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‘’It's like Germaine Greer said about the Underground - it's not just some sort of scruffy club you can join, you're in or you're out... it's like being a criminal.”’’, (2).

The desire to change the status quo was a key feature of the whole Underground Movement both in the UK and America. Although another, the flamboyant clothing was a somewhat more superficial. For a ‘’true freak’’ the movement signified much more. People spoke in terms of creating an alternative society and of anti-commercialism, the environment etc. Many in the blossoming ‘Underground Movement’ were influenced by ‘’Beatnik’’ Beat generation writers such as William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg so that it can be said that the beatniks of the 1950s paved the way for the hippies of the 1960s. During the 60’s, the Beatnik writers engaged in symbiotic evolution with freethinking academics including experimental Psychologists Timothy Leary. Those influenced included radical thinkers such as Mick Farren who as the new generation, would become equals to Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Leary. There was a lot of interaction and cross-fertilisation on the scene, and musicians took in new ideas instantly and transformed them, adding a pop sensibility which made this cultural stuff accessible to kids in the street. And example of the cross-over of beatnik poetry and music can be seen when Burroughs appeared at the Farren organised Phun City festival attended by Underground ‘community’ bands including the Pretty Things, the Pink FairiesThe Pink Fairies one of two Peoples’ Bands along with Hawkwind who flew the flag for free music and Anarchy in the early 1970s underground scene in the UK. They often performed impromptu gigs in Ladbroke Grove as well as benefit gigs. Based around the blu, The Edgar Broughton BandThe British progressive rock group The Edgar Broughton Band was founded in 1968 in Warwick, England. Songs like "Out Demons Out" and appearances at "free concerts" made them a popular band on the radical fringe. They are sometimes thought of as " punk bef and from the America The MC5The MC5 was a rock music band that came out of Detroit in 1966, and was an important precursor of and influence on punk rock (see protopunk). Their first album was Kick Out The Jams recorded live on October 30 and 31, 1968 (the first Zenta new year)..

The Underground Movement was also symbolised by the use of drugs. The types of drugs used were varied and in many cases the names and effects were unknown as DeviantsThe Deviants is a fictional race of superhumans in the Marvel Comics' universe. They are an offshot of humanity created on Earth by the alien Celestials, and wage war against their counterparts, the Eternals. While the Eternals possess godlike power and a/ Pink FairiesThe Pink Fairies one of two Peoples’ Bands along with Hawkwind who flew the flag for free music and Anarchy in the early 1970s underground scene in the UK. They often performed impromptu gigs in Ladbroke Grove as well as benefit gigs. Based around the blu member Russell Hunter, working at International TimesThe Underground Press paper International Times (IT) started in 1966 in the UK, based in Ladbroke Grove, London. Editors and writers included founder John Hopkins (Hoppy) and anarchist member of the Deviants, Mick Farren. The International Times part of t (part of the Underground PressKey Underground Press papers in the UK in the late 1960s/early 1970s were International Times (IT) started in 1966 by John Hopkins which was joined in 1967 by Oz and Friends (later Friendz) which were based in the Ladbroke Grove area of London. The Underg at the time, recalled. “People used to send in all kinds of strange drugs and things, pills and powders, stuff to smoke and that. They’d always give them to me to try to find out what they were! (Laughs)”. (Reference – personal conversation with author).

Part of the sense of humour of the Underground, no doubt partly induced by the effects of both drugs and radical thinking was an enjoyment at ‘freakin’ out the norms’. Mick Farren recalls actions sure to elicit the required response. “The band's baroque House of Usher apartment on London's Shaftesbury Avenue had witnessed pre-Raphaelite hippy scenes, like Sandy the bass player (of the Deviants and Pink Fairies), Tony the now and again keyboard player, and a young David Bowie, fresh from Beckenham Arts Lab, sunbathing on the roof, taking photos of each other and posing coyly as sodomites”, (2).

There was a brief, tongue-in-cheek, offshoot from the UK Underground: "The Overground" was supposed to refer to the spiritual, cosmic, quasi-religious scene. At least two magazines ( Gandalf's Garden and Vishtaroon ) adopted this "overground" style and Gandalf's Garden was also a shop/restaurant/meeting place at World's End, Chelsea. The magazines were printed on pastel paper using multi-coloured inks and contained articles about meditation, vegetarianism, mandalas, ethics, poetry, pacifism and other subjects at a distance from the more wild and militant aspects of the underground.