Leigh Blackmore
Encyclopedia
Leigh David Blackmore (born 1959) is an Australian horror writer, critic, editor, occultist and musician. He served as the second President of the Australian Horror Writers Association
(2010–2011). His work has been nominated twice for the Ditmar Award
, once for fiction and once for criticism. It has been said that "His name is now synonymous with Australian horror." and that "Leigh Blackmore is to horror what Glenn A. Baker
is to rock and roll.
, New South Wales, the son of Rod
and Beth Blackmore. He was educated at North Sydney Boys High School
(1971–72)(see Old Falconians) and Newcastle Boys' High School
(now Callaghan College Technology Campus) (1972–76). His early hobbies included philately
and phillumeny. He read omnivorously from an early age, particularly the works of Geoffrey Willans
, J.P. Martin
, Norman Hunter
and W.E. Johns.
In high school, he graduated to devouring the works of Arthur Conan Doyle
, Agatha Christie
, and Leslie Charteris
, and became a keen enthusiast of sword and sorcery
fiction as represented by Lin Carter
, Michael Moorcock
and others, and horror fiction (especially the Weird Tales
school, including Clark Ashton Smith
, Robert Bloch
, Frank Belknap Long
, Donald Wandrei
and H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
), discovering their work via anthologies edited by August Derleth
and Peter Haining
and via publications of Arkham House
which he special-ordered via Space Age Books (Melbourne), then Australia's only specialist supplier of sf and fantasy books.
While at high school Blackmore co-founded the Arcane Sciences Society and the Horror-Fantasy Society; the journal of the societies, Cathuria (named after a place in Lovecraft's story The White Ship), was banned after three issues by Blackmore's high school principal for quoting in a review four-letter words used by the unleashed monster in Flesh Gordon
. Having corresponded with enthusiasts in the field such as Brian Lumley
, Ramsey Campbell
, Glenn Lord
and W.H. Pugmire, he began (aged 13) to write fiction and speculative poetry
in the vein of Lovecraft and C.A. Smith. His earliest in-print appearances included Lovecraftian sonnets in The Arkham Sampler (new series). Blackmore was also a devotee of horror movies principally from the Hammer horror and Amicus Productions
era. Samuel Beckett
and William S. Burroughs
became lasting literary influences at this time.
Early interest in the world of sf fandom
was evinced in Blackmore's attendance of Aussiecon
1 (the 33rd World Science Fiction Convention
and the first such held in Australia) in 1975 at the age of 15; he there met such figures as Forrest J. Ackerman and L. Sprague de Camp
. He also played judo
during high school in Sydney and Newcastle.
Blackmore also became interested in Aleister Crowley
through reading Moonchild (novel), Crowley's Confessions: An Autohagiography and the John Symonds
biography The Great Beast. His other occult studies began with books by such authors as Paul Huson
(on Tarot and witchcraft) and Idries Shah
(on Goetia
) as well as June John's biography King of the Witches, on Alex Sanders
.
(where he belonged to the university's science fiction club and contributed to their zine
Telmar) and Sydney University (where he majored in Semitic Studies), Blackmore came in contact with Don Boyd, editor of Futuristic Tales. http://www.philsp.com/mags/sf_aust.html. Beginning a 25-year career as a bookseller in 1978, he then worked in his spare time as an editorial assistant on The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine
http://www.philsp.com/mags/sf_aust.html in the early 1980s and went on to publish and co-edit its successor, Terror Australis
magazine from 1987-1992. http://www.philsp.com/mags/sf_aust.html.
In the 1980s, Blackmore published bibliographies on Brian Lumley
and H.P. Lovecraft (the latter in collaboration with S.T. Joshi). He came to be a highly regarded Lovecraft scholar,
and carried on correspondence with other Lovecraft fans in many countries including US, the UK, New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Russia.His first published story was "The Infestation", adapted for graphic form by Gavin O'Keefe
and published in Phantastique, a comic which attracted notoriety (questions were asked in Australian Federal Parliament) for being government-funded via an Arts Council grant while containing visceral images and story content. http://www.tabula-rasa.info/AusComics/Phantastique.html
to Black Sabbath
, and had jammed with garage bands in his high school years in Newcastle, played synthesisers and drums (and occasionally sang) with Sydney New Wave
band Worm Technology and other bands. From a mixture of influences including prog and experimental rock, pop and punk, WT evolved their unique sound while living together in an old schoolhouse in Rozelle in Sydney. Blackmore had known Ian Walker in primary school; meanwhile Walker had befriended guitarist and synth wizard Greg Smith in high school. One of the earliest extant recordings by the band includes a reggae version of "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gumtree" (Kookaburra (song)), played strictly for laughs. A cassette-only album of punkish acoustic & vocal originals, If You Don't Care for Your Scalp You Get Rabies (1977) (its title taken from a line uttered by Terry Jones
in the Monty Python
episode "Mr Neutron"), performed by Blackmore, vocalist/lyricist Ian Walker and guitarist & synth expert Greg Smith, was released under the band name Tiploid Grundy and the Rabid Slime Moulds, while with Greg Smith, Blackmore initially concentrated on composing electronic music using sequencers, including the Robert Fripp
and Brian Eno
-influenced Music for Bookshops (1979), and a concept-cycle,recorded to reel-to-reel tape, called The Guardian based on a collaborative story written by the two. The band stabilised as a four-piece rock band with live drums as Worm Technology though synth-based instrumentals such as "Africa" (Blackmore) often featured in their sets. Blackmore initially played electric organ, string machine and synthesiser, with Greg Smith as drummer and synth programmer, but Blackmore often drummed when Smith was playing guitar or bass; his drumming style was largely influenced by the Buzzcocks' John Mayer
. For a time Smith's girlfriend Myfanwy (Miffy) Ryan played violin with the band, but dropped out after a year. (Ryan has gone in recent years to play with such renowned Australian folk bands as Madd Marianne, Wongawilli Band, and Denizen).
WT initially played covers by the likes of 60s and 70s acts including Kevin Ayers
, Lou Reed
, The Troggs
, Them
, The Human Beinz
, Modern Lovers, Ramones
, Elvis Costello
, The Jam
and the Buzzcocks
, and punkified medleys of old TV cartoon theme tunes such as Astroboy, Marine Boy
and Gigantor
. Their deconstructed version of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, featuring Walker's famed one-note guitar solo on an amplified tin toy guitar bought from an op shop, preceded Devo
's take on the same number.
But WT went on to perform mainly quirky originals, from "Here Come the Lonely Vegetables" to "Three Years on the Road", a country and western pisstake penned by Blackmore. Both Blackmore and Walker had both been particularly influenced by The Residents
, The Velvet Underground
and by Lenny Kaye
's Nuggets series of reissues, influences which skewed their pop sensibility. John Gardner was consistently the bass player throughout WT's existence; he never contributed lyrics or music. Rhythm guitarist Malcolm Elliott and second vocalist Peter Rodgers entered, left and re-entered the band lineup at different periods. The band played one early gig where Blackmore had briefly left, under the moniker "Leigh Blackmore's Rainbow". Elliott and Rodgers also contributed song lyrics, as did mixer Garry Ryan, all of which were put to music by Greg Smith. Elliott's "Slept-On Hair" and "Simulus Stimulus", Ryan's "Cry Laughing Clown", "Technical Suicide" and "Pilot", and Rodger's "Who Do We Think We Are?" were all popular elements of WT's set. Many of WT's early gigs were at church halls, as several of the band members were Christians.
Blackmore wrote many of their song lyrics ("Infidelity" was a Ramones-like favourite), some in collaboration with vocalist Ian Walker, though Walker often wrote alone - such lyrics as "Middle of the Road", "I See Your Life", "For You" and "Persona non Grata", with guitarist Greg Smith writing much of the music though Blackmore wrote both lyrics and music for such songs as "Teenage Slug", "Outerspaceville", "Love Wasn't Meant to be Easy", "Cryptic Rhythms", "Living for Today", "Futile Minds" and crowd favourite "Apathy". The band put strange twists on some of their covers, such as playing Glen Campbell
's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" as a Joy Division
-like number, and doing a rock version of the Brian Eno
/Cluster piece "Broken Head". Worm Technology played gigs at various inner-city venues such as the Vulcan Hotel, Strawberry Hills Hotel, Taverners Hill Hotel, The Rehearsal Room and the Sussex Hotel (popular as a venue for an Australian version of the 1980s mod revival
and where skinheads would occasionally take to the stage) and also undertook tours including the 'We Are Not the New Dylan Tour' (1980) in which they played obscure NSW country towns, and the "Moo Cow Tour" in which they played in several Sydney milk-bars. The band often parodied currently voguish musical trends, as in "Dull Rappsville", a parody of early rap. Continuing their disdain of most rock posturing, the band played one tour with all members dressed as crooner Val Doonican
, wearing cardigans and thick black spectacles. Lead vocalist Ian Walker's renowned stage act included using a toy rabbit owned in Blackmore's childhood as a prop for the song "Furry Animals", and standing on a chair throughout the song "The Tree (That was Not a Tree)". The band also issued several numbers of their official fanzine, Prince the Wonder Dog which were given away at gigs. In the original song (Revenge of the)Phantom Agents
(based on the 1960s Japanese TV series), the band threw cardboard shuriken
into the audience. In 1980 Greg Smith wrote a rock opera, The Lift, in the vein of works such as Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
and rehearsed WT intensively in its performance; a more serious work, it bemused many WT fans and received one live performance only; it was issued as both a studio and live cassette-only album. One song from the work, "Stereotypists", was re-vamped as "The Aliens" and became a set staple. Worm Technology released several cassette-only albums including In Your Loungeroom (1985), containing two tracks imported from Ian Walker's side-project The Togs (which included WT band manager Rik Ford), and other songs including "Crimefighter" (sung as if by Batman
)and the popular "Wombats" (lyrics Blackmore) in which Blackmore cribbed his synth solo by segueing keyboard lines from songs by Iggy Pop
, Sherbet
and The Angels (Australian band)
. The band's later original repertoire tended to include a mix of catchy synth-driven pop songs such as "So Alone" and "Can't Stand the Pace", straightahead rock numbers such as "Can't You See","The Light" "Love Grows Cold", and "The Height of Love", reflective songs such as "The King is Dead", "No Fear", and "Set your Mind Right" and danceable numbers like the ska number "(Put it in a) Nutshell", most of which were penned entirely by Smith.
Worm Technology had several offshoot bands including Koga Ninja (named after the ninja
s from the 1960s TV show The Samurai
) in which the band members (Blackmore, Smith and Elliott) dressed up as ninjas; the band used synths and drum machines extensively. Koga Ninja released several cassette only live albums. Blackmore largely gave up music when Worm Technology broke up, to concentrate on his writing, although Astropop, a short-lived synth duo featuring Blackmore and Smith (which extended Worm Technology's late emphasis on extended synthesiser-based numbers such as "Samurai") had some success playing electronica
including Kraftwerk
covers but never recorded. Blackmore played drums in Post-Mortem (1987), a band which featured Ian Walker from Worm Technology and Brian Pember from Sydney new wave band Crossroad/Surprise, and a guitarist only remembered as Colin. Blackmore later performed with the short-lived experimental group White Stains (1990)with illustrator and viola-player Gavin O'Keefe
which released a cassette single "Acid Bath" (Blackmore/O'Keefe") backed with 'The Finger", a musical interpretation of William Burrough
's story about a man who cuts off his own finger. Blackmore resumed playing music semi-professionally only in 2009 with the formation of the Illawarra-based 'popstalgia' trio The Third Road in which he plays bass and sings.
for the H.P. Lovecraft Centennial Conference and as one of the Friends of Lovecraft group organised by S.T. Joshi, Jon Cooke and Will Murray,contributed financially to erecting the memorial plaque in honour of Lovecraft which was erected outside the John Hay Library
. Blackmore also spent time with writers Dennis Etchison
and William F. Nolan
in Los Angeles.
He worked as a bookseller in Sydney for 25 years (1979–2004), primarily managing specialist science fiction & fantasy departments within larger bookstores such as Dymocks.
, Blackmore co-edited Terror Australis
: The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine (1987–1992) and co-founded the Gargoyle Club: The Sydney Horror Writers and Artists Society, which included Sydney horror writers and artists including Gavin O'Keefe
, underground graphic novelists Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr; Rod Marsden, Don Boyd and others. The Gargoyle Club operated in Leichhardt, New South Wales
and Petersham until 1992, after which it moved to venues in inner city Sydney and was subsequently joined by writers such as David Carroll and Kyla Ward
. Terror Australis the magazine was followed by the anthology Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror
(1993), the first mass-market Australian horror anthology (edited by Blackmore alone). Leanne Frahm
's story "Catalyst" from the anthology won the Ditmar Award
for best Australian Short Fiction. Ditmar award results#Best Short Fiction 3
Jellyhedz in Sydney, though his primary political interests lay in the Situationist International, (especially the works of Guy Debord
); and the ontological anarchism of Hakim Bey. The works of Colin Wilson
became increasingly important to him (he interviewed Wilson in 1993) as did self-actualization and Timothy Leary
's Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness as promulgated in Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson
.
At this time he initiated various culture-jamming operations under the rubric of Thoughtcrimes (whose primary slogan was "Say No to the Drug of the Commonplace") and issued the zine
s Possibility: A Journal of the Interzone (its title cued from passages in the work of Samuel Beckett
and William S. Burroughs
) and Antics: A Journal ov Anti-Control. At the turn of the Millenium the Thoughtcrimes projects were continued under the rubric of Zeroism and the Zeroist Alliance, a form of post-Neoist agitprop. Blackmore is still an advocate of post-left anarchy
and immediatism.
He also worked with TOPY-Chaos, the Australian 'station' of Genesis P. Orridge's Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth
. Partly inspired by the track "Looking for the O.T.O." from Throbbing Gristle
's 1981 album Mission of Dead Souls
, Blackmore undertook extensive serious study of the works of Aleister Crowley
and became a practitioner of Thelema
.
After locating the O.T.O's Sydney body in 1993 and experiencing the Gnostic Mass
, Blackmore joined the then Oceania Oasis (now Oceania Lodge) of the Australian Ordo Templi Orientis
http://www.otoaustralia.org.au/, formally accepted The Book of the Law
(which he had first read in 1985), and became an O.T.O. initiate and an ordained Deacon of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica
. He has performed in a number of series of the Rites of Eleusis with the Australian O.T.O.
In 2001 he founded Aurora Australis Thelemic Temple as an independent Thelemic teaching & research body. His principle occult interests include alchemy
, Tarot
, Qabalah, English Qabala, Hermetica
, chaos magic
, archaeoastronomy
, Goetia
, Kenneth Grant
's Typhonian Order, the Zos Kia Cultus, Enochian
and the magic and art of Rosaleen Norton
.
ceremony which included readings from the Emerald Tablet
of Hermes, Liber AL and The Black Book of Carmarthen. However, the couple divorced in 2001. Vowles died in June 2009.
's Faculty of Creative Arts. He has guested as an expert on horror literature and film on TV programs in Australia including Ray Martin's Midday (television show), cable TV program The Graveyard Shift and Jennifer Byrne
Presents http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/video/podcast.htm and has been interviewed on Sydney's 2SER
radio in the same capacity. He became the second President of the Australian Horror Writers Association
in Sept 2010.
Blackmore is Editor of the Sword and Sorcery and Weird Fiction Terminus (SSFWT) amateur press association
(which has members in Australia, the UK, US, Sweden and Finland) and edits its online blog. He also contributes a regular zine
to S.T. Joshi's "Esoteric Order of Dagon" Amateur Press Association. He is also a member of the Australian Sherlock Holmes
society the Sydney Passengers, and of the C.G. Jung Society of Sydney. He is a regular panellist at science fiction conventions such as the annual Conflux (convention) in Canberra, and with Margi Curtis often runs workshops on esotericism and magick at these conventions.
Blackmore has written columns on Magick
and the occult (with poet, Reclaiming (Neopaganism)
witch and activist Margi Curtis) - "Arts of the Craft" (2005) for Spellcraft magazine and "Black Cauldron" (2008–2009) for Black: Australia's Dark Culture magazine (Brimstone Press
). He regularly lectures in the Illawarra NSW on Western esotericism, including (often with Curtis) running workshops and "Mystery Circle" discussion groups. He also co-facilitates MoonsKin, an eclectic ritual working group influenced principally by Reclaiming (Neopaganism)
founded in 2006. He works part-time as an I Ching
reader.
Blackmore is also an expert on the Pre-Raphaelite painters. The creative component of his Honours thesis was a 35,000 word ficto-critical novella on the relationship between Dante Gabriel Rossetti
and Elizabeth Siddall.
Blackmore operates his own business specialising in proofreading, copyediting and manuscript assessment. He is a member of the Society of Editors (N.S.W).
Australian Horror Writers Association
The Australian Horror Writers Association is a non-profit organisation that commenced in 2003 with the goal of providing a unified voice and sense of community for Australian writers of dark fiction and to further the development of dark fiction in Australia.-History:The AHWA built to some extent...
(2010–2011). His work has been nominated twice for the Ditmar Award
Ditmar Award
The Ditmar Award has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention to recognise achievement in Australian science fiction and science fiction fandom...
, once for fiction and once for criticism. It has been said that "His name is now synonymous with Australian horror." and that "Leigh Blackmore is to horror what Glenn A. Baker
Glenn A. Baker
Glenn A. Baker is an Australian journalist, commentator, and broadcaster well known in Australia for his vast knowledge of Rock music. He has written books and magazine articles on rock music and travel, interviewed celebrities, managed bands such as Ol' 55 and promoted tours of international stars...
is to rock and roll.
Youth
Leigh Blackmore was born in SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, New South Wales, the son of Rod
Rod Blackmore
Rodney David Blackmore , born 1935, was the Senior Children's Court Magistrate in NSW, Australia from 1978-1995. Both his father, Cecil Hargreaves Blackmore, and grandfather, Hugh Blackmore, served as NSW magistrates before him....
and Beth Blackmore. He was educated at North Sydney Boys High School
North Sydney Boys High School
North Sydney Boys High School is an academically selective, public high school for boys, located at Crows Nest in Sydney, Australia.- History :...
(1971–72)(see Old Falconians) and Newcastle Boys' High School
Newcastle Boys' High School
Newcastle Boys High School was a selective high school located in Waratah—a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.- History :Newcastle Boys High School was established in 1929 when the Hill High School was split into two selective single-sex schools, the other being Newcastle Girls High...
(now Callaghan College Technology Campus) (1972–76). His early hobbies included philately
Philately
Philately is the study of stamps and postal history and other related items. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting, which does not necessarily involve the study of stamps. It is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps...
and phillumeny. He read omnivorously from an early age, particularly the works of Geoffrey Willans
Geoffrey Willans
Herbert Geoffrey Willans , an English author and journalist, is best known as the co-creator, with the illustrator Ronald Searle, of Nigel Molesworth, the "goriller of 3b and curse of St. Custard's"....
, J.P. Martin
J.P. Martin
J. P. Martin was an English author best known for his Uncle series of children's stories.Martin was born in Scarborough in the county of Yorkshire in summer 1879 and became a Methodist minister in 1902 before serving as a missionary in South Africa and as an army chaplain in Palestine during the...
, Norman Hunter
Norman Hunter
Norman Hunter is a former English footballer who was a member of the Leeds United team of the 1960s and 1970s. He was also part of the 1966 FIFA World Cup winning squad, receiving a medal in 2007. He has since been included in the Football League 100 Legends...
and W.E. Johns.
In high school, he graduated to devouring the works of Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
, Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
, and Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris , born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, was a half-Chinese, half English author of primarily mystery fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint."-Early life:Charteris was born to a Chinese father...
, and became a keen enthusiast of sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...
fiction as represented by Lin Carter
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...
, Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
and others, and horror fiction (especially the Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
school, including Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...
, Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
, Frank Belknap Long
Frank Belknap Long
Frank Belknap Long was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to...
, Donald Wandrei
Donald Wandrei
Donald Albert Wandrei was an American science fiction, fantasy and weird fiction writer, poet and editor. He wrote as Donald Wandrei. He was the older brother of science fiction writer and artist Howard Wandrei...
and H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
), discovering their work via anthologies edited by August Derleth
August Derleth
August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
and Peter Haining
Peter Haining
Peter Alexander Haining was a British journalist, author and anthologist who lived and worked in Suffolk...
and via publications of Arkham House
Arkham House
Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
which he special-ordered via Space Age Books (Melbourne), then Australia's only specialist supplier of sf and fantasy books.
While at high school Blackmore co-founded the Arcane Sciences Society and the Horror-Fantasy Society; the journal of the societies, Cathuria (named after a place in Lovecraft's story The White Ship), was banned after three issues by Blackmore's high school principal for quoting in a review four-letter words used by the unleashed monster in Flesh Gordon
Flesh Gordon
Flesh Gordon is a 1974 American science fiction adventure comedy film. It is an erotic spoof of the Flash Gordon serial films from the 1930s. The screenplay was written by Michael Benveniste, who also co-directed the film with Howard Ziehm...
. Having corresponded with enthusiasts in the field such as Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley is an English horror fiction writer.Born in County Durham, he joined the British Army's Royal Military Police and wrote stories in his spare time before retiring with the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 in 1980 and becoming a professional writer.He added to H. P...
, Ramsey Campbell
Ramsey Campbell
John Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction author.Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T...
, Glenn Lord
Glenn Lord
Glenn Lord has been an agent, editor, and publisher of the prose and poetry of fellow Texan Robert E. Howard , and the first and most important researcher and scholar of Howard’s life and writings.- Biography :...
and W.H. Pugmire, he began (aged 13) to write fiction and speculative poetry
Speculative poetry
Also variously called science fiction poetry or SF poetry or fantastic poetry, speculative poetry is to poetry roughly what speculative fiction is to fiction. Speculative poetry is often published by the same markets that publish science fiction, fantasy and horror.Speculative poetry is not...
in the vein of Lovecraft and C.A. Smith. His earliest in-print appearances included Lovecraftian sonnets in The Arkham Sampler (new series). Blackmore was also a devotee of horror movies principally from the Hammer horror and Amicus Productions
Amicus Productions
Amicus Productions is a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England. It was founded by American producer and screenwriter Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.-Horror:...
era. Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
and William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
became lasting literary influences at this time.
Early interest in the world of sf fandom
Fandom
Fandom is a term used to refer to a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of sympathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest...
was evinced in Blackmore's attendance of Aussiecon
33rd World Science Fiction Convention
The 33rd World Science Fiction Convention, informally known as Aussiecon, was held in Melbourne, Australia, 14–17 August 1975, at the Southern Cross Hotel. Its guests of honour were Ursula K. Le Guin , Susan Wood , Mike Glicksohn , and Donald Tuck...
1 (the 33rd World Science Fiction Convention
33rd World Science Fiction Convention
The 33rd World Science Fiction Convention, informally known as Aussiecon, was held in Melbourne, Australia, 14–17 August 1975, at the Southern Cross Hotel. Its guests of honour were Ursula K. Le Guin , Susan Wood , Mike Glicksohn , and Donald Tuck...
and the first such held in Australia) in 1975 at the age of 15; he there met such figures as Forrest J. Ackerman and L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
. He also played judo
Judo
is a modern martial art and combat sport created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw or takedown one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an...
during high school in Sydney and Newcastle.
Blackmore also became interested in Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
through reading Moonchild (novel), Crowley's Confessions: An Autohagiography and the John Symonds
John Symonds
John Symonds was an English novelist, biographer, playwright and writer of children's books.- Early Life :...
biography The Great Beast. His other occult studies began with books by such authors as Paul Huson
Paul Huson
Paul Huson is a British-born author and artist currently living in the United States. In addition to writing several books about occultism and witchcraft he has worked extensively in the film and television industries.-Family:...
(on Tarot and witchcraft) and Idries Shah
Idries Shah
Idries Shah , also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi , was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen critically acclaimed books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.Born in India, the descendant of a...
(on Goetia
Goetia
refers to a practice which includes the invocation of angels or the evocation of demons, and usage of the term in English largely derives from the 17th century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon, which features an Ars Goetia as its first section...
) as well as June John's biography King of the Witches, on Alex Sanders
Alex Sanders (Wiccan)
Alex Sanders , born Orrell Alexander Carter, was an English occultist and High Priest in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, responsible for founding the tradition of Alexandrian Wicca during the 1960s. He was a figure who often appeared in tabloid newspapers...
.
Early career
Following stints at Macquarie UniversityMacquarie University
Macquarie University is an Australian public teaching and research university located in Sydney, with its main campus situated in Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of Sydney...
(where he belonged to the university's science fiction club and contributed to their zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
Telmar) and Sydney University (where he majored in Semitic Studies), Blackmore came in contact with Don Boyd, editor of Futuristic Tales. http://www.philsp.com/mags/sf_aust.html. Beginning a 25-year career as a bookseller in 1978, he then worked in his spare time as an editorial assistant on The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine
The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine
The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine was edited by Barry Radburn and Stephen Studach. It was published by Radburn's imprint Dark Press...
http://www.philsp.com/mags/sf_aust.html in the early 1980s and went on to publish and co-edit its successor, Terror Australis
Terror Australis
Terror Australis: the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine was Australia's first mass market horror magazine. It succeeded the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine edited by Barry Radburn and Stephen Studach and was the first magazine of its kind in Australia to pay authors...
magazine from 1987-1992. http://www.philsp.com/mags/sf_aust.html.
In the 1980s, Blackmore published bibliographies on Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley is an English horror fiction writer.Born in County Durham, he joined the British Army's Royal Military Police and wrote stories in his spare time before retiring with the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 in 1980 and becoming a professional writer.He added to H. P...
and H.P. Lovecraft (the latter in collaboration with S.T. Joshi). He came to be a highly regarded Lovecraft scholar,
and carried on correspondence with other Lovecraft fans in many countries including US, the UK, New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Russia.His first published story was "The Infestation", adapted for graphic form by Gavin O'Keefe
Gavin O'Keefe
-Early life:Born in Melbourne. Lived in Sydney from the early-1980s to 1990. During that period, his artwork was included in a variety of non-fiction books, science-fiction and horror magazine and other publications. His earliest covers were for books by Australian writers Jacob G...
and published in Phantastique, a comic which attracted notoriety (questions were asked in Australian Federal Parliament) for being government-funded via an Arts Council grant while containing visceral images and story content. http://www.tabula-rasa.info/AusComics/Phantastique.html
Worm Technology
In the late 1970s to mid 1980s Blackmore, who had classical piano training but was a fan of rock and pop from The BeatlesThe Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
to Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
, and had jammed with garage bands in his high school years in Newcastle, played synthesisers and drums (and occasionally sang) with Sydney New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
band Worm Technology and other bands. From a mixture of influences including prog and experimental rock, pop and punk, WT evolved their unique sound while living together in an old schoolhouse in Rozelle in Sydney. Blackmore had known Ian Walker in primary school; meanwhile Walker had befriended guitarist and synth wizard Greg Smith in high school. One of the earliest extant recordings by the band includes a reggae version of "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gumtree" (Kookaburra (song)), played strictly for laughs. A cassette-only album of punkish acoustic & vocal originals, If You Don't Care for Your Scalp You Get Rabies (1977) (its title taken from a line uttered by Terry Jones
Terry Jones
Terence Graham Parry Jones is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, children's author, popular historian, political commentator, and TV documentary host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team....
in the Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
episode "Mr Neutron"), performed by Blackmore, vocalist/lyricist Ian Walker and guitarist & synth expert Greg Smith, was released under the band name Tiploid Grundy and the Rabid Slime Moulds, while with Greg Smith, Blackmore initially concentrated on composing electronic music using sequencers, including the Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
and Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
-influenced Music for Bookshops (1979), and a concept-cycle,recorded to reel-to-reel tape, called The Guardian based on a collaborative story written by the two. The band stabilised as a four-piece rock band with live drums as Worm Technology though synth-based instrumentals such as "Africa" (Blackmore) often featured in their sets. Blackmore initially played electric organ, string machine and synthesiser, with Greg Smith as drummer and synth programmer, but Blackmore often drummed when Smith was playing guitar or bass; his drumming style was largely influenced by the Buzzcocks' John Mayer
John Mayer
John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...
. For a time Smith's girlfriend Myfanwy (Miffy) Ryan played violin with the band, but dropped out after a year. (Ryan has gone in recent years to play with such renowned Australian folk bands as Madd Marianne, Wongawilli Band, and Denizen).
WT initially played covers by the likes of 60s and 70s acts including Kevin Ayers
Kevin Ayers
Kevin Ayers is an English singer-songwriter and was a major influential force in the English psychedelic movement...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, The Troggs
The Troggs
The Troggs are an English rock band from the 1960s that had a number of hits in UK and the US. Their most famous songs include, "Wild Thing", "With a Girl Like You", and "Love Is All Around"...
, Them
Them (band)
Them were a Northern Irish band formed in Belfast in April 1964, most prominently known for the garage rock standard "Gloria" and launching singer Van Morrison's musical career...
, The Human Beinz
The Human Beinz
The Human Beinz is an American rock and roll / frat rock band from Youngstown, Ohio. Originally known as The Human Beingz, the band initially featured John "Dick" Belley , Joe "Ting" Markulin , Mel Pachuta and Gary Coates -Early career:The Beinz started in 1964 as The Premiers, launching their...
, Modern Lovers, Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
, Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, The Jam
The Jam
The Jam were an English punk rock/New Wave/mod revival band active during the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were formed in Woking, Surrey. While they shared the "angry young men" outlook and fast tempos of their punk rock contemporaries, The Jam wore smartly tailored suits rather than ripped...
and the Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks are an English punk rock band formed in Bolton in 1976, led by singer–songwriter–guitarist Pete Shelley.They are regarded as an important influence on the Manchester music scene, the independent record label movement, punk rock, power pop, pop punk and indie rock. They achieved commercial...
, and punkified medleys of old TV cartoon theme tunes such as Astroboy, Marine Boy
Marine Boy
Marine Boy was one of the first color anime cartoons to be shown in a dubbed form in the U.S., and later in Australia and the United Kingdom. It was originally produced in Japan as by Minoru Adachi and animation company Japan Tele-Cartoons. It was sold outside of Japan via K...
and Gigantor
Gigantor
Gigantor is an American adaptation of the anime version of Tetsujin 28-go, a manga by Mitsuteru Yokoyama released in 1956. It debuted on U.S. television in 1964. As with Speed Racer, the characters' original names were altered and the original series' violence was toned down for American viewers...
. Their deconstructed version of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, featuring Walker's famed one-note guitar solo on an amplified tin toy guitar bought from an op shop, preceded Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
's take on the same number.
But WT went on to perform mainly quirky originals, from "Here Come the Lonely Vegetables" to "Three Years on the Road", a country and western pisstake penned by Blackmore. Both Blackmore and Walker had both been particularly influenced by The Residents
The Residents
The Residents is an American art collective best known for avant-garde music and multimedia works. The first official release under the name of The Residents was in 1972, and the group has since released over sixty albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects and ten DVDs....
, The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
and by Lenny Kaye
Lenny Kaye
Lenny Kaye is an American guitarist, composer and writer who is best known as a member of the Patti Smith Group.- Early life :...
's Nuggets series of reissues, influences which skewed their pop sensibility. John Gardner was consistently the bass player throughout WT's existence; he never contributed lyrics or music. Rhythm guitarist Malcolm Elliott and second vocalist Peter Rodgers entered, left and re-entered the band lineup at different periods. The band played one early gig where Blackmore had briefly left, under the moniker "Leigh Blackmore's Rainbow". Elliott and Rodgers also contributed song lyrics, as did mixer Garry Ryan, all of which were put to music by Greg Smith. Elliott's "Slept-On Hair" and "Simulus Stimulus", Ryan's "Cry Laughing Clown", "Technical Suicide" and "Pilot", and Rodger's "Who Do We Think We Are?" were all popular elements of WT's set. Many of WT's early gigs were at church halls, as several of the band members were Christians.
Blackmore wrote many of their song lyrics ("Infidelity" was a Ramones-like favourite), some in collaboration with vocalist Ian Walker, though Walker often wrote alone - such lyrics as "Middle of the Road", "I See Your Life", "For You" and "Persona non Grata", with guitarist Greg Smith writing much of the music though Blackmore wrote both lyrics and music for such songs as "Teenage Slug", "Outerspaceville", "Love Wasn't Meant to be Easy", "Cryptic Rhythms", "Living for Today", "Futile Minds" and crowd favourite "Apathy". The band put strange twists on some of their covers, such as playing Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell
Glen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...
's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" as a Joy Division
Joy Division
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
-like number, and doing a rock version of the Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
/Cluster piece "Broken Head". Worm Technology played gigs at various inner-city venues such as the Vulcan Hotel, Strawberry Hills Hotel, Taverners Hill Hotel, The Rehearsal Room and the Sussex Hotel (popular as a venue for an Australian version of the 1980s mod revival
Mod Revival
The mod revival was a music genre and subculture that started in England in 1978 and later spread to other countries . The mod revival's mainstream popularity was relatively short, although its influence has lasted for decades...
and where skinheads would occasionally take to the stage) and also undertook tours including the 'We Are Not the New Dylan Tour' (1980) in which they played obscure NSW country towns, and the "Moo Cow Tour" in which they played in several Sydney milk-bars. The band often parodied currently voguish musical trends, as in "Dull Rappsville", a parody of early rap. Continuing their disdain of most rock posturing, the band played one tour with all members dressed as crooner Val Doonican
Val Doonican
Val Doonican is an Irish singer. From 1965 to 1986 he was a regular fixture on the BBC Television's schedule with The Val Doonican Show, which featured his own singing performances and a variety of guest artists...
, wearing cardigans and thick black spectacles. Lead vocalist Ian Walker's renowned stage act included using a toy rabbit owned in Blackmore's childhood as a prop for the song "Furry Animals", and standing on a chair throughout the song "The Tree (That was Not a Tree)". The band also issued several numbers of their official fanzine, Prince the Wonder Dog which were given away at gigs. In the original song (Revenge of the)Phantom Agents
Phantom Agents
The Phantom Agents , 1964-1966, was a Japanese action television series of 130 black and white episodes.The series was created by Tatsuo Yoshida. The Phantom Agents were modern day ninjas working for the Japanese government, mostly against the dastardly "Black Flag" organization...
(based on the 1960s Japanese TV series), the band threw cardboard shuriken
Shuriken
A shuriken is a traditional Japanese concealed weapon that was generally used for throwing, and sometimes stabbing or slashing...
into the audience. In 1980 Greg Smith wrote a rock opera, The Lift, in the vein of works such as Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
The Lamb Lies down on Broadway
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is a double concept album recorded and released in 1974 by the British rock band Genesis. It was their sixth studio album and the last album by the group to feature the involvement of lead singer Peter Gabriel.-Premise:...
and rehearsed WT intensively in its performance; a more serious work, it bemused many WT fans and received one live performance only; it was issued as both a studio and live cassette-only album. One song from the work, "Stereotypists", was re-vamped as "The Aliens" and became a set staple. Worm Technology released several cassette-only albums including In Your Loungeroom (1985), containing two tracks imported from Ian Walker's side-project The Togs (which included WT band manager Rik Ford), and other songs including "Crimefighter" (sung as if by Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
)and the popular "Wombats" (lyrics Blackmore) in which Blackmore cribbed his synth solo by segueing keyboard lines from songs by Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
, Sherbet
Sherbet (band)
Sherbet was one of the most prominent and successful Australian rock bands of the 1970s. Their biggest singles were "Summer Love" and "Howzat" , both reaching number one in Australia. "Howzat" was also a top 5 hit in the UK. Though the band's success in the U.S...
and The Angels (Australian band)
The Angels (Australian band)
The Angels are a hard rock band that formed in Adelaide, Australia in 1970. The band later relocated from Adelaide to Sydney and enjoyed huge local success until well into the 1990s. For the purposes of international release, their records were released under the names Angel City and later The...
. The band's later original repertoire tended to include a mix of catchy synth-driven pop songs such as "So Alone" and "Can't Stand the Pace", straightahead rock numbers such as "Can't You See","The Light" "Love Grows Cold", and "The Height of Love", reflective songs such as "The King is Dead", "No Fear", and "Set your Mind Right" and danceable numbers like the ska number "(Put it in a) Nutshell", most of which were penned entirely by Smith.
Worm Technology had several offshoot bands including Koga Ninja (named after the ninja
Ninja
A or was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations...
s from the 1960s TV show The Samurai
The Samurai (TV series)
The Samurai is a Japanese historical fiction television series made by Senkosha Productions during the early 1960s. Its original Japanese title was Onmitsu Kenshi . The series premiered in 1962 on TBS and ran continuously until 1965 for ten self-contained story arcs , usually of 13 episodes each...
) in which the band members (Blackmore, Smith and Elliott) dressed up as ninjas; the band used synths and drum machines extensively. Koga Ninja released several cassette only live albums. Blackmore largely gave up music when Worm Technology broke up, to concentrate on his writing, although Astropop, a short-lived synth duo featuring Blackmore and Smith (which extended Worm Technology's late emphasis on extended synthesiser-based numbers such as "Samurai") had some success playing electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
including Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
covers but never recorded. Blackmore played drums in Post-Mortem (1987), a band which featured Ian Walker from Worm Technology and Brian Pember from Sydney new wave band Crossroad/Surprise, and a guitarist only remembered as Colin. Blackmore later performed with the short-lived experimental group White Stains (1990)with illustrator and viola-player Gavin O'Keefe
Gavin O'Keefe
-Early life:Born in Melbourne. Lived in Sydney from the early-1980s to 1990. During that period, his artwork was included in a variety of non-fiction books, science-fiction and horror magazine and other publications. His earliest covers were for books by Australian writers Jacob G...
which released a cassette single "Acid Bath" (Blackmore/O'Keefe") backed with 'The Finger", a musical interpretation of William Burrough
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
's story about a man who cuts off his own finger. Blackmore resumed playing music semi-professionally only in 2009 with the formation of the Illawarra-based 'popstalgia' trio The Third Road in which he plays bass and sings.
The 1990's
In 1990 Blackmore travelled to ProvidenceProvidence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
for the H.P. Lovecraft Centennial Conference and as one of the Friends of Lovecraft group organised by S.T. Joshi, Jon Cooke and Will Murray,contributed financially to erecting the memorial plaque in honour of Lovecraft which was erected outside the John Hay Library
John Hay Library
The John Hay Library is the second oldest library on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Located on Prospect Street, opposite the Van Wickle Gates, it replaced the outgrown former library, now Robinson Hall, as the main library on the campus...
. Blackmore also spent time with writers Dennis Etchison
Dennis Etchison
Dennis William Etchison , is an American writer and editor of fantasy and horror fiction. Etchison refers to his own work as “rather dark, depressing, almost pathologically inward fiction about the individual in relation to the world.”Stephen King has called Dennis Etchison “one hell of a fiction...
and William F. Nolan
William F. Nolan
William Francis Nolan is an American author, who wrote stories in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. He is best known for coauthoring the novel Logan's Run, with George Clayton Johnson. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1976 horror film Burnt Offerings which starred Karen Black and...
in Los Angeles.
He worked as a bookseller in Sydney for 25 years (1979–2004), primarily managing specialist science fiction & fantasy departments within larger bookstores such as Dymocks.
Terror Australis and the Gargoyle Club
With Christopher Sequeira and Bryce J. StevensBryce J. Stevens
Bryce John Stevens is a horror writer/artist.Between 1987 and 1992 he co-edited, , Terror Australis: The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine...
, Blackmore co-edited Terror Australis
Terror Australis
Terror Australis: the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine was Australia's first mass market horror magazine. It succeeded the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine edited by Barry Radburn and Stephen Studach and was the first magazine of its kind in Australia to pay authors...
: The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine (1987–1992) and co-founded the Gargoyle Club: The Sydney Horror Writers and Artists Society, which included Sydney horror writers and artists including Gavin O'Keefe
Gavin O'Keefe
-Early life:Born in Melbourne. Lived in Sydney from the early-1980s to 1990. During that period, his artwork was included in a variety of non-fiction books, science-fiction and horror magazine and other publications. His earliest covers were for books by Australian writers Jacob G...
, underground graphic novelists Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr; Rod Marsden, Don Boyd and others. The Gargoyle Club operated in Leichhardt, New South Wales
Leichhardt, New South Wales
Leichhardt is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. Leichhardt is located 5 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt...
and Petersham until 1992, after which it moved to venues in inner city Sydney and was subsequently joined by writers such as David Carroll and Kyla Ward
Kyla Ward
-Biography:Ward was born in New South Wales, Australia. She attended the University of Technology, Sydney where she gained a BA in communications.-Writing:Ward was first published in 1994 with her poem "Mary" which was featured in the magazine Bloodsongs...
. Terror Australis the magazine was followed by the anthology Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror
Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror
Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror was Australia's first original mass-market horror anthology for adults. It was edited by Leigh Blackmore....
(1993), the first mass-market Australian horror anthology (edited by Blackmore alone). Leanne Frahm
Leanne Frahm
Leanne Frahm is an Australian writer of speculative short fiction.-Biography:Frahm was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 1946. She received her first nomination for her work in 1978 when she was a finalist for the 1979 Ditmar Award for best fan writer. The following year she won the best...
's story "Catalyst" from the anthology won the Ditmar Award
Ditmar Award
The Ditmar Award has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention to recognise achievement in Australian science fiction and science fiction fandom...
for best Australian Short Fiction. Ditmar award results#Best Short Fiction 3
Anarchism, TOPY, Thoughtcrimes and the O.T.O.
In the early 1990s Blackmore was involved with the anarchist scene around Jura Books http://jura.org.au/ and the squatters collectiveCollective
A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project to achieve a common objective...
Jellyhedz in Sydney, though his primary political interests lay in the Situationist International, (especially the works of Guy Debord
Guy Debord
Guy Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International . He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.-Early Life:Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931...
); and the ontological anarchism of Hakim Bey. The works of Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
Colin Henry Wilson is a prolific English writer who first came to prominence as a philosopher and novelist. Wilson has since written widely on true crime, mysticism and other topics. He prefers calling his philosophy new existentialism or phenomenological existentialism.- Early biography:Born and...
became increasingly important to him (he interviewed Wilson in 1993) as did self-actualization and Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison...
's Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness as promulgated in Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson , known to friends as "Bob", was an American author and polymath who became at various times a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic...
.
At this time he initiated various culture-jamming operations under the rubric of Thoughtcrimes (whose primary slogan was "Say No to the Drug of the Commonplace") and issued the zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
s Possibility: A Journal of the Interzone (its title cued from passages in the work of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
and William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
) and Antics: A Journal ov Anti-Control. At the turn of the Millenium the Thoughtcrimes projects were continued under the rubric of Zeroism and the Zeroist Alliance, a form of post-Neoist agitprop. Blackmore is still an advocate of post-left anarchy
Post-left anarchy
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchism's relationship to traditional leftism. Some post-leftists seek to escape the confines of ideology in general also presenting a critique of organizations and morality...
and immediatism.
He also worked with TOPY-Chaos, the Australian 'station' of Genesis P. Orridge's Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth
Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth
Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth or TOPY was a fellowship founded in 1981 by members of Psychic TV, Coil, Current 93, and a number of other individuals...
. Partly inspired by the track "Looking for the O.T.O." from Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle were an English industrial, avant-garde music and visual arts group that evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions...
's 1981 album Mission of Dead Souls
Mission of Dead Souls
Mission of Dead Souls is a recording of the final performance of Throbbing Gristle before their initial breakup. The concert took place in San Francisco on May 29, 1981....
, Blackmore undertook extensive serious study of the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
and became a practitioner of Thelema
Thelema
Thelema is a religious philosophy that was established, defined and developed by the early 20th century British writer and ceremonial magician, Aleister Crowley. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a religious experience that he had in Egypt in 1904...
.
After locating the O.T.O's Sydney body in 1993 and experiencing the Gnostic Mass
Gnostic Mass
A Gnostic Mass is a religious Mass administered by a Gnostic church. Several such churches exist, each with its own Gnostic version of the Mass. Some of these are:* Ecclesia Gnostica celebrates a Gnostic traditional Mass called The Gnostic Holy Eucharist...
, Blackmore joined the then Oceania Oasis (now Oceania Lodge) of the Australian Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis is an international fraternal and religious organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century...
http://www.otoaustralia.org.au/, formally accepted The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
(which he had first read in 1985), and became an O.T.O. initiate and an ordained Deacon of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica
Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica
Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica , or the Gnostic Catholic Church, is the ecclesiastical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis , an international fraternal initiatory organization devoted to promulgating the Law of Thelema. Thelema is a philosophical, mystical and religious system elaborated by Aleister Crowley,...
. He has performed in a number of series of the Rites of Eleusis with the Australian O.T.O.
In 2001 he founded Aurora Australis Thelemic Temple as an independent Thelemic teaching & research body. His principle occult interests include alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
, Tarot
Tarot
The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...
, Qabalah, English Qabala, Hermetica
Hermetica
The Hermetica are Greek wisdom texts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, mostly presented as dialogues in which a teacher, generally identified with Hermes Trismegistus or "thrice-greatest Hermes", enlightens a disciple...
, chaos magic
Chaos magic
Chaos magic is a school of the modern magical tradition which emphasizes the pragmatic use of belief systems and the creation of new and unorthodox methods.-General principles:...
, archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy is the study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky how they used phenomena in the sky and what role the sky played in their cultures." Clive Ruggles argues it is misleading to consider archaeoastronomy to be the study of ancient astronomy, as modern...
, Goetia
Goetia
refers to a practice which includes the invocation of angels or the evocation of demons, and usage of the term in English largely derives from the 17th century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon, which features an Ars Goetia as its first section...
, Kenneth Grant
Kenneth Grant
Kenneth Grant was a British occultist, novelist, and poet, who with his partner, the artist Steffi Grant, headed the magical order previously known as the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis but which is now referred to as the Typhonian Order.-Occult background:Grant's occult experiences began in 1939...
's Typhonian Order, the Zos Kia Cultus, Enochian
Enochian
Enochian is a name often applied to an occult or angelic language recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his seer Edward Kelley in the late 16th century. The men claimed that it was revealed to them by angels...
and the magic and art of Rosaleen Norton
Rosaleen Norton
Rosaleen "Roie" Norton , who used the craft name of Thorn, was an Australian artist and occultist, in the latter capacity adhering to a form of pantheistic Neopagan Witchcraft or Wicca which was devoted to the god Pan...
.
Marriage
Blackmore married fellow bookseller and Neopagan Glayne Louise Vowles, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1994, in 1999 in a HermeticHermeticism
Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
ceremony which included readings from the Emerald Tablet
Emerald Tablet
The Emerald Tablet, also known as Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes, is a text purporting to reveal the secret of the primordial substance and its transmutations...
of Hermes, Liber AL and The Black Book of Carmarthen. However, the couple divorced in 2001. Vowles died in June 2009.
Current career
Blackmore currently resides in Wollongong, NSW where he has been a Guest Lecturer on science fiction, fantasy and horror for the University of WollongongUniversity of Wollongong
The University of Wollongong is a public university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney...
's Faculty of Creative Arts. He has guested as an expert on horror literature and film on TV programs in Australia including Ray Martin's Midday (television show), cable TV program The Graveyard Shift and Jennifer Byrne
Jennifer Byrne
-Early life:Byrne attended St Margaret's School, Melbourne as a boarding student, and began her career in journalism at age 16 as a cadet at Melbourne's The Age newspaper. At age 23 she became the paper's San Francisco correspondent, and later a feature writer....
Presents http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/video/podcast.htm and has been interviewed on Sydney's 2SER
2SER
2SER is a community radio station in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, broadcasting on the frequency 107.3 FM and is a member of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia. The station operates as a company limited by guarantee and is jointly owned by Macquarie University and the...
radio in the same capacity. He became the second President of the Australian Horror Writers Association
Australian Horror Writers Association
The Australian Horror Writers Association is a non-profit organisation that commenced in 2003 with the goal of providing a unified voice and sense of community for Australian writers of dark fiction and to further the development of dark fiction in Australia.-History:The AHWA built to some extent...
in Sept 2010.
Blackmore is Editor of the Sword and Sorcery and Weird Fiction Terminus (SSFWT) amateur press association
Amateur press association
An amateur press association is a group of people who produce individual pages or magazines that are sent to a Central Mailer for collation and distribution to all members of the group.-Organisation:...
(which has members in Australia, the UK, US, Sweden and Finland) and edits its online blog. He also contributes a regular zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
to S.T. Joshi's "Esoteric Order of Dagon" Amateur Press Association. He is also a member of the Australian Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
society the Sydney Passengers, and of the C.G. Jung Society of Sydney. He is a regular panellist at science fiction conventions such as the annual Conflux (convention) in Canberra, and with Margi Curtis often runs workshops on esotericism and magick at these conventions.
Blackmore has written columns on Magick
Magick
Magick is an Early Modern English spelling for magic, used in works such as the 1651 translation of De Occulta Philosophia, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, or Of Magick...
and the occult (with poet, Reclaiming (Neopaganism)
Reclaiming (neopaganism)
Reclaiming is an international community of women and men working to combine earth-based spirituality and political activism. Its predecessor organization, the Reclaiming Collective, was founded in 1979 by two Neopagan women of Jewish descent, Starhawk and Diane Baker, in order to explore and...
witch and activist Margi Curtis) - "Arts of the Craft" (2005) for Spellcraft magazine and "Black Cauldron" (2008–2009) for Black: Australia's Dark Culture magazine (Brimstone Press
Brimstone Press
Brimstone Press was an Australian independent publisher of dark fiction . Brimstone Press was established in 2004 by Angela Challis and Shane Jiraiya Cummings and was based in Western Australia....
). He regularly lectures in the Illawarra NSW on Western esotericism, including (often with Curtis) running workshops and "Mystery Circle" discussion groups. He also co-facilitates MoonsKin, an eclectic ritual working group influenced principally by Reclaiming (Neopaganism)
Reclaiming (neopaganism)
Reclaiming is an international community of women and men working to combine earth-based spirituality and political activism. Its predecessor organization, the Reclaiming Collective, was founded in 1979 by two Neopagan women of Jewish descent, Starhawk and Diane Baker, in order to explore and...
founded in 2006. He works part-time as an I Ching
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
reader.
Blackmore is also an expert on the Pre-Raphaelite painters. The creative component of his Honours thesis was a 35,000 word ficto-critical novella on the relationship between Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...
and Elizabeth Siddall.
Blackmore operates his own business specialising in proofreading, copyediting and manuscript assessment. He is a member of the Society of Editors (N.S.W).
Award nominations
| Year | Award | Work | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Ditmar Award Ditmar Award The Ditmar Award has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention to recognise achievement in Australian science fiction and science fiction fandom... |
"Uncharted" | Best Novella | Nomination |
| 2010 | Ditmar Award | "Marvels and Horrors: Terry Dowling Terry Dowling Terence William Dowling, born at Lystra Private Hospital , is an Australian writer, freelance journalist, award-winning critic, editor, game designer and reviewer... 's Clowns at Midnight |
William Atheling Award for Criticism | bgcolor="ffdddd"| Nomination |