The Bullshit Era
While reading Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound, it occurred to me that the late 60s/early 70s must have been a marvelous time for bullshit artists. Take Tommy Hall, the leader of the 13th Floor Elevators, for example. Not only did he talk his way into a band with no other musical talent than making strange amplified noises into a jug, he also convinced his band mates that they could get audiences high by taking LSD every time they performed and "playing the acid" (their LSD consumption was so prodigious that even the Grateful Dead were intimidated). The book goes into far too much detail for the general reader, but it does give you a good sense of the amount of sheer bullshit the culture was swimming in back then. At what other time could a jug player in a band make the following comments and not get laughed out of the room:
"Once you got a high enough vibration, it would be everything. Because "form" is this higher vibration. You can do this because the extension of the vibration is the extension of the cause. You're able to dial yourself up into that geometric structure. The main thing that song, "Slip Inside This House," talked about was how to utilize the systems of your body to free yourself from a dependence on this level of existence."
"One reason I employed the image of the house is that it stands as a symbol of the mind, a mental construction, like a whole place to live. There was one main message: look, we've got the information, if you want the information, then come here and get it, if you don't you won't come at all. As with all callings, everybody snaps to it at different times. All we had created was our own directory to certain levels of spiritual realization."
"Genetics and information with mind-altering or consciousness-expanding drugs. We were able to objectively and scientifically approach acid, where other groups couldn't do that."
Thus spake the jug player. And, as it turns out, "the information" turned out to be rotten. Roky Erikson, the talented but weak-willed lead singer, ended up in a mental institution for three years and has only recently been deemed mentally fit to perform again. Stacy Sutherland, the lead guitar player and the other major talent in the band, had drug and alcohol problems for years after the band broke up until he was shot dead by his wife in a domestic dispute in 1978. And the genius Tommy Hall? Where did he end up? Marooned in a one-room apartment in a $7-a-night flop house in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco with some other casualties of the 60s. He still claims acid is "a teaching machine" and occasionally takes trips within the galaxies contained in a Mickey Mouse poster on his wall. In the most recent photo of him in the book, he looks like Rip Van Winkle which only seems fitting.
Of course, this is not to say the 13th Floor Elevators didn't create some great music. This one is for the ages.
"Once you got a high enough vibration, it would be everything. Because "form" is this higher vibration. You can do this because the extension of the vibration is the extension of the cause. You're able to dial yourself up into that geometric structure. The main thing that song, "Slip Inside This House," talked about was how to utilize the systems of your body to free yourself from a dependence on this level of existence."
"One reason I employed the image of the house is that it stands as a symbol of the mind, a mental construction, like a whole place to live. There was one main message: look, we've got the information, if you want the information, then come here and get it, if you don't you won't come at all. As with all callings, everybody snaps to it at different times. All we had created was our own directory to certain levels of spiritual realization."
"Genetics and information with mind-altering or consciousness-expanding drugs. We were able to objectively and scientifically approach acid, where other groups couldn't do that."
Thus spake the jug player. And, as it turns out, "the information" turned out to be rotten. Roky Erikson, the talented but weak-willed lead singer, ended up in a mental institution for three years and has only recently been deemed mentally fit to perform again. Stacy Sutherland, the lead guitar player and the other major talent in the band, had drug and alcohol problems for years after the band broke up until he was shot dead by his wife in a domestic dispute in 1978. And the genius Tommy Hall? Where did he end up? Marooned in a one-room apartment in a $7-a-night flop house in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco with some other casualties of the 60s. He still claims acid is "a teaching machine" and occasionally takes trips within the galaxies contained in a Mickey Mouse poster on his wall. In the most recent photo of him in the book, he looks like Rip Van Winkle which only seems fitting.
Of course, this is not to say the 13th Floor Elevators didn't create some great music. This one is for the ages.
posted by BayonneMike at 7:26 PM
3 Comments:
yeah, and every once in a while one of them slips through the butterfly net!
"I mentioned there about ego suppression...that if you, as a creative personality, are going to go into the consciousness of another character, or as an actor are gonna portray another character--as a musician are going to in-dwell with the metrics and the rhythms of the melody, that requires a going out of the spirit."- David Miltch on why he 'drinks'.
Rat bastard dopers. My pill freak brother-in-law tried to off himself in the '90s. Lived, lost a lot of his ability to talk; he's 68% intelligible. The only thing he ever liked to do besides getting high was sing and play the guitar. Now he has a life pass to the never-have-to-work-again club, lives in a group home. "Look what happened to him," my wife (his sister) would say but I told the kids when they were little, "No, look what he did to himself." Like Cagney squealing that he was scared to die, I've used him for years as a living Just Say No poster. He's like 60-something now and that makes it extra weird, because you expect dopers who live that long to be dead already.
I told the kids that dope kills. I'll kill them if I catch them.
I don't know if you can realistically call it "bullshit" Mike.
It was a brand-new bag!
In retrospect, knowing what we know now - bullshit fits the bill.
But then? During that time, I'm certain the perceived mind-expansion was very real and inspiring.
I won't bore you with my tripping tales, but suffice it to say, mind-expansion doesn't begin to cover it.
Unrelated:
Where do you stand on the phrase,
"Suffice it to say"? Correct or not?
Suffices to say, Suffice to say..
or is it all just bad, bad English?
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