that went with it.
Where Boyd's book found the American coming to the UK and exploring the UK underground, 'In the Sixties' finds Miles eventually doing the reverse as he heads off to New York and America. Both books nod to two key songs you may wish to play as you read this, The Purple Gang's 'Granny Takes a Trip' (the lead singer apparently left to become a warlock!!!) and Tomorrow's 'My White Bicycle.' This is a much, much better book on the era than Dylan's 'Chronicles Vol 1', along with Boyd's book and Mick Farren's book a few years ago it is a definitive auto/biography and cultural history. One to read alongside those key 1960s texts - 'The Ticket that Exploded', 'A Confederate General in Big Sur', the poetry of Ginsberg, 'The Psychedelic Reader', the 'I Ching' , Philip K Dick, 'Tropic of Cancer' etc. The only mistake I found was a reference to Jefferson Airplane's 'Psychedelic Pillow'!! A key book on the era and one of the most enjoyable books I've read in recent years...
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A Mod opinion
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Being a mod i've allways been interested in both underground culture & the 1960s, i found this book to be very informative & interesting & could actually imagine being part of the whole undergound scene, I think if this was the sixties now i'd more likely be part of the underground than the Mod scene as i've allways shuned fashion & believe individuals should be just that, the people in this book definateky came across as individuals & i hope to read more about them in Barry's books in future. Alfie
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When England Swung
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In Swinging London of the 1960s, Barry Miles was always in the right place at the right time. He was like that character in Woody Allen's Zelig, always present at pivotal moments in history, off at the edge of the picture. It's a wonder his face isn't among those on the cover of Sgt Pepper because Miles was at the photo shoot. Paul McCartney was one of his best friends - Miles ghost-wrote McCartney's autobiography Many Years from Now - and Miles co-owned the hip Indica Gallery where Yoko Ono pursued John Lennon. ("Pursued" because although Yoko claimed to have never heard of the Beatles, that's how Miles observed it.) In the pre-Yoko period when Lennon was living in the woody stockbroker belt outside London, Miles was introducing McCartney to avant-garde music, underground theatre and politics, counter-culture literature.
But the inside stories about the Beatles are only a small part of what makes this such a fascinating memoir. Miles also befriended William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, writing several books about them and other Beat authors. He co-founded the legendary underground newspaper International Times, and was involved in the UFO - London's first psychedelic venue, where Pink Floyd got their start - and most of the other watershed events of the period, almost anything at the cutting edge: drugs, rock'n'roll, high art, pop culture, banned books.
When the '60s began Miles was a teenage art student in Cheltenham, living in squalid flats that were centuries old, throwing parties in which bohemians fought off teds, bopping to jazz and smoking pot. By the end of them he's living in New York's Chelsea Hotel working for the Beatles Zapple Records (the short-lived avant-garde wing of Apple), hanging out with Leonard Cohen, Charles Bukowski, Richard Brautigan, Timothy Leary, Frank Zappa and a teenage Patti Smith.
But it is London that he writes most evocatively about: when dissolute heirs of the aristocracy and art world shared the sacraments of rock'n'roll, hashish and LSD with pop culture ratbags such as Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull. When establishment barriers on sexuality, drugs, and freedom of speech meant the streets literally became a battleground. ('Street Fighting Man'? Miles talked with Mick on the topic the night before the song was written.)
Although Miles played his part in history, he doesn't make himself the hero of his stories; he is a humble recordist, matter-of-factly sharing his memories rather than indulging his ego. (Being a good listener probably helped him befriend such notorious ego-maniacs.) So engrossing is his account of this world that I got out my London A-Z map to follow his path through this fabled psychedelic universe.
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Excellent
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I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book. Miles is an extremely funny, interesting and fascinating author. I came to the book via being a Beatles fan and having enjoyed his wonderful biography of Paul McCartney. However, I have to admit that I enjoyed this book even more. There is lots of background on the Sixties art scene and every story and person is presented in an enthusiastic way. Miles really makes you feel as though you are there and his style is open and chatty - as though he were talking to you, rather than writing to anonymous people. It was lovely, also, to see a book which discusses 'famous' people without feeling the need to belittle them, or to discuss things which are overly private or intrusive. Every person mentioned in this book could feel good about reading it and that is a tribute to the author in itself.
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