John Martyn and Aleister Crowley

 

I'm reading Small Hours: The Long Night of John Martyn  by Graeme Thomson (Omnibus Press 2024) which I'll probably polish off in a couple of days as it's a real page-turner. I just read this passage on page 106 about his time in the early 1970s living in Hastings with wife Beverley (sadly deceased this month see HERE and HERE) and stepson Wesley.

'Two doors down [from 10 Cobourg Place in the Old Town] stood Harpsicord House, where the writer, mystic, magician and "wickedest man in the world" Aleister Crowley had first lived when he moved to Hastings in advanced age, and where the occultist Rollo Ahmed later resided. Martyn was one of a number of musicians, notably Jimmy Page, but also David Bowie, who harboured a fascination with Crowley and his Thelemic ethical code: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."' 

It would be interesting to know more about Martyn's 'fascination' with AC. However, while Rollo Ahmed definitely lived at Harpsicord House, Crowley moved to the guesthouse Netherwood on The Ridge directly from The Bell Inn Aston Clinton on 1 February 1945. Which reminds me that I'm thinking of republishing Netherwood: Last Resort of Aleister Crowley in an affordable paperback edition, finances permitting. Watch this space .... see HERE for the second edition sold out for some time.

Here's another section from the Thomson biography about Hastings: [it] was not an environment where he could easily escape temptation. Numerous pubs were on his doorstep, and within them he was regarded as a local hero. "He was very loved in Hastings," says Wesley Kutner [his son with Beverley]. "He was like a god." "He would spend hours in the Hastings pubs telling stories to a bunch of piss artists, then bringing them all back home to party in our house," said Beverley Martin. "It was horrible ... it had become a non-stop party, with hangers-on banging on our door day and night." "The drug scene there was heavy [says Phill Brown]... Back then it was pretty seedy. There were a lot of musicians hanging around the Old Town, there was a good music scene going on [there still is] and it was cheaper. It was a definite decision for him and Beverley to move out and try to live a cleaner lifestyle."' [p.156]

An earlier post on John Martyn in Hastings HERE

Poe and Decadent 1890s Events coming up

 

My online talk for the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies will take place tomorrow evening at 7pm UK time and should be accessible worldwide.

BOOK HERE

Mansion of Gloom will be available for sale online afterwards at various places including the dedicated website HERE

I'm leading a walk around the vestiges of 1890s Decadent London on Saturday 11 July. Tickets are still available at time of post but selling fast.

BOOK HERE 

Darren Coffield Talks about his new book on Henrietta Moraes

I recall that many years ago I attended a suitably shambolic 'conversation' between Marianne Faithfull and Henrietta Moraes at the ICA in London. I knew of the latter because of my enthusiasm for the Soho and Fitzrovia milieu captured in the writings of Julian MacLaren Ross and Dan Farson (particularly Soho in the Fifties) - I was surprised that she was still alive - ditto MF. The only anecdote I now remember is one of them - I can't remember who - going on holiday and finding on arrival, in some far-flung country, that she had only packed seashells in her luggage, owing to the fact that she was tripping at the time. 

Darren Coffield, the great contemporary chronicler of Soho/Fitzrovia (particularly the Colony Room) has written a biography of Henrietta Moraes, who modelled for Bacon and Freud, which he will be discussing at the West End Arts Library on Friday 19 June 6.30 to 7.30.

FREE talk can be booked to avoid disappointment through Eventbrite (NB this has the former name Westminster Reference Library, the same place) HERE

I'll be introducing.

Another Review for Mansion of Gloom

 

In addition to Roger Luckhurst's glowing review of Mansion of Gloom in Fortean Times I've found another more recent review which you can read HERE. 

Copies can be bought through the Big Cartel, Treadwell's and Watkins in London, Hare and Hawthorn in Hastings and Midian Books in the North, as well as eBay. It's a limited edition, around 150 copies remaining.

INCIDENTALLY: Every now and then I have a look at how much my previous Accumulator books are going for online. The latest prices for Netherwood: Last Resort of Aleister Crowley can be found HERE. If only I was making that kind of money from it! Secret Tunnels of England is also expensive to obtain now.

Events in 2026

I shall be talking about Poe and Mansion of Gloom for the wonderful Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies in the spring on 18 May. This talk will be online and therefore available worldwide. Details HERE.

Also two walks I'll be leading for the Sohemian Society:

DECADENT LONDON (The capital in the 1890s) Saturday 11 July

HOGARTH'S LONDON Sunday 13 September

Details to follow.

There's a blockbuster retrospective of Whistler coming to Tate Britain. See HERE 

I'm doing an online talk about his art and life with a section in his interest in spiritualism and seances for the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities. Details HERE Eventbrite booking HERE

Leaving 2025 and Entering 2026

This is always the worst time of the year for me and today's dismal wet weather doesn't help matters.

At the moment the diary for this year is empty, although it's pretty certain that I'll be doing a couple of walks for the Sohemians in the summer on the subject of Decadent London and Hogarth's London. Details available in the coming weeks.

You can still purchase copies of Mansion of Gloom, The Unsettling Legacy of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher from The Big Cartel, Treadwell's, Watkins, Midian Books, Atlantis, Hare & Hawthorn or at a bargain price on eBay.

As far as my recommendations for 2025 go - I looked through Sight & Sound's list of the 50 best films of the year and realised that I hadn't seen a single one. Nothing to be proud of, but I did watch a lot of films, just not any contemporary ones; mostly, it has to be said, Italian gialli and horror and Anthony Mann westerns. The films I most enjoyed watching last year were: Nashville, McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Small Back Room, The Cat o' Nine Tales, Forbidden Photos of a Woman Above Suspicion, and Death Walks on High Heels. Memorable for the wrong reasons was Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye, a giallo purportedly set in a Scottish castle starring Jane Birkin with, believe it or not, Serge Gainsbourg as a Scottish police detective.

Books to recommend (some of which were actually published in 2025) are: Andrea Wulf Magnificent Rebels, Vincenzo Latronico Perfection, David Skal Hollywood Gothic, Gustav Meyrinck The Golem (a very strange book), Olga Tokarczuk Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Lili Anolik Didion and Babitz (although I have to agree with this review) and some trashy entertainment Julia Philips You'll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again (a 70s and 80s Hollywood expose that deals the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll dirt although, given that the author prides herself on editing scripts, it could have lost a couple of hundred pages - apparently the original manuscript was over 1000 pages before the lawyers got to it).

Favourite concert probably Todd Rundgren at the London Palladium. Honourable mentions for Pierre Bastien and Louis Laurain at The Piper and Throwing Muses at the White Rock.

In recent months I've been invigorated by American 'jangle rock' and Power Pop from the likes of the DBs, Game Theory and most of all Let's Active whose Cypress and Big Plans for Everybody are wonders of catchy hooks and great guitar music. A good sampler of Power Pop is Looking for the Magic, American Power Pop in the Seventies (Grapefruit). Other interesting records this year: Joe Henderson Multiple, Alessandro Alessandroni La Terrificante Notte del Demonio (Cinedelic).

Not much news on the publishing front - no new book in the pipeline, I might consider publishing other people's work (non-fiction) but in very small editions.

What may be an interesting gig at Hastings Jazz Club in February Edrix Puzzle.

December Events

 

There are two events lined up for December.

Sunday 7 December Guy's Hospital Chapel 1.30pm

Talk on Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.

Copies of Mansion of Gloom will be on sale.

MORE INFORMATION AND BOOKING HERE

Thursday 11 December Islington Museum 6pm FREE

Talk on the history of coffee houses in London including reference to Clerkenwell Green

MORE INFORMATION AND BOOKING HERE

Events and concerts for the Remainder of 2025

 

OCTOBER

Thursday 30   Talk about the life of James Abbot McNeill Whistler and London fog for the Salon for the City. London Horse Hospital. Book HERE

DECEMBER

Sunday 7 Goth Weekend Talk about Mansion of Gloom with another speaker to be announced at Guy's Hospital Chapel.

Thursday 11   A coffee house related talk for the London borough of Islington. See HERE

GIGS

Wednesday 29 October Todd Rundgren at the London Palladium. HERE

Tuesday 4 November Pete Roth trio featuring Bill Bruford Jazz Hastings HERE

Sunday 16 November Gong at The Piper St Leonards. HERE

12 October 2025

On this day 150 years ago Aleister Crowley was born in Royal Leamington Spa.

There are a couple of radio documentaries that may be of interest, available for a few weeks.

Radio 4 Extra Mischief Makers: Aleister Crowley HERE

Features Arthur Calder-Marshall's reminiscences as featured in an earlier post

HERE

Radio 4 (broadcast on 25 October) Aleister Crowley Master of the Dark Arts. ' From wickedest man alive to photo-hippy and rock star muse, Paul Morley unravels occultist Aleister Crowley's scandalous life and influential legacy.'

HERE

The German radio documentary on Crowley is still available HERE

October Events

I'll be busy in October on a variety of events, more to come in November and December. 

For starters:

VIKTOR WYND AND THE LAST TUESDAY SOCIETY

Thursday 9 October Join Antony Clayton for this illustrated Zoom talk on fin de siecle London: a place where occultists, magicians and poets mingled. Talk based on Decadent London.

BOOK HERE

MISKATONIC INSTITUTE OF HORROR STUDIES

For the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, an in-depth study of horror films and folklore on the London Underground that will include Quatermass and the Pit, Bulldog Jack , Death Line and various other chthonic chillers. To be held in person at the Horse Hospital in London on Tuesday 14 October. 

Also appealingly advertised on Ian Visits. See here.

BOOK HERE

SALON FOR THE CITY

Thursday 30 October Talk on Whistler and the London Fog in Salon For the City at the Horse Hospital in London.  

BOOKING THROUGH EVENTBRITE HERE

I shall also be selling copies of my latest book Mansion of Gloom at all events. More than half of the limited edition now sold since December 2024.