WELCOME TO THE NEW BEAT GENERATION: JASON DISLEY INTERVIEW

Jason Disley is a poet and writer heavily influenced by the Beat Generation writers of the late 50s and early 60s; an influence he wears proudly on his immaculately tailored sleeve. Although stylistically and spiritually schooled in the old coffee houses and cold water apartments of San Francisco and New York, Disley is planted in the modernist here and now of the UK. His latest collection – Beat, Blues and the Rhythm of Fools – depicts jazz, blues and the escape music provides from the humdrum and horrors of everyday life, switching rhythms and thoughts, experiencing fulfilment and bewilderment. Hitting that middle ground between beatnik and modernist, Disley is a man after my own heart so thought it only right to crack open the Benzedrine inhalers to see if, like Jack Kerouac, he was “mad to talk”. He was.

Hello Jason, how are you? You’ve been described as a beat poet. Beat poets and beatniks have always been subject to ridicule yet you’ve embraced the term. What’s the appeal?

Hi Mark, yes I'm well thank you. The Beats have been a constant source of inspiration since my teens. I read Jack Kerouac's On The Road, and like many a young person trying to find themselves and their own identity, I was taken by this drive and passion for both experience, knowledge and some form of enlightenment. I likened the whole Beat thing with my own generation. Who were disillusioned with Thatcher's Britain and were searching for kicks and escapism. I was reading everything I could find about the Beats; not just the principles - Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs - but their associates, muses and writers that were like minded. Writers such as John Clellon Holmes, Amiri Baraka, Herbert Huncke, Gregory Corso and Gary Snyder. The appeal was that these people were identifiable, and real. Their stories, and poetry may have been full of surreal moments but were somehow grounded, gritty and pulled no punches. Yet at the same time could reveal romantic tapestries that could've been created by Byron and Shelley. Plus there was an almost effortless cool. The lives they lived although hard and tormented at times, experienced the coolness of being at great performances by jazz musicians. They didn't believe in segregation, both racially and sexually. They believed in both experience as well as personal growth. Things that I still admire today.

Tell me about Beat, Blues and the Rhythm of Fools: its themes, the writing process, timescale, publishing etc.

Beat, Blues and the Rhythm of Fools came about from a creative flurry after my Jazz Poetry book came out.  It was also at that period when the nation was leading up to Brexit, and the immediate aftermath. My initial plan, as with the Jazz book was to write a collection associated with Blues music, and also the subject matter of great blues songs. The idea for The Rhythm of Fools was also about the mistakes we both as individuals and collectively make. Again could easily be made into blues songs themselves. The book came together in a matter of weeks. A story in the news, or a song would inspire me and I'd just write.  I think the whole process took about three months, maybe a bit less.  As for publishing. My poetry I publish through Lulu.com a print on demand publisher. It allows me to get my work out there without huge overheads, and is a satisfactory way to self-publish if you haven't got a lot of money. I should think Jack Kerouac and co would've taken full advantage of such a publisher if they had been around in the digital age. I like the whole punk/mod ethos of getting off your backside and doing it yourself.

It’s quite a different collection to your previous Jazz Poetry – Improvisations In Language which felt like series of love letters to jazz yet there’s a far greater feeling of unrest and bewilderment now. In the introduction and afterword you worry about the degree of maudlin. They didn’t come across to me like that.

I suppose I mention the maudlin aspect because for me at a personal level - things I see around me are somewhat disturbing and sad. Society doesn't seem to have learned a lot from the past. Racism is still rife - innocents are being killed in seemingly pointless wars - there is a return to the whole east versus west with people becoming wary of their neighbours due to what is being spoon fed by the media. Real talent is being pushed underground again - which is in some ways isn't a bad thing as when they are discovered they seem more relevant - but at the same time there isn't enough of a voice from the current generation making itself heard. The period of style and music tribes which I grew up with is becoming less noticeable. I suppose another reason why I like the Beats is because they were considered anti- establishment. For me being anti- establishment you have more freedom of expression, and can be more artistic.

Many pieces in the latest book, to me, sounded quite loud, if that’s makes sense. I instantly imagined them being read/performed out loud in public. Is that how you envisaged them?

Not initially. I have always written in a more natural conversational way - so can see why other people have come to that way of thinking. I initially wrote them just to be read but have often read them out loud in the comfort of my own home. It wasn't until November 5th 2016 that the whole idea of performance and reading out loud to an audience came about. The Vinyl Avengers – Ian and Jade - a pair of local Mod DJ's put on an event called the Big Bang. French Boutik were headlining and it was an event that I was happy to attend as it was raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Ian and Jade invited me on to their online radio show to talk about my books a few days before the event and I was invited to bring my books to the event to sell on the night. It was then on the night that the very lovely and elegant Gabriela Giacoman - the female lead of French Boutik approached me and asked if I would join the band on stage and read one of my poems. Naturally I was both honoured and a little nervous at this opportunity - but took my chance and did as she asked. Taking to the stage a little while later, with Serge Hoffman on guitar, and Zelda Aquil lightly brushing the skins using their tune ‘Hitch A Ride’ I read my poem ‘Fabric’ to an audience of around 150 or so Mods. Gabriela stood to one side nodding her head and clicking her fingers in time on the stage. It was a wonderful personal moment that really made me feel that indeed my poetry is worthy of being performed. From this moment new opportunities are arising, and like some of the original Beats - performance is becoming part of what I do.

Jason Disley with French Boutik, November 2016 (Photo by Kev Walsh)

Some sections felt – particularly some of the rhymes –  they’d been written quickly using Kerouac’s spontaneous prose technique. Kerouac wrote about “first thought, best thought”, would you subscribe to that viewpoint?

Totally!  The spontaneous approach is what I am all about. I do very little in the way of editing when I write. I want it to be raw and real. I don't do much in the way of planning, apart from obviously reading other writers and listening to music - when I sit down to write I just let it come naturally. When I re-read I may swap a stanza round or change a word here and there but on the whole my writing is pretty much as I wrote it the first time. Hence sometimes rhythmically my writing may stutter in flow and go on a tangent like when a jazz musician improvises and takes a tune in a different direction.

Poetry is a hard sell. How should people approach it? What do you look for in poetry and how does is differ from standard prose?

For me poetry has to resonate personally on some level. Once you have written something it becomes its own creature. Like all art its subjective. What it means to you can be something else to someone else. It never ceases to amaze me when someone who has read what you have written and perceives something different from what you thought you intended. It opens your eyes to the way people think, but also as to how you also see things. As for how to approach it? Don't be afraid to have a go. Just do it.  Try not to be held to a particular style. Rhyming poetry can be fun but is often forced. I may use the odd rhyming couplet for rhythm's sake but will often leave that style as my train of thought takes me elsewhere. I will make an observation or statement that takes me away from the obvious. It’s about the thought process and emotions I feel at the time. I often return to themes that mean a lot to me - such as escape, and the feelings that both music and dance convey.

What about songs? It’s apparent how important music is to you. Do you see any of your work as drafts for songs? Have you been in bands, made music?

I've not been in any bands, my singing voice isn't the most tuneful. Although I've flirted with trumpet, guitar and keyboards - I am far from being an accomplished musician.  A friend of mine once "borrowed" a poem called ‘The Party is Over’ which is the last poem in my book The New Beat Generation and Other Spontaneous Verse. Unbeknownst to me I went to a local bar to see him and his band play. He suddenly introduced halfway through his set a song that was a new song written by a close friend, and then went into a tune that had my lyrics! I was flattered and found it a little bit surreal having my own words being sung to me. As for making music - I will leave that to musicians - lyrics on the other hand - I don't mind having a go - or being approached with regards to some of my poems being turned into songs.

Tell me about ‘The Misfortune of a Buddhist Mod’. That dichotomy between the Buddhist philosophy of craving contributing to suffering (or unhappiness) and the materialistic nature of Mod is something I’ve thought about often so was good to see you try to tackle the question.

I wouldn't say I am particularly religious, but Buddhism - I find very interesting. It’s that whole personal thing of finding yourself and becoming enlightened that fascinates me. Being both a Mod and Buddhist seems a contradiction because of the materialistic nature of being a Mod. Having been interested in the whole Mod thing since my early teens at the same time as reading the Beats - I have often had conflicted emotions. I can be selfish at times, and can feel guilty - then at other times, helpful and selfless. It’s just human nature -  ‘The Misfortune of a Buddhist Mod’ is again a look at my own life and being able to come to terms with the way I am. So although not really a Buddhist, I recognize that my own personal spirituality lends its way to that train of thought. I have my own ying and yang to contend with and will always try to find that harmony that brings about happiness.

Another poem I liked was ‘Cut Up Blues’ where you’d borrowed William Burroughs’s cut-up technique. Tell me about this one. How random was it, as to my mind it’s the most beautiful poem in the book?

Thank you. It’s funny how turning to someone else's words and rearranging them can be satisfying. I love this poem too - just because how random it was. I took lines from various books and in no particular order put them together. My one mistake is that I didn't list the various books I took the lines from. I know there is some Shakespeare, and Shelley juxtaposed with Dashiell Hammett in there. For some reason it works. It tells a story of unrequited love and loss - or at least that is how I see it.

What have you got planned for 2017?

Well 2017 is set to be a very exciting twelve months.  At the end of February I hope to self-publish a new collection called Runaway Soul that initially was going to be related to soul music. But as I have written it - it has become more about escapism and searching for pleasure. Society is again brought into it, and how we live our lives in these seemingly manufactured times. Then in March, on the 24th to be precise - I will be at Blow Up! at the St Moritz Club in London. I will be reading some poetry again with both bands that night: French Boutik and Dr Bird. Then it’s a quick return to Devon to once again grace the stage at Torbay's March of the Mods on the 25th which is being hosted by The Vinyl Avengers at Murphy's in Paignton. In between all this I am also in the process of getting together a spoken word album with someone who used to work for Acid Jazz records. At this point I won't name him until things are a little more concrete. But let's just say this project is very exciting as original music is being written to go with selected poems. Once the music has been written and the final track list is decided - I will be making my debut in a recording studio to record the vocals. So watch this space as that develops. Then the other thing I want to shout from the rooftops is the publication of a novel I have written called Seven Day Fool. It’s a pulp/noir set in Manchester during 1965. This will be published by Jason Brummell's recent venture, Suave Collective Publishing. His publishing company has recently published the fantastic Ready Steady Girls book compiled by Mark Baxter, Ian Snowball and himself. Plus his own novels, which I am a big fan of - All About My Girl and All Or Nothing.  Prior to RSG he also published a book by Pete McKenna - Maradona good, Pele better, George Best. Another very interesting read. So to be associated with these writers is a great honour indeed. Having my first novel published is a dream come true.  So 2017 is going to busy, eventful and will give rise to other amazing opportunities I am sure. For now I am keeping on like I have for the last couple of years. Doing what I love most which is writing.

Jason's books are available from huge online retailers or, better still, get in touch directly by looking him up on Facebook or Twitter (@disleyrascal)

BEATS, BEATNIKS AND THE BEAULIEU JAZZ RIOT OF 1960

The People (1960)

If I were a young man on 7^th August 1960 and not already a jazz loving beatnik, the Sunday paper The People would’ve had me scurrying to Dobell’s record shop for Mingus Ah Um and searching backstreet bookshops for an under-the-counter copy of The Naked Lunch quicker than one could say “Straight from the fridge, Dad”.

“Blame these 4 men for the Beatnik horror” exclaimed Peter Forbes, as shocked Britain learnt how a great unwashed army of beatniks had been driven to violence by a group of American writers and poets, culminating in a riot at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival. Exciting stuff.

Organised by Lord Montagu and held on the lawns of his Palace House in the New Forest, the Beaulieu Jazz Festival was in its fifth year when it achieved notoriety due to the behaviour of fans from both ends of the jazz spectrum: the traditionalists rooted in sounds of 1920’s Dixieland and the modernists building on a bebop template. According to photographer David Redfern both sides complained not enough of “their” type of jazz was being performed before things came to a head when increasingly drunk youths pulled down lighting rigs, set fire to a building and destroyed the stage. The BBC, broadcasting the event live on television, abruptly ended their coverage ahead of schedule with a typically understated comment, “Things are getting quite out of hand”.

The People told its readers, “The outbreak of violence that wrecked Lord Montagu’s jazz festival at Beaulieu last week must be blamed on the cult of despair preached by four strange men”. Those four strange men identified like names on a wanted poster as Jack “The Hobos’ Prophet” Kerouac; Allen “The Hate Merchant” Ginsberg; William “The Ex-Drug Addict” Burroughs and Gregory “The Crank Poet” Corso.

“These four beatnik “prophets” do not themselves preach violence. But they do infect their followers with indifference or outright hostility to established codes of conduct. Nothing matters to the beatnik save the “kicks” or thrills to be enjoyed by throwing off inhibitions. If you feel any urge, no matter how outrageous, indulge in it. If the beat of jazz whips up violent emotions, why not give way to them?”

That was the strength of the Beat Generation Quartet’s link to Beaulieu but it gave the paper enough to feed into the moral panic surrounding the nation’s latest youth menace and expand upon their exposé from a fortnight earlier; a double-page spread “The Beatnik Horror” that warned how thousands of young Americans hooked on this beat craze became “drug addicts and peddlers, degenerates who specialize in obscene orgies… and outright thugs and hoodlums”.

To illustrate how this cult was manifesting itself on Britain’s streets they visited Gambier Terrace in Liverpool to show a group of residents sitting in “unbelievable squalor” with their friend who’d dropped by to “listen to some jazz”. The property shown was shared at the time by John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe, and the bearded chap in the photo was Allan Williams, owner of local coffee bar The Jacaranda and manager of the then Silver Beatles, just about to head to Hamburg for the first time.

Gambier Terrace, Liverpool (1960)

It’s doubtful any of the “prophets” saw the article in a British tabloid - I couldn’t find any reference in their correspondence or journals – but it’s interesting to speculate on their differing reactions. Kerouac – likely the only name some more enlightened readers may have vaguely been familiar with - the People conceded, was a talented writer who unfortunately “devoted his great gift to exalting the bums and jazz-maniacs of the New York jive cellars” but he would’ve been hurt and upset as he frequently was in the backlash following the success of On The Road when held up as the avatar of, in his words, “beatniks, beats, jazzniks, bopniks and bugniks”.

Kerouac copped much of the blame for the beatniks but they were a media creation - step forward Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle - which bastardised Kerouac’s experiences and vision of a spiritual beatific Beat Generation into a cartoonish band of beret wearing poets and jive talking bongo beaters. The American College Dictionary wrote to Jack in ’59 for his definition. He wrote: “Beat Generation: Members of the generation that came after World War II-Korean War who join in relaxation of social and sexual tensions and espouse anti-regimentation, mystic-disaffiliation and material-simplicity values, supposedly as a result of Cold War disillusionment. Coined by Jack Kerouac”.      

In 1958, only a year after On The Road’s publication, Jack already weary from the attention and trivialization of his writing wrote to Ginsberg, “I don’t want no more frantic nights, association with hepcats and queers and Village types, far less mad trips to unholy Frisco, I just wanta stay home and write”. Whilst rampaging youths at Beaulieu grabbed a microphone from the stage to demand “Free beer for the working man!” Jack was attempting to kick his alcoholism by detoxing in California. He failed but it did provide the material for one of his best books, Big Sur.

Ginsberg however tended to welcome any publicity for himself or his friends. He’d already seen his signature work Howl dragged screaming through the courts on obscenity charges yet Burroughs’s Naked Lunch still had that to come. In 1960 it had only recently been published in Paris by Olympia Press who were known to intrepid travellers and customs officials as purveyors of hard-core pornography and therefore all their titles were banned in the U.K. Copies were smuggled into the country down the shirts of returning visitors and placed in all the best bohemian pads where they were read aloud to fits of stoned laughter. Counterculture activist and beat chronicler Barry Miles, who acquired his copy that year, wrote in Naked Lunch@50, “The Naked Lunch was the hippest, coolest book ever written, and for a seventeen-year-old art student, that was quite something to have on the shelf”. For all their sensationalism The People were reasonably quick off the mark in Britain’s mainstream press to give coverage to Burroughs and also Gregory Corso.

William Burroughs, The Beat Hotel, Paris by Duffy (1960)

Already ancient at 46, Burroughs was far from a crazy beatnik – none of the original beats, except maybe Ginsberg, much fitted the profile – but he had at least one important similarity as far as the People were concerned: they were all filthy soap dodgers. The paper relished partially quoting Burroughs on the effect his junk habit had on his personal hygiene. “I had not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes [or removed them] except to stick a needle [every hour] in the fibrous grey wooded flesh [of heroin addiction]”.

It was a recurring theme in the media regarding beatniks. The film Beat Girl in cinemas at that year followed coffee bar and jazz club dwelling Jenny; described as “the mad one” by a fellow St Martin’s art student for being a beatnik. When Jenny’s stepmother pressed the student to elaborate, she’s told, “It’s a craze from America. Hopeless and soapless”. Even the left-leaning Observer reported the rarefied grounds of Palace House were “packed solidly with unkempt humanity” and quoted a hotelkeeper as saying “I wouldn’t mind so much if they washed now and then”. The paper agreed, “Certainly one could see his point as the jazz fans turned up in their standard uniform of rumpled jeans and T-shirts, sandals and haircuts that must have wrung the hearts of the two former Irish Guards sergeants who were running the campsite behind the car park”.

On the same bank holiday weekend as Beaulieu (held in those days on the first Monday in August), Alan Whicker reported for the BBC’s Tonight programme. Councillors in Newquay had written to all shopkeepers, café owners and bar managers urging them not to serve beatniks visiting the Cornish town over the summer and for restaurateurs and hoteliers to refuse them jobs as washer-uppers. Their hair and beards were just about tolerated but their stink was more than the council could stand. “A man owes it to society to keep himself clean,” according to one pub landlord. Such claims were refuted by local long-hair Eric who told Whicker he washed at least every two days.

When Gregory Corso read his poem “Bomb” (the text cleverly arranged to form the shape of an atomic mushroom cloud) to New College, Oxford in 1958 members of CND present were not amused. Rather than an easy Ban The Bomb message, Corso’s poem humourlessly accepts of the inescapable presence of the bomb and that we’re all going to die anyway. Ginsberg attempted to explain his friend’s meaning and pacify the hecklers but that didn’t work so, after dodging shoes thrown at them, he summoned all his poetic powers and reportedly called them assholes before sheepishly leaving. It’s not too surprising the gathered campaigners had trouble comprehending the lengthy poem on first hearing but a little ironic two members of the Beat Generation faced such hostility a bunch of peaceniks. 

What the People didn’t make clear is which side of the trad/modern divide the rioting beatniks were on. Jack Kerouac’s writing style (and some of Ginsberg’s) was directly shaped in the 40s and 50s by the new rhythms of bebop, of Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, of the modern jazz they were hearing as they discovered and created their own artistic voice. It would therefore follow British beatniks, like their American counterparts, would also adopt this music yet large swathes of them backed the wrong horse and used trad (and folk music) as their soundtrack. As the duffle-coated, sandal wearing, middle-class, beatnik brigade marched to Aldermaston in bowler hats with the CND symbol taped to the front in honour of Acker Bilk it was to the accompaniment of trad bands (in fairness, it was a far easier music to play whilst marching).

Beaulieu Jazz Riot by David Redfern (1960)

Bilk, whose set at Beaulieu was wrapped up in the ensuing chaos, thought, “They were phoney imitation beatniks. Real ones may be weird, untidy and excitable but they're not hooligans”. Duncan Heining’s book Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers and Free Fusioneers: British Jazz 1960-1975 provides much fascinating sociological context and suggests although the division between jazz fans was real (worse trouble occurred along similar lines in Hackney’s Victoria Park that summer), some attendees claim the trouble was primarily the work of local Teddy Boy hooligans rather than an ideological riot over jazz (which is rather disappointing).

The unnamed narrator in Colin MacInnes’s Absolute Beginners (1959) believed anyone over 20 didn’t “give a lump of cat’s shit for the bomb” and gives wonderful descriptions of his associates Dean Swift and the Misery Kid, who didn’t like to mix in public on account of Dean being “a sharp modern jazz creation” and the Kid having “horrible leanings to the trad thing”. The forward-thinking modernists, with their sharp European and Ivy League styling, were quick to pour scorn on Misery Kid for admiring backdated “groups that play what is supposed to be the authentic music of New Orleans, i.e. combos of booking-office clerks and quantity-surveyors’ assistants who’ve been handed their cards, and dedicated themselves to blowing what they believe to be the same note as the wonderful Creoles who invented the whole thing, when it all long ago began”.

To the likes of Barry Miles, the Beats and modern jazz went together. He wrote how The Naked Lunch was difficult to get hold of in the early 60s and “was a shorthand way of saying you were cool, which in those days meant you listened to Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk; you appreciated the work of Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon, and Mark Rothko; you smoked marijuana and hash when you could get it; you read Beat Generation writers”.

From here it’s only a short step from modernist to mod. In my profile on this page I’ve always described myself, slightly tongue-in-cheek, as a Beatnik Modernist. I did receive one testy response telling me it was a contradiction in terms but I’m not sure it is. I like this quote from an original mod, Steve Sparks, in Jonathan Green’s Days In The Life, “Mod has been much misunderstood… Mod before it was commercialized was essentially an extension of the beatniks. It comes from “modernist”, it was to do with modern jazz and to do with Sartre. It was to do with existentialism, the working-class reaction to existentialism”.

For a little evidence how some of Britain's sharpest Mod Faces of the mid-60s came from a beatnik background, take a close look at this CND badge wearing, guitar carrying, shaggy haired fella from North London making his way to the last Beaulieu Jazz Festival in 1961. I give you, Rod The Beatnik Mod. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm_fswB3QrE

JACK KEROUAC - 21st OCTOBER 1969

"I wrote the book because we're all gonna die".

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Jack Kerouac.

Raise your glass, stick some Charlie Parker on the turntable, pull Big Sur, The Dharma Bums, On The Road, Desolation Angels or The Subterraneans from the shelf and pay tribute.

Or just watch this. "Go roll your bones".