This World Book Day happening was the book launch for the immense new book Material Wealth Mining The Personal Archive Of Allen Ginsberg Compiled and Annotated By Pat Thomas, it took place at the Horse Hospital off Russell Square with the event curated by Antique Beat, it also had a small exhibition featuring some of the items found while Pat was digging through the huge archive that Peter Hale is custodian of.
I arrived just as Stephen Coates from Antique Beat was explaining how the nights event would run, before handing over to Pat Thomas and Peter Hale. Most of Pat's talk was an expanded version of the liner notes to the Soundtrack cd that accompanies the book, explaining that throughout his life Allen has been an assiduous archiver not only of his own works, but also of the works of his contemporaries from Kerouac and Burroughs to Dylan and that Peter hale is current head curator of the archives.
The book isn't a biography, but is a snapshot of what Pat found while searching through the boxes, from classic to unknown photos, fliers and adverts, posters, contracts letters from the great and good to the anonymous, a wealth of information on his political involvements from anti-Vietnam activism to the 1968 Democratic convention, through to gay rights et al.
This chat was punctuated by playing some of the tracks from the soundtrack including an incredible version of Hum Bom recorded with Elvin Jones in 1984 and Birdbrain recoded with The Gluons from 1984, sadly both these incredibly powerful pieces are far too relevant in today's world of terrible wars.
Rozemin Keshvani added much colour about Allen in London and his appearance at Better Books, even if that legendary bookshops ex-employee Barry Miles chose to add the odd ad hoc remark, but didn't want to formally join the discussion panel, She also talked about her book Better Books/ Better Bookz Art, Anarchy, Apostasy, Counter-culture & The New Avant-Garde helping to give us a flavour of the milieu that welcomed Allen to London.
They then asked Wizz Jones to join them and play a few tunes and tell a few tales of his connections to Allen and the London and underground folk scene from the late 50's onwards, Wizz began by telling some great tales about his youth in the London Coffee House scene that made clear he was hanging out in the same places my dad was back then, chatting with Rambling Jack Elliot, learning guitar from Davey Graham, the intro eventually led into a wondrous version of San Francisco Bay Blues that showed that Wizz still has a great tone to his playing while conjuring up magical notes.
He told more tales of Davey Graham by way of leading into a spectral take on Angi that seamlessly morphed into Brother Can You Spare A Dime that had far more in common with The Weavers version than the George Michael version.
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Wizz then told us about what it was like to hitch hike down from London to Paris and on to St Tropez before they built the auto-routes by way of introducing the Alan Tonbridge song National Seven that was a great road weary tale for those who were chasing the dream on the road in the late 50's and early 60's. Wizz then played a second Alan Tonbridge song the rather dark and disturbing Massacre At Beziers.
To make sure he took us back to Ginsberg Wizz closed his set by paying tribute to both Woody Guthrie and Bobby Dylan on Hard Travelin' that allowed Wizz to once more take us on a great trip with him, this was a great performance by the 84-year-old legend.
After a bit more chat between Pat and Peter they introduced the final act of the evening Aidan Dun the Bard of Vale Royal who performed as a barefoot poet, while looking like he's really done well to survive his decades living in the squats of King Cross his rambling introduction on the shamanic influence on his life of Ginsberg and the way he helped his visions as he rambled about carbon 60 domes and super consciousness in the way that only those who have really explored mind expansion can.
He read some democratic haikus that were good fun and very beat. The Prologue To Vale Royal was magnificent a great reminder of the old bad mad Kings Cross of old before it was sanitized in the last 20 years or so. He had visions of a Fierce Moon. The other main highlight of his reading was the Ginsberg Is Dread but by that point the crowd had thinned out, as nothing was going to top Wizz Jones, before he concluded with The Re-introduction Of The Unicorn that sounded like something that came to him while he was tripping. After a brief break they also showed a short film while everyone stood chatting and buying the book.
Find out more at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Material-Wealth-Personal-Archive-Ginsberg/dp/1648230369/
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