A to Z of Zowie (Hippy Slang)

Found in an old Sunday Observer colour supplement from December 1967 this glossary of (then) very recent hippy and 'underground' slang, apparently known as 'Zowie.' In Britain 'Zowie' is mostly associated with David Bowie's son Zowie Bowie (born 1971) now known as Duncan Jones...For a comprehensive online dictionary of hippy slang check out Skip Stone's Hippy Glossary. Since the Summer of Love some of the words below have entered the language (groovy, happening, trip, vibrations, riff) and some like 'Zowie' itself and 'grey' have had very little currency. Slang authority Eric Partridge imported most of Peter Fryer's glossary into later editions of his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.

A TO Z OF 'ZOWIE'
Peter Fryer offers a selective glossary of the Underground.

acid/LSD. Acid-head/one who uses LSD.
be-in/hippy meeting.
bread/money.
bust/police search, raid.
cool/unruffled, admirable (but see groovy); not carrying illegal drugs.
crazy/admirable.
dig/understand. Diggers/idealist hippies undermining capitalist economies by giving away free clothes, washing-machines to needy.
drag/bore, dissapointment.
drop-out/one who opts out of society.
flip/arouse enthusiasm. F. one's wig/lose one's head.
Flower Power/from Flower Children or Beautiful People.

Samuel Fuller and 144 Piccadilly

Found- a British paperback 144 Piccadilly (NEL, London 1973) a novel by the American film director Samuel Fuller. It concerns a group of London hippies who barricade themselves inside a decaying Mayfair mansion and resist all efforts to evict them. One cataloguer notes that the American edition rather obscures the fact that it was based directly on an actual event -- "ripped from the headlines," as Fuller might have put it. In September of 1969 a radical group known as The London Street Commune, formed to highlight concerns about rising levels of homelessness in London, took over a large house at the corner of Piccadilly and Park Lane (just across from Hyde Park); they occupied the building for six days
before being forcibly evicted by the police. Fuller's literary conceit was to insert himself into the situation, "playing" the narrator, a cigar-smoking American film director (in London for a BFI retrospective of his films) who gets involved with the squatters by accident. Unlike most of Fuller's books, it's not just a novelization of one of his own film treatments; as he tells it in his posthumously -published memoir, he actually had been in London

Live poetry 1967 (Pete Roche)

Found - a 1967 Corgi paperback Love, love, love: the new love poetry. It was edited by Pete Roche the subject of a recent jot where he wrote disparagingly of the Cavern Club (1964). Three years later in the height of the Hippie era we find him editing this attractive book with psychedelic
covers by Haphash and the Coloured Coat. His introduction celebrates the revival of 'live' poetry - which is still going strong. There follows a poem by him, other contributors included Adrian Henri, Adrian Mitchell, Roger McGough, Carlyle Reedy, Libby Houston, Spike Hawkins, Brian Patten...

… the recent increase in the popularity of poetry readings, particularly among younger people. The success in this respect of the Liverpool poets (all of whom are included here) and of what has been called The Great Liverpool Experiment have already been well documented.

The Aquarian Guide (London 1970)

The Aquarian Guide to Occult, Mystical, Religious, Magical London and Around. Francoise Strachan [Aquarian Press, London 1970]

A guide with names, addresses etc. Amazing collection - rainmakers, clairvoyants, robe makers, temple painters, even the artist who did the cover (Ken Crampton) is in there as a mystical painter, also an occult B & B in Coombe Martin, The Process -'Church of the Final Judgement (Balfour Place, Mayfair), Gandalf's Garden (hippy tea-room) The Ghost Club (founded 1862) Lodges, Priories, Cabalistic & Chivalric Orders, Druids, Avatars, Astrologers, Findhorn, Hypnotists, OAHSPE, Fuller D'Arch Smith (occult books), an Isis Unveiled Class, an exorcist, and a spiritual candle maker. The author, now known as Francesca Rossetti, can now be found on Library Thing.

UK Ginseng shops 1971

From The Alchemical Almanac and Handbook of Herbal Highs (1971)  See 3rd Ear Band. An interesting list of long lost alternative 'head' shops. The epicentre of Ginseng seems to have been Portobello Road. 

Emperor Ginseng is obtainable at

LONDON

Alchemy, 253 Portobello Road W 11

Etcetera Portobello Road W 11

Forbidden Fruit

   295 Portobello Road W 11

   Kensington Market W8

   Kings Road (Beaufort St) SW7

Frozen North 85 Kings Road SW3

Gas 12 Great Western Road W11

B P 185 Portobello Road

EDINBURGH

Cockburn St Market, 21 Cockburn St

Piggies Boutique 83 Clark Street

LEICESTER

The Record Shop, Village Square

Malcolm Arcade, Silver St

NORWICH

Head in the Clouds, 13 Pottergate

OXFORD 

Usbornes, Little Clarendon St

PRESTON

White Rabbit, 2 Fleet Street

PORTSMOUTH

Spice Island, 30 Osborne Road, Southsea

MAIL ORDER 

Frendz 307 Portobello Road W11

OZ 19 Gt Newport ST WC1

3rd Ear Band

This ad was found in a 1971 catalogue from a London 'head' business called 'Alchemical' - The Alchemical Almanac and Handbook of Herbal Highs.

3rd Ear Band

This music is a reflection of the universe as magic/ play/ illusion simply because it could not possibly be anything else.

Words cannot describe this ecstatic dance of sound or explain the alchemical repetition seeking and sometimes finding archetypal forms, elements and rhythms. Contradictions are their energy force, dualities are discarded in favour of the Tao, each piece is as alike or unlike as trees, grass or crickets. This is natural, magical, alchemical music that does not preach but just urges you to take your own trip.

If you can make it into this music you are adrift in fantastic Bosche - like landscapes, a strange acoustical perfume fills the mind, on some occasions a door seems to open, band and audience appear to float in a new dimension, transcending time and space where nothing exists except this very strange and beautiful music.

All the Third Ear band's albums are available from your local platter place or…through Alchemail.