''International Times'' (''it'' or ''IT'') is the name of various underground newspapers, with the original title founded in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1966 and running until October 1973. Editors included

John "Hoppy" Hopkins John Victor Lindsay "Hoppy" Hopkins (15 August 1937 – 30 January 2015) was a British photographer, journalist, researcher and political activist, and "one of the best-known underground figures of 'Swinging London' " in the late 1960s. Life ...

, David Mairowitz,

Roger Hutchinson Roger Hutchinson (born 28 June 1952) is a former Northern Irish Unionist politician who was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for East Antrim from 1998 to 2003. After attending Larne Technical College, Hutchinson became a reli ...

, Peter Stansill, Barry Miles, Jim Haynes and playwright Tom McGrath. Jack Moore, avant-garde writer William Levy and Mick Farren, singer of The Deviants, also edited at various periods. The paper's logo is a black-and-white image of Theda Bara, vampish star of

silent films A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

. The founders' intention had been to use an image of actress

Clara Bow Clara Gordon Bow (; July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to " talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the ...

, 1920s ''

It girl An "it girl" is an attractive young woman, who is perceived to have both sex appeal and a personality that is especially engaging. The expression ''it girl'' originated in British upper-class society around the turn of the 20th century. ...

'', but a picture of Theda Bara was used by accident and, once deployed, not changed.

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

donated to the paper as did

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

through his Committee on Poetry foundation. The ''IT'' restarted first as an online archive in 2008, a move arranged by former ''IT'' editor and contributor

Mike Lesser Michael John Lesser (28 September 1943 – 1 July 2015) was a mathematical philosopher and political activist. He was born in London. Early life The youngest member of the Committee of 100, he was sent, aged 16, to Wormwood Scrubs Prison al ...

and financed by Littlewoods heir James Moores, and in 2011 relaunched as an online magazine publishing new material, following a suggestion by Lesser to poet and actor Heathcote Williams. Irish poet Niall McDevitt served as the first online editor of ''IT'', a position later held by Heathcote Williams (editor-in-chief) until his death in 2017. Current editor-in-chief is Nick Victor; Current contributing Editors include Rupert Loydell, Elena Caldera, Claire Palmer, and David Erdos. With regular contributions from Alan Dearling, Kushal Poddar, Colin Gibson, Roxanne Fontana, Oz Hardwick, Robert Montgomery, Dessy Tsvetkova, Neil Partrick, AC Evans, Steve Waling, Jeff Cloves, Robert Sheppard, Jan Woolf, Steve Spence, Leon Horton, Terrence Sykes, Darren Cullen, Sayani Mukherjee, Bernard Saint, Mike Ferguson, Simon Collings, Monalisa Parida and many, many others. Online manifestations can be found at https://internationaltimes.it/ https://www.facebook.com/intltimes/ https://twitter.com/home

History

''International Times'' was launched on 15 October 1966 at The Roundhouse at an 'All Night Rave' featuring Soft Machine and Pink Floyd. The event promised a 'Pop/Op/Costume/Masque/Fantasy-Loon/Blowout/Drag Ball' featuring 'steel bands, strips, trips, happenings, movies'. The launch was described by Daevid Allen of Soft Machine as "one of the two most revolutionary events in the history of English alternative music and thinking. The ''IT'' event was important because it marked the first recognition of a rapidly spreading socio-cultural revolution that had its parallel in the States." From April 1967, and for some while later, the police raided the offices of ''International Times'' to try, it was alleged, to force the paper out of business. A benefit event labelled '' The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream'' took place at Alexandra Palace on 29 April 1967. Bands included Pink Floyd, The Pretty Things, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Soft Machine, The Move, and Sam Gopal Dream. Despite police harassment, the paper continued to grow, with financial help from

, a personal friend of editor Barry Miles. Published fortnightly, it became the leading British underground paper, its circulation peaking at around 40,000 copies in late 1968/early 1969, before another police raid, along with competition from newer publications such as ''

Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an engine ...

'' led to declining sales and a financial crisis. In response to another raid on the paper's offices, London's alternative press on one occasion succeeded, somewhat astonishingly, in pulling off what was billed as a "reprisal attack" on the police—prompting the ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'' headline ''Raid on the Yard''. The paper ''Black Dwarf'' published a detailed floor-by-floor guide to Scotland Yard, complete with diagrams, descriptions of locks on particular doors and snippets of overheard conversation in the offices of Special Branch. The anonymous author, or "blue dwarf," as he styled himself, described how he perused police files, and even claimed to have sampled named brands of whisky in the Commissioner's office. A day or two later ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' announced that the "raid" had forced the police to withdraw and re-issue all security passes. In 1970 a group of people from ''IT'', led by photographer Graham Keen, launched '' Cyclops'', "The First English Adult Comic Paper."

Later publications

''IT'' first ceased publication in October 1973, after being convicted for running contact ads for gay men. The name was revived by another publisher in May 1974 for three issues until October. In 1975, ''Maya'', another underground publication, temporarily renamed itself ''IT - the International Times'', until that title closed after the November issue. A new title of the same name launched the following month, continuing until March 1976 when it went into hiatus until resuming in January 1977, ceasing in August of that year. Publications with the ''International Times'' title were published from January to December 1978, and again from April 1979 to June 1980. A single 'festival issue' was produced in June 1982. The title was again revived in 1986, with three issues from January to March, the last time a paper publication of the IT name was printed. In 2016, the 50th anniversary of the first copy of the magazine, further editions of a paper version of IT began to be published starting with issue Zero. Issue Zero was edited by Heathcote Ruthven sub editors were Emily McCarthy, Heather Williams, David Graeber and Heathcote Williams. Designed by Darren Cullen. Issue 2 Guest Edited by Decolonising Our Minds. Issue 3 Edited by Robert Montgomery, Art director Martin Tickner, designer Asel Tambay, IT Editor Claire Palmer, Editor-at-Large Heathcote Williams, Editor-in-Excelcis Mike Lesser, Patron and Editor-in-Excess Nick Victor, Coordinator and Contributing Editor David Erdos, Contributing Editors Niall McDevitt, Elena Caldera, Keith Rodway, Rupert Loydell. International Times has also published two books. Both are poetry collections – ''Royal Babylon'' by Heathcote Williams, an attack on the British Monarchy, and ''Porterloo'' by Niall McDevitt, a book satirising the Conservative Party and registering the counterculture of 2011-12.

Contributors

Many people who became prominent UK figures wrote for ''IT'', including feminist critic Germaine Greer, poet and social commentator

Jeff Nuttall Jeffrey Addison Nuttall (8 July 1933 – 4 January 2004) was an English poet, publisher, actor, painter, sculptor, jazz trumpeter, anarchist and social commentator who was a key part of the British 1960s counter-culture. He was the brother of l ...

, occultist

Kenneth Grant Kenneth is an English given name and surname. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a byn ...

, and DJ John Peel. There were many original contributions from underground writers such as

Alexander Trocchi Alexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi ( ; 30 July 1925 – 15 April 1984) was a Scottish novelist. Early life and career Trocchi was born in Glasgow to Alfred (formerly Alfredo) Trocchi, a music-hall performer of Italian parentage, and Anni ...

; William Burroughs and

. Leading editorial contributors to the late 1970s ''IT'' were Heathcote Williams, Max Handley,

Eddie Woods Eddie Woods is an American poet, prose writer, editor and publisher who lived and traveled in various parts of the world, both East and West, before eventually settling in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where in 1978 he started ''Ins & Outs'' magazi ...

(Amsterdam editor), an
Chris Sanders
In 1986 ''IT'' was relaunched by Tony Allen and Chris Brook. After three issues (Volume 86; issues 1,2,3) Allen left, and Brook continued with one more issue (Volume 86; issue 4). After various one-off issues into 1991, 2000 saw Brook and others create
web-based presence
��initially through the alternative server 'Phreak', c. 1996. There are currently two archive sources online: 1)
a comprehensive archive scanned by previous contributors and editors
an
a less extensive archive with some commentary

''International Times'' archive

''International Times'' (''NIIT'') ''Archive'' is a free online archive of every issue of the ''International Times''. It runs from a precursor to ''IT'', The Longhair Times, released on April Fools' Day 1966 to an erroneously labelled 'last issue'—a Xeroxed single sheet issue in 1994. The continuum of this journal, in fact, includes issues and web presence from the last editorial group (IT#4 Vol 1986) until the present day. The ''IT Archive'' was launched on 16 July 2009 at the Idea Generation Gallery."Launch of the International Times Archive"
''Qype'', 14 July 2009 The ''IT Archive'' was founded by

supported by fellow contributors and editors of ''IT'' including Mick Farren,

, Dave Mairowitz, Peter Stansill and Heathcote Williams amongst others.

References

*Turner, C. (27 April 1997
Personal memories of ''The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream''

External links