Books – Sea Urchin Editions

SEA URCHIN

Sea Urchin is an independent publishing house which was started from Rotterdam as an artist’s project by Ben Schot in 2000. Sea Urchin ‘s main focus is the historical avant-garde and counterculture. Apart from publishing its own editions, Sea Urchin also distributes the works of like-minded presses, labels and artists. Anneke Auer is responsible for Sea Urchin’s website and some of its book and sleeve designs.

MOLOKO+ BOOKS

Moloko+ is an independent label and press run by Ralf Friel from Schönebeck, Germany. Rooted in the East-German and Berlin experimental scenes, Moloko+ has published a wide rang of German poets and authors such as Jürgen Ploog, Gottfried Benn, Jörg Fauser, Georg Heym and Wolf Pehlke, but also publishes English and bilingual books, often Beat related, such as Oliver Harris’s William Burroughs trilogy.

INS & OUTS PRESS

Amsterdam-based Ins & Outs Press sprang into being in 1980 as a natural extension of Ins & Outs magazine, the first three issues of which were edited by Eddie Woods and Jane Harvey in 1978. Through their numerous international contacts, Ins & Outs developed into a hotbed of poetry and radical cultural activity in the heart of a town that at the time was going through a rowdy and violent phase in its legendary anti-authoritarian history.

WILLIAM LEVY

Writer, poet and gentleman-provocateur William (‘Bill‘) Levy (1939-2019) was a thorn in the side of the establishment from the early 1960s to his death in 2019. Levy developed into a spearhead of the European underground soon after he had moved from the US to London in 1966. As chief-editor of the underground magazine International Times and the first European sex paper Suck, Levy was labelled a “thoroughly undesirable character” and a “dealer in pornography” in the UK in 1970, after which he was forced to settle in Amsterdam. There his subversive activities continued. Levy lived with literary translator Susan Janssen in Amsterdam until his death at the age of 80.

BOOK BEAT BOOKS

Artist and musician Cary Loren is one of the founding members of the influential artists’ band Destroy All Monsters, and as such worked with artists and musicians like Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Niagara and Ron Asheton. Later projects include The Nightcrawlerz (with Barry Roth) and Monster Island. Cary runs the Book Beat, an independent book store in Michigan, and publishes books and CDs that are firmly rooted in Detroit’s radical and psychedelic counterculture.

JEAN JAQUES LEBEL

Artist, writer, curator, theorist, and activist Jean-Jacques Lebel (Paris, 1936) has been a spearhead of the avant-garde and counterculture since the 1950s. Lebel introduced Happenings to Europe, was one of the creative forces behind the May 68 revolt, organised the Festival de la libre Expression (which evolved into the Polyphonix festivals), provided first French translations of works by Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, a.o., and has curated large exhibitions on Francis Picabia, Antonin Artaud, Henri Michaux a.o.

JOHN SINCLAIR BOOKS

Artist and musician Cary Loren is one of the founding members of the influential artists’ band Destroy All Monsters, and as such worked with artists and musicians like Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Niagara and Ron Asheton. Later projects include The Nightcrawlerz (with Barry Roth) and Monster Island. Cary runs the Book Beat, an independent book store in Michigan, and publishes books and CDs that are firmly rooted in Detroit’s radical and psychedelic counterculture.

VARIOUS

Soft Need #23, Sensational Fix Zines, Ace Farren Ford, Eugenie Goldschmeding and more…