When was the Beat Generation?
1945–1960 in Western fashion
Young adults returning to college under the G.I. Bill adopted an unpretentious, functional wardrobe, and continued to wear blue jeans with shirts and pullovers for general informal wear after leaving school. Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948, generalizing from his social circle to characterize the underground, anti-conformist youth gathering in New York at that time. The term "beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen of the "San Francisco Chronicle" in 1958, and the stereotypical "beat" look of sunglasses, berets, black turtlenecks, and unadorned dark clothing provided another fashion alternative for youths of both sexes, encouraged by the marketing specialists of Madison Avenue.
Beatnik
The Beat movement introduced Asian religions to Western society. These religions provided the Beat generation with new views of the world and corresponded with its desire to rebel against conservative middle-class values of the 1950s, old post-1930s radicalism, mainstream culture, and institutional religions in America.
Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation
Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation is the third and final spoken word album by the American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, released in January 1960 on Verve Records. The album was recorded during 1959, prior to the publication of Kerouac's sixth novel, "Doctor Sax".
Free love
From the late 1940s to the 1960s, the bohemian free-love tradition of Greenwich Village in America was carried on by the beat generation, although differing with their predecessors by being an apparently male-dominated movement. The Beats also produced the first appearance of male homosexual champions of free love in the U.S., with writers such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Like some of those before, the beats challenged a range of social conventions, and they found inspiration in such aspects of black culture as jazz music. The Beat movement led on the West Coast to the activities of such groups as the Merry Pranksters (led, according to Grateful Dead historian Dennis McNally, not by novelist Ken Kesey, but by hipster and driver Neal Cassady) and the entire San Francisco pop music scene, in which the implications of sexual bohemianism were advanced in a variety of ways by the hippies. The study of sexology continued to gain prominence throughout the era, with the work of researchers Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson supporting challenges to traditional values regarding sex and marriage.
The Love Generation
The Love Generation was founded by brothers John Bahler and Tom Bahler. The group was active from 1967 to 1969. John and Tom were vocalists in the Imperial Records stable; they were part of the Ron Hicklin Singers. Two of the songs from The Love Generation — "Together (Havin' a Ball)" and "Let the Good Times In" — were used in the pilot episode of "The Partridge Family". The Love Generation provided main vocals (instead of David Cassidy and Shirley Jones) on two tracks on the Partridge Family's 1970 debut LP "The Partridge Family Album": "I'm on the Road" and "I Really Want to Know You", both written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
Generation (Audio Bullys album)
Generation is the second studio album by the electronic music group Audio Bullys, released on 31 October 2005. It features the singles "Shot You Down", which reached #3 in the UK Singles Chart, and "I'm in Love" (released 24 October 2005).
The Beat (2003 film)
The Beat is a 2003 drama written and directed by Brandon Sonnier and was screened at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. At 20 years of age, Sonnier was the youngest director to have a feature film debut at the Sundance Film Festival. The previous record was held by Robert Rodriguez for El Mariachi. With limited release on Showtime, Black STARZ, and Encore in 2005, the film became an underground hip hop cult-classic, supported by a cast of internationally recognized rap artists such as Chino XL, Tak (Styles of Beyond) and Coolio, as well as Def Poetry Jam's Steve Connell. The film's star, Rahman Jamaal also wrote and produced the film's hip hop soundtrack.
Beat Museum
The Beat Museum is dedicated to spreading the values of the Beat Generation, “Compassion, Tolerance, and of Living One’s Own Individual Truth.”. Its collection holds thousands of pieces of memorabilia from the era, hundreds of photographs of the Beats and their contemporaries, and an extensive book selection.
Beat the System (band)
Beat the System is a Malaysian/American rock band from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Formed in 2005 by lead guitarist Stewart Sellan. Currently the band consists of lead vocalist May Leigh, lead guitarist Stewart Sellan, drummer/composer Gerald Sellan and composer Adrian Puan. Since the band's formation, there has been several line-up changes.
The Beat (American band)
During 2005, Collins launched a new music program and partner-based booking agency that was recently renamed as The Beat Army. Collins created a forum where fans, bands, clubs, radio stations, blogs and record stores can network. The interaction between Paul Collins' Beat and other bands has enabled him to cross-promote his new projects, book shows on several continents and establish a worldwide network of industry friends, fans, musicians and artists from the genres of rock, punk rock, power pop, new wave, alternative rock, ska, garage rock, hardcore punk, classic rock and roll, skate punk, emo, melodic hardcore, Grindcore, crust punk, grunge, skacore, heavy metal, thrash metal, crossover thrash, metalcore, rapcore, post-hardcore and speed metal.
Beat cinema
Arti
How to Speak Hip
During the 1950s, as people became conscious of the Beat Generation phenomena, amid fears of juvenile delinquency, there was an increased urgency to understand the language spoken by the new youth culture.
The Beat Club
Ony Rodriguez began his career in the late 1980s as a rhythm guitarist and producer with EMI recording group The Voice In Fashion. Even after attaining minor commercial success, Ony Rodriguez decided to pursue his personal interests and style of music more and started The Beat Club. What began as an ongoing “free-form” studio jam with friends led to the international hit “Security”, and his departure from The Voice In Fashion.
Ed Piskor
In 2009 Piskor collaborated with Pekar on the graphic book "The Beats: A Graphic History". The book was published in the UK by Souvenir Press Ltd and drew plaudits from Studs Terkel: “"The Beats" is as fresh and pertinent as the latest scholarly history, only far more entertaining.” "The Beats" tells the story of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and John Clellon Holmes who became known as The Beat Generation. This cultural revolution is seen through the eyes of the movement's key figures and its minor characters including Diane di Prima, Carolyn Cassady, Philip Lamantia, and others. The startlingly original graphic non-fiction work was highly praised in "Vanity Fair": “Editor Paul Buhle’s graphic history "The Beats" — with riffs from cats such as Harvey Pekar and Trina Robbins — burns like a Roman candle.”
San Francisco Renaissance
Around the same time that Duncan, Spicer and Blaser were at Berkeley, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch were attending Reed College in Portland, Oregon. These three, along with Kirby Doyle, a native San Franciscan, were to form the nucleus of the West Coast wing of the Beat Generation.
History of the hippie movement
The Beat Generation, especially those associated with the San Francisco Renaissance, gradually gave way to the 1960s era counterculture, accompanied by a shift in terminology from "beatnik" to "freak" and "hippie". Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. On the other hand, Jack Kerouac broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 1960s protest movements as an "excuse for spitefulness". Bob Dylan became close friends with Allen Ginsberg, and Ginsberg became close friends with Timothy Leary. Both Leary and Ginsberg were introduced to LSD by Michael Hollingshead in the early 1960s, and both became instrumental in popularizing psychedelic substances to the hippie movement.
Offbeat generation
The Offbeat generation was a loose association of like-minded writers working across different styles but united by their opposition to a mainstream publishing industry driven by marketing departments. The term—coined by Andrew Gallix in in February 2006—was a pun on the Beat Generation but more likely to be associated with the Chemical generation immediately before it (who were anthologised at the "Repetitive Beat Generation" also).
Albert Saijo
Albert Fairchild Saijo (February 4, 1926 – June 2, 2011) was a Japanese-American poet associated with the Beat Generation. He and his family were imprisoned as part of the United States government's internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, during which time he wrote editorials on his experiences of internment for his high school newspaper. Saijo went on to serve in the U.S. Army and study at the University of Southern California. Later he became associated with Beat Generation figures including Jack Kerouac, with whom he wrote, traveled and became friends.
Beat Generation
Kenneth Rexroth's apartment became a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams, an old friend of Rexroth, had given him an introductory letter). When asked by Wally Hedrick to organize the Six Gallery reading, Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of ceremonies, in a sense to bridge generations.
Jay DeFeo
Mary Joan Jay DeFeo (March 31, 1929 – November 11, 1989) was a visual artist associated with the Beat generation who worked c.1950–89 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Beat (British band)
After the break-up of The Beat in 1983, Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger went on to form General Public and had a couple of hit singles in the US and Canada, while Andy Cox and David Steele formed Fine Young Cannibals with vocalist Roland Gift from the ska band Akrylykz. Drummer Everett Morton and Saxa formed The International Beat along with the Birmingham-based singer, Tony Beet, and the band released an album titled "The Hitting Line" on Blue Beat Records in 1990 (BBSLP 009). The album was produced by Ranking Roger and he often guested with the band at some of their shows. The International Beat toured the UK and United States before calling it a day in 1992. Ranking Roger also briefly joined Mick Jones' post-Clash band Big Audio Dynamite and performed at several live shows with the band. However, the band broke up shortly after he joined when its last album was shelved by the record company. Meanwhile, "March of the Swivelheads", an instrumental version of the Beat's song "Rotating Heads", was used in the climactic chase scene of 1986's "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"; the band was listed in the end credits as "The (English) Beat". "Save It for Later" was featured on the soundtrack album to 1996's "Kingpin", 2010's "Hot Tub Time Machine" and 2017's "".
North Beach, San Francisco
During the 1950s, many of the neighborhood's cafes and bars became the home and epicenter of the Beat Generation and gave rise to the San Francisco Renaissance. The term "beatnik" originated from the scene here and was coined in a derogatory fashion by famed San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. Many of that generation's most famous writers and personalities such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady lived in the neighborhood. Another poet from this generation, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founded the City Lights Bookstore that still exists today on the corner of Broadway and Columbus as an official historic landmark and serves as one of the main focal points of this generation.
Beat Generation
As there was focus on live performance among the Beats, many Slam poets have claimed to be influenced by the Beats. Saul Williams, for example, cites Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Bob Kaufman as major influences.
Beat Mama
Production
The Beat (American band)
In Fall 2012, The Paul Collins Beat joined a package tour "The Two Beats Hearting As One Tour," co-headlining with Two-tone Ska group The Beat. The English Beat and The Paul Collins Beat were both part of the "new wave" of bands to emerge from the late 70s and early 80s. The styles of music they play are very different. Both bands helped to define their respective genres, making them legends. The tour package will include dates at large music halls, casinos, auditoriums and clubs. According to a September 2012 interview with Collins, "Contrary to what the internet fabricates, there never was and is no animosity toward The English Beat. I am still a big fan of The English Beat. Ska is really cool music. Dave is a good friend. He's always so nice and always upbeat. He's just as supportive of my music as I am of his. Both of our fanbases are enjoying hearing each other's music." According to an October 2012 press release, Dave Wakeling stated, “Paul and I originally met back in '83 and have been in touch occasionally over the years, but recently we've been in closer Facebook contact, which led to this idea becoming a reality...Two beats, hearting as one!”
Joan Vollmer
Brenda Knight in "The Women of the Beat Generation":
Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs was seminal in the creation of the Beat revolution; indeed the fires that stoked the Beat engine were started with Joan as patron and muse. Her apartment in New York was a nucleus that attracted many of the characters who played a vital role in the formation of the Beat; ... Brilliant and well versed in philosophy and literature, Joan was the whetstone against which the main Beat writers — Allen, Jack, and Bill — sharpened their intellect. Widely considered one of the most perceptive people in the group, her strong mind and independent nature helped bulldoze the Beats toward a new sensibility.
The Beat (American band)
The Beat (soon renamed to Paul Collins' Beat) is an American rock and power pop band from Los Angeles, California, that formed in 1979. Paul Collins' Beat resurfaced in the 1990s and continues to tour and record new material. Front man Paul Collins has released several projects with his alternative country group The Paul Collins Band, who play Americana music inspired by country rock and folk rock.
Beat Generation
In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of "the essential effects" of the Beat Generation:
Beat Generation
In a 1974 interview, Gary Snyder comments on the subject of "casualties" of the Beat Generation:
Blank Generation (literary)
Blank Generation fiction is a term applied to a range of American post-punk or transgressive fiction writers of the 1970s and 1980s, first applied by Elizabeth Young and Graham Cavaney in their 1992 study "Shopping in Space: Essays on American 'Blank Generation' Fiction" (Serpent's Tail, UK/US). The name stems from Richard Hell's signature "Blank Generation" album and title track (itself a riff on and dismissive of the Beat Generation)
Beat Generation
Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" (1956), William S. Burroughs's "Naked Lunch" (1959) and Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature. Both "Howl" and "Naked Lunch" were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States. The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity.
Beat Generation
In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie and larger counterculture movements. Neal Cassady, as the driver for Ken Kesey's bus Further, was the primary bridge between these two generations. Ginsberg's work also became an integral element of early 1960s hippie culture.
The Beat Generation
The director was Charles F. Haas. Richard Matheson and Lewis Meltzer are credited with the screenplay.
Václav Hrabě
Václav Hrabě (June 13, 1940, Příbram, Czechoslovakia – March 5, 1965, Prague, Czechoslovakia) was a Czech poet and writer, and the most important member of the Beat Generation in former Czechoslovakia.
Beat Generation (play)
Beat Generation is a play written by Jack Kerouac upon returning home to Florida after his seminal work "On the Road" had been published in 1957. Gerald Nicosia, a Kerouac biographer and family friend has said that theatre producer Leo Gavin suggested that Kerouac should write a play; the outcome being "Beat Generation".
Beat music
The exact origins of the terms 'beat music' and 'Merseybeat' are uncertain. The "beat" in each, however, derived from the driving rhythms which the bands had adopted from their rock and roll, rhythm and blues and soul music influences, rather than the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s. As the initial wave of rock and roll declined in the later 1950s, "big beat" music, later shortened to "beat", became a live dance alternative to the balladeers like Tommy Steele, Marty Wilde and Cliff Richard who were dominating the charts. The German anthropologist and music critic Ernest Borneman, who lived in England from 1933 to 1960, claimed to have coined the term in a column in "Melody Maker" magazine to describe the British imitation of American Rock'n'Roll, Rhythm & Blues and Skiffle bands.
Beat Generation
Poet Gary Snyder was an important member of the beat movement and is widely regarded as a member of the Beat Generation circle of writers. He was one of the poets who read at the famous Six Gallery reading, and he was written about in one of Kerouac's most popular novels, "The Dharma Bums". Some critics argue that Snyder's connection with the Beats is exaggerated and that he might better be regarded as a member of the West Coast group the San Francisco Renaissance, which developed independently.
Ranking Roger
Roger became a punk rock fan as a teenager and was the drummer in the Nam Nam Boys before joining ska revival pioneers The Beat in the late 1970s. The Nam Nam Boys first gig was with The Beat and his burgeoning friendship with them meant he began to gatecrash their gigs, take the mic and start toasting. He had appeared on stage toasting and singing with them many times before officially joining the band. His energetic style and Jamaican-influenced vocals, paired with Dave Wakeling were crucial in distinguishing the band from the other second-wave ska bands. The Beat released three albums: the critically acclaimed and seminal "I Just Can't Stop It" (1980), "Wha'ppen?" (1981) and "Special Beat Service" (1982).
United States in the 1950s
Beatniks and the Beat Generation, an anti-materialistic literary movement whose name was invented by Jack Kerouac in 1948 and stretched on into the early-mid-1960s, was at its zenith in the 1950s. Such groundbreaking literature from the beats includes William S. Burroughs' "Naked Lunch", Allen Ginsberg's "Howl", and Jack Kerouac's "On the Road". This decade is also marked by some of the most famous works of science fiction by science fiction writers Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, A. E. van Vogt, and Robert A. Heinlein.
Beat Generation
(sometimes also attributed to Gary Snyder).
Beat Generation
Among the emerging novelists of the 1960s and 1970s, a few were closely connected with Beat writers, most notably Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"). Though they had no direct connection, other writers considered the Beats to be a major influence, including Thomas Pynchon ("Gravity's Rainbow") and Tom Robbins ("Even Cowgirls Get the Blues").
The Better Beatles
The Better Beatles were a short-lived post-punk band formed in Omaha, Nebraska in 1981. The group consisted of Kurt Magnuson on bass, Dave Nordin on synthesizer, Jean pSmith on vocals, and Jay Rosen on drums and vocals. Their repertoire consisted entirely of cold, minimalist covers of the songs of The Beatles in an irreverent manner comparable to covers performed by The Residents.
Beat Generation
Reed College in Portland, Oregon was also a locale for some of the Beat poets. Gary Snyder studied anthropology there, Philip Whalen attended Reed, and Allen Ginsberg held multiple readings on the campus around 1955 and 1956. Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen were students in Reed's calligraphy class taught by Lloyd J. Reynolds.
Andy Cox
Andy Cox (born Andrew Cox 25 January 1956 ) is a British guitarist, who along with Dave Wakeling, founded The Beat in 1978.
Sexy 8 Beat
It is the first album to feature 8th generation member Aika Mitsui and the last full-length studio release to feature 4th generation member Hitomi Yoshizawa as the group's leader and 6th generation member Miki Fujimoto as both the group's subleader. The album was released on March 21, 2007.
Beat Generation
Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Ginsberg and Gary Snyder read on October 7, 1955, before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of "Howl". It was a success and the evening led to many more readings by the now locally famous Six Gallery poets.
Underground culture
The 1960s and 1970s underground cultural movements had some connections to the ""beat generation"" which had, in turn, been inspired by the philosophers, artists and poets of the Paris Existentialist movement which gathered around Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in the years after World War II. Sartre and Camus were members of Combat, a French resistance group formed in 1942 by Henri Frenay. Frenay, Sarte and Camus were all involved in publishing Underground newspapers for the resistance. The French underground culture which inspired Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in America in the 1940s was steeped in socialist thinking before the cold war began. This, however, was not the monolithic socialism of the totalitarian Soviet state, but rather the free-thinking and expressive socialism of artists and dreamers attempting to re-think society.
Counterculture of the 1960s
Even the notions of when the counterculture subsumed the Beat Generation, when it gave way to the successor generation, and what happened in between are open for debate. According to notable UK Underground and counterculture author Barry Miles, "It seemed to me that the Seventies was when most of the things that people attribute to the sixties really happened: this was the age of extremes, people took more drugs, had longer hair, weirder clothes, had more sex, protested more violently and encountered more opposition from the establishment. It was the era of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, as Ian Dury said. The countercultural explosion of the 1960s really only involved a few thousand people in the UK and perhaps ten times that in the USA – largely because of opposition to the Vietnam war, whereas in the Seventies the ideas had spread out across the world.
Postmodern literature
The "Beat generation" was the youth of America during the materialistic 1950s; Jack Kerouac, who coined the term, developed ideas of automatism into what he called "spontaneous prose" to create a maximalistic, multi-novel epic called the Duluoz Legend in the mold of Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time". More broadly, "Beat Generation" often includes several groups of post-war American writers from the Black Mountain poets, the New York School, the San Francisco Renaissance, and so on. These writers have occasionally also been referred to as the "Postmoderns" (see especially references by Charles Olson and the Grove anthologies edited by Donald Allen). Though this is now a less common usage of "postmodern", references to these writers as "postmodernists" still appear and many writers associated with this group (John Ashbery, Richard Brautigan, Gilbert Sorrentino, and so on) appear often on lists of postmodern writers. One writer associated with the Beat Generation who appears most often on lists of postmodern writers is William S. Burroughs. Burroughs published "Naked Lunch" in Paris in 1959 and in America in 1961; this is considered by some the first truly postmodern novel because it is fragmentary, with no central narrative arc; it employs pastiche to fold in elements from popular genres such as detective fiction and science fiction; it's full of parody, paradox, and playfulness; and, according to some accounts, friends Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg edited the book guided by chance. He is also noted, along with Brion Gysin, for the creation of the "cut-up" technique, a technique (similar to Tzara's "Dadaist Poem") in which words and phrases are cut from a newspaper or other publication and rearranged to form a new message. This is the technique he used to create novels such as "Nova Express" and "The Ticket That Exploded".
Beat Generation
Norman Podhoretz, a student at Columbia with Kerouac and Ginsberg, later became a critic of the Beats. His 1958 "Partisan Review" article "The Know-Nothing Bohemians" was a vehement critique primarily of Kerouac's "On the Road" and "The Subterraneans," as well as Ginsberg's "Howl". His central criticism is that the Beat embrace of spontaneity is bound up in an anti-intellectual worship of the "primitive" that can easily turn toward mindlessness and violence. Podhoretz asserted that there was a link between the Beats and criminal delinquents.
Michael Bowen (artist)
An icon of the American Beat Generation and the 1960s counterculture, Bowen is also known for his role in inspiring and organizing the first Human Be-In in San Francisco. Chronicled in books and periodicals reflecting on the turbulent 1960s, Bowen's historical impact on both the literary and visual art worlds is well documented. He remains influential among avant-garde art circles around the world.
Beat Generation
"Beatniks" appeared in many cartoons, movies, and TV shows of the time, perhaps the most famous being the character Maynard G. Krebs in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" (1959–1963).
Beat Generation (play)
Since then excerpts have appeared in "Best Life Magazine" (July 2005), and the play has been published by OneWorld Classics. "Beat Generation" received its world premiere as part of the 2012 Jack Kerouac Literary Festival from October 10-14 in Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. The play will be presented in a staged reading format by Merrimack Repertory Theatre and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
What Is Beat?
Frebe Side 1
Six Gallery reading
Conceived by Wally Hedrick, this event was the first important public manifestation of the Beat Generation and helped to herald the West Coast literary revolution that continued the San Francisco Renaissance. Peter Forakis created the poster for the reading.
George Mandel
George Mandel (born February 11, 1920) is an American author and early writer of the Beat Generation. His novels, interviews, novellas, cartoons and short stories have been carried major print magazines and collections. He has also contributed key elements to screenplays for Hollywood films.
Lew Welch
Lewis Barrett Welch, Jr. (August 16, 1926 – May 1971?) was an American poet associated with the Beat generation literary movement.
Beat It
"Beat It" was released on February 14, 1983, following the successful chart performances of "The Girl Is Mine" and "Billie Jean". Frank DiLeo, the vice president of Epic Records, convinced Jackson to release "Beat It" while "Billie Jean" was heading towards number one. Dileo, who later became Jackson's manager, predicted that both singles would remain in the Top 10 at the same time. "Billie Jean" remained atop the "Billboard" Hot 100 for seven weeks, before being toppled by "Come On Eileen", which stayed at No. 1 for a single week, before Jackson reclaimed the position with "Beat It".
The Beat (British band)
The Beat was formed in Birmingham, England, in 1978, during a period of high unemployment and social upheaval in the United Kingdom. Ranking Roger, one of the band's vocalists, added a Jamaican vocal flavour to the band's sound with his toasting style. Jamaican saxophonist Saxa added a Jamaican ska instrumental sound. Saxa (born Lionel Augustus Martin in 1930) had played saxophone with Prince Buster, Laurel Aitken, and Desmond Dekker in the first wave of ska. He joined The Beat to record their first single, "Tears of a Clown", a cover version of the Motown hit by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
Wally Hedrick
Wally Bill Hedrick (1928 in Pasadena, California – December 17, 2003 in Bodega Bay, California) was a seminal American artist in the 1950s California counterculture, gallerist, and educator who came to prominence in the early 1960s. Hedrick’s contributions to art include pioneering artworks in psychedelic light art, mechanical kinetic sculpture, junk/assemblage sculpture, Pop Art, and (California) Funk Art. Later in his life, he was a recognized forerunner in Happenings, Conceptual Art, Bad Painting, Neo-Expressionism, and image appropriation. Hedrick was also a key figure in the first important public manifestation of the Beat Generation when he helped to organize the Six Gallery Reading, and created the first artistic denunciation of American foreign policy in Vietnam. Wally Hedrick was known as an “idea artist” long before the label “conceptual art” entered the art world, and experimented with innovative use of language in art, at times resorting to puns.
Fernanda Pivano
In the summer of 2001 Pivano toured Northern America with director Luca Facchinito to film the documentary "A Farewell to Beat" – a celebration of the Beat Generation featuring notable American writers, including Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis and Lawrence Ferlinghetti written by Andrea Bempensante.
Pete Winslow
Pete Winslow (1934–1972) was a surrealist poet associated with the Beat Generation.
Beat Party!
Due to the similar reference points, 1960s beat music and emphasis on fashion from the same era, Beat Parties have drawn comparisons to the Mod Revival which took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s throughout the United Kingdom. However unlike the Mod Revival which had The Jam and lead singer and Mod Paul Weller as its focal point, the Beat Party! culture is instead primarily influenced by its participants who all hold a dewy eyed love for the 1960s.
The Source (1999 film)
The Source is a 1999 documentary about the Beat Generation. It was directed by Chuck Workman, and features appearances by Johnny Depp, Dennis Hopper, and John Turturro.
Beat Generation
The core group of Beat Generation authors – Herbert Huncke, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and Kerouac – met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus in New York City. Later, in the mid-1950s, the central figures (with the exception of Burroughs and Carr) ended up together in San Francisco where they met and became friends of figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance.
Jazz meditation
Since the mid-20th Century, there has been an evolving relationship between jazz musicians and Buddhist meditative practices. From the emergence of the Beat Generation artists in the post World War II era United States, through the counter-culture 1960s and New Age and experimental aesthetics of the late 20th Century, musicians have found rich inspiration as well as discipline in many of the same concepts that are fundamental to Buddhist practices.
The Beat (British band)
The Beat (known in the United States and Canada as The English Beat and in Australia as The British Beat, is a band founded in Birmingham, England, in 1978. Its music fuses Latin, ska, pop, soul, reggae and punk rock.
Herbert Huncke
Huncke himself was a natural storyteller, a unique character with a paradoxically honest take on life. Later, after the formation of the so-called Beat Generation, members of the Beats encouraged Huncke to publish his notebook writings, which he did with limited success in 1964 with Diane DiPrima's Poet's Press. (Huncke's Journal) Huncke used the word "Beat" to describe someone living with no money and few prospects. "Beat to my socks," he said. Huncke coined the phrase in a conversation with Jack Kerouac, who was interested in how their generation would be remembered. "I'm beat," was Huncke's reply, meaning tired and beat to his socks. Kerouac used the term to describe an entire generation. Jack Kerouac later insisted that "Beat" was derived from beatification, to be supremely happy. However, it is thought that this definition was a defense of the beat way of life, which was frowned upon and offended many American sensibilities.
Alan Ansen
Alan Ansen (January 23, 1922 – November 12, 2006) was an American poet, playwright, and associate of Beat Generation writers. He was a widely read scholar who knew many languages. Ansen grew up on Long Island and was educated at Harvard. He worked as W. H. Auden's secretary and research assistant in 1948-49; he was the main author of the chronological tables in Auden's "The Portable Greek Reader" and "Poets of the English Language".
The Beat (British band)
The Beat, consisting of Dave Wakeling (vocals, guitar), Ranking Roger (vocals), Andy Cox (guitar), David Steele (bass), Everett Morton (drums), and Saxa a.k.a. Lionel Augustus Martin (saxophone), released three studio albums in the early 1980s: "I Just Can't Stop It" (1980), "Wha'ppen?" (1981) and "Special Beat Service" (1982), and a string of singles, including "Mirror in the Bathroom", "Save It for Later", "Too Nice to Talk To", "Can't Get Used to Losing You", "Hands Off, She's Mine", and "All Out to Get You".
Neal Cassady
Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s.
Beat Generation
Cultural critics have written about the transition of Beat culture in the Village into the Bohemian hippie culture of the 1960s.
Beat Museum
Some musicians are also considered to be part of the Beat Generation’s legacy including The Doors, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and Tom Waits. Thomas Pynchon and Tom Robbins are examples of authors influenced by the Beat generation.
Beats International
Beats International were a British electronic music band, formed in the late 1980s by Norman Cook (later in his career known as Fatboy Slim) based in Brighton, East Sussex, England, after his departure from The Housemartins.
Lucien Carr
Lucien Carr (March 1, 1925 – January 28, 2005) was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s; later he worked for many years as an editor for United Press International.
Beat Generation
The female contemporaries of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs were intimately involved in the creation of Beat philosophy and literature, and yet remain markedly absent from the mainstream interpretation of the most important aspects and figures of the movement.
Beat Generation
Solomon was arguably more eccentric than psychotic. A fan of Antonin Artaud, he indulged in self-consciously "crazy" behavior, like throwing potato salad at a college lecturer on Dadaism. Solomon was given shock treatments at Bellevue; this became one of the main themes of Ginsberg's "Howl", which was dedicated to Solomon. Solomon later became the publishing contact who agreed to publish Burroughs' first novel "Junky" in 1953.
Beat Generation
Burroughs was introduced to the group by David Kammerer, who was in love with Carr. Carr had befriended Ginsberg and introduced him to Kammerer and Burroughs. Carr also knew Kerouac's girlfriend Edie Parker, through whom Burroughs met Kerouac in 1944.
It's a Beat Wave
It's a Beat Wave is the debut album by American electro group Warp 9. Released in 1983, the album's producers, Lotti Golden and Richard Scher, "worked real emotion and intelligence into the world of experimental hip-hop and electro." Warp 9 was the moniker under which Golden and Scher created their brand of electro-futurism. The group's first single, "Nunk,"(1982), secured Warp 9's album deal with New York independent label Prism Records. The LP was released in 1983 in conjunction with the group's 3rd single, "Beat Wave." Warp 9's large following in the New York metropolitan area came to the attention of Island Records chief Chris Blackwell who signed Warp 9 to a world wide deal on Island Records (Prism/Island Records in the U.S.).
What Is Beat?
What Is Beat? – The Best of The Beat is a greatest hits album by the ska band The Beat released in 1983. The original vinyl release included an additional "free album" of extended remixes entitled Frebe. Several songs had previously only been released as singles and B-sides. These include "Too Nice to Talk To", "March of the Swivelheads" and "Psychedelic Rockers". In the UK these also include the A-side "Tears of a Clown" and "Ranking Full Stop". "March of the Swivelheads" later appeared in the film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". The song accompanies the film's climax. The question of the album's title was answered on the back of the original sleeve, "This is Beat!!"
Beatnik
Since 1958, the terms Beat Generation and Beat have been used to describe the antimaterialistic literary movement that began with Kerouac in the 1940s and continued into the 1960s. The Beat philosophy of antimaterialism and soul searching influenced 1960s musicians such as Bob Dylan, the early Pink Floyd and The Beatles.
Gregory Corso
In late 1958, Corso reunited with Ginsberg and Orlovsky. They were astonished that before they left for Europe they had sparked a social movement, which San Francisco columnist Herb Caen called "Beat-nik," combining "beat" with the Russian "Sputnik," as if to suggest that the Beat writers were both "out there" and vaguely Communist.
San Francisco's obscenity trial of Lawrence Ferlinghetti for publishing Ginsberg's "Howl" had ended in an acquittal, and the national notoriety made "The Beats" famous, adored and ridiculed.
Upon their return, Ginsberg, Corso, Kerouac and Burroughs were published in the venerable "Chicago Review", but before the volume was sold, University of Chicago President Robert Hutchins deemed it pornographic and had all copies confiscated. The Chicago editors promptly resigned and started an alternative literary magazine, "The Big Table". Ginsberg and Corso took a bus from New York for the "Big Table" launch, which again propelled them into the national spotlight. Studs Terkel's interview of the two was a madcap romp which set off a wave of publicity. Controversy followed them and they relished making the most of their outlaw and pariah image. "Time" and "Life" magazines had a particular dislike of the two, hurling invective and insult that Corso and Ginsberg hoped they could bootstrap into yet more publicity. The Beat Generation (so named by Kerouac) was galvanized and young people began dressing with berets, toreador pants, and beards, and carrying bongos. Corso would quip that he never grew a beard, didn't own a beret, and couldn't fathom bongos.
Corso and Ginsberg traveled widely to college campuses, reading together. Ginsberg's "Howl" provided the serious fare and Corso's "Bomb" and "Marriage" provided the humor and bonhomie. New York's Beat scene erupted and spilled over to the burgeoning folk music craze in the Village, Corso's and Ginsberg's home ground. An early participant was a newly arrived Bob Dylan: "I came out of the wilderness and just fell in with the Beat scene, the Bohemian, the Be Bop crowd. It was all pretty connected." "It was Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti... I got in at the tail end of that and it was magic." -"Bob Dylan in America."
Corso also published in the avant garde little magazine "Nomad" at the beginning of the 1960s.
During the early 1960s, Corso married Sally November, an English teacher who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Shaker High School, and graduated from the University of Michigan. At first, Corso mimicked "Marriage" and moved to Cleveland to work in Sally's father's florist shop. Then the couple lived in Manhattan and Sally was known to Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Larry Rivers and others in the beat circle at that time. The marriage, while a failure, did produce a child, Miranda Corso. Corso maintained contact with Sally and his daughter sporadically during his lifetime. Sally, who subsequently remarried, resides on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and has kept contact with one of the iconic females associated with the Beat movement, Hettie Jones.
Corso married two other times and had sons and a daughter.
As the Beats were supplanted in the 1960s by the Hippies and other youth movements, Corso experienced his own wilderness years. He struggled with alcohol and drugs. He later would comment that his addictions masked the pain of having been abandoned and emotionally deprived and abused. Poetry was his purest means of transcending his traumas, but substance abuse threatened his poetic output. He lived in Rome for many years, and later married in Paris and taught in Greece, all the while traveling widely. He strangely remained close to the Catholic Church as critic and had a loose identification as a lapsed Catholic. His collection "Dear Fathers" was several letters commenting on needed reforms in the Vatican.
In 1969, Corso published a volume, "Elegiac Feelings American", whose lead poem, dedicated to the recently deceased Jack Kerouac, is regarded by some critics as Corso's best poem. In 1981 he published poems mostly written while residing in Europe, entitled "Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit".
In 1972, Rose Holton and her sister met Corso on the second day of their residence at the Hotel Chelsea in New York City:
Beat Generation
There was a resurgence of interest in the beats among bands in the 1980s. Ginsberg worked with the Clash and Burroughs worked with Sonic Youth, R.E.M., Kurt Cobain, and Ministry, among others. Bono of U2 cites Burroughs as a major influence, and Burroughs appeared briefly in a U2 video in 1997. Post-punk band Joy Division named a song "Interzone" after a collection of stories by Burroughs. Laurie Anderson featured Burroughs on her 1984 album "Mister Heartbreak" and in her 1986 concert film, "Home of the Brave." The band King Crimson produced the album "Beat" inspired by the Beat Generation.
Beat (2000 film)
Beat is a 2000 American drama film written and directed by Gary Walkow, concerning the period of writer William S. Burroughs's life that he spent with his wife, Joan Vollmer, leading up to her accidental killing in 1951.
Beat Generation
The Postbeat Poets are direct descendants of the Beat Generation. Their association with or tutelage under Ginsberg at The Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and later at Brooklyn College stressed the social-activist legacy of the Beats and created its own body of literature. Known authors are Anne Waldman, Antler, Andy Clausen, David Cope, Eileen Myles, Eliot Katz, Paul Beatty, Sapphire, Lesléa Newman, Jim Cohn, Thomas R. Peters, Jr. (poet and owner of beat book shop), Sharon Mesmer, Randy Roark, Josh Smith, David Evans.
Gustave Reininger
The “Beats” are back. Ever “cool”, ever “hip”, this poignant, humorous film will introduce today’s youth market to the inner circle of the American Icons known as “the Beat Generation” – Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs and Gregory Corso. It dove-tails with the new wave of interest in this 50th anniversary of “On the Road” and Francis Coppola’s upcoming film version... “The Last Beat” looks at the extraordinary life of Gregory Corso, the most colorful of “the Beats”… Outstanding documentary work combine with pacing and entertainment value that come from the film-maker’s background: Co-creator of NBC’s and Michael Mann’s “Crime Story” and "Miami Vice" contributor… By following Corso, the film shows how “the Beats” changed American society, paving the way for youth culture, the sexual revolution and even hip-hop… The film follows Gregory Corso on a trip to the monuments of France, Italy, and Greece retracing the early days of "The Beats."... Remarkably, the film-maker found Corso’s Italian mother who abandoned him as a baby; reunited them; and caught these poignant moments on film… Corso also amazes by visiting prison inmates at Clinton State Prison, where at age 17 he was encouraged by Italian mafia prisoners to educate himself. (He ended up at Harvard later.)… After the European odyssey, a revitalized Corso returns to Greenwich Village to work again... Then, in ultimate irony, Corso faces his own mortality with humor and pluck, comforted by Ethan Hawke, Patti Smith and his newfound mother, Michellina.
Beat Generation
The Beats were inspired by early American figures such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville and especially Walt Whitman, who is addressed as the subject of one of Ginsberg's most famous poems, "A Supermarket in California". Edgar Allan Poe was occasionally acknowledged, and Ginsberg saw Emily Dickinson as having an influence on Beat poetry. The 1926 novel "You Can't Win" by outlaw author Jack Black was cited as having a strong influence on Burroughs.
The Beat Generation
The Beat Generation is a 1959 American crime film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren, with Ray Danton, Fay Spain, Maggie Hayes, Jackie Coogan, Louis Armstrong, James Mitchum, Vampira, and Ray Anthony. It is a sensationalistic interpretation of the beatnik culture of the "Beat Generation" (and is sometimes considered one of the very last films noir to be produced.) The movie was also shown under the title "This Rebel Age".
Jack Kerouac
In July 1957, Kerouac moved to a small house at 1418½ Clouser Avenue in the College Park section of Orlando, Florida, to await the release of "On the Road". Weeks later, a review of the book by Gilbert Millstein appeared in "The New York Times" proclaiming Kerouac the voice of a new generation. Kerouac was hailed as a major American writer. His friendship with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Gregory Corso, among others, became a notorious representation of the Beat Generation. The term Beat Generation was invented by Kerouac during a conversation held with fellow novelist Herbert Huncke. Huncke used the term "beat" to describe a person with little money and few prospects. "I'm beat to my socks", he had said. Kerouac's fame came as an unmanageable surge that would ultimately be his undoing.
Beat Museum
The Beat Generation was a group of post-WWII artists who challenged the social norms of the 1950s, encouraged experimentation with drugs and sexuality, practiced various types of Eastern religion, and desired to grow as humans. Also known as 'The Beats', they became famous in the 1950s and remain influential today. While dozens of personalities were involved in the formative years of the movement, the most celebrated members were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady.
Beat Generation
There were stylistic differences between beatniks and hippies—somber colors, dark sunglasses, and goatees gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair. The beats were known for "playing it cool" (keeping a low profile),
What Is Beat?
U.S. CD
Wally Hedrick
Hedrick's 'Six Gallery Reading' was the first important public manifestation of the Beat Generation and helped to herald the West Coast artistic revolution that became known as the San Francisco Renaissance.
Beat Generation
William S. Burroughs is considered a forefather of postmodern literature; he also inspired the cyberpunk genre.
Eric &quot;Big Daddy&quot; Nord
Eric Nord (1919–1989), also known as Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, was a Beat Generation-era nightclub owner, poet, actor, and hipster. Newspaper columnist Herb Caen called him the "king of the Beat Generation." Corpulent, standing 6 feet 7 inches tall, Nord was the face of the Beat generation to San Francisco and Los Angeles newspaper readers in the late 1950s and the founder of the hungry i nightclub.
Beat Radio
Beat Radio originally was an unlicensed radio station in Minneapolis, Minnesota that played dance music. Founded by local radio DJ and programmer, Alan Freed, in 1996, the station served downtown Minneapolis and surrounding neighborhoods and reached into the western, northwestern and southwestern suburbs. The original station at 97.7 FM operated for 103 days until it was shut down by the Federal Communications Commission. Beat Radio subsequently moved to licensed stations and eventually became a nationwide radio network.
Corso: The Last Beat
The Beat Generation’s Gregory Corso became one of four in the inner circle of the Beats, along with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs. Corso grew up in foster homes, on the streets of Little Italy and Greenwich Village. Corso was sentenced to Clinton State Prison for stealing a $50 suit to go on a date; there, protected by Mafia inmates, Corso read his way through a three-year sentence and ended up at Harvard. He eventually met Allen Ginsberg at a dyke bar in the West Village. After Allen Ginsberg’s death, Corso goes "On the Road" to rediscover his creative Muse. From Paris to Venice, Rome to Athens, Mount Parnassus to Jim Morrison’s grave, Corso reflects on the early days of "Beats." In high humor he reveals how "The Beats" emerged in Europe, and paved the way for youth culture, the sexual revolution and even hip-hop. Corso interrupts his tour to revisit Clinton State Prison and inspire young inmates. Returning to Italy, Corso muses on his lost mother, who he believes is dead and buried in Italy. In a stunning discovery, filmmaker Gustave Reininger finds Corso's mother not dead in Italy, but alive in Trenton, N.J. Corso meets his mother on film and discovers she is the Muse he has been seeking. He also discovers that his mother left him to escape the violence and sexual abuse of his father, who lied saying she had returned to Italy. Healing from a life of abandonment, emotional deprivation and abuse, Corso finishes his road trip on the Acropolis in Greece.A revitalized Corso returns to Greenwich Village, only to discover he is dying. He faces his own death with pluck and humor, comforted by Ethan Hawke, Patti Smith and his newfound mother, Michelina.
Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat (after bands from Liverpool and nearby areas beside the River Mersey) is a popular music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll (mainly Chuck Berry guitar style and the midtempo beat of artists like Buddy Holly), doo-wop, skiffle and R&B. The genre provided many of the bands responsible for the British Invasion of the American pop charts starting in 1964, and provided the model for many important developments in pop and rock music, including the format of the rock group around lead, rhythm and bass guitars with drums.
Beat Generation
An early example of the "beatnik stereotype" occurred in Vesuvio's (a bar in North Beach, San Francisco) which employed the artist Wally Hedrick to sit in the window dressed in full beard, turtleneck, and sandals, creating improvisational drawings and paintings. By 1958 tourists who came to San Francisco could take bus tours to view the North Beach Beat scene, prophetically anticipating similar tours of the Haight-Ashbury district ten years later.
Beat Scene
Ring and "Beat Scene" are acknowledged sources in James Campbell's book, "This Is the Beat Generation: New York–San Francisco-Paris." (2001).
The Beat Generation
At a party near the beach, the deranged Culloran attempts to capture Garrett. After an elaborate scuba-diving chase sequences, Culloran captures and beats up Garrett coming close to killing him before Baron intervenes. Culloran comes to his senses and returns to Francee, who gives birth.It was known during production as "The Beat and the Naked Generation".
According to MGM records the film earned $400,000 in the US and Canada and $350,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $113,000.