This mix takes you, the listener, on a journey, to a place (USA) and a time (late 60's - early 70's, except for Spirit who never left there) where imagination and hope came face to face with the cold hard facts of life on this crazy place we call Earth.
I'm an open-minded guy and hardly a cynic. I reckon anything is possible, good, bad or indifferent. I don't doubt the possibility of Flying Teapots, or fairies at the bottom of the garden (sorry Richard & Bertrand), but the dream of changing the world is something far more tangible, "Only a fool would say that...". Meditation is cool, finding your true self, yay! Anything that sets you on the path of being a better person and helping make the world a better place is groovy. The trouble is...life gets in the way, humans are screwy, I know, cause I'm screwy. So far, every attempt the human race has tried to forge a utopian future has failed, crumbled, turned stupid.
There was never a 'Summer of Love', that was just a bunch of rich brats, who didn't have to hold down a job to eat. Everyone else was getting up early and working in a factory. Sure, there were a lot of weekend hippies, but they didn't have much time for peace and love, it was just a look, a look that usually got them beat up. Hardly anyone went to San Francisco and put flowers in their hair, if they did they mostly ended up homeless and drug fucked.. Pot, acid, speed, heroin. I know, the gateway myth. I didn't get much past pot, but that's me. But read up on the real trip...man, Jerry Garcia wasn't tripping on Owsley fairy dust, he was drooping on China White. Kesey wanted the kids to go to the next level because the tests weren't working any more. Nixon and Reagan were on the rampage. Freakin' riots everywhere. Of course people went all fetal, hugging their inner flower (some are still), things were super freaky, everyone was getting too strung out, leaders were being shot...be careful of the brown acid...Helter Skelter.
So what I'm sayin' is, don't believe the hype, sure some (white) people had a groovy time for a while, when they weren't being kicked out of home, hassled by police, rednecks and the Hell's Angels, avoiding being selected and dragged away to Vietnam to kill people. It was a drag man. Sure, sometimes that's when you have the most fun, when things are the craziest. I don't think it was totally a bad time and I don't think that nothing was achieved and that the movements didn't cause a ripple effect that we still are benefiting from today. A lot of what those kids and went through and achieved was crucial to the fabric of life as we know it. Also, a lot of what happened is the neon sign the Right points to, so as to show examples of why the Left is stupid and has never worked.
It's complicated.
So, here is the music. It's like, how does it feel, to be out on your own, a complete unknown, like a rolling stone? Here we have the misfits and the runaways, it's the bummer in the summer. Some, with a gun in their hand, or a machine gun, steering clear of Babylon, but going nowhere.
Check out the deep LINK
1. Spirit - Hey Joe - Spirit of '76 - Phonogram
2. Jimi Hendrix, Band of Gypsys - Machine Gun - * - Polydor/Capitol/Sony etc
3. Love* - Singing Cowboy - Four Sail - Elektra
4. The Sir Douglas Quintet - Pretty Flower - 1+1+1=4 - Philips
5. Kaleidoscope - Lie To Me - S/T - Epic
6. Dr John - Babylon - Babylon - ATCO
7. Garry Higgins - Looking For June - Red Hash - Drag City
8. Silver Apples - Confusion - Contact - Kapp
9. Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone - Royal Albert Hall Concert - Columbia
10. Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention - Trouble Comin' Every Day - Freak Out! - Verve (mostly)
11. The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - A Child of a Few Hours is Burning to Death - Vol.3 A Child's Guide To Good & Evil - Reprise
12. The Lemon Pipers - Through With You - Green Tambourine - Buddah
13. Louie and The Lovers - Driver Go Slow - Rise - Epic
14. Moby Grape - Going Nowhere - 1969 - Columbia / Sundazed
1* Appears on the 'Band of Gypsys' album, ' Soundtrack Recordings From the Film Jimi Hendrix' and the 'Songs For Groovy Children' box set
2* It was often quipped at the band that should have been called 'Hate'
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