Babylon Falling • Photo by Walter Bredel (I think) for East Village...

Photo by Walter Bredel (I think) for East Village Other (1966)

Kreplach to Invade London

June 7, the Kreeping Kreplach Non-Profit Cultural International Foundation of Purple Art Combine held its first press conference at the Village Gate.

The Combine composed of Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Jonas Mekas, Barbara Rubin, Ed Sanders, and Tuli Kupferberg talked with reporters from ABC, The Village Voice, WINS and an Italian film company explaining the function of the Kreeping Kreplachs.

Ginsberg did most of the talking, but kept trying to pass the buck to Andy Warhol who smiled shyly. Ginsberg explained that the purpose for the Combine was to expedite matters of international cultural exchange. He said that money and union problems existed in the artistic and entertainment fields which could be circumvented by international coordination.

The KKNPCIFPPAC will work by paying the expenses of visiting artists in America and England. The money after expenses, from poetry readings, concerts, or exhibitions, will be put into a fund in the country where the performance is held and applied to the next performance.

“The culture has changed,” Ginsberg said. “A new generation has grown up. Everybody’s hip now, and we’re going to put on a giant festival and prove it.”

The first activity of the Combine will be to stage a rock and roll, film festival at Royal Albert Hall in London on June 17th and 18th. The festival will exhibit the talents of filmmakers Jonas Mekas, and Andy Warhol and the musical talents of The Fugs, The Velvet Underground, The Flowers, The Chambers Brothers, and Donovan.

Radio Caroline, an avant garde station off shore from London, will fit the bill for the transportation and publicity expenses of the first performance.

Ginsberg told the press, “We’ll stage a teeny bopper concert at Lewiston Stadium next. Jim Marcus said he would try to help. Maybe we can also arrange an intercity tour of the U.S. also.”

“We’re planning to bring to the U.S. some poets from Liverpool and one of the Beatles who’ll play his secret electronic tapes and show home movies.”

Barbara Rubin, the prime mover and organizer of the Combine told of last years poetry reading at Royal Albert Hall and hinted at problems that have been surmounted to present this years festival. “Last year the poets filled the hall. It holds about 7,000 people and we had to turn away a lot more. This year we should be able to fill it for the 17th and 18th of June but we had to promise them that Allen Ginsberg wouldn’t read. Last year he offended the English sensibilities somehow.”

This year Peter Orlovsky, Ginsberg’s sidekick and a poet in his own right will go to the festival. Orlovsky has been known to behave himself.

Someone explained that Kreplach is a word that some Jewish mothers use for their sons who don’t become doctors or lawyers and make a lot of money. Ginsberg said that maybe they’d have to change the name of the organization.

The Royal Albert Hall has been leased and the airplane roster shows 76 names on it. 76 members of the underground. London will never be the same.