Just finishing this book and it's entertaining in a tabloid way; Gary Lachman dragging through the embers of the 60s Aquarian Cycles and free associating links wherever he feels like it. It's supposed to be about the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius and what this amounts to is potted (sometimes inaccurate) histories of various 'occult' (this appears to mean anything vaguely Eastern as well as the usual suspects) figures, from The Golden Dawn through A.O.S., Ouspensky, Gurdjeff and Crowley and onto Kenneth Anger, Leary and Laing and then mapping these roughly onto popular culture (The Rolling Stones mythology keeps things bubbling, the Beatles Krishna/Maharishi fixes are given a sound kicking etc).
I say mapping, what I mean is he takes all these sources and then kinda throws them at things. He keeps throwing and things keep sticking. Everything relates in some way to the Manson killings; everyone is held accountable.
It's the Daily Mail Guide to 60s Badness: more evil Men and Scarlet Women stuffed in here than sense would allow but it doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it; as potted histories go it's fairly thorough (of subject if not content, inquiry, analysis etc) and therefore perfect reading on the loo, which is where my copy is at the moment. If you've never read anything by/about the kinds of people in here it's probably a bad place to start but it is at least a start and there's a few things mentioned offhand in the book that I'm gonna try and track down.
Sounds like Gary didn't have much fun in the sixties though; he seems to remember all of it. I guess he was the creepy little guy in the corner, hanging round the sides of the orgies with a notebook, nibbled Biro and a portable Etch-A-Sketch.
Anyway, the real reason I'm talking about this is because I also found an MP3 of an unlistenable chunk of Jagger's soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's Invocation Of My Demon Brother at UbuWeb via Senses Working Overtime and I found Tangerine Dream's Atem in perfect nick for £1 at a junk shop in Bridgwater, so I'm in a good mood.
Listening to it now... gotta love those drippy ambient mothers...
It really is unlistenable but you sort of want it anyway, don't you? Aural Noodle.
4 comments:
-Ah, i looked briefly at that one on amazon during last month's shopping spree(ahem), then decided to leave it be for exactly some of the reasons you mentioned- sort of like an "a very short guide to occult popular culture for dummies"...which didn't exactly sound like you'd get much for your bucks...But i might be wrong?...Did you enjoy it?
(and can i be cheeky and ask for perhaps some suggestions for further reading in the similar vein?)
*cough*
(and now my PC is soon to be mended,so i can start actually getting on with my mixtapes'n'stuff...)
-Happy days o One-eyed one and affiliates....Over and out.// -X
** do you like nightclubbing?
Though I'm sure Mrs Bloke would claim it was unhygienic, probably both on a biological and a cultural level, I've always quietly admired your esoteric toilet reading habits......
huncke... do you mean clubbing or the David Essex tune... i guess the answer to both is yes though it's a weird speed-dating kinda question...
my favourite colour is red, followed closely by Icke aquamarine.
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