2007 is a year of many anniversaries: 20 years after the Second Summer of Love that Acid House ushered in, 30 years after the release of the devastating 'Never Mind the Bollocks', 40 years after 'Sgt. Pepper's' and 50 years after the publication of Jack Kerouac's generation-defining novel 'On the Road'.
One event that gets far less publicity, but that in many ways was at the heart of everything that came both before and after it also sees its 40th anniversary this year. The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream took place on April the 29th 1967 and was the UK's first mass-participational all-night psychedelic freakout!
Organised on the hoof and in a matter of weeks, the event was held in the cavernous confines of Alexandra Palace, high on a hill in the suburbs of North London. The vision of John 'Hoppy Hopkins, underground lynch-pin extraordinaire and Miles, writer for freak press bible International Times, the night saw a glorious mingling of freaks, beats, mods, squares, proto-punks, pop stars and heads come together to dance, grok, trip, love and be.
Bands such as The Pretty Things, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, The Flies, Alexis Korner, Graham Bond, Tomorrow, The Pink Floyd and many more appeared amidst poetry readings, avant dance troupes and assorted happenings, including the infamous Yoko Ono-instigated 'Cut Piece', whereby a young model had a paper dress cut from her body piece by piece by folk wielding amplified scissors!
The event was the culmination of an underground that had started with the beats and would explode into the mainstream with the mass psych pop explosion of The Beatles, yet also sowed the seeds for punk's D-I-Y aesthetic and the drug-fuelled hedonism of Acid House. To commemorate and celebrate the anniversary, we're holding a one-off multi-media event called OUR TECHNICOLOR DREAM at the ICA on Saturday April the 21st 2007.
The day will essentially divide into four parts: the films, the talk, the gig and the after-show. Check out the blogs above for more detailed info on each segment, and also for ticket prices, etc.
Spread the word. Love, Hugh
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