Steve Finbow - The Mindshaft

WAKE ISLAND

Steve Finbow and I chat about his latest book The Mindshaft which is based on the infamous members-only BDSM gay leather bar and sex club called the Mineshaft.

We get into: William Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, Francis Bacon, transgressive acts/art, noise music, Cruising, Ginsberg, literary pilgrimages, Bruce Chatwin and how illness influences creativity.

“You have visited the bar on a number of occasions, it fascinates you, you find it disgusting, it excites you, you find it dangerous. You are lonely in this city of millions, yet, how do we connect with other people, particularly if we don’t find speaking easy? Is sex a cure for loneliness, and if it is, what happens to if our body or sexuality is considered deviant or damaged, if we are ill or blessed with beauty?”

The Mindshaft is out now from Amphetamine Sulphate.

Steve Finbow once worked for Allen Ginsberg. His non-fiction includes Notes From The Sick Room and Grave Desire: A Cultural History of Necrophilia, while his fiction includes Balzac Of The Badlands, Down Among The Dead and Nothing Matters.

Theme music by Joseph E. Martinez of Junius

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