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BOOK REVIEW! BOMB CULTURE BY JEFF NUTTAL, FOREWORD BY IAIN SINCLAIR, AFTERWORD BY MARIA FUSCO (Strange Attractor Press, 2018)

One of those gotta-read-before-I-croak efforts, BOMB CULTURE's the best upfront realdeal put-togethers of just what it was that made that whole mid/late-sixties explosions that spurred the growth of that whole ballawax that used to get labeled as everything from "youth culture" to "the new morality"...ideals that might have seemed heroic enough at the time yet failed dreadfully in true meaning and intent. For Nuttal it all started with the nuclear bomb and it goes on and on deeper and deeper into some crazed vortex I dn't even think Nuttal himself could work his way outta. Let's just say that this sure ain't the usual precious petunia we-are-all-one view of hand-in-hand peacenlove that has been peddled to totally ignorant lumpen suburban slobs for ages that's for sure!

Even if he wasn't front and center for the apocalypse Nuttal would have been the perfect purveyor of the real hard-edged dive into what wasn't as much a youth culture as it was a youth civilization. Total annihilation wasn't just the neurotic musings of namby pambies but the backbone of the new society, one which had the unmitigated audacity to elect William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg as its king and queen respectively, more or less. (Mebbee throw in Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg as Court Jesters since both seem to be getting much needed publicity within these pages.)  And one which really seemed to put to terms the general mindtwist that created the massive surge against the strained and strict in Merrie Olde England in those post World War II years, making this branch of the "rebellation generation" look like the only logical thing to do even if the whole mess ended up giving rise to dull anarcho punks and the Third World-dominated revenge against the caucazoid imperialists that has overtaken the Isles these past few decades.

Lots here to absorb and decipher (undoubtedly in your own self-righteous fashion), with the ultimate conclusion being something to the effect that maybe those kids who were listening to amped up screeching sonic waves of atonal ecstasy while destroying their braincells on every chemical imaginable had a whole lot more connection with the true reality of it all than anyone would have guessed.

Or maybe not considering how your wild-eyed 1967 acid music purveyor eventually became the seeker of true karmik bless the beasts and children Jesus as lovable marshmallow puff partisan of 1976, but that's definitely for another book.

An important reissue with a forward by Iain Sinclair who's gonna give you some background on what you're gonna read. And Maria Fusco who will tell you about what you already have.