Harvey Kubernik's "MORE YOU KNOW" September Interview With Travis Edward Pike Is Online

December 5, 2016 - The UGLY THINGS cover singles out some of the bands and artists featured in their Winter 2016-17 issue, including the two pieces by pop culture historian Harvey Kubernik; a Turtles article in which he interviews founder and lead singer Howard Kaylan, and co-founder, vocalist and songwriter Mark Volman; and the interview with our own sixties rocker and Hollywood multi-hyphenate, Travis Pike.

With all the excitement generated by the Kubernik – Pike interview about Pike's 1964-1974 career as a poet, storyteller, singer, and songwriter, published in the Winter 2016-17 issue of UGLY THINGS, the September "MORE YOU KNOW" interview about Pike's 40-years, post rock 'n' roll, contributions to the entertainment industry, published on the Otherworld Cottage website, has been largely overlooked, so while we wait for the new UGLY THINGS issue to hit the newsstands, this seems an excellent time to revisit that September interview.

Pike's transition from music to film was not so much a new venture, as a return to an earlier one. In 1961-62, still in high school, Pike finished writing his first screenplay, a musical fantasy that over the ensuing years evolved into the non-musical epic adventure of LONG-GRIN, the story of the legendary Arthurian dragon that may have inspired the image of the dragon on the flag of Wales. The tale of the red-backed, scaly, black-bellied, tusked, bat-winged dragon has its own website, and is slated for adaptation into a series of novels.

Pike is currently adapting his 1987 MORNINGSTONE screenplay into a novel. It evolved from Pike's unpublished 1974 rock opera, CHANGELING, and now has its own website, and a CD production of the MORNINGSTONE MUSIC is available online.

A 20th anniversary HD version of Pike's live performance of his critically acclaimed, award-winning epic narrative rhyme, GRUMPUSS, taped live at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England, as a benefit for the UK Save the Children Fund, is due for release this Spring. Its 15th Anniversary Audio Theater Edition CD is already on the market, and its fascinating website is well-worth a visit.

Kubernik's "MORE YOU KNOW" interview also explores Pike's lesser known achievements, including his work with Orson Welles, who voiced passages of Wagner's diary in the foreign documentary "WAGNER E VENEZIA;" and Pike's work on the English language dub of Ingmar Bergman's multiple Academy Award-winning "FANNY AND ALEXANDER," which is probably why, until quite recently, Pike has been more frequently introduced as a Hollywood multi-hyphenate, than a sixties rocker.

Pike's websites are maintained by, and linked to Otherworld Cottage Industries, which also hosts Kubernik's Korner.