A Wave of Electrical Sound

Often, some of our favorite music memories are filled with a sense of nostalgia for memorable experiences that have shaped our lives. A yearning, perhaps, for a time that was more fun, carefree, or reminds us of a significant life story and experience. There are a few records in my youth that truly shaped my love for music. The first record I ever owned is one but will be saved for another day & story. There are also a couple of records I discovered in my teens that were musically life-changing moments. When I decided to begin a Substack about records, these were some of the albums I knew I had to write about. Today’s post is part one of a two-part essay about a couple of records that made a significant impact on me.  

My parents never had an amazing record collection. They had the staples of what are now considered “classics”, but nothing extraordinary, nor collectible. Amongst their collection were Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’, Santana’s ‘Abraxas’, the first Crosby Stills & Nash album as well as its follow-up, ‘Deja Vu’, when Neil Young joined and they became CSN&Y. They also had a handful of Bob Dylan & Neil Young albums, and The Grateful Dead’s ‘American Beauty’. When I was a freshman in high school, my mom started to get rid of their records and even though I was still listening to hard rock music, I culled a handful of these more interesting titles, which included the ones listed above. On reflection, I think I grabbed these albums because I have fond memories of visiting my grandmother and my mom’s hippie brother and sisters with their long hair and flared patched jeans sitting in the dining room, smoking, drinking wine, talking, and playing chess while the countrified sound of the Dead’s ‘American Beauty’ emanated from my grandmother’s mid-Century Magnavox record cabinet. I can now look back at these visits as perhaps the start of what would become an obsession to learn more about a decade that fascinated me.

I was always intrigued by the album and poster art of the mid/late 60s as well as the weird band names and groovy photos of musicians often in Victorian houses wearing hippie clothing, beaded necklaces, feathers, and long flowing hair. Curiously, however, what I found in a lot of the music from this era was often bog-standard white boy blues-based rock with extended guitar workouts. Were the long guitar jams what made it psychedelic? I liked some of these more well-known bands and albums, but a lot of them didn’t seem creative nor lived up to the wild album art that housed the record. I knew I needed to dive deeper into the underground and lesser-known psychedelic 60s territory to find what I was looking for.  

By the time I was a sophomore in high school, my interest in hard rock had waned, and my record collection had grown exponentially. Amongst my albums was an increasingly large number of 1960s oddities and obscurities with ridiculous band names. As a teen in Cleveland, Ohio I would spend many weekends traveling to the fabulous Record Exchange on Coventry Road to dig through the record bins and cherry-pick ‘60s psychedelic rock records that were often no more than $5. This was, after all, the time before the Internet, overhyped reissues, Record Store Day, and Discogs.

When I was a junior in high school my love for all things 1960s was very deep. My hair had grown to the middle of my back, my ear was pierced, I wore tie-dyes of long forgotten bands, flowy kaftan & poncho style shirts, and had a beloved vintage suede fringed jacket. To say I stood out in the hallways of my high school in suburban Cleveland was an understatement. I was also immersing myself in films from the '60s and avidly reading Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Dylan’s ‘Tarantula’. It was during this time that I also discovered two pivotal records that sent me on a deeper musical path that, to this day, has defined and shaped much of my journey.

For a record collector, finding an album that you are searching for is always part of the excitement. When I caught sight of one of the legendary albums in the ‘60s psychedelic world that had thus far eluded me, my heart skipped a beat. In my hands was a very nice, mono copy of Country Joe & The Fish’s ‘Electric Music For The Mind & Body’ from 1967 priced at only $7.  Formed as a folk, jug band in Berkeley, California, CJ&TF became better known as the hippie band that led 500,000 people at Woodstock to spell out and shout “Fuck!” before playing their goofy, yet beloved Vietnam protest song, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixing-To-Die-Rag”.

Not as well known outside of the Bay Area as their counterparts, The Grateful Dead & Jefferson Airplane, their music took inspiration from folk, jug band, and blues and wrapped it up into a much more immediate psychedelic experience than either the Dead or the Airplane. Two and half years before their Woodstock performance, however, they recorded their 1st album, ‘Electric Music For The Mind & Body’, which is quintessential 1960s American psychedelic music from San Francisco. With its brightly colored, liquid light show album art and hand-drawn poster-style font, the album reeks of incense & marijuana and is drenched head to toe in LSD. Just holding the record might cause a psychedelic experience. The album perfectly embodies a day-glo hippie crash pad better than many of its contemporaries. Musically, the swirling, distorted, and almost carousel-like organ immediately whisks you away like the floating people in a Marc Chagall painting. Barry Melton’s oozy and plucky fuzz guitar shimmers throughout like warm, golden sunlight dancing across a crystal chandelier reflecting color. Lyrically, the songs are surreal, trippy explorations about love, sex, drugs, and politics. The entire album is a kaleidoscopic wave of sound from start to finish, but the standout songs are its closing tracks on both sides. Side one finishes with the five-part instrumental suite titled, “Section 43”. The song takes the listener through a sonic interpretation of an acid trip. From its initial rush via Bruce Barthol’s bass lick and Joe McDonald’s rhythm guitar riff, it lifts off with David Cohen’s pulsating and swirling organ and Barry Melton’s lysergic, brain-melting lead guitar. The song eventually leads its listeners along the gentle, multi-hued, prismatic onset of the drug’s effects and eventually peaks with intensity via a sound collage of banshee-like howls from Melton’s guitar, McDonald’s chromatic harmonica and a whirlwind of floaty organ notes all held tightly together with Barthol’s bass roll that started us on the trip. It is 7'30 minutes of pure psychedelic bliss.

Side two kicks off with the fast-paced satirical mockery of President LBJ as an insane “Super Bird”. Joe McDonald eventually concludes the song saying he wants the President to “eat flowers and drop acid”. Midway through side two comes the drug soaked “Bass Strings” that swirls slow and thick in the air like marijuana smoke only to remind us of the album’s true inspiration when Joe McDonald whispers “L-S-D” at the end of the song. The album closes with the expressive and eerie “Grace”, a love song written for Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane. Its poetic lyrics paint a portrait of love using gorgeous color analogies and silver streaks that “flash across the tiny door of my eye” over a soundtrack of haunting guitar, a meandering bass line, bells, reeds, and wind effects. The song, and album, eventually come to an end with Joe saying “I love you” not just to Grace, but to us, the listener.  

Recorded in January & February 1967, and released a couple of months before the summer of love, ‘Electric Music For The Mind & Body’ not only lives up to its bold title, but it perfectly encapsulates the Haight-Ashbury hippie spirit better than any other San Francisco album of its day. At the time, I had also never heard music like it. This may have been sounds from another time and era, but it spoke directly to me and I fell deeply in love with the album. Whilst the album isn’t particularly well recorded or produced, it also hasn’t aged well, but this is part of its charm. Both it and their follow-up LP, ‘I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixing-To-Die’ are the perfect time capsule of a brief period in American history that will never be repeated.

‘Electric Music For The Mind & Body’ is also one of the best examples of American psychedelic music from the 1960s and no psych collection is complete without it.  

To be continued…

In part two of this influential record series, I will discuss another album I discovered soon after hearing ‘Electric Music For The Mind & Body’ which was also hugely influential on my life.

Country Joe & The Fish-’Electric Music For The Mind & Body’, 1967 (Spotify link)