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37.
Two b/w photographs by Graham Keen from the first of Steve Stollman’s Spontaneous Underground events at the Marquee Club, January 30, 1966.
Vintage 8x10 prints, each with the photographer’s stamp to verso, one of them with his brief pencilled caption identifying the subjects.
The two prints feature shots of AMM (Cornelius Cardew, Eddie Prévost, Lawrence Sheaff, Lou Gare, and Keith Rowe, the latter a significant musical influence on Syd Barrett, who, with Pink Floyd, joined the bill with AMM in the third of the Sunday Marquee events [see item #49]).
Steve Stollman (brother of the owner of New York record label ESP Disk', Bernard, from whom the Indica bookshop had begun importing records), organised his Spontaneous Underground mainly by word of mouth, and billed this first event as a ‘Giant Mystery Happening’ (they were always referred to as the Spontaneous Underground but the name was only ever used once, and, being invitation only, they were never advertised).
As well as AMM, it featured performances and readings by Lee Harwood, Harry Fainlight, Alexander Trocchi, John Esam, Donovan, and the Graham Bond Group. Stollman’s Sunday afternoons at the Marquee followed the small-scale performance events organised by Pete Brown, Johnny Byrne, Spike Hawkins and others at the short-lived Goings-On Club in Archer Street, and were intended as an attempt to galvanise the creative energies apparent at the June 1965 Albert Hall poetry reading.
Images from this series of events are exceedingly rare, and the two photographs here, taken by future International Times art director Graham Keen, are thought to be unpublished.
Some spotting to verso of second print, o/w Very Good plus.