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Cultural milestone, Music et al, Today in history

Furthur Departs Arrives

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Furthur Departs Arrives

June 17, 1964

Furthur Departs Arrives

sound from the trailer for “Magic Trip”

When did the 60s begin?

When did the 60s–“those” 60s–begin? Not with Elvis Presley’s return from the Army and becoming a movie actor. Not with JFK’s Camelot: neither its captivating start nor tragic end. Not even with the Beatles USA arrival.

When the words”the 60s” are said, people typically think of psychedelics, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Woodstock, Vietnam protests, assassinations, political turmoil, and general cultural revolution.

Furthur Departs Arrives

Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey was a writer who participated in the US Government’s top secret 1950s Project MKUltra. At a time when the fear atomic warfare between us and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dominated our daily consciousness, any way of stopping such an apocalyptic war seemed reasonable.

The idea was that human drug testing might help us get their spies to reveal secrets and to keep our spies from revealing secrets. Our sensible aim, our necessary aim was to learn how to strengthen, to weaken, or to demoralize.

Furthur Departs Arrives

LSD

LSD was among the various drugs given to him and Kesey found that it seemed quite enlightening, enjoyable, and even entertaining. Legal still, he and Ken Babbs helped form the Merry Pranksters who used LSD recreationally.

Furthur Departs Arrives

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

             Kesey was also a successful writer having landed in 1962 on best seller lists with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  His next novel, Sometimes a Great Notion (1964) required his presence in New York City. And 1964 meant the start of the New York World’s Fair. What better way to get to New York and its Fair than do a cross-country trip (literally and figuratively) with friends, i.e., the Merry Pranksters?

Furthur Departs Arrives

Furthur

They bought a 1939 International Harvester school bus, decorated it, named it Further (or Furthur), built an observation turret on top, and installed a sound and recording system. Neal Cassady was the bus driver and scenery docent.

Furthur Departs Arrives

Furthur Departs

They left their base in La Honda, California on June 17, 1964. They only traveled 40 miles their first day due to a mechanical (actual, not figurative) problem that temporarily stalled them.

The Pranksters’ trip was a living art project, performance art. They stopped regularly to visit friends or experience the world through LSD. On the east coast and New York, they visited fellow LSD aficionado Dr Timothy Leary in Millbrook, NY. The Pranksters’ west coast approach to LSD and the more academic east coast approach did not meld and the two camps left with no detente.

Furthur Departs Arrives

Tom Wolfe

The best-known account of the whole Prankster scene and Furthur’s journey is Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.  The Pranksters themselves did film their trip, but understandably the visual and sound were rarely coordinated. It was not until 2011 that the movie Magic Trip, with overdubbings, revealed the trip’s many interesting facet.

Furthur Departs Arrives

Acid Tests

The Acid Tests began back in California after the Pranksters’s return. The Warlocks–soon to be the Grateful Dead–were the house band. Thus began that amazing partnership between hallucinogenics and music.

The last official acid test was its graduation on October 31, 1966. Kesey went to jail for 6 months shortly after.

Furthur Departs Arrives

Woodstock

The last trip that the original Furthur made was to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969.  The bus returned to Oregon and the colorful bus and melted into its damp shady resting place. [NYT obit for Kesey]

Furthur Departs

Furthur Departs Arrives

Resurrection of sorts

I had originally written here: For the 45th anniversary of Woodstock, the new generation of Pranksters, including Kesey’s son Zane, created a new Furthur and crossed the country. On August 15 the Pranksters visited Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.

One of the comments below by a Zane (the son?) suggested a correction and said:

The new bus was created by Ken in 1990
The Merry Pranksters had MANY trips in the new bus.
Zane drove the new bus to NY and around for the 50th anniversary of the 1964 bus trip. Going to Woodstock wasn’t even on our schedule, We went there because something else fell through.

Of course by Woodstock, the comment means Bethel, NY. It is odd  to me that Woodstock/Bethel was not on the schedule, but…

Furthur Departs Arrives

Music et al, Music of the 60s, Today in history

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

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WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

June 16, 1966 announcement

NYC WOR-FM Goes Rock

Scott Muni…Saturday 8 October 1966, the first day of DJs on WOR-FM

In the New York metropolitan area, we Boomers had grown up listening to AM music in our parents’ car (when they’d let us) or on our own transistor radios (when we finally got one).

We could watch teenagers dance to the top singles on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. His shows included a lip-synched performance by a current top 10 artist or band: like this one by Roy Orbison on June 5, 1966.

WOR-FM switched to its rock format on July 31. I remember seeing advertisements beforehand and using my parents’ radio–it had FM unlike my AM-only transistor radio.

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

WOR-FM Goes Rock

WOR-FM Goes Rock

I didn’t realize that union difficulties meant no DJs at first. All I knew was that the lack of DJ chatter meant more room for music. And that’s what I wanted. The down side was that if I heard a song I liked but didn’t recognize (e.g., Buffalo Springfield‘s “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing”) I was stuck.

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

Those songs of those first days were far from the future of album-oriented playlists. Here’s are some examples from that first day:

  1. Supremes, “Can’t Hurry Love”
  2. Supremes, “Baby Love”
  3. Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames, “Get Away”
  4. Simon & Garfunkel, “Dangling Conversation”
  5. Rolling Stones, “Mother’s Little Helper”
  6. Beatles, “Paperback Writer”
  7. Petula Clark, “You’re the One”
  8. Bobby Moore & the Rhythm Aces, “Searching For My Love”
  9. Frank Sinatra, “Strangers in the Night”
  10. Sandy Posey, “Born a Woman”
  11. The Capitals, “Cool Jerk”
  12. Herb Albert, “A Taste of Honey”
  13. [I don’t know and neither does Shazam] 
  14. Tommy Roe, “Sweet Pea”
  15. Billy Stewart, “Summertime”
  16. Ruby and the Romantics, “We Can Make It”
  17. The Supremes, “Back In My Arms Again”
  18. David Garrick, “Dear Mrs Applebee”
  19. Them, “Gloria’s Dream”
  20. Percy Sledge, “Warm and Tender Love”

Quite a variety, but obviously not the album cuts that many of us would come to love.

As WOR-FM’s DJ gained experience and confidence with the evolving format, management began to balk. Murry the K left in August 1967.  His replacement, Jim O’Brien, played more of a Top 40 format that management preferred to the free-form that had started to happen. By the fall of 1967, the Top 40 format, much like the traditional AM format, had happened. [Music Radio 77 article]

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

WOR-FM Goes South

On October 2, 1967, DJ Rosko announced his departure and the reasoning for that departure right on the air. His discussion reflect the thinking and the approach that some young people were realizing was a preferred format and one that they had become attached to (click to listen):

WNEW-FM took up the reins of that more relaxed, increased choice, and variety-filled approach the fall of 1967. Rosko arrived. Scott Muni arrived. Alison Steele (already there) became the “Nightbird.” Jonathan Schwartz and Dick Summer also became part of that line-up.

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock
Anniversary, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Incredible String Band

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Incredible String Band

The first album by…
The Incredible String Band
Recorded May 22, 1966
Released in September 1966 (UK); April 1967 (US)
Mike Heron’s “How Happy I Am”

By June 1966, British influence on American pop musical tastes was firmly established and record labels had opened their recording studio doors to much more creativity.

The Incredible String Band was not the typical British Invasion band. In 1966 American radio stations were playing #1 songs by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Petula Clark, and the Troggs. Even the New Vaudeville Band’s “Winchester Cathedral” tickled our organs of Corti.

ISB, consisting originally of Mike Heron, Robin Williamson, and Clive Palmer, had recorded the album only the month before. Their style was acoustic and British folk.

Folk-rock > Psychedelic-folk

In the US, though folk music no longer enjoyed its heyday, the Byrds had become popular and their style had created the new rock genre:  “folk-rock.”

ISB planted their sound’s seeds in that soil.

Compared to their later albums (minus Palmer who left after the first album), Incredible String Band is simple. In fact, most of the songs are played solo by the person who wrote them. Palmer had only written one of the songs and thus minimized his presence: five by Williamson, three by Heron and the one by Palmer.

ISB would later compose more elaborate  songs resulting in yet another media label:  psychedelic folk. #ahwell

Heron & Williamson

It would be those more intricate pieces that attracted the band (now only Heron and Williamson with occasional others) to American FM alternate stations.

And it was that attraction that likely brought the band to the attention of Woodstock Ventures who booked them for the Festival on May 28, 1969 for $4,500.

Album

Here are the tracks for the album:

Side 1

  1. Maybe Someday
  2. October Song
  3. When the Music Starts to Play
  4. Schaeffer’s Jig
  5. Womankind
  6. the Tree
  7. Whistle Tune
  8. Dandelion Blues

Side 2

  1. How Happy I Am
  2. Empty Pocket Blues
  3. Smoke Shovelling Song
  4. Can’t Keep Me Here
  5. Good as Gone
  6. Footsteps on the Heron
  7. Niggertown
  8. Everything’s Fine Right Now