Alexander Trocchi - A Life In Pieces

(BBC Scotland documentary that includes interviews with William S. Burroughs, Leonard Cohen and Terry Southern. Excerpt from Jamie Wadhawan's 'Cain's Film' lastly)

Man at leisure
Stewart Home: 
Walk On Gilded Splinters: IN MEMORANDUM TO MEMORY 13 APRIL 1969. Alex Ttocchi's State of Revolt at the Arts Lab in London 

The mid-sixties poetry extravaganza that posthumously became known as "Wholly Communion" after the film Peter Whitehead made about it is often viewed as acting as midwife to the emergent hippie culture in London. To some "Wholly Communion" was the last and greatest hurrah of the London beatnik scene, its fabulous death rattle, while for others it was the birth cry of psychedelia. Regardless of which view you take, for most of the seven thousand punters who trooped into the Albert Hall on 11 June 1965, "Wholly Communion" was a spectacular success. That said, the individual poetry readings were less inspiring than their ability to attract a huge crowd, since even the appearance of beat stalwart Allen Ginsberg was viewed as disappointing. More spectacularly, the British visionary poet and acidhead Harry Fainlight was singularly unable to complete a recital of his own work. Likewise, depending on which historical commentator is taken at their word, the British beat novelist and ungentlemanly junkie Alex Trocchi either succeeded admirably or failed miserably in his role as MC. Regardless, "Wholly Communion" is now a mythical event in the annals of the British counterculture, the first mass gathering of the tribes, and no recent history of London in the swinging sixties appears complete without its reverential invocation.

By way of contrast, the zombification of the British counterculture at the end of the sixties has for too long remained a taboo subject. Fittingly enough it was the "Wholly Communion" MC who acted as chief somnambulist at the London Arts Lab slumber party of Sunday 13 April 1969 that exposed the 'Age of Aquarius' as a complete non-starter. This, the apotheosis of post-hippie burn out, was promoted to an indifferent public as "Alex Trocchi's State Of Revolt". The evening featured among others Trocchi, William Burroughs, R. D. Laing and Davy Graham. What went down during the "State Of Revolt" wasn't as immediately horrific as the murder of Meredith Hunter at the Rolling Stones' Altamont concert, or as self-consciously staged as the "Death Of Hippie" happening organised by the San Francisco Diggers or the even the Manson murders; and it is precisely this that makes Trocchi's 1969 Covent Garden debacle such an iconic event. "The State Of Revolt" marks the onset of countercultural rigor mortis and this living death occurred not with a bang but a smacked out whimper. It is also a death with implications that we won't fully comprehend until the chatter of neo-critical production about the sixties ceases to mask the violent silence that lies at the core of that decade, and which will yet prove to be its most enduring legacy.

While smackheads failed to constitute a majority among those present at "The State Of Revolt", both punters and participants shuffled through the Arts Lab looking like re-animated corpses intent on eating living human brains. And I say that knowing my mother who was present had been a vegetarian, as well as a junkie, since the mid-sixties. Footage of this Arts Lab death ritual makes up a good portion of the documentary "Cain's Film" (1969) by director Jamie Wadhawan; and my mother Julia Callan-Thompson is visible in four separate audience shots. My mother was actually on the hippie trail in India from the beginning of 1968 until the summer of 1969, but she made at least one lightning trip back to Europe during her sojourn to the East. Both she and a number of her boyfriends were heavily involved in Trocchi's drug dealing, and this probably accounts for her presence in the audience at "The State Of Revolt". Although opium was readily available in India, heroin was harder to come by and so this more powerful sedative was highly prized by those my mother hung out with in Goa, all of whom returned to Europe strung out. They also had an omnivorous appetite for LSD.

I sent a copy of "Cain's Film" to native New Yorker Lynne Tillman because after arriving in Europe straight from Hunter College, she'd asked Jim Haynes if she could put on a lecture series at the Arts Lab and he not only agreed but immediately suggested it should feature Trocchi. Tillman, who went on to become America's greatest living novelist, quickly lost organisational control of the lecture to Trocchi who was determined to transform it into a junkie jamboree. Being new to London, Tillman knew virtually nothing about Trocchi at the time she first contacted him, and was unaware of his reputation as a dope fiend. On 28 February 2004, Lynne emailed the following observations about the DVD she'd received from me: "it's the weirdest thing to watch - and sad and I can't find the words - much of it was shot in the basement cinema after I had to move everyone downstairs out of Theatre 1 or 2 by 10pm to let the play go on, whatever it was…" The Tale Of Atlantis Rising was advertised in the underground press as taking place in the theatre spaces, while there was a screening of The Magnificent Ambersons in the cinema prior to it being overrun by Trocchi's horde of bloodsucking freaks. Tillman concluded this email by saying: "I remember many faces… if I watched it with Jim H(aynes)., he'd remember more names… several of the women are very familiar to me, none was a close friend - seeing Lynn Trocchi and the children was deeply upsetting - and seeing their apt. was so weird and sad and empty - one of the strangest experiences seeing a night and remembering and not..."

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(My BIG thanx to Stewart Home and Marc Campbell!)

(REpost)

In the late 70's/early 80's I was a fairly frequent visitor to Bernard Stone's 'Turret Bookshop' in Covent Garden and one day Jeff Nuttall was also there and I started talking to him about his book 'Bomb Culture'. In the course of the conversation I mentioned Alex Trocchi to him and was told that he was still alive and living in Holland Park and could be found sometimes in a pub whose name I have now forgotten.
(I must admit I thought that he had died years before.)

 I had first read 'Cain's Book' while still in Glasgow and even went up to the Mitchell Library one dayto see what I could find out about him and there was nothing there. Very strange as Trocchi was responsible through his magazine 'Merlin' (published in Paris between 1952 - 55) of publishing Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet and Eugene Ionesco amongst others in English for the first time.

At this time 'Cains Book' could be picked up pretty easily as could 'Young Adam' and you could visit his publisher John Calder's offices and pick up some of his other books. But as far as getting his Olympia Press 'pornography' well...I do remember Pat Kearney trying to sell me a copy of one of them for a very expensive price (though nothing like the price he sold his collection to Princeton University for here).

Anyway I remember heading up to Kensington one day and in the pub in question I met (The Rt. Hon.) George Rodney, definitely a 'shady' character but he pointed out that I was sitting under a cartoon of Trocchi on the pub's wall and that Trocchi himself would be in soon.

At this time I had an idea to do an interview with him (I had vague plans of putting a magazine together) and to this end I had already spoken with Kathy Acker about Trocchi's influence on her work, but like many things at this time in my life it got put on the back burner.

Truth be told my life was just spinning out of control and I decided to piss off somewhere.
(Anywhere as long as it wasn't the UK!)

At my last night party (29th April 1984) in London my good friend Mike came and told me that Trocchi had died a couple of weeks previously.

I ended up in Amsterdam knowing one person there and was immediately given a barge to live on (Trocchi readers will recognise the symbolism) and within a couple of weeks I had met Olaf Stoop and he gave me copies of everything that Trocchi had written including a 1954 Olympia Press 'Young Adam'. (I say 'gave' but he actually charged me 100 guilders which is practically the same thing.)

 I also met Hansmartin Tromp on one of my first days in Amsterdam who had just conducted an interview with Trocchi (for H.P.) and he also gave me a  copy of the transcript as well as some 10X8 photos of Trocchi.

I also picked up a signed copy of 'Helen & Desire' (inscribed for Richard Neville) and some of the original 'sigma' mimeographs as well as the first chapter of 'The Long Book' (featuring 'The Sexistensialist') that was published in Dan Richter's 'Residu' magazine.

Considering how few people knew of him way back then it is heartening to have seen the resurgence of interest in him and his work particularly in the last few years.

(As an aside when I was working at a record shop in Kentish Town ('Honky Tonk') in about 1981 I put up in the window a photostat of an article on Trocchi from a very early edition of 'Time Out' and it was amazing how many people said that they didn't know the writer but that they were interested in his ideas.)

Finally there is a really good BBC Scotland documentary (see above) on Alex Trocchi called 'A Life In Pieces' made by Tim Niel and Allan Campbell who were also responsible for the book of the same name. (Mention must also go to 'The Edinburgh Review' (who published a special Trocchi edition) and Andrew Murray Scott (who had worked for Trocchi towards the end of his life) who published a biography and a Trocchi 'reader' and this perhaps started the ball rolling which allowed the bankrolling of the film of 'Young Adam' which starred Tilda Swinton and Ewan McGregor.)

UPDATE:

About a year ago a(n ex) friend mislaid/liberated my first edition copy of the Olympia Press version of Young Adam that was quite different to the later version by 'virtue' of the fact that it had been padded out with 'salacious extras' to appeal to Girodias's 'DB' customers of the time.

Hands off Alexander Trocchi!

sigma: A Tactical Blueprint 

A Revolutionary Proposal: Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds

Man at work

Bonus: Davy Graham excerpt from 'Cain's Film'

Postscript:

My lil'sister actually managed to get her hands of one of the BBC mastercopies of 'Life In Pieces' which  I still have in storage but if anyone has full versions of Wadhawan's 'Cain's Film' and 'Marijuana Marijuana' to share would they please get in touch.

Thanx!