

BUREAU
OF LOST RADIO
[Broadcasting lost counterculture stories]
is an on-going wide-ranging series of one hour programs first made for Soho Radio and dedicated to broadcasting countercultural stories.
It takes the form of features, oral history, conversations
and interviews with rare audio.
Subjects range from the British underground scene of the 1950s - 1970s to the 'radio hooligans’ of cold war era Soviet Union, altered states to punk journalism.
Click photo to hear each Show
We meet Jenny Fabian, author of 1969’s ‘Groupie’ - one of the most infamous books of British counterculture, a scandalous diary detailing the life of self-confessed groupie ‘Katie' as she immerses herself in the heady days of swinging sixties London.
SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK N ROLL IN SIXTIES LONDON
GROUPIE
‘America’s leading scholar of High Strangeness’, Dr. Erik Davies, comes into the Bureau to talk about his new book 'High Weirdness’
We hear about Erik’s career charting the highs and lows of counterculture, esoterica and psychedelia in America and meet three of the most influential radical psychedelic characters of 1970s - the writers / thinkers / lunatics Philip K Dick, Terence McKenna and Robert Anton Wilson.
PSYCHEDELIC VISIONS IN 1970S AMERICA
HIGH WEIRDNESS
We discuss the history, culture and technology of the coin operated machines that allowed ordinary people to make a record of themselves in the West - and, in adapted bootlegged form, to create records of forbidden music in the Soviet Union - all long before the advent of tape or digital recording.
WITH ORAL HISTORIAN AND BROADCASTER ALAN DEIN
THE SELF MADE RECORD
We hear about the extraordinary musician Sergey Kuryokhin, ‘the Soviet Punk Frank Zappa’, who with his underground cohorts in Leningrad tried to soundtrack perestroika.
Olivia tells of the strange circumstances of the making of the BBC TV series Comrades during the twilight of the Soviet Empire, with tales of tapes smuggled in diplomatic bags and a bizarre intervention by Ronald Reagan.
WITH FILM DIRECTOR OLIVIA LITCHENSTEIN AND BBC RUSSIAN ARTS PRESENTER ALEXANDER KAN
COMRADES AND THE
SOVIET FRANK ZAPPA
Peter Watts joins us to talk about The UFO Club, the massively influential short-lived London club of the late 1960s established by Joe Boyd and John "Hoppy” Hopkins.
It featured light shows, poetry readings, avant-garde art by Yoko Ono and many rock acts (Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Procul Harem) who later became massive.
WITH PETER WATTS