One of the unpindownables of the counter culture: Jack Henry Moore 1940-2014

Jack Henry Moore – who has died aged 73 – was one of the unpindownables of the counterculture in the 60s and 70s.

Known principally as a pioneering video film-maker and sound recordist (the archive he leaves behind is estimated to contain more than 70,000 hours of tape compiled over five decades), Moore was central to the establishment of many of the foundation stones of the underground in London and other European cities.

Moore joined fellow ex-pat American Jim Haynes in his theatrical experiments in Edinburgh in the mid-60s, where they staged productions by the likes of Lindsay Kemp. As in his native Oklahoma, Moore’s openness about his homosexuality necessitated a geographical shift, this time south to London.

Here Moore directed productions for Haynes’ Traverse theatre company, and was a founder of underground paper International Times. He also designed such venues as UFO – where he built the stage and was the in-house DJ – and Haynes’ Arts Lab in Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and was instrumental to the setting up the key British event of the Summer Of Love, The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream at Alexandra Palace in north London.

This was Moore’s “crowning moment” believes his 60s fellow traveller Chris Rowley. “Moore and a team of young acolytes worked furiously for about 72 hours to transform the huge hall at Ally Pally into a gigantic version of the original UFO club environment,” says Rowley. “Nothing quite like that event had ever happened before, and I don’t think anything quite like it has ever happened since.

“Several thousand people came, dozens of groups played, many observers from the straight world came and left bemused, nobody was hurt or assaulted, and though my memory might be wrong, I don’t even think there were any medical issues, not even for bad trips.”

Moore’s ubiquity led him to contribute an impressive sound collage to The Deviants’ track The Nothing Man, all the while capturing on tape performances by Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, Yoko Ono and many others.

In December 1968 Moore organised, recorded and took part in the Royal Albert Hall fund-raiser The Alchemical Wedding, which included a “bagism” happening by Ono and John Lennon. The pair provided Moore with the latest film technology which set him on the path to launching enduring film collective The Videoheads after opening multi-media centre the Melkweg in Amsterdam.

A resident of Paris, where he died last week due to complications arising from cancer, Moore remained active to the end of his life despite straitened financial circumstances.

Read John May on JHM here.

This is Lee Harris’s account of The Alchemical Wedding.

And Moore is mentioned many times in Jim Haynes’ timeline.

Visit The Videoheads here.

Here is a selection from The Videoheads’ Youtube channel: