The Message is the Medium

I found this book last Friday at Twice Sold Tales in Seattle. Not like it's the greatest find ever, but the cover caught my eye and it turns out the photo is by Richard Avedon.

There are some other cool and/or funny photos inside (click to enlarge).

(Oddly enough, if you read the captions, Free is referred to as a "she," plausibly to subvert the sexual power structure.)


Revolution for the Hell Of It is also full of various wisdom nuggets, such as:

I concur, Marshall McLuhan.

All in all a good find.

Wonderful Witches

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A little more new music – well, new/old music. Cauldron, the 1967 Limelight release from San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose, was recently re-issued on 180g vinyl. I found a copy many years ago at a garage sale; it has the distinction of being the only record I've ever listened to home alone that freaked me out to the point that I had to turn it off.

Fifty Foot Hose Fantasy (excerpt) mp3

That little clip is pretty tame (and also really, really good) but trust me, there are moments later on in the record that are like straight-up witchcraft being performed on your turntable. Hippies can be scary.

This particular band of them formed in 1966 after their leader, Louis "Cork" Marcheschi, constructed a homemade electronic instrument using (rumor has it) a fuzzbox, a theremin, a whole bunch of tubes, and a speaker from a World War II bomber. Fifty Foot Hose toured extensively and released Cauldron in 1967. Aside from the scary stuff, the album also has some lighter moments, such as this cover, with Nancy Blossom on vocals:

Fifty Foot Hose God Bless the Child mp3

The band broke up in 1969 when most of its members joined the cast of the San Francisco production of Hair, though they have reformed at various times, even releasing another album in 1996. Some members of Fifty Foot Hose went on to form the avant-electronic band Kwisp.

Cauldron is or should be available on CD from your favorite music store, and you can hear more sound clips and buy the newly re-released vinyl at Turntable Lab. Just have a buddy with you when you drop the needle.

Listen Everybody

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This is one of my better finds in the beautiful, underrated state of Idaho. The panhandle is not exactly a hotbed of soul and jazz records, but this record leads me to believe they have the religious hippie psyche market on lock.

From everything I've been able to find out, the members of The Last Call of Shiloh were part of the back-to-the-land movement of the '60s and '70s, which had hippies from California moving north in droves to farm organically and live in harmony with their adopted natural surroundings. A lot of the people who did this were Christians, and apparently some of them were pretty good at playing bass and hitting their drums real real hard. The band produced 250 copies of the record with this pencil-drawing cover. I have heard that another 250 with no cover were distributed by members of the band in later years.

When I came across it in the Moscow Goodwill there was something about the JC-emblazoned Fender amp on the back that said "buy me, I'm freaky." I shelled out my fifty cents and was not disappointed when I got back to Brooklyn and gave it a listen.

The Last Call of Shiloh Great Day of the Lord MP3