Item #40272 A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia. Heathcote WILLIAMS.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.
A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.

66.

A group of documents relating to Free City, Heathcote Williams’s vision for a “New Jerusalem”, a commune of “high and happy people living in an atmosphere of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual fluidity”, and the forerunner of the Republic of Frestonia.

i) Free City manifesto. No date (1974). Single duplicated typescript (some holograph corrections in the copy), with title and address added in blue ink by Williams. Old central and vertical folds. Very Good;

ii) another copy, with Albion Free State stamp to lower margin. Old central and vertical folds. Very Good;

iii) Free City - Notes For The Singing Forest. Single duplicated typescript. Probably written by Nicholas Albery. Old central and vertical folds. Very Good;

iv) Free City logo. Heathcote Williams’s logo design for Free City using letterforms derived from collages of Victorian engravings (Williams used similar picture font typography in his design for The Fanatic’s masthead [item #80]. Printed on single quarto sheet of photographic paper. Lightly creased. Very Good;

v) foolscap plastic ringbound booklet produced by Heathcote Williams featuring four photo-reproduced texts by him, one with a holograph annotation by him in green pencil and all with his holograph amendments in the copy. In addition, Williams has written out a quotation inside the back cover intentionally misattributed to J.M. Barrie. The four texts are: “The Purpose of Life”; the “Free City” manifesto; an untitled series of polemical aphorisms on the mainstream and underground press; and “Plant Liberation”, a polemic that anticipates later ‘ecological epics’ such as "Whale Nation". Titles written out in an unknown hand to (slightly stained) front cover, o/w Very Good plus;

vi) mimeographed double-sided flyer announcing a Free Festival at the Albion Free State Meat Roxy on July 27th (1974), with “a Lovers’ Playground… Fire-Eating!… Streaking!… Kissing! Etc.”, and appearances by George Melly, Here & Now, The Sadista Sisters, and others. Old central and vertical folds. Very Good;

vii) a ticket (“Mind Pass Port”) for the Meat Roxy, the venue Williams established in the derelict Royalty cinema and bingo hall at 105 Lancaster Road, Notting Hill (formerly and briefly the Middle Earth club where Soft Machine performed in March 1969). Oblong pink card, printed in black (10.6x25.2cm.). Very Good plus.

Envisioned by Williams as the Free City made manifest and as “a Place where the generation that was divinely visited by magical music, and sacramental drugs… can realize the new behaviour patterns which were stimulated into being”, the Meat Roxy lasted for fourteen successive Saturdays through the summer of 1974 (among the acts who appeared there were Joe Strummer’s band, the 101’ers, while others, often non-existent or with invented names, were advertised in IT). The Meat Roxy closed after vibrations from the music caused the roof of the decrepit building to collapse, but its brief existence helped pave the way for the idea of Frestonia in 1977, a nearby squatters’ community inspired by Nicholas Albery, Heathcote Williams, Nicholas Saunders and David Rappaport that attempted to secede from the UK and issued its own passports and postage stamps.

Sold