About this item

From the team that put together the acclaimed Running The Voodoo Down sets comes a carefully assembled celebration of the counter culture - from ALLEN GINSBERG and THE GRATEFUL DEAD to BRIGITTE FONTAINE, GONG and WITTHÜSTER & WESTRUPP.

A compilation for the heads, not a playlist.

“This is a journey … into Sound” ….

..…a different maverick sound one million light years from either the classic rock of the late 60s West Coast, the psychedelic pop of the UK, the primal shriek of the Vietnam soundtrack, or the wah wah powered protest of Blaxploitation. This is a journey into a new scene “THE ALTERNATIVE OF THE ALTERNATIVE”. This music is too abstract for the soldiers, and too square for the Panthers. This is a journey into the sound of the Freak Left and into an early DIY, powered by acid and humour, that is in many ways a true precursor of punk rock. It’s a journey into a cosmic mash up of folk, country, busking, comedy, music hall, raga percussion, chanting and the occasional spiked acid guitar solo. Music created communally and without commercial expectation over bottle after bottle of LSD laced soft drinks and free trips! But as much as it’s a journey into an alternative sound, it’s a journey into a different world .. the world of the Heads, the Freaks and Humbeads’ Map, a map created in a Berkeley coffee house and reworking the world to connect up the “Turned On” universe – a 5 boroughs type world dominated by a huge San Francisco & Berkeley and embracing New York, Cambridge, and LA and by implicit extension “hip” outposts in London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney and Sao Paulo.

Ten years after it had started the counterculture seemed almost done – washed away in a tide of punk rock nihilism, and economic hardship.

These artists represent something else, and something else important. Ideas of self made, of freedom and of protest through provocation live across these grooves. It’s time to give them a place in the pantheon and respect what they tried to achieve, because they did achieve change. The world we live in today is different and the Rainbow coalition is a valid and vibrant political force – it is the wave that gave us Obama and hope. And maybe the one that will bring further change in the future. “Sticking it to the man” was a state of mind and an ideal. Maybe we can give it a small voice again.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Curated by the team that brought us 2018’s ‘Running The Voodoo Down’, this compilation charts the original counter-culture. A journey through the acid laced and cosmically mashed-up world of the Heads and the Freaks, from Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg to Hawkwind, Grateful Dead and Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Footnote To Howl - Allen Ginsberg
A2. That’s It For The Other One (Pts. I-IV) - The Grateful Dead
A3. Fly - The Fool
A4. Music For The Head Ballet - Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
B1. Earth - Third Ear Band
B2. Le Goudron - Brigitte Fontaine
B3. Way Back In The 1960s - The Incredible String Band
B4. Nimm Einen Joint Mein Freund - Witthüster & Westrupp
C1. Fohat Digs Holes In Space - Gong
C2. A Mind Blown Is A Mind Shown - Hapshash & The Coloured Coat
C3. Be Yourself - Hawkwind
C4. Why -Yoko Ono
D1. Up Against The Wall - David Peel And The Lower East Side
D2. The STP Song - The Holy Modal Rounders
D3. The Fish Cheer & I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag - Country Joe & The Fish
D4. That Cat Is High - Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band
D5. Part II: One Final Word - Timothy Leary
D6. Exorcising The Evil Spirits From The Pentagon October 21, 1967 - The Fugs