International Times (it or IT) is the name of various underground newspapers, with the original title founded in London in 1966. Editors included Hoppy, David Mairowitz, Peter Stansill, Barry Miles, Jim Haynes, and playwright Tom McGrath. Jack Moore, avant-garde writer William Levy, and Mick Farren, singer of The Deviants, also edited at various periods. The IT restarted as an online journal in 2008. The paper’s logo is a black-and-white image of Theda Bara, vampish star of silent films. The founders’ intention had been to use an image of actress Clara Bow, 1920s It girl, but a picture of Theda Bara was used by accident and, once deployed, not changed. Paul McCartney donated to the paper as did Allen Ginsberg through his Committee on Poetry foundation. (More from Wikipedia)
Mick Farren’s early writing was for one of the first underground newspapers, International Times (later called IT after threats of litigation by The Times of London); he wrote articles for the newspaper and also edited IT for a period of time. The newspaper was founded in November 1966 and was a mixture of rock music promotion, polemical journalism, and scandalous humor. The London police repeatedly raided the newspaper’s office in an attempt to shut them down; IT responded by hosting a benefit rock concert called The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream in April 1967 featuring Pink Floyd, the Pretty Things, Savoy Brown, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Soft Machine, and the Move.
Sam Gopal’s Dream performed at The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, the benefit concert mentioned earlier for the International Times underground newspaper, and also at the UFO Club. To date, the recordings made by Sam Gopal’s Dream for Screen Gems Records in 1967 remain unreleased.
(March 2014/2)
