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BACKGROUND The desire to change the and of anti-commercialism, the environment etc. Many in the blossoming Underground Movement were influenced by Beatnik Beat Generation writers such as William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg so that it can be said that the beatniks of the 1950s paved the way for the Hippie s of the 1960s. During the 1960s, the Beatnik writers engaged in symbiotic evolution with freethinking academics including experimental Psychologist s Timothy Leary . Those influenced included radical thinkers such as Mick Farren who as the new generation, would become equals to Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Leary. There was a lot of interaction and cross-fertilisation on the scene, and musicians took in new ideas instantly and transformed them, adding a pop sensibility which made this cultural stuff accessible to kids in the street. An example of the cross-over of beatnik poetry and music can be seen when Burroughs appeared at the Farren organised Phun City festival attended by Underground community bands including the Pretty Things , the Pink Fairies , The Edgar Broughton Band and from America The MC5 . COMMENTATORS
SYMBOLS The Underground Movement was also symbolised by the use of Drugs . The types of drugs used were varied and in many cases the names and effects were unknown as Deviants / Pink Fairies member Russell Hunter, working at International Times (part of the Underground Press at the time), recalled. "People used to send in all kinds of strange drugs and things, pills and powders, stuff to smoke and that. They'd always give them to me to try to find out what they were! (Laughs)".\ Part of the sense of Humour of the Underground, no doubt partly induced by the effects of both drugs and radical thinking was an enjoyment at "freakin' out the norms". Mick Farren recalls actions sure to elicit the required response. "The band's baroque House of Usher apartment on London's Shaftesbury Avenue had witnessed pre-Raphaelite hippy scenes, like Sandy the bass player (of the Deviants and Pink Fairies ), Tony the now and again keyboard player, and a young David Bowie , fresh from Beckenham Arts Lab, sunbathing on the roof, taking photos of each other and posing coyly as sodomites". (2) DEVELOPMENTS There was a brief, tongue-in-cheek, offshoot from the UK Underground: "The Overground" was supposed to refer to the spiritual, cosmic, quasi-religious scene. At least two magazines ('' Gandalf's Garden '' and '' Vishtaroon '') adopted this "overground" style and ''Gandalf's Garden'' was also a shop/restaurant/meeting place at World's End , Chelsea . The magazines were printed on pastel paper using multi-coloured inks and contained articles about meditation, Vegetarian ism, Mandala s, Ethic s, Poet ry, Pacifism and other subjects at a distance from the more wild and militant aspects of the underground. UK UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT The UK Underground movement in the UK was focused on the Ladbroke Grove / Notting Hill area of London, which Mick Farren commented "was an enclave of Freak s, immigrants and Bohemian s long before the Hippie s got there" (1). It was immortalised in Colin MacInnes ' famous novel " Absolute Beginners " depicting street culture at the time of the Notting Hill Riots in the 1950s. The ''Underground'' paper '' International Times '' (IT) started in 1966 and Steve Abrams founder of ''Soma'' summarised “The "underground" as ”a literary and artistic avant-garde with a large contingent from Oxford and Cambridge. John Hopkins (Hoppy) a member of the editorial board of ''International Times'' for example, was trained as a physicist at Cambridge”. Even though Hoppy was University educated it did not stop him from favouring the more anarchistic elements in the Underground Movement including a key figure Mick Farren who by 1967 was working at IT and UFO club. Police harassment of ‘freaks’ became commonplace to the point that in 1967 The police particularly focussed on the ‘source of the antagonism’ – The ''Underground'' Press. It has the opposite effect. “Police harassment, if anything, made the underground press stronger. It focused attention, stiffened resolve, and tended to confirm that what we were doing was considered dangerous to the establishment” remembered Mick Farren. Key ''Underground'' (community) bands on the time who often performed at benefit gigs for various worthy causes included Pink Floyd (when they still had Syd Barrett ), Hawkwind , Deviants (featuring Mick Farren ), Pink Fairies , other key people included, in the late '60s Marc Bolan who would leave 'the Grove' to find fame with T Rex and his partner Steve Peregrin Took who remained in Ladbroke Grove and continued to perform benefit gigs in the 'anti-commercial' ethos of the UK Underground . Sci-Fi writer and sometime Hawkwind member Michael Moorcock remembers: "everything happened in Ladbroke Grove in the sixties and seventies. I mean it was just nice and I happened to live in Ladbroke Grove and it all happened around me. You couldn’t actually move for bloody Rock and Roll bands." (Reference - personal communication with author Fee Mercury Moon) Within Portobello Road stood the Mountain Grill Greasy Spoon (working man's) cafĂ© which in the late 1960s and early 1970s was frequented by many UK Underground artists such as Hawkwind featuring, at the time, Lemmy Kilmister . It was of sufficient import to the members of the UK Underground that in 1974 Hawkwind released an album titled ''Hall Of The Mountain Grill'' and Steve Peregrin Took wrote ''Ballad of the Mountain Grill''. Steve Took's Domain Retrieved Aug. 8, 2004 REFERENCES SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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