"...I told Charles in Austria, he is reading like Iggy Pop is singing.."

Sprachsalz Literary Festival photo & wry observation : Florian Thiele

Charles Plymell is a legendary figure. He was involved with a loose gang of experimental writers and outsider artists centered around Wichita, Kansas in post war 1950`s America. Plymell and the Wichita Punks had road tested speed, dropped LSD, held mescaline rituals and experimented with art and other creative forms. Were they Beat before the term had risen, been marketed and branded out of the San Francisco joss stick hippie scene? The chronological order is important in understanding his work, as Charley makes clear in this interview. He has seen a lot since his birth on the Kansas high plains in 1935 and the early memories of the sound of the wind in the cab of an Reo Speedwagon truck. His father was a cowboy, his mother once a stunt car driver. He printed Robert Crumb`s first edition of the cult and famous Zap Comix in 1968. As part of the hip Wichita scene of the 1950`s he is also a contemporary of and, either a friend, collaborator or publisher of, some of the coolest and influential underground writers and artists to come out of the USA. He already had two volumes of poetry, Neon Poems and Apocalypse Rose out when in 1971 City Lights published his seminal novel, Last of The Moccasins. This novel grips, gleams and glistens with his hobohemian prose-style; spinning tales of his life in and around Wichita,

his road trips to and from the West Coast along the Rt. 66 Benzedrine Highway and beyond, his crazy Hipster years and the boho life of his elder sister Betty. He has continued to walk his walk and talk his talk ever since and his writing has always displayed a vibrant and astute engagement with life and a heady, intoxicatingly descriptive allure. He condemned the National Endowment for the Arts and his sharp and intelligent analysis appeared in the NY Times and other print outlets. Because of this critique he was blacklisted and has never been awarded any funding, grant or financial support from any federal state or academic agency in the USA. He and his wife Pam run their own publishing house, CV Editions, which is a good place to start looking for more information on his novels, poetry and other writing.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ojUYVt1gbvw&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ojUYVt1gbvw&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

In March this year, when I was in Los Angeles tour managing Kathleen Haskard, we played a gig at Genghis Cohen`s, and met OutsideLeft`s Lamont Paul, Peter Williams (photographer) and Wichita Hipster and Beat artist/illustrator Barbital Bob Brannaman. After a good gig, we ate dinner together and shot the shit in to the night. It was a great evening. Bob`s running mate way back in the 1950`s was Charles Plymell. I have written extensively about Charley, including The Benzedrine Highway Interview</a>. It includes comments, anecdotes and opinion on Charley by Stooges/Minutemen/Firehose bassist Mike Watt, Wichita Hipster poet Roxie Powell, who grew up out on the plains with Charley, Ecstatic Peace! label main man and writer Byron Coley, poet Ginger Killian Eades, film maker Laki Vazakas and writer Hammond Guthrie. An expanded version of the interview that was commissioned by www.realitystudio.org, includes a fascinating section on his friendship with WS Burroughs and San Fran litho printing in the 1960`s. This interview was put together whilst I was traveling in the States and knocked into shape over some of the days of April and May