Ron Rosenbaum's bold & provocative Things Have Changed brings numerous fresh angles to Dylan’s oft-reported story. The writer has a very negative take on Allen Ginsberg's influence. Rock & the Beat Generation Editor Simon Warner weighs up the evidence… simonwarner.substack.com/p/book-review-…

At last, a store for the tramp about town…

Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris reviews The Bunker Diaries, Stewart Meyer’s account of life in WSB’s legendary Manhattan headquarters for Rock & the Beat Generation. The dealer & would-be writer offers intimate insights into that underground enclave… simonwarner.substack.com/p/book-review-…

Rock & the Beat Generation: AI-free since 2021 simonwarner.substack.com

Soul searching: In the week that the English monarchy broke its 500-year-old golden rule – don’t go praying with no popes – a packed congregation filled Halifax Minster to worship at the feet of a Luther Vandross impersonator to absorb a little gospel truth. Postmodernity indeed.

70 yrs ago today Ginsberg's 'Howl' was given its premiere at the 6 Gallery in SF. David S. Wills’ book about the event is Remarkable Collection of Angels. He talks to Rock & the Beat Generation about the challenges of writing the title…  simonwarner.substack.com/p/interview-...

As the 70th anniv of ‘Howl’’s premiere nears, David S. Wills’ investigation into the landmark 6 Gallery reading, A Remarkable Collection of Angels, is scrutinised for Rock & the Beat Generation by our Chief Book Reviewer & Ginsberg expert Jonah Raskin… open.substack.com/pub/simonwar...?

Joyce Johnson, Kerouac’s girlfriend as he made his breakthrough with On the Road, turns 90 today. The woman, who would go on to become a successful writer herself, talks jazz & folk to Rock & the Beat Generation’s Simon Warner in an exclusive interview… simonwarner.substack.com/p/interview-...

Megafungi: Paperback book just a marker but four huge mushrooms on our lawn. What are they, I wonder?

@litquake.org Maybe we could collaborate in some fashion. See simonwarner.substack.com

As the latest Dylan Bootleg Series surfaces, the new Mojo cover mount CD puns on the recent Bob biodrama…

Melody Maker, 1968…

Why doesn’t Trump concentrate on exerting maximum sanctions on Putin’s evil empire rather than fighting the Fed and taking on its only black woman governor? Crush Russia’s economy not your own, you megalomaniac fool.

Guardian headline: ‘Russia says it must be part of international talks on Ukraine’s security’ Yeah, like arsonists should be part of wildfire management plans…

Allen Ginsberg's 1965 Prague adventure is a key episode in Brian K. Goodman's recent title The Nonconformists. Jonah Raskin, Rock and the Beat Generation's Chief Book Reviewer, finds much to fascinate in the churning waters of the Cold War conversation... simonwarner.substack.com/p/book-revie...

Might Dylan have attended the famed Kesey/Kerouac Prankster bash in NYC in summer 1964? In this speculative account, Rock & the Beat Generation’s Simon Warner engages the collective minds of Beat experts to consider the evidence… simonwarner.substack.com/p/kesey-part...

Best (real) band name for a while: Near Jazz Experience

Couldn’t Putin be legitimately arrested for his war crimes when he enters the United States on Friday. There is certainly a legal bounty on his head.

Stewart Lee, stand-up comic, presents a new Radio 4 series What Happened to Counter-Culture? Heading this queue of disruptives are the Beats with Ginsberg christening this very production. Simon Warner reviews the show at Rock & the Beat Generation simonwarner.substack.com/p/radio-review…

Of interest? A snapshot of our current home page at Rock and the Beat Generation…

Legendary Beat historian Miles is the subject of the latest interview at Rock & the Beat Generation, as the famed Albert Hall reading, the International Poetry Incarnation, commemorates its 60th anniv on this very day. Leon Horton asks the questions… simonwarner.substack.com/p/interview-...

Terri Thal, Dylan's first manager, contributes a third article to Rock and the Beat Generation, this time focusing on the effect the Beatles' emergence in the US had on the Greenwich Village folk scene… simonwarner.substack.com/p/terri-thal...

Even VAR can’t save Lineker

With links to Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke and Diane di Prima, Clive Matson is a great Beat survivor, who began life as a poet on the Lower East Side the 1960s. Regular Rock & the Beat Generation reviewer Jonah Raskin considers his latest collection… simonwarner.substack.com/p/book-revie...

With Ruben Amorim blatantly weighing up his future, I go back to a thought I’ve had quite often over the last decade or so: David Moyes was never given long enough at what has become England’s most dysfunctional football club.

Terri Thal, Dylan's first manager, supplies another informed reflection on a topic much in the news in recent months: the biopic A Complete Unknown. She brings her own unique angles on the movie, in this exclusive account for Rock & the Beat Generation… simonwarner.substack.com/p/terri-thal...

The Observer, the UK’s oldest Sunday newspaper and relaunched today under new ownership, is now the nation’s newest weekend print edition…

Respected West Coast poet Marc Zegans digs deep into The Silver Snarling Trumpet, the great rock lyricist Robert Hunter’s novelistic account of the early Grateful Dead. Check out his review at Rock and the Beat Generation… simonwarner.substack.com/p/book-revie...

Great to see some politically conscious football badgeware!

Three new & outstanding essays from the pen of Terri Thal – Dylan’s first manager, wife of folk legend Dave Van Ronk, committed socialist & active politico – add a spring to the Rock & the Beat Generation step, commencing with her piece ‘The Beats and me’… simonwarner.substack.com/p/terri-thal...

Beat writer, committed Surrealist and jazz poet, Bob Kaufman would have been 100 years of age this week on April 18th. His adopted home city San Francisco is planning a three-day celebration of the centenary. Rock and the Beat Generation reports… simonwarner.substack.com/p/sf-celebra...

A new Jack Kerouac collection The Buddhist Years, edited by Charles Shuttleworth, has just been published by Rare Bird Books/Sal Paradise Press. The Serbian born, Paris-based poet and critic Nina Živančević reviews the title for Rock and the Beat Generation… simonwarner.substack.com/p/book-revie...

Bob Dylan has never hidden his affection for the Beat writers but his first contact with Jack Kerouac's On the Road is quite hard to pin down. Rock and the Beat Generation takes a speculative trawl through the evidence linking him to that key text… simonwarner.substack.com/p/paperback-...

‘I love tariffs in the springtime’ 😡

Pleased to report that the second issue of Beat Spotlight, the online publication of the US Beat Studies Association, has published a feature on my website Rock and the Beat Generation. Thank you for including me…

Unpublished Kerouac works gathered in Self-Portrait, a new edition from Rare Bird Books and Sal Paradise Press, are reviewed by music journalist and academic Simon A. Morrison. Read his insightful overview at Rock and the Beat Generation... simonwarner.substack.com/p/book-revie...

Beat to beep? Another excellent and original piece of research by David Wills of Beatdom… open.substack.com/pub/beatdom/...

Music journalist & pop poet Steve Turner recalls a pivotal moment 50 years ago when his first verse collection generated a headline review in a national newspaper. He talks to Rock & the Beat Generation about how he was compared to McGough, Sondheim & Lennon simonwarner.substack.com/p/how-turner...

Simon Warner, Founding Editor of Rock and the Beat Generation, chooses his own 'Beat Soundtrack' in the latest interview considering the ways in which Beat Generation writing and popular music intersect. simonwarner.substack.com/p/beat-sound...

Samuel Charters, one of the great historians of the blues and jazz, died ten years ago this week. His wife Ann, the first biographer of Jack Kerouac, talks to Rock & the Beat Generation about her late partner and his remarkable legacy… simonwarner.substack.com/p/ten-year-t...

For stories connecting the Beat Generation writers and rock music culture, visit Rock and the Beat Generation (simonwarner.substack.com)

Why has yesterday's rather combative Media Show on Radio 4 been taken off BBC Sounds?