The Last Bohemians

Penny Slinger was a mover and shaker in Swinging London's art scene – though you might not have heard of her. She went to Chelsea Art School at the height of the Pop Art boom and, inspired by Max Ernst, went on to mix up self-portrait, collage, film and sculpture to create surreal and feminist images that still provoke today. Among these were her “full frontal collages”, including ones where Penny appears inside a wedding cake, the slice between her legs removed. Her 1977 collage masterpiece, An Exorcism, meanwhile, evoked the darkness of the English psyche, stitching together ghoulish images of the countryside, genitals, nuns and manor houses. In the UK, Penny counted the photographer Lee Miller among her friends and, at one point, lived in a turret in Soho, where her boyfriend – the counterculture film-maker Peter Whitehead – kept falcons. How’s that for bohemian! Penny appeared in experimental films and wrote a number of books on themes of sex, mysticism, eroticism and inner goddesses, including groundbreaking books of her collages and poetry, such as 50% The Invisible Woman. But after a solo show in New York in 1982, she abandoned the art world, tired of its sexism and narrow-mindedness. She moved first to the Caribbean, then to Northern California and finally settled in LA. It isn’t until recently that Penny’s work has been rediscovered. In 2009, she was included in the Angels of Anarchy show of female surrealists in Manchester and she was the subject of a 2017 documentary by Richard Kovitch. In this episode of The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, Penny covers a range of topics, including her sexual and sensual liberation, finding her voice in a male-dominated art scene, starring in the only feature film directed by a woman in the 1970s, how she hopes to see a retrospective in her lifetime and how desire doesn’t diminish with age...CREDITSFollow us: instagram.com/thelastbohemianspodPresenter: Kate HutchinsonProducer: Holly FisherPhotography: Lisa Jelliffe.With thanks to Zoe Flowers.Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog JonesABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICAIn 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANSJournalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It featured 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. The series won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.Season two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre, and launched an LA series, supported by Audio-Technica. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

Speak to anyone from the 1980s punk scene in Los Angeles and they’ll tell you: Johanna Went is an underground legend. While the bands like Black Flag, Fear and X were thrashing out their three chords and the truth, Went would take to the stage at clubs like The Masque, Club Lingerie and Hong Kong Cafe and perform between the live shows. The crowd hadn’t seen anything like it before.She wasn’t a punk musician per se but the “hyena of performance art”, whose transgressive spectacles of New Wave theatre, experimental noise, elaborate and crude costumes, chaotic rituals, and gory props like pig heads and fake blood – lots of blood – built a cult following and predated Lady Gaga’s meat dress and Peaches' raucous stage antics and costumes by decades.Johanna’s shows were wild, depraved and often grotesque, boldly taking on themes like female pleasure and menstruation. Take her 1988 performance Passion Container, in which she pulled giant bloodied tampons out of a silk vagina and chucked them into the crowd – this was pre-riot grrrl and before L7’s legendary tampon-flinging performance at Reading Festival in 1992. Many aren’t sure where Johanna Went went but The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, found her living a quieter life, in the beach town of Ventura, California. Across her garden table, she looks back at her transgressive work and talks about the magic of the 1980s punk scene, growing up an outsider, the beauty of performance art and why embracing ageing is the punkest move of all.CREDITSPresenter and Exec-Producer: Kate HutchinsonEditor: Georgie RogersAdditional production: Holly FisherMixing and mastering: Mariana Sousa AguiarPhotography: Kate HutchinsonWith thanks to Sarah Cooper at the Getty, Alice Bag, Mara Carlyle and all at Erased Tapes.MUSICTheme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog JonesPiano Scapes 3 Written and performed by Qasim NaqviCourtesy of Erased TapesAngelus NovusWritten by Saki SugimotoPerformed by Hatis NoitCourtesy of Erased TapesAway With These Self-Loving Lads (Instrumental) - Mara CarlylePearl (Instrumental) - Mara Carlyle Bowlface en Provence (Instrumental) - Mara CarlyleBonding (Instrumental) - Mara CarlyleNerveskade - SickheadApache Tomcat - Alright Rock N RollFURTHER READING/LISTENINGX-TraxHyperallergicArtForumBandcampABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICAIn 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANSJournalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It featured 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. The series won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.Season two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre, and launched an LA series, supported by Audio-Technica, in summer.thelastbohemians.co.ukpatreon.com/thelastbohemiansinstagram.com/thelastbohemianspodtwitter.com/thelastbohospod  This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

In the north of Los Angeles, in a neighbourhood called Glendale, an unassuming bungalow is home to one of the first women in Hollywood to cut men’s hair. Today she goes by the glitziest of names, Madelynn von Ritz, but back in the 60s she was called Lynn Castle and hung out with key people of the era, lopping off Jim Morrison, the Byrds, Sonny Bono and Neil Young's locks. She was also a secret musician. But despite her childhood friends being musical svengalis like Phil Spector – who she once dated – as well as Jack Nietzcshe and Lee Hazlewood, it took her a while to reveal her talent. Eventually, however, she cut a number of intimate, melancholy demos in the hazy 60s with Hazlewood, who later famously teamed up with Nancy Sinatra and helped define the decade’s psychedelic sound.Lynn is now 83 (going on 53!) and still writes music to this day, with a home studio tucked in the corner of her living room. Those old demos, meanwhile, were found by the label Light in the Attic and reissued as Rose Coloured Corner in 2017 – an album 50 years in the making – including her signature song, pop gem The Lady Barber.  In this episode of The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, Lynn discusses her 'friendship' with Elvis, her series of almost-famous moments with Bob Dylan and the Stones, her positive outlook and life, and unexpectedly digs out letters from an old flame...CREDITSPresenter/Exec-Producer: Kate HutchinsonProducer: Holly FisherPhotography: Lisa JelliffeTheme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog JonesWith thanks to Light in the Attic Records.MUSICLynn Castle - CarolineGary War - Bounce FourGary War - Clouds That Went AwayPhilippa Dowding and Allister Thompson - Sequinned Mountain LadiesKetsa - Another DayDez Moran - August EventsPsuche - Dance DanceDon Syke - Desert BluesPeter Crosby - Had To Move OnMara Carlyle - NuzzleABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICAIn 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANSJournalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.thelastbohemians.co.ukpatreon.com/thelastbohemiansinstagram.com/thelastbohemianspodtwitter.com/thelastbohospod  This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

Our LA series, supported by Audio-Technica, returns this week with a Last Bohemians first: in a very special episode, we speak to three generations of an American artistic dynasty up in the leafy hills of Laurel Canyon: the incredible Betye Saar, her daughter Alison Saar and and granddaughter Maddy Leeser. Betye Saar, 96 (she was 95 at the time of making this podcast), is a revered assemblage, collage and installation artist, known for her use of found objects, and was part of both the Black Arts and feminist art movements in 1960s and 70s California. Her best known works include 1969’s Black Girl's Window, which incorporates elements of mysticism and brings to mind the current #BlackGirlMagic movement, and 1972’s The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, a piece of art that confronted racist and cultural stereotypes. The latter was so revolutionary, said the Guardian, “that the activist and scholar Angela Davis credited it with launching the Black women’s movement.” Betye is currently experiencing something of a renaissance, underlined by recent, pre-pandemic solo shows at MOMA in New York and its LA equivalent, LACMA. She still makes art every day. But, as Harper’s Bazaar recently said, her proudest legacy is her family. We sit around the table and share tea and biscuits not only with Betye but with Alison Saar, 66, one of her three daughters, who started out by working with her father, Richard Saar, in his ceramics studio. A breathtaking sculptor whose work spans four decades, Alison’s pieces often take the form of female figures. They explore different takes on African-African experiences, and the idea of history repeating, often made in response to events and themes like Hurricane Katrina and the AIDS crisis, the menopause and mythology. And we are also joined by Alison’s daughter Maddy Inez Leeser, 28, who makes stunning ceramics inspired by the natural world. The phrase “generational magic” really jumps out during this conversation, as the three women discuss motherhood and creativity, making art out of the everyday, being a mixed race family and the importance of exploring their African-American heritage, and the life and career advice that has been passed down from generation to generation. It was such a privilege to join them one afternoon at Alison’s house in LA. We hope you enjoy hearing their gorgeous slice of life among the birdsong and car beeps. CREDITSPresenter/Exec-Producer: Kate HutchinsonProducers: Sue Merlino and Holly FisherAdditional production: Will HorrocksTheme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog JonesWith thanks to: The Saar family, Emma Haru, Lisa Jann, Kimberly David, Lauren Graber and Julie at Roberts Projects LA, and Bobby Lee and Ali at Warm Music for generously donating us the track Walking With Trees. ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICAIn 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANSJournalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards. Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.thelastbohemians.co.ukpatreon.com/thelastbohemiansinstagram.com/thelastbohemianspod twitter.com/thelastbohospod  This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe