John May
has spent his life under the radar and out of the spotlight ― which is not to say he hasn’t been busy!
A lifelong freelance author, editor, producer and writer, working solo or with others, he has produced 18 books, edited many magazines and has written many hundreds of features for major newspapers and mainstream magazines.
He is Google’s Number 1 Generalist on the web, due to the worldwide audience for his blog ‘The Generalist’ which he has been writing for 16 years, producing more than 920 posts on a very wide range of subjects, combining reviews with investigative reports, interviews and features, all with a strong visual element.
He has had lunch with Henri Cartier-Bresson and Al Gore, tea with William Burroughs, been in a dubbing studio in Mayfair with Steven Spielberg and in a milk bar in Modesto with George Lucas – just a few headline encounters from hundreds of great audio interviews.
One of life’s little organisers and librarians, his Archive also contains a detailed record of 40+ years of his working life.
THE GENERALIST blog has been running since June 2005 and now contains more than 920 posts.
hqinfo.blogspot.co.uk
hqinfo.blogspot.co.uk
A treasure trove of historic material. The Archive has been judged by a professional archiving firm to be: "A key repository of information about popular culture from the 1960s to the 2000s.. John has assiduously collected material throughout his life – ranging from early documentation of Glastonbury Fayre and the Isle of Wight festival, through lay-outs and working papers for magazines and books, to tapes and transcripts of interviews. He has also assiduously collected clippings files on key topics such as ‘the Beats’ and ‘Drug Culture. This archive contains many amazing individual items, but its value is as a whole, charting the zeitgeist.""
John has consistently been involved in movements for social change. He wrote the official history of Greenpeace and ran their international publishing operation for seven years. He produced one of the first ever Animal Liberation magazines (‘The Beast’) and many anti-nuclear papers, articles and books.
A pioneering environmental journalist, he also worked with the Bhopal Medical Appeal, the Big Issue and many other causes. He was one of the team behind the Lewes Arms dispute, the biggest pub protest in modern British history.
When not causing trouble, John is a poetic scribbler, a semi-professional musician and songwriter, a part-time painter and a dedicated photographer.
PRINT!
The website of The Generalist Archive was launched to coincide with the PRINT! exhibition at Somerset House in London, which ran all summer from June 8th to August 22nd 2018. The curator Paul Gorman selected 200 items from the Archive - including mags, newspapers, booklets and ephemera - of which a percentage were be on display as part of an exhibition that celebrated the vibrant modern mag movement as well as sketching in a history of UK alternative publications. The exhibition attracted some 30,000 visitors.
PRINT! Somerset House Private View
MAGAZINE ARCHIVE
In addition to a substantial collection of underground papers from the 60s and 70s (See COUNTER-CULTURE), the Archive contains some iconic copies of Life, Look, Esquire, a large collection of newspaper colour supplements and end-of-year reviews, the first 100 issues of The Face and boxes of assorted titles organised by decade. In addition, there are historical environmental papers, anti-nuclear publications and animal rights papers. The MUSIC section contains stacks of early Mojo, Q, Zigzag, NME and other music papers and journals.
[Pictured] The Fanatic
was produced by Heathcote Williams and Richard Adams from the office at 2 Blenheim Crescent during the 1970s.
AUDIO ARCHIVE
The Audio Archive consists of several hundred cassette tapes and minidiscs dating from 1975 to the present day, containing interviews conducted with some remarkable people from many fields of art, culture, science and beyond.
These are steadily being digitised and archived by Simon Kunath to National Sound Archive guidelines using high quality industry standard hardware and state of the art software. We are grateful to the British Library sound collection for their advice. Simon has spent 45 years as a sound engineer and producer but also as a player and composer. He began by threading old-school recording tape and is now expert with the latest digital technology. He was awarded a Research Fellowship and has invented interactive tactile sculptures.
The first interviews we have tackled date from the 1970s. They include: the Beat poet Alan Ginsberg, the legendary SF writer Alfred Bester, the Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, The Hitchiker Douglas Adams, the space colony futurist Gerard O’Neill, the whale novelist John Gordon Davis, Billie Hayes and Brad Davis of ‘Midnight Express’, the clone hoaxer David Rorvik, the cybernetic genius Stafford Beer and film director Steven Spielberg.
[Pictured] Douglas Adams: The Star of Broadcasting House
, 12 August 1982. Photo by John May
You might well ask what Douglas Adams is doing standing outside BBC Broadcasting House in London wearing a pair of deeley boppers on his head. It's my fault.
I was working on assignment for the NME, 'Life, the Universe and Everything' had just been published, and deeley boppers were that summer's craze. I thought it might be fun - and so it turned out to be.
COUNTER-CULTURE / UNDERGROUND
Extensive collection of UK / US undergroundand alternative books, papers, magazines, comics, clippings, photos
Original programmes, tickets, posters, photos of UK festivals 1967-1980
Black Power clippings and papers
Politics and culture clippings (1964-1970s)
Squatting, youth culture, cults, riots (1970s / 1980s)
Clippings and ephemera from IRA, Angry Brigade, Red Army Faction, SLA, Baader Meinhof
Arts Labs/Communes
Only known archive for the underground newspaper Friends (then Frendz) 1969-1972
POSTER MAGAZINES
TV-Sci Fi Monthly
Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back
Additional collection of rare Star Wars material
These were a lucrative form of publishing in the 1980s, pioneered by the late Felix Dennis (formerly of OZ magazine) who founded Bunch Books and later Dennis Publishing.
Clanose Publishers briefly produced their own magazine Supersport which failed after some six issues. Felix published Kung Fu Monthly and made his first fortune. ‘The Rolling Stones’ poster mag pictured was produced by Clanose for Bunch, for the Stones European tour.
Bunch Books pioneered TV Sci Fi Monthly, edited by Don Atyeo and Mick Farren (1st issue pictured). They acquired the rights to produce magazines for many movies including the biggest – Star Wars Monthly – now collector’s items.
NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS
Go to the Dick Tracy files >
Complete files of material written under pen name of Dick Tracy (1975-1982)
Collection of books by other NME writers
Clippings files of significant NME articles plus some complete issues
Pictured are three significant stories written under the Dick Tracy pen name or my own [John May] for the New Musical Express in the 1970s: a cover story on Record Piracy (22nd July 1978); an exclusive account, with court drawings flown in from Toronto, of Keith Richards’ heroin trial (18th Nov 1978); and the first exclusive interview with Phil Daniels, the young star of Quadrophenia [29th Sept 1979].
MUSIC
Extensive collection of clippings, books and magazines
Extensive collection of vinyl, cds and tapes
[Main image] Cover of India Psychedelic, a gift to the Archive from journalist Nick Davies, who bought it in Mumbai.
Urepentant The Pretty Things 1964-1995: Two double-length CDs and 50pp detailed booklet in hardback book package, given to John May by Pretty Things frontman Phil May in Brighton [1995]
Big Country: A Certain Chemistry: The Official Portrait
by John May. Published by Omnibus Press in 1985.
Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘N’ Roll.
New release, a double album of tracks recorded at Sun Studios by Sam Phillips. [2018]
1980s JOURNALISM
Journalism and correspondence: Sunday Times, Observer, The Guardian.
Environmental journalism for BBC Wildlife, Pluto Press, Cosmopolitan.
[Pictured] This major story – ‘The Poisoning of Mother Russia’ was published in the Sunday Times (9th Nov 1980). Based on advance access to the manuscript of Boris Komarov’s book ‘The Destruction of Nature in the Soviet Union’ which was published five days after this article’s appearance by Pluto Press in London.
TREE NEWS
History of work on international magazine on Trees
Complete set of 11 issues (2000-2005)
Fine collection of tree books and other publications.
Tree News
was a magazine owned by the Tree Council in the UK. For five years (2000-2005) it was funded by the publisher Felix Dennis who hired John May as Editor-In-Chief.
[Pictured] The cover picture [Issue 7/Spring-Summer 2004] by Edward Parker illustrates a major story on the threats to the cork tree and the cork stopper industry.
Three pictures below show David Attenborough and Bill Oddie holding copies of the first issue. The occasion was the launch for the first BBC series of ‘The Blue Planet’. The third picture is Jarvis Cocker, photographed backstage when Pulp played an open-air concert at Bedgebury Pinetum.
ENVIRONMENTAL ART
Books, journals, clippings and correspondence and material from the Life Arts project
Material on leading environment artists: Christo, Smithson, Beuys.
[Pictured] ‘The Greening of the Art World’, and important issue of ARTnews [Summer 1991] was right on the button and ahead of the game. The key note essay ‘The Ecological Art Explosion’ by Robin Cembalest opened eyes and minds.
DIGITAL REVOLUTION
Archive of major 15pp-article for The Telegraph magazine (Sept 1994) – first major article on digital revolution in UK and material published in the Telegraph’s digital supplement ‘Connected’.
Extensive material from key project: A History of Communications (1747-2000), with the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation and funded by Cable & Wireless. Books and clippings associated. Complete print-out of now-defunct website.
Extensive collection of early computer mags/cyberpunk books & clippings documenting birth of internet.
Historical material on early computer graphics. Archive and complete set of pictures of computer graphics book produced for Secker & Warburg in the early 80s.
Archive material from Cequel Plus (C++), an internet company in the mid-1990s.
CURIOUS FACTS
Archive material from four published books and set of six magazines ‘Curious Facts Monthly’. Extensive correspondence and contracts.
Archive material for Jonathan Ross tv series ‘Fantastic Facts’ based on CF. Complete set of original story ideas for the series.
Substantial collection of books of previous collections / collectors of curiosities and curious facts + history of curiousity (Charles Fort / Robert Ripley).
Collection of Fortean Times.Sets of encyclopaedias
Huge collection of Curious Facts clippings yet to be archived.
Curious Facts
was written by John May, with additional material from Michael Marten, John Chesterman, David Brittain and Lee Torrey. Originally commissioned by Holt Rinehart Winston in New York it was picked up and published in the UK by Secker & Warburg. Both editions came out in 1981. The British edition was reprinted in 1982. Seckers later published Curious Facts 2 which was published in 1984.
Curious Facts, billed as ‘The Strangest Magazine Ever Published’ survived for six issues from April to Sept 1981. Edited by John May and Michael Marten, it was designed by Richard Adams and Mikki Rain.
VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE
Substantial library of books + material related to book project
Handmade Houses: The World of Vernacular Architecture
Includes material on Disaster Housing and Eco-building
Three editions of John May’s book on vernacular architecture with varying titles and covers. The UK edition ‘Handmade Houses and Other Buildings’ was published by Thames & Hudson in 2010. In the US Rizzoli named their edition ‘Buildings Without Architects’ which they also issued in Italy. The Dutch edition used the British image and title. A major extract from the book was published in a journal in China – ‘V-Eco’ on Autonomous Architecture.
SCULPTURE / THE RODIN PROJECT
Material relating to book project ‘Garden of Heroes & Villains’, produced for Felix Dennis
Extensive collection of books on sculpture and sculptors: Moore, Brancusi
• Full documentation of the ‘Rodin in Lewes’ exhibition and project (1990-1999).
Includes correspondence files, publicity material, proposals, documents, press coverage, photos, films, tv material.
Extensive collection of books on Rodin, Camille Claudel
, the Edwardian period and the Aesthetic Movement with material on Oscar Wilde, gay culture of the time, Greek sculpture, scenes in Paris and Boston and the history of E.P. Warren & John Marshall.
SCIENCE FICTIONCOMICS / GRAPHIC NOVELS
Extensive collection
The website of The Generalist Archive was launched to coincide with the PRINT! exhibition at Somerset House in London, which ran all summer from June 8th to August 22nd 2018. The curator Paul Gorman selected 200 items from the Archive - including mags, newspapers, booklets and ephemera - of which a percentage were be on display as part of an exhibition that celebrated the vibrant modern mag movement as well as sketching in a history of UK alternative publications. The exhibition attracted some 30,000 visitors.
