A New feature on EP.TC:

Welcome to THE OTHER SCENES INVENTORY REPORT
Reintroducing John Wilcock's OTHER SCENES

AUDIO COMMENTARY WITH UNUSUAL SCANS

Last Updated: 10 07 2021 / TWO REPORTS ON FILE

Next Report: 10 27 2021

Hello, rare documents collector! Man, have you found it. That spirited image above is from OTHER SCENES, one of the most radicalized and interesting Underground Newspapers ever to be produced. In the coming months, you'll have access to hundreds of pages of content from this incredible paper, in bi-weekly updates. This is a sequel to The Realist Archive and a companion to John Wilcock, New York Years, a comic book biography (by myself and Scott Marshall) on the rise of the 1960s Underground Press. (OTHER SCENES was John Wilcock's paper)

If you know what OTHER SCENES is, you'll be thrilled, and if you've never heard of it, you're in for an treat.

Considered among the most free thinking, influential, and creative Underground Papers of the 1960s and 1970s (and then, inexplicably, LOST in collective memory as we proceeded to gulp down PEOPLE and TV GUIDE) OTHER SCENES is a lost masterpiece. It was an early publisher of Hunter S Thompson and the only Underground Paper to regularly include contributions of Andy Warhol. This week will share Issue #1 and to remain random, instead of Issue #2, we'll provide Issue #3. This archive will grow as it gets figured out.

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POST NUMBER 2: 10/07 2021

New Update! As I'm determining a frequency, it looks like an update will be every three weeks. Part of this is to fully investigate these issues, which will appear in the commentary portion:



MAIN ITEM: Hunter S Thompson on Lionel Olay (aka the FIRST PRINTING of "The Ultimate Freelancer" which began as a letter to Wilcock, printed here in O.S. Issue #5)



Issue two highlight is "Poem for Warner Stringfellow" by John Sinclair (Chairman of the White Panther Party, Activist, and targeted victim of FBI harassment, receiving a ten year sentence for two sticks of marijuana)

In 1966, Sinclair wrote this piece for Other Scenes, two years before his troubles really accelerated:



BOOK REVIEW SECTION: "Wife Swapping: A Complete 8 Year Survey of Morals in North America" (1967) - Wow, yikes. Remember to tag your wives if you lose them!



Download PDFs for this update: Other Scenes #2 and Other Scenes #5. More soon! (Enjoying figuring out the shape of this space, next update will October 27)

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POST NUMBER 1: 09/14 2021

Four items will be provided every two weeks, all in PDF text-searchable format. Audio commentary is also included.

Issues will begin at the beginning of OTHER SCENES with the early stuff first. They lack the visual impact of the latter issues but have just as wonderful unique time-capsule writing.

Included in this installment:

• In our audio commentary, we lead off with a reading from The Village Square, in a column by Wilcock, titled 'How Many Times Has New York Buried Its Bohemians?'
• A full page advertisement from The Village Voice (Nov 1966) announcing OTHER SCENES and Wilcock's exit from both the Voice AND The East Village Other
• The first issue of OTHER SCENES, also known as the pink edition of "FUCK HATE". (January 1967)
• Issue number three, titled "The Scene" (March, 1967)
• Finally, we conclude this post with an ephemera item, a "Diagram of a Drug Abuser" from the Texas Dept of Public Safety, Narcotics Service (1960s) — from John's collection of amusing documents.
• Also to be found in the audio file, a news report reenactment of 'How to Behave at a Sex Party' (From O.S. Issue One)

Here's all your downloads
for INVENTORY REPORT #1:




Audio Commentary (HEAR the actual pages!)

These posts will be referred to as THE OTHER SCENES INVENTORY REPORT. The impetus for this was to provide bonus material in a comic book biography of John Wilcock. (It will still be that, if not moreso) John provided a large stack of material, which we will be going through the inventory each time.

A reminder that all PDFs will have OCR text to copy and search through. I'm looking forward to what google will do with that. Take, for example, this easily overlooked paragraph of a quiet garden party at Aldous Huxley's estate, which John attended, among others:

OTHER SCENES #1, PAGE FOUR

...the same week that the LA Times carried a report of LBJ's luncheon, I attended a small party on Mulholland Drive at the home of Laura Huxley, widow of Aldous. In addition to Tim Leary and Ralph Metzner, Thaddeus Ashby (founder of an LSD "church" in Mexico) and Alan Watts were present. In fact, "what we have here," a friend remarked, "are the new spiritual leaders of America."

-- John Wilcock, January 1967

I know Leary liked avocados, but I bet Alan Watts brought the best salsa. What an amazingly wild moment in time.

We'll return in two weeks with more issues of OTHER SCENES. Follow this project on Soundcloud and Twitter.

Thank you.