Great God Pan

Dudes are all into soft psych, sunshine pop, and whatever these days. Those English reissue labels can’t transfer the vinyl to CD fast enough. Of course a lot of that stuff bites and that’s why we’re happy that Pet Records is around to separate the wheat from the chaff. We recently came across this interview with one of the heads behind the Soft Sounds for Gentle People compilations. It was apparently done by some dude for a zine but he never printed it, so we found it laying around and decided to run it here.
If you haven’t heard SSFGP Vols. 1-4 (and the spinoffs He and She and Mystic Males) then you owe it to yourself to head over to Amoeba or Forced Exposure and pick up a few.

Q: How did you guys get the idea for the compilations ?

Pet: That was just the kind of music we liked. Most of these songs on the comps were produced to be hits with top-notch producers in high tit studios, that’s why they’re so good. They’re not just some kids wanking off in the garage, which is fine too, but that scene’s been pretty well documented by now.

Q: Where do you find most of the songs for the comps? 7"s ? Old obscure compilations?

Pet: All of the songs come from original 45s, LPs, or forgotten master tapes.

Q: Any story behind the name of the label? Pet Records?

Pet: Just our appreciation for animals in general. A long time ago Sky Saxon, or Sunlight as he was known by then, hepped me to the importance of animals in the big picture. Of course I’ve always had a nice cat or dog that I loved on the personal level. With my love and his concern, what else could we call it? Besides, our two other top choices, Centaur and Succulent were both taken.

Q: How has the response been so far to the CDs?

Pet: Well they’re for a small audience so that small audience wants them and they find them. We do very small press runs and they go away fast.

Q: What has been the oddest request or response so far?

Pet: We don’t get that many. Some people suggest certain songs or bands, but we pretty much have our own vision.

Q: Has anyone from the bands contacted you yet or vice versa?

Pet: Sure, a couple people. But mostly they’re salesmen or accountants by now and not really shopping for CD comps of young people music.

Q: What band has, in your opinion, been the most obscure one yet?

Pet: I think that Sunshine guy from Texas (on Mystic Males). It’s hard to research somebody named just Sunshine.

Q: What labels or other compilations would you cite as an influence?

Pet: I liked those Aussie comps Ugly Things a lot as a kid. Life is Ugly/Beautiful were real ggod, Flex Your Head, those pre-Krautrock ones. As for labels, Subliminal Frequencies, World Pacific, Narco, Takoma, early Windham Hill, Children’s Village all come to mind.

Q: What, if anything, do you hope to accomplish with the label?

Pet: Accomplishment is too material. We’d like to reach a higher plane.

Q: What's next for the label?

Pet: Extended meditation and puja performing. Then it’s back to work with Sounds of She, Mystic Males 2, more of the same. Some folks split off and are doing something called Kandel Records. They’re gonna issue the complete Felicity Facility story, and maybe some unreleased stuff from a certain L.A. sitar-based jazz group from the late ‘60s. Top secret stuff. Oh yeah, and the Who Am I? thing, a comp of New Energy related outfits like the Beagulls and the Growth Ring.

Q: Top 10 desert island discs ?

If you asked me today, I’d say…
Da Capo-Little Wing
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh-The Alchemy of Celebration
Serge Franklin-Free Sitar
Malachi-Holy Music
Dennis Ryder-Let Me Take You to the Kingdom
Joakim Skogsberg-Jola Rota
Markley-A Group
Grace Slick/Paul Kantner-Sunfighter
Lee Baggett/Little Wings-Octember Sketches/Harvest Joy
Agitation Free-Malesch

Posted by Erik at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last year Mammoth Lakes police officer Sergeant Paul Dostie took his human remains detection dog Buster up to the Barker Ranch above the Panamint Valley where Charles Manson and his cohorts were captured in 1969. The dog honed in on two sites where Dostie claims there's a possibility of human remains being buried. Whose remains? According to forty-year-old hearsay and other dubious sources, there were at least two individuals who visited Barker Ranch and disappeared. "One was a girl who wasn’t really fitting in at the Ranch, and was taken for a walk by Manson and Tex [Watson]. According to the stories, she allegedly never came back. The second story is of a boy who was backpacking the length of Death Valley and stopped at the Barker Ranch for a few nights. The boy disappeared, but left all his gear behind. When one family member asked Clem Grogan, another family member, where the boy was, Clem is reported to have said, 'He got homesick.'" Other than stank, so far no remains have turned up.

The current interest in uncovering a secret high desert sepulcher actually started in 1998 when self-proclaimed Family hanger-on Larry "White Rabbit" Melton led Inyo County Sherriffs on a treasure hunt for a victim he saw murdered and buried just outside the kitchen window of the dilapidated ranch house back in the Family's glory days. No body was ever found and Melton later claimed he "purposefully misled" the searchers.

Last year however, the fuzz was better prepared. Aiding Buster in his search were four other Historic Grave Detection dogs. Even the media got involved. TV crews from the Discovery Channel with nothing better to discover, drove up from Hollywood to film the hunt. They plan to air it as an episode of their "Most Evil" series. Presumably the other episodes will deal with such other notorious bad guys as the Hillside Strangler, Donald Trump, and Dick Cheney.

Dostie's pretty sure there’s something down there. Buster’s a pro. He’s been cramming for years on the specifics of human remains detection, using human placentas as well as human bones as learning aids. "The surgeons at Mammoth Hospital have been very helpful, and patients sign release forms so that he can receive the femur heads from total hip replacements to train Buster," explained Dostie to the Mammoth Times. Buster's sense of smell is so refined that he can pick up on the remains of a carcass several hundred years old, which unfortunately for this investigation means that what Buster's so fired up about could just as likely be a dead Indian as a dead hippy.

Posted by Erik at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Governor Schwarzenegger's latest fix for California's budget crisis is to shut down 48 state parks to save money on upkeep and staffing. The possible closures include Tomales Bay, San Simeon, Topanga, and Will Rogers. At the same time he plans to hire guards to keep the pesky public out. Though many are saying 'ol Arnie's proposal is just a bluff, the mere thought of such actions should make even the most level-headed resident feel like chucking this clown right out of the state. This is public land, bro, not some sort of leverage dealie. And IF it does come down to this, I'd like to see a lot of you brothers and sisters out there in those closed parks, picnicking, hiking, whatever, just USING your rightful public land and thumbing your nose at any government stooges who try to stop you. Meanwhile some jokers think that CHARGING people to use this land is the answer. Are you serious? For one thing, most of them already do, for parking or camping fees. Where's that money going? As for the rest, after selling off and plowing over just about every inch of natural landscape, you're going to make us pay to walk around on the few acres that don't have crappy subdivisions or shopping mall parking lots spread over them? You’ve got to be kidding me.

If that weren't enough to inspire a new batch of Terminate the Terminator bumper stickers than here's the latest news from Sacto. Yesterday Schwarzenegger announced his support of the OC tollway that'll cut right through San Onofre State Park—against the recommendation of the State Park and Recreation Commission and just about every Californian who thinks things like clean beaches and open public areas are more important than fastlanes for SUVs and lining the pockets of freeway building entrepreneurs. "I have concluded that this project is essential to protect our environment and the quality of life for everyone in California," Schwarzenegger said in a letter to the Coastal Commission. So accepting the misleadingly-named Transportation Corridor Agency's kickback to put new trashcans in the park is going to make up for the fact that one of the region's last unobstructed deltas and a major animal right-of-way are soon going to be bisected by a deafening river of smog and concrete?

I say send the fool an email and tell him that closing our public parks is not an option. And remind him that in the old days, if you hired someone to keep tabs on your budget and he fucked it up this bad he'd be out on his ass, not jocking around Malibu on a poser Harley. And while you're at the computer, let him know that you’d like his developer buddies to keep their money-grubbing mits off San O, and that he ought to know (being the Conservative he claims to be) that putting less cars on the roads we have (through public transportation, carpooling, etc.) is the solution not only to gridlock, but for keeping California golden the way it ought to be.

Posted by Erik at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stumbling around on the interweb looking for an old Robbie Basho interview on KPFA I found this instead, an unbelievable radio segment in which Other Minds host Charles Amirkhanian reports on The Expanded Ear music conference, held on April 27-29, 1973 at the Camp de Benneville Pines, in the San Bernardino National Forest. The highlight of the conference was the Six Acre Jam, performed over a hillside by about 60 musicians and no less than ten synthesizers. Join Charles as he takes a walk through the woods interviewing performers and composers, including Richard Bunger, Barry Gott, Jacques Bekaert, Nicolas Slonimsky & Dane Rudhyar, all while the sounds of music echo from the surrounding wilderness.

Posted by Erik at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Though they may not be all that well known outside of record shop beardo circles and flashback chat groups, psychedelic rock group the Hobbits deserve a prime spot in the American music annals for defining a more “grown-up” take on the era’s free love ethos, and for somehow straddling that greasy balance beam separating the Poppy Family from Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.

Actually, the credit really belongs to Hobbits front-man and all-around tireless troubadour Jimmy Curtiss. Like his show biz colleagues Dion and Bobby Darin, Jimmy Curtiss rose from humble doo-wop beginnings to the astral heights of counterculture commentator during the turbulent ‘60s. Transitioning seamlessly from his teenage David and Goliath–ode “Five Smooth Stones,” to the weightier fare like “Let Me Run My Fingers Through Your Mind” and “Psychedelic Situation,” Curtiss never let AM deejays catch him sleeping. By ’69 young Jimmy had raked in enough scratch from Jimmie Rodgers’ version of his surprisingly-depressing-for-a-hit-song, “Child of Clay,” that he up and started his own vanity label… Perception Records. . . and put out a pretty decent solo record under the mysteriously familiar initials of “JC.”

Besides featuring one of the nicest four-color labels in rock history (a non-exclusive prism with the color brown in it), Perception gets credit for bringing the world great records like Back from Middle Earth by the New Hobbits (not to be confused with the Old Hobbits), as well as a peculiar collection by Tom Sullivan, a blind rock and roll pianist (who’d of thunk it?) with a penchant for bombastically apocalyptic environmental songs and perfectly combed hair.

Around the turn of the decade, Curtiss fell heavy for the Native American trip. Where his motivation came from is unclear. Posited one German fan on his blog, “His real name might be Curtiz or Cortez or something like that, because the rare photos of the man, that I've seen, point to a Latin-American or Spanish origin.” That dubious sleuthing aside, there just may’ve been some new world blood a’mingling with the old, cuz Jimmy turned out to be one helluva scout.

His first discovery was Teina, a dark-skinned fox of indefinite ethnic descent and the treacley voice of a sure thing. Teina’s sole offering, Touched by the Sun, showcased the young beauty, decked out in beaded garb and cradling what appears to be a stuffed (maybe it’s just sleeping) eagle against a Santa Fe sunset backdrop. The music was smooth, vaguely psychedelic soul dealing with themes of abandonment, unfairness towards her people, and stuff like that. As impressive as it was, the Teina LP was merely a warmup for the indigenous dirty bomb that Curtiss was about to drop on the handful of record-buying young people that actually followed Perception’s sporadic release schedule.

Continue reading "Little Big Men" »

Posted by Erik at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Some of you may have already picked up the latest Ugly Things magazine in which our pal David Biasotti uncovers the amazing journey of guitar raga-pioneer Pat Kilroy and his short-lived group, The New Age. After Kilroy's 1966 Light of Day album flew right over the heads of most heads, he re-teamed up with flautist/etc. Susan Graubard as The New Age—palling around with the Fish and performing at S.F.'s Human Be-In and The Jabberwock in Berkeley. RD Records has just released the sessions they did for Warner Brothers in the summer of 1967, "a true groundbreaking adventure of the highest order" replete with "incredible raga-esque acoustic guitar, electric bass, Spanish cowbells, bell tree, silver flute, bamboo flutes, viola, tamboura, conga drums, tables, acoustic and electric bass and tambourine." Sadly, Kilroy died a few months later of Hodgkin's disease. Graubard went on to play with Robbie Basho, The Floating Lotus Opera Company, and ex-Mighty Babyers The Habibiya, who word has it, will be the subject of Biasotti's next musical exploration—Sufi outfits, trips to the Middle East and all. Exciting stuff, people, exciting stuff.

Posted by Erik at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aside from vague memories of watching some animated shorts on The Electric Company after school, I don't really know the whole story about New York painter/animator Carmen D'Avino, the guy who made them. He was a combat photographer in Europe during WW II; studied painting in Paris after the war; and spent time in India before permanently settling in New York. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his short film Pianissimo in 1963. His Finnish wife wrote a memoir that tells the whole story, except that it's in Finnish. There are a bunch of his films posted as part of a particularly timely segment North County Public Radio did pretty soon before he died. There's also a nice tribute page with photos of Carmen and his wife Helen and their upstate digs here. The majority of D'Avino's films are extraordinary stop-motion "evolving painting" sort of deals, but when he pushes his visions into the actual world—like in A Finnish Fable or Piannissimo—our recognized world cleverly becomes his canvas, rather than the other way around. If you dug the stuff Henry Jacobs was doing out West at about the same time, then you'll get into this too.

Posted by Erik at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Came across this great clip on You Tube this morning and it got me thinking. Remember that big'ol spread we did on Monitor back in the '90s? Well, I pulled one of those out and it's a pretty fascinating history (lots of interviewing done by Slovenly/Red Krayola/Encounter Group guitar wiz Tom Watson) with tons of great pictures and flyers reprinted. For thos of you who can't remember, Monitor sprung from the San Fernando Valley in the late '70s, hung out with Jeffrey Vallance, made an incredible LP on their own label World Imitation, AND "discovered" the Meat Puppets. We still have a few copies left of this Issue 11 for $10 ppd. Write to ggpmag(at)gmail(dot)com for info on how.

Posted by Erik at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There are a lot of emails going around complaining about the rising cost of gas. People are suggesting that not buying gas on certain days or not patronizing certain gas companies will lower the prices. Maybe it will, but not for long. The issue is not that gas is too expensive. The issue is that we're all too reliant on something that is both limited and destructive. The sooner we address our dependence and put quality of life before convenience, the sooner we'll be free from the whims of corporations like these. Gas prices will continue to rise as supplies dwindle and demand increases. At some point we'll have to awaken to the fact that 600 million cars burning oil is a folly we cannot afford. Then maybe people will start taking public transportation, bicycling or walking to work. Maybe someone will even seriously start developing and marketing engines that run on something that doesn't poison the air when it burns. Of course all this change will not happen over night. For now, we can try to carpool more, walk to places in your neighborhood, run errands with friends. Let's drive alone only when there's no other option. Stopping buying the oil companies' product IS the right idea, but not just because it's too expensive, but because it's bad for the earth, it's bad for you, and it's going to be bad for your children and theirs.

For a little background on what it "used to be like" in Los Angeles, and what we might want to aim for again, read up on the city's once comprehensive public transportation system. Whether it was dismantled due to issues of cost, or the meddling of GM is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that L.A.'s streetcars were replaced by a freeway and bus "system" which has proven to be inefficient, noisy, and extremely polluting.

Posted by Erik at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With all the talk about L.A.'s long-overlooked river brimming the dailies and fluttering over dinner parties, it's no wonder things are finally starting to happen. Heck, even our good friend Jay Babcock of Arthur magazine has started his own L.A. River blog. Of course modifications to the city's river are not new. It's seen everything from wanderin' grizzly bears to real Italian vineyards along its shores, and that's just in the couple hundred years anyone's been paying attention.

Back in April of 1909, the "Federated Improvement Association" proposed throwing up a dam across the river about where the 10 Freeway crosses it now. Behind this dam a lake would build up, eventually stretching all the way to Elysian Park and "kept at a depth that will permit navigation by sail boats, motor boats, canoes and other small craft." "From the top of the banks to the water's edge will be built beautiful terraces with myriads of flowers, palms, shrubbery and other greenery as artistic embellishments," reported the Los Angeles Examiner. "The banks will then compare well with the famous Hudson River."

Unfortunately the banks today are mostly cement and not all that attractive, a fact which the Friends of the L.A. River and other green-leaning folks are all too aware of. They would like to see the Army-engineered flood controls dismantled and the riverbed restored to some semblance of a natural habitat. This is a great idea, if a little baby step-ish.

For one thing, the river happens to have several freeways as it's close companions on much of its journey to the sea. If you've been down there, you'll know. . . the noise is unbearable. Never mind the exhaust fumes seeping through the chain-link fence and down into the channel. Look at the end of the Arroyo, once a beautiful channel with old oaks and meadows. . . now with a six-lane freeway jammed right up it. Throwing a couple parks alongside the gridlock just doesn't make it nature again.

You see, the L.A. River has the misfortune of running through some of the most densely populated and exploited regions of the Southland. These areas are getting crummier and more congested every day as developers throw up wretchedly designed structures for quick profit. Look around, nearly every bit of space not graced by a building is paved over so people can pilot their own personal combustion engines hither and thither. And ruthlessly assailed by architectual monstrosities like downtown's Orsini fortress, the unique combination of Old World Spanish and blandishly "modern" that makes L.A. look like L.A. is rapidly vanishing (or at least becoming hidden behind really big buildings and freeway exchanges). So an extremely made-over river? Sure it might look good off in the distance, wending its way past Home Depot, when gazing down from a desk in the US Bank tower, but down here at ground zero, L.A.'s turning butt ugly.

And of course it's only going to get worse as the population and development expands and expands unchecked. The river, pretty as it may become, will be no match for the din and discharge from the hordes of humanity that surround it. So here's an idea. Let's better the FoLAR model. How about Friends of the Corner of Figueroa and César Chávez Streets? Or Friends of that Little Scrap of Land that used to be a Vacant Lot until some Jackass built 200-units of "artists' lofts" on it? I'll bet neighborhood grassroots organizations could restore L.A. to it's original state, block by block, in just a few decades. Look for scrub brush "public areas" and oozing tar pits, unfenced and accessible by all Angelenos. Look for activists gleefully eradicating "non-native species" like "commuters" and "top producers;" dismantling McMansions and Coscos; and ripping out sprinkler systems with their bare hands with a frenzied ecological zeal. Again grizzlies will outnumber gringos. Out with the new, in with the old!

Posted by Erik at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Purveyors of French prog of course will be familiar with Deleuze's appearance on Heldon's 1974 debut Electronique Guérilla. The side-long "Le Voyageur" consists of Deleuze reading "some texts by Nietzsche" over Richard Pinhas' synthesized wizardry. First referred to as "Ouais Marchais, Mieux qu’en 68," the track was laid down in a studio outside of Paris, the session being attended by Jean-François Lyotard (The Postmodern Condition). The song was originally credited to Schizo, pressed up in small quantities, and passed out gratis to all the heads in the Île. It turns out Pinhas and the philosopher were lifelong friends, and Pinhas, himself a philosopher, hosts a Deleuze-centric webpage where one can peruse writings, photos, and even mp3s of the man at work. And if you ignore the kinda lame musical descriptions, there are some nice photos of Heldon and their hella tight 'dos here.

Posted by Erik at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Live from his houseboat lair, Sausalito's resident philosopher Alan Watts muses about "reproduction" in this 1972 film clip. Despite his shirtlessness and bunk-top locale, not to worry, he's not talking about THAT kind of reproduction. This is part one of Watts' three part "fantasy" series that's purchasable from his website. Part two struck me as especially relevant after listening to our fair city's mayor on the radio the other day, exhorting the need for L.A. to make it more desirable for Coscos and Walmarts to set up shop. Citing the much-needed tax revenue they would bring in, Hizzoner got all eager-beaver on accepting the pithy returns of frenzied consumerism, while a few CEO crooks and their stockholding squires get rich. Has Villaraigosa ever actually looked out the window of his bodyguard-piloted SUV on the way to work? The city has become unbearably congested and new megamalls and shoddy hit-and-run developments certainly ain't going to help anyone except their corporate owners and backers. We don't NEED anything they sell. We all got along fine before they showed up, remember? And tax revenue? Somewhere along the way we've come to equate wealth with quality of life. Sure, growth brings in income, but at the expense of our peace of mind. Growth is nothing but atrophy dressed up fancy. How about DISSUADING growth? Let ‘em do it somewhere else and let us be a model of reason and sustainability, even if it costs us some “worth.” Skyrocketing home values are great, but only when you sell out and move to Oregon because you can’t stand living with the encroaching hurly burly anymore. If our society can only survive by ever-accelerating levels of building shit, selling shit, and buying shit—the accumulation of what Watts calls "endless stuff"—then I hope we’re all really enjoying it now, because once we run out of resources, space, and folks content to make it for us cheap, there won't be anything left but our overinflated property values, lots of cheap-ass stucco, and a population doubling every twenty years.

Posted by Erik at 06:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“Smeared with dirt and pebbles to give it the color and texture of a rock, the polyurethane blob” first attracted the attention of keen-eyed Staff Sgt. Dick Sprinter during a raid on a Shiite safe house. “I knew it as soon as I saw it,” Sprinter told reporters. “Fucking Iranians.”

According to top ranking military officials, the recent discovery of a fake boulder filled with explosives in a car in the southern city of Hilla “clearly displays the insurgency’s wicked grasp of guerilla tactics.” Normally used to disguise Jacuzzi motors in landscaped backyards, hollow fabrications like these have thus far remained outside the terrorists’ vernacular.

U.S. officials went public with their find at a news conference in Baghdad’s Green Zone. What made this seizure so unique was the type of device found. Crammed into the uncomfortably small backseat of a Toyota sedan was a 200-pound homemade bomb secreted inside a massive faux stone. “How the hell did they get a big rock like that into a two-door?” wondered a puzzled Marine. “It looked like something from Land of the Lost.”

In a region that has been so historically unfamiliar with war and strife, the big question that has been looming over Operation Freedom up until now is who exactly is arming the insurgency? “Until now we had no idea where the insurgents were getting their weapons,” said one official, who insisted on anonymity. “It was like they were just materializing out of thin air.” Newfound intelligence, however, may soon help the U.S. close in on the culprits. “When we find out,” said one regional official. “We’re gonna bomb them.”

Though it’s appearance led to early speculation that it was the work of Pakistani special effects wizards, it was the “guts” of the boulder that left investigators no doubt to its origins. It was filled with small concave discs that, according to the New York Times, “look like a thick little alms plate or even a souvenir ashtray minus the indentations for holding cigarettes.” These discs, authorities say, are designed to melt when ignited, hurling molten slabs of metal capable of piercing armored vehicles. According to Army spokesmen, Iran, historically known as the world’s leading alms plate and souvenir ashtray manufacturer, is the obvious culprit behind such a dastardly device.

Explosives expert Major Matt Weiner agrees that bombs like these might likely be products of Iran. “You can never be certain,” Major Weiner said. “But having been part of a convoy once that drove pretty close to the Iranian border, I could tell that they probably have some pretty high-tech stuff going on there, what with the nuclear scientists and all.”

Continue reading "Help, I'm Iraq" »

Posted by Erik at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

History was made last September when Arrak brought New Energy to northern India. During his stay, Arrak visited such energy spots as the Hindu city of Dwarka, where Lord Krishna once reigned. Driving up the coast from the south, the spires of the 1,400 year-old Jagat Madir (or “temple of the world”) jabbed into the sky above the sleepy coastline. Inside the ornately carved temple, hundreds of pilgrims jockeyed to receive the blessing of the “Lord of Dwarka.” The holy cloistered city—once "guarded outside by sharks and filled with fierce and fanatic mercenaries"—has changed little from when Sir Richard Francis Burton visited in 1842. Machine guns light upon the temple gates, and the narrow streets bustle with colors, patterns, and tones. Other memorable experiences were had, including chanting at the Ramakrishna Temple in Rajkot, visiting with new friends at ISKON, and paying homage at the magnificent main Sikh Temple in Delhi where young men sang amplified prayers to harmonium accompaniment and devotees strolled clockwise around the massive reflecting pool. In the north Arrak inspected the ruins of the 4,000 year-old civilization at Dholavira near the Pakistan border. Underfoot at every step were shards of painted pottery representing centuries of involvement. “This is the closest our energy has been to these distant cultures who have strong energies of their own,” Arrak told a reporter for the Rajkot Tribunal on hand for the visit. “It makes both of us stronger, or at least it would if they were still around like we are.”

Posted by Erik at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Some people, when they think of Southern California, think of nuts. Not the kind that grow in trees, but the kind that swing in trees—the bearded, mop-haired, half-naked vegetarians who wander around in the hills and occasionally roll into town like a pack of wild men. It was quite a few tears ago when I lived like this."

So reminisces Gypsy Boots, arguably the Golden State's most well know "native" son. His fur-framed smile was an early '60s fixture on teleevision's Steve Allen Show, where he swung like an ape from the rafters and squeezed fresh juice on stage, all the while clad in his trademark loincloth. His Health Hut on Beverly Blvd. was Hollywood's first health food store when it opened in 1958. And through his entertaining the attendees of Griffith Park love-ins by climbing around in the treetops, Boots represented the cleaner side of hippy life, a sort of antithesis to the acid-centric philosophies of Timothy Leary and Owsley. . .

Not long after Boots passed away at age 89 I wrote an article called "Gypsy Boots, The Nature Boys, and The German Path to Well-Being" for Ken Miller's Anathema magazine. The article's basically an overview of a visionary life that influenced everyone from Sky Saxon and Father Yod to iron-pumpin' Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Boots didn't just invent this type of lifestyle, for generations Teutonic teetotalists had been turning to the earth for nutrition, health and lifestyle matters. Consider Boots as Naturmensch's best-known American spokesperson. The above is just the intro, so if you want to read more, please buy the magazine directly from their website. Oh, and Brother Michael from the East does the illustrations.

Posted by Erik at 03:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Still reeling from the violent slaying of Donna Karan's terrier by a pair of furious swans, New York City residents now face an even greater nemesis. Recent sightings of a 10-foot-long manatee in the Hudson River have even the most stolid of metropolites a tremble.

The manatee—a herbivore capable of inhaling up to 150 lbs. of sea grass daily—was first spotted off 23rd Street near the Chelsea Piers, later moving up towards Harlem at West 125th Street. Recently he’s been seen near Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County, hanging around the Tappan Zee section of the Hudson, earning him the nickname "Tappie" (not to be confused with Jamaican singer Tappa Zukie, who was equally controversial in his day for being the subject of a Robert Mapplethorpe photograph).

Odd as it may seem, Manatee encounters are not entirely unheard of in New England. Wayward sea cows are infrequently spotted off Long Island and even Rhode Island, but as we all know, they are much more comfortable down in Florida dodging the propellers of pleasure boats. And none have ever attempted a frontal assault of the Hudson. “I’ve been on the river my entire life,” said John H. Vargo, the septuagenarian publisher of Boating on the Hudson magazine and go-to source for scoop-hungry Gotham reporters. “I’ve seen dolphins and everything else, but never a manatee.”

As a guest on NPR last week, Vargo told host Michelle Norris that the creature (“I guess you would call it a mammal”) had “found heaven” in the river munching away on “some grass down there.” Across the city, conversations were abuzz with “what ifs” and “I seen its.” The Bridge and Tunnel Club News reported this heart-stopping encounter between two Haverstraw teenagers and something indescribable. “We were just off Croton Point and we saw what looked like a fat log in front of us, but then it rolled and swam away,” one of the boys said. “I’ve never seen a log do that.”

Those of you asleep or on vacation last March may have missed the similarly riveting saga of a young coyote (inexplicably nicknamed Hal) who somehow found his way into the city’s Central Park. Reports of a “wolf-like animal” led police to corner the critter in the park's southeast corner. It was thought the beast had wandered down from Westchester, through the Bronx, though some suggested the cunning omnivore had crossed the Hudson from New Jersey “by way of a bridge or a passing truck.” This latter theory is doubtful, however, as coyotes do not have opposable thumbs.

The unfortunate Hal was ultimately felled by police sharpshooters near Belvedere Castle, home of the annual Shakespeare in the Park theater series. Hal had eluded a thirty-man dragnet for nearly twenty hours by darting across a busy ice skating rink, jumping into a pond, and squeezing through a fence. His desperate bid for freedom and ultimate apprehension was broadcasted live on teevee by cameras crews hovering overhead in news choppers.

Tranquilized into submission, Hal, like many in police custody, died a few days later. "Can’t have a coyote on the loose" was the city’s reasoning. Never mind that there is only one record EVER of a coyote seriously injuring a human, and that was in California when a toddler dressed as a chicken for Halloween wandered into the animal’s warren unannounced. To put it in perspective, there were 47 fatal dog attacks in California alone last year. And that danged bird flu has already snuffed out close to fifty folks over there in Thailand. Just for your information, Central Park is still full of dozens of the potentially lethal feathered friends, including two known killer swans .*

So far, New Yorkers have welcomed Tappie with open arms, but when animal control officials bump the Animal Danger level up to Orange to match the Terrorism alert (it may not be a coincidence that several empty sport beverage containers were seen floating in the vicinity of Tappie’s last sighting), we’ll see how long he stays in the public favor. In the meantime, as long as he can avoid the blades of booze-cruising cigarette boats and toxic algae blooms, Tappie should have an excellent adventure.

And if he’s smart (and isn’t carrying a false passport), Tappie’ll loll around Long Island while the weather’s good and then hightail it back down to the Keys before winter hits, possibly joining up with manatee adoptees who can pull in up to 25 bucks a month and all the grass they can eat for just being adorable.

Meanwhile, out here in California, an 8-foot alligator is still on the loose in a lake in Harbor City. Having dodged capture for close to a year now, Reggie has hundreds of families who visit him every weekend, tossing tortillas and chicken his way. Vendors hawk t-shirts with his image that reads “You’ll Never Catch Me” in both Spanish and English. He even has his own blog and theme song.

* Actually just one killer swan. One died soon thereafter, apparently of natural causes, though police questioned Karan due to the "revenge angle" and the designer's disregard for animals as exemplified by the habitual use of fur in her lines.

Posted by Erik at 08:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From our Western correspondent, Mark Sundeen

Wim Wenders, the acclaimed German director of Wings of Desire and The Buena Vista Social Club, was in Butte, Montana, the other day for the premiere of his new movie, Don’t Come Knocking. Sam Shepard wrote and starred in the film, marking the men’s first collaboration since their 1984 Paris, Texas.
Wenders shot much of the movie in this mining town whose population has declined steadily since the 1920s, and which, these days, with its grand “Historic Uptown District” of largely vacant Victorian and early-century brick hotels and storefronts, resembles, well, a movie set. The gala screening was held at the Mother Lode Theatre, an opulent 1200-seat palace built in 1923 as a Masonic Temple. For the event, one of those devices with the rotating spotlights was parked out by the curb, sending up shafts of light visible from Interstate 90. Tickets were distributed free to local residents, many of whom arrived in the town’s fleet of trolley buses to the theatre on what was once known as “the richest hill in America.” The house was packed.
Wenders, dressed in jeans, an overcoat, and a rodeo belt buckle, took the stage to rowdy applause. (Shepard did not attend the event, according to Wenders, because the actor was filming on location in Texas, and does not travel by airplane.) He told the crowd that he had loved Butte ever since he first visited in 1978. He had always wanted to make a film here. He said the town reminded him of the mining town in Germany where he’d grown up.

Continue reading "American Friendly" »

Posted by Erik at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aside from the scant notations on the reissues of the Relatively Clean Rivers and The Beat of the Earth LPs, there’s very little info about their creator, outré California musician Phil Pearlman. Starting off with surf/car tunes in the early ‘60s (Phil and the Flakes), by ’66 Pearlman—decidedly more “earthy, unpretentious, [and] ‘organic’” than the average beach dweller—was staging light shows, happenings, and concerts at a seedy bar near the Balboa pier in Newport Beach. As an art student at the newly established UC Irvine, he decided to record a free-form record as an “artistic statement.” The result was a pretty far-out student project, an album by his own loose-knit group, The Beat of the Earth. The record featured two side-long tracks of communal jamming, not unlike the first couple Amon Düül records (which this pre-dated by at least two years). On the rear of the jacket, Pearlman warned, “If you are looking for psychedelic music, do not buy this record unless you are looking for psychedelic music.” In Patrick Lundborg’s
interview with Karen Darby, who played alongside Pearlman in The Beat of the Earth, she states the group’s name came from sounds she heard emanating from Griffith Park Love-Ins. “All these small groups of musicians playing guitars, tambourines, flutes, auto-harps, bongos, anything that made sound, all simultaneously, created a type of orderly orchestral sound. The combined beats were primitive, primal, the beat of the earth.” Karen describes the band’s creative process as “unstructured, Stream of Consciousness, riffs and rhythms, celebration of each individual musician by allowing spontaneous expression based on group-orchestrated effort, without orchestrated (written) music.” Or as Phil said, "I don’t know man, let’s just let it happen.”
Another Pearlman LP, called The Electronic Hole, emerged in 1970, this time with a more Velvet Underground/Mothers of Invention sort of vibe. Both are integral parts of the Southern California (and specifically Orange County) musical and cultural journey. In 1976 Pearlman, by then having moved to a rustic East County farm, finished up another project, the Relatively Clean Rivers album. An unbelievable tripped-out slice of rural rock, the LP gives off the same laid-back nature vibe as vintage-era Dead, Mountain Bus, or the Wizards From Kansas, all with an important ecology message. Since then the most anyone’s heard about Pearlman is when his son Adam (above) showed up on video as an “Al Qaeda spokesman,” holding an automatic rifle and calling himself “Azzam the American.” “Adam was a very typical teenager,” said his aunt, Nancy Pearlman.

Posted by Erik at 03:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"They come to find a place in which they can operate and they can move. The reason that they’ve come is because the world, that is, your world, cannot accommodate their needs. They either have too much energy, too much talent, or too much rebellion."
—Piro Caro, playing himself, at (the filming of) the Marin County Supervisors meeting, Last Free Ride (1974).

A while back Oregon film and photoist Bill Daniels reintroduced "a stoned and song-filled documentary shot in Sausalito’s hippie houseboat community." Waldo Point (1970), by film student Saul Rouda paved the way for a second longer film, Last Free Ride (1974), a docu-drama chronicling the Man's attempts to rid the bay of its counterculture flotsam. Augmented by the music of resident rock band The Red Legs, the actors in Free Ride were the actual residents of the floating utopian community. Virtually lost for decades, the film played Cannes and briefly toured Europe but it never found decent commercial distribution in the States. Apparently now Rouda is selling DVD and VHS copies of Last Free Ride.

On a related note, there's a newish Waldo Point website where former residents dish "the latest scuttlebutt on this die-hard crew of nostalgic aging hippies, poets and pirates from the Sausalito Waterfront." It features an open forum discussing everything from the sinking of the Light on the Water which cost the lives of nine houseboat denizens (including Seagull, One-Eyed Roger, and Parking Lot Patty), to fond memories of the community's most famous troubadour, Dino Valente. Most unsettling is the RIP section in which we learn the fates of various "tribe" members. A couple jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. A couple died down south with the Heaven's Gate cult. And one commited hari kari. For a gentler view of Richardson Bay houseboat life and its fascinating history, check Larry Clinton's "A Short History of Liveaboards on the Bay."

Posted by Erik at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our friend Tommy! sent us this customer review of The Best of The Mike Curb Congregation CD from Amazon.com. The fellow's talking about the slammin' theme from the movie Kelly's Heroes (1970). Mike Curb, as you all know, did lots of exploitaion movies in the late '60s—Teenage Rebellion, Mondo Hollywood, Wild In The Streets—before becoming Lieutenant Governor of California (he was even acting Governor for about a year when Jerry Brown went missing), a race car enthusiast, and a country music hitmaker. "Burning Bridges," co-written by Lalo Schifrin, went straight to the top thanks to its "youthful tone" and inspirational Congregation singalong style that made Curb's other records, like Mike Curb and The Waterfall Sing The Rolling Stones Songbook, so successful. And we had no idea, but Curb apparently is one of the ALL-TIME ASTROLOGICALLY TOP-RANKED CELEBRITIES!

Anyway, here's the review.

I saw this movie after coming home from nam the theme
song "Burning Bridges" just passed by most people but
to me it meant something . In My life time I have
burned many bridges turning my back on marriges, women
giving away houses cars everything I owned and just
walking away all to my regret in my later years not
the material things but the lives I left behind. When
I'm buried this is going to be played at my funeral.
I got home ok my body with a little wear and tear but
my but my soul changed. I hope this song helps anyone
who needs it at this point in their life. God speed
for my fellow vets.
—Bill Startt (Florida)

Right on man.

Posted by Erik at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The following e-mail was sent anonymously to the guide service my brother works at.

Hello Yosemites Climbers

I am a Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiute and I think it is very cool that you guys are climbers.
The Yokuts of the San Joaquin Valley used to call the Paiutes "Monos" which meant fly people because we used to climb all over the rock walls of Yosemite like flies.
We were also called the "Topee Numu" the "Rock People" that is how we used to escape danger and when James Savage and the Mariposa Battalion went after Chief Tenaya and his band we climb the rocks so they could not capture us.
That is why climbing was an important part of the Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiute people of Yosemite.
The real name of one of the chiefs of Yosemite was "Lizard" because he climbed to the top of El Captain which we Paiutes called "Topee Na'a" which means "Father of all Rocks" or "Rock Chief".

Good luck on your climbs.

And while you're in the mood, check out this piece on '70s California mountaineering entitled Doug Robinson and the Extreme Bohemians. That's Carl McCoy to the left, ski mountaineer and son of Mammoth Mountain's Dave McCoy.

Posted by Erik at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Most of you are already familiar with Merrell Fankhauser from his various bands H.M.S. Bounty, Fapardokly, and of course MU. One of the great Aquarian-age musicians, Fankhauser’s name deserves mention in the same weighted breaths as fellow Golden State tunesmiths like Neil Young and Lowell George. Alas, the field is not always level and we have to dig a little to get the real dirt on this pillar of music. A good place to start is Merrell’s own website.

From his early days in Lancaster with the Exiles (featuring a pre-Beefheart Antenna Jimmy Semens/neé Jeff Cotton) to Pismo Beach folk rockers Fapardokly, Fankhauser covered California both geographically and musically. When H.M.S. Bounty’s 1968 near-hit “Things” failed to get the band noticed outside of Los Angeles, half the group split leaving Fankhauser to record the final Bounty material (a pre-Nillson version of “Everybody’s Talkin’) with bass-great Carol Kaye and Duane Eddy(!).

By 1969 Fankhauser and what was left of his band were living in the mountains near Topanga. It was here that MU was born. “One day we found this very old book under some old papers in the log bin next to the fireplace, The Lost Continent Of MU by James Churchward. We were entranced as we had been into mystical and ancient Indian history for years,” Fankhauser told Muzikman in a 1999 interview. “At the time Jeff Cotton had just left Beefheart and we were looking for a name for the band. After reading the book we decided MU was perfect as we felt a kinship with the ideals of the ancient MU. Around this same time a musician friend from our days in the desert, Jeff Parker, wrote us from Maui that he had moved there and an old Hawaiian man had showed him some ruins near the ocean in the jungle and that they were rumored to be remnants of The Lost Continent of MU !”

In 1973 MU officially moved to Maui where they were “greeted by a wonderful group of peace loving brothers & sisters who we immediately formed a bond with.” The band was invited to perform at a two-day festival featuring David Carradine, Bonnie Bramlett, and Ramblin Jack Elliot. Remembers Fankhauser, “We arrived on Saturday morning shortly after David Carradine and his wife (actress) Barbara Hershey* arrived. David agreed to go on first with Barbara on flute, Dewey Martin (from the Buffalo Springfield) on drums and an unknown bass player.” All sorts of adventures follow—including UFOs, Randy California, and ancient pyramids—but it’s best to let Merrell tell you about them.

*According to Jim Wegryn, "Many of America's own 'love generation' of the 1960's and 1970's took blissful last names like Friendship and Sunshine. For example, the actress Barbara Hershey for a short time was known as Barbara Seagull."

Posted by Erik at 01:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the rather ill roundup of L.A. artists, gallerists, and mavens in last week's LA Weekly, it seems high time to share some "thing" that made it into our inbox a few months back, sent by the mysteriously-nomered Prins Lawrence. CLICK ON THE TOAST IMAGE to see what Lawrence is talking about in the below letter.

"For the people of Los Angeles:
The toast image comes from weeks of long discussions with other artists about our general disappointment with the 'Thing' exhibition at the Armand Hammer museum. As a kind of survey of young contemporary Los Angeles sculpture we felt the show initially failed by inaccurately representing Los Angeles sculpture and tragically disappointed us by being fucking boring. I had a more enlightening experience looking at woodcuts next door. But, what was frighteningly worse than the bad and uninformed curation was the publicity it generated. Concerning Matt Johnson's 'Toast' piece: I do feel it is important to stress that the attack is not on Matt. The attack is on those with the power to decide a representation of a piece of toast is the best example of intellectual work coming out of young art school graduates. For Christ sake they made a T-shirt out of it, and yes, I bought one and stuck my dick through the mouth of that Toast image too. I also stuck my dick through the photo on the catalog cover and the museum calender. Anyway, the photo was and is a joke, sort of, that I thought young artists like myself would appreciate as a stab in the mouth of the institution that repeatedly misinforms and misjudges what the masses want from those who bring the inspiration and culture.
—Prins Lawrence, Los Angeles, 2005

Posted by Erik at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brother Mike from the East suggests all readers check out the current cover story in the OC Weekly called Lords of Acid. It's the tale of Laguna Beach in the late '60s when seekers gathered at Mystic Arts bookstore (across the street from Taco Bell) to meditate and/or sample potent "Orange Sunshine" LSD which got brewed up in the canyon. It was all fun and games until lead guru Timothy Leary got popped for grass by some overzealous cops and the heads turned to harder drugs. The community's quest to "purchase an island where Leary and the rest of the Brotherhood could establish a utopian society founded on Leary's religious teachings" reads straight out of Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1909 novel, Comrades, except for the acid part, anyway.

Posted by Erik at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In the process of defending the U.S.'s detainment of "enemy combatants" in Cuba, Vice President Dick Cheney may have inadvertantly appealed to over-worked terrorists eager for a respite from the dusty tedium of insurgency.

"They got a brand-new facility down at Guantanamo," Cheney told CNN yesterday. "We spent a lot of money to build it." With its seemingly Club Med-worthy location, the balmy Carribean lock-up may be on its way to becoming the "it" spot for recreation in 2005. As the summer progresses, expect to see throngs of battle-weary terrorists and shallow-pocketed vacationers contacting military authorities to take advantage this unbeleivable holiday bargain.

"They've got everything they could possibly want," boasted Cheney with the straightest of faces. "They're living in the tropics."

Posted by Erik at 08:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Everytime you say aerial surfing, people connect it with re-entries, but I think tube riding has a lot more space, or free flight, than re-entries. To drop into the tube itself—especially if it's a really sucking backdoor—you can almost fly. You DO fly."

"Once you go into a backdoor, you've got to keep that pressure on your rail. The whole feeling is that you're going to leap out into space and be crushed. But you don't. You get sucked right through the vacuum."

"It's a very spaced, light feeling. . . not one of intense pressure but one of weightlessness."

—Wayne Lynch, Backdoor Surfer, March-April, 1976.

Posted by Erik at 03:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Through a series of performance pieces enacted in the mid 1970s, California artist Eleanor Antin "illustrated her own dreams" by acting them out in costume. Our colleague Steve Brown recently got in touch with Antin to ask her some questions about a particularly memorable image from her King of Solana Beach performance (1974) wherein she donned a crown and beard to "celebrate the birth of her male self," thus "extending the limits of her own personality."

SB- The photograph of the King holding a Budweiser and talking to the surfers is such a loaded image. I recall surfers like these being a very exclusive lot. They had strict codes of dress and speech and were not friendly towards outsiders. In the photo the guy on your left seems to be trying to be trying to make telepathic contact with the guy you are engaging. The other two seem to be saying a lot with their body language. Can you share some recollections about this episode in the King's "life performance." What were they like? How was it for you?

EA- Hi Steve, neat reading you gave the King and the surfers. All I remember about that image is that I said hello, introduced myself as The King of Solana Beach, I always introduced myself, kings should have good manners, and just sat down and began talking. They were hanging around on the pillboxes, the local name for the bluffs overlooking the beach, where as its name suggests, kids sat around and got stoned. They actually looked very amiable and sweet, pot had a friendlier, more agreeable tonality than speed, meth, coke, or any of the more mind blasting drugs that came later. The obvious fact that they wouldn't have seen too many bearded women in their short lifetimes, probably had an element of intriguing surprise and curiosity that I could often count on to smooth over my intrusions into people's lives. your suspicions would have been more likely to come into play had I looked like a bourgeoise woman out to play tennis or penny poker with their mothers. What a pleasurable experience to be in a stoned daze, playing hookey from school and visited by a bearded king with breasts on a sunny day at the beach?

Posted by Erik at 07:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Energy giant Sempra has been given the go-ahead to begin construction of a massive seaside liquefied natural gas terminal in northern Baja California. The San Diego-based company received the final construction permit from the nearby city of Ensenada last month. "We won the race," Sempra Chairman Stephen Baum told the Los Angeles Times, as his bulldozers prepared to push tons of rip-rap into the sensitive marine habitat. The concrete onshore/offshore terminal, christened Energía Costa Azul, will cost $1-billion and be up and running by 2008.

While Sempra claims to "favor the development of alternative- and renewable-energy resources like solar and wind energy," the company still plans on getting rich the old-fashioned way, by sucking natural gas from limited deposits near the Russian island of Sakhalin and from "fields beneath a remote jungle of West Papua, Indonesia." The gas will then be liquefied and transported by tankers to Costa Azul where it will be "de-gasified" and delivered to the U.S. and northern Mexico by a company-owned pipeline. Sempra and its partner in this venture, Shell Oil Co., stand to profit handsomely from the project as the demand for natural gas rises dramatically, as have its prices, tripling since 2000. The companies project a $14 billion profit over the next 20 years.

Opposition to the project has come not only from residents of nearby communities who have petitioned the Mexican government to halt construction, but by Greenpeace and Pacific Environment who point out that Sakhalin is the breeding grounds of the last 100 Western Pacific gray whales. Further, they claim the extensive (see above photo) "breakwaters, piers, storage tanks and regasification facilities, will harm plant, animal and sea life," not to mention local surf breaks and recreational areas. At public hearings held earlier this year, however, company execs assured concerned residents that "their project's economic benefits would offset any destruction of plant and animal life." In fact, "Energy industry executives and insiders" claim the facility will actually "improve the region's air quality," at least from how polluted it was when it was still more profitable for them to burn oil.

Continue reading "Bad Energy" »

Posted by Erik at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)