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75.
LOS ANGELES FREE PRESS #117 (LA: October 14, 1966).
Tabloid newspaper format. 20pp. Pub./ed. Art Kunkin.
Launched in May 1964 and modelled after the Village Voice, the ‘Freep’, as it became known, was the first truly underground newspaper. Its publisher, Art Kunkin, informed the LA Times around the time of this issue that it was running on a shoestring, with a readership of only 9000. Circulation later grew substantially, and due to the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) it helped found, its influence spread to other nascent countercultural publications across America, as well as to those further afield, including Britain’s (and Europe’s) first underground paper, International Times.
This issue, published on the same day as the first issue of International Times in London, features the spectacular two-page “Freak Out! The Official News of The M.O.I.”. In it, an outraged Frank Zappa objects to ads. that had appeared in the previous issue for Zeidler & Zeidler’s hip clothing store (in which a reference is made to the Mothers of Invention); to a half-page ad. for a ‘Freak-In’ at the Shrine featuring the Mugwumps and Vito (the ad. also appears in this issue); and to Vito disciple Carl Franzoni’s letter from the same issue, headlined “A Mother Against LSD”, which Zappa angrily points out was “incorrectly labeled as a public statement from a member of our group.”
The double-page spread was designed by Zappa and features photo-collages of characters from the film “Freaks”.
Also: front cover feature on Haight-Ashbury’s agit-prop “Theatre Ideas Happening”; Hugh Romney cartoons; reviews of little magazines (Steven Richmond, Doug Blazek, d.a. levy); a centrespread article and ad. opposing Proposition 16 (“Censorship and Fascism Go Hand in Hand”); a qtr.-page psych. ad. for Buffalo Springfield and The Knack in Redondo Beach; an ad. for The Sons of Adam at Bido Lito’s; a photograph of Vito and his entourage; more.
Old central horizontal fold; newsprint slightly age-toned; o/w Very Good plus.
Price:
£45.00
