Dave Tomlin passed away on 2 November 2024. R.I.P. dear friend!

 

Dave Tomlin (left) and Steve Pank in London, Summer 2010 (photo: Luca Chino Ferrari)

 

 

 

This is a very sad news for all of us!

Sadly Dave passed away today, age 90.
One of a kind will be missed by all who knew him.

With these few words, Dave's brother Tony gave us the sad news in a page of IT-International Times.

I got to know Dave years ago through Steve Pank (cellist Ursula Smith's husband)  and I met him in London for some interviews published in this archive. He was a cultured, clever, funny, brilliant person, an inexhaustible source about a lot of countercultural events in the 60's and 70's. His books are unique, fundamental documents for any researchers and lovers of the British underground scene. 

"Tales from the Embassy," published from 2002 in three different volumes, was probably his greatest effort to tell the story of his life in the Cambodian embassy occupied by him and a group of friends to create a kind of free university on the legendary model of the London Free School. Thanks to Dave, in 1987 at the Cambodian Embassy Glen Sweeney brought together for rehearsals the first nucleus of the reborn Third Ear Band with Dave's protégé Allen Samuel on violin.

 

Author of countless articles, mainly on the IT web site,  he wrote many books. Among them, I love particularly that one he edited on his friend Harry Fainlight, an underrated poet (1935-1982): this book ("Fragments of a Lost Voice," Iconoclast Press, London 2010) is a genial philological-creative reconstruction of two lost fragments of poetry found by chance. Also his autobiographical novel "India Song", published by Iconoclast press in 2005, is a masterpiece of sensitivity and intelligence.

It was Dave who introduced me to the controversial story of piano player Mike Taylor, prompting me to write what to date is the only existing biography ("Out of Nowhere," published by Gonzo Multimedia in 2015). It was only thanks to him and his brother Tony that I succeeded, and I will be forever grateful to them  for this extraordinary opportunity. 

I will miss him a lot!

Here below the main pages of this archive where Dave is mentioned: 

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-edition-of-book-on-poet-harry.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/01/dave-tomlins-lark-rise-origins-cultural.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/07/dave-tomlins-pendulum-real-cameo-in-his.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/02/dave-tomlins-new-book-out.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2013/03/dave-tomlin-analyzes-for-us-two-his.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2019/04/radical-elders-dave-tomlin.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/02/thanks-to-journalist-andy-roberts-i.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2017/05/dave-tomlins-forthcoming-new-book.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/06/ive-left-my-heart-in-new-orleans-dawn.html

Me and Dave in London, 2010 (photo: Steve Pank).

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