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About Alchemy

Alchemy: London’s Oldest Culture Shop

Began in Portobello Road, where Lee Harris, inspired by the spontaneous happenings at the Royal Albert Hall in 18/12/68, the Alchemical Wedding, started the creative melting pot that is still going strong today!!

Have a look at Alchemy thoughout the years!

[Show as slideshow]

“Alchemy, the most classic of headshops, which seems to be a catalyst for synchronistic creativities. All the heads, beautiful people, shakers, takers, brain benders & menders, gurus, rastas, ascended masters, travellers, seers, see ers, starseed extraterrestrials, and whatever else lives and breathes in London seems to find its way to that colourful emporium of all things alchemical” … Drezz Dressler

“I’d started off in the West End as an anarchist trader selling psychedelic posters in the late sixties. I ended up in the Portobello Road, making chokers and selling chillums. I had traded at many festivals so it was natural for me and I started to become a sort of medicine head. Almost everyone I knew was coming back from India, bringing all these exotic objects like balms, and patchouli oils and incense”…Lee Harris

Lee Harris (born 1936 in Johannesburg, South Africa), is a playwright, publisher, and spoken word artist. He was one of the few white members of the Congress movement, where he helped with the Congress of the People and met Nelson Mandela. He acted with Orson Welles, Dame Flora Robson, wrote for the British underground press including International Times, helped found the Arts Lab and has been an instrumental figure in the British Counter Culture movement since the seventies when he published the legendary Brainstorm Comix by illustrator & graphic novelist Bryan Talbot and Home Grown magazine, which he also edited.

Upsetter Magazine

Posted by Alchemy Culture Shop on May 4, 2012 in Books, Comics, Music & Films | 0 comments

Deluxe special edition of Upsetter Magazine Issue 1, a magazine on the great Lee Scratch Perry

Limited to 200 copies - Each copy is individually numbered -

Includes articles on Lee Scratch Perry in Studio One, The Ska Years, Upsetter News, Colour Photo Postcards

Discography 1963-68 & Original Perry art

Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

Home Grown Magazine – 10 x RARE A4 PRINTS

Posted by Alchemy Culture Shop on Jan 31, 2012 in Books, Comics, Music & Films | 0 comments

The ten colour A4 Prints

Come packaged in a protective cardboard cylinder

Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

Bryan Talbot’s Smokey Bears – 3 x RARE A4 PRINTS

Posted by Alchemy Culture Shop on Jan 31, 2012 in Books, Comics, Music & Films | 0 comments

The three black and white A4 Prints

Come packaged in a protective cardboard cylinder

Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

Bryan Talbot’s Brainstorm Comix – 3 x RARE A4 PRINTS

Posted by Alchemy Culture Shop on Jan 31, 2012 in Books, Comics, Music & Films | 0 comments

The three black and white A4 Prints

Come packaged in a protective cardboard cylinder

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

Echoes of the Underground – DVD

Posted by Alchemy Culture Shop on Jan 16, 2012 in Books, Comics, Music & Films | 0 comments

A collection of short films, featurettes & music videos with over two hours of previously unseen footage filmed during the making of the album ‘Lee Harris meets River Styx – Angel Headed Hip Hop’ from 2007 – 2010. featuring: Brian Barritt, Jim Haynes, Howard Marks, Youth, Henk Targowski, Eddie Woods, Jean-Jacque Lebel, Giles Walker & Peter Dunne (Mutoid Waste Company) and more

DVD (PAL) – Region 2

Here is the trailer

Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

Lee Harris meets River Styx – Angel Headed Hip Hop – CD

Posted by Alchemy Culture Shop on Jan 16, 2012 in Books, Comics, Music & Films | 0 comments

Angel Headed Hip Hop is the work of playwright, writer and spoken word artist, Lee Harris and songwriter & poet River Styx. A mesmerising journey of psychedelic soundscapes. Featuring Aldous Huxley, Howard “Mr Nice” Marks, Brian Barritt, JC001 & more. The album was released in 2009 on Genepool/Universal Music.

“The 21st century equivalent of the early experiments with beat poetry and improvised Jazz. A slice of life, a slice of history”… Upsetter Magazine.

The album is recontextualising the beat poets into the modern age”… K&C Daily Times.

Alchemy: 30 Years of Counter Culture – CD

Posted by Alchemy Culture Shop on Jan 16, 2012 in Books, Comics, Music & Films | 0 comments

New Antique Records is proud to present; “Alchemy – 30 Years of Counter Culture” an alchemical fusion of dub, jazz, celtic, ambient, psy-trance and spoken word available digitally for the first time.

Originally released in 2002, The album features Youth, Raja Ram & Simon Posford (Shpongle), Howard Marks, Brian Barritt, Bush Chemist, JC001, Drum Druids and many more, brought together by Lee Harris to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the oldest headshop in the creative melting pot of London’s Ladbroke Grove area.

“It starts perfectly chilled, dubby even, and by way of Howard Marks and the Mystery School Players, arrives at Shpongle. The flute work morphs seemlessly into a kicking Psy-Trance tune from Nervasystem & Aether. Dammit, it’s so good!” Inna?Turtle

“Very nice fusion and a nice piece to listen to at home and on the chill-out-floors around the globe” Mushroom – Hamburg

“Alchemy is trippy with a capital T. It is a celebration of one man’s journey through the counter culture that has existed in this country since the 1960’s. Listening to Alchemy gives us a sense of history that you won’t read about in school text books.” …..Peek Magazine

“If you like Lee’s trippy ramblings then check out “Alchemy – 30 years of Counter Culture, Some real gems on that one!” …..PSYAMB

The Album is also available digitally on New Antique Records

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

Best of Brainstorm Comix

Posted by Alchemy Culture Shop on Nov 27, 2011 in Books, Comics, Music & Films | 0 comments

The collected adventures of Bryan Talbot’s Chester P. Hakenbush. Published by Lee Harris

“Brainstom was a ‘light’ burning through the dark days of the 70s”… Brian Barritt (Author of ‘The Road of Excess)

“Bryan Talbot is a masterful comic artist and writer. He is one of those creators whose work other creators look froward to seeing. Chester P Hakenbush, the Psychedeilic Alchemist, is his first and, I think, his most endearing character”… Tasha Lowe (The Comic Store.com)

“Trippin’ Commix live again! Thanks for getting togerther the kind of comic I’ve always wanted but could never find. It was a truly cosmic crusade, the plot was a real mind blower and the artwork beautiful. i hop you have success – There will be a lot of happy heads around if you do”… The Furry Freaks, Cornwall, 1976

“Many thanks for Brainstorm Comix, I got a kick out of it and turned it over to the bullpen so they could bask in the radiance of it’s magnificence – just as I did. Nice of you to think of us”… Stan Lee, Marvel Comics, 1977

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