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‘Well forever changes, baby!’: Arthur Lee & Love’s psychedelic masterpiece turns 50
04.05.2018
08:12 pm
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Fun fact: The title of Love’s Forever Changes album, according to Arthur Lee himself is actually Love Forever Changes, inspired by a story that Lee had heard about some guy who had broken up with his girlfriend. She told him “You said you would love me forever!” and he apparently replied, “Well, forever changes, baby, forever changes.”

As anyone lucky enough to have seen Arthur Lee live in concert can tell you, it was a very special experience. I saw Arthur in performance three times myself, including an early 90s gig at the fabled Palomino Club in North Hollywood with Baby Lemonade where the electricity went out and he did an intimate candle-lit (literally) “unplugged” set without the group. Pure magic. The entire audience was grinning from ear to ear. To this day it remains one of the very best shows I’ve ever seen.

The second time I saw Arthur Lee play was even more memorable. After spending 5-1/2 years in a federal prison as a result of California’s harsh “three strikes, you’re out” sentencing guidelines, Arthur was released and in 2003 he began a tentative series of performances around Los Angeles playing Love’s classic 1967 album Forever Changes in its entirety, again with the members of Baby Lemonade.

The night I saw him do that set, at a packed Henry Fonda Theatre, Lee looked tiny, frail, old, and just plain scared. He stood in the wings as the band started playing, but he was visible to me where from I was standing and I could see the “oh shit” look on his face as he sized up the audience. When he walked onstage his long fringe suede jacket looked way too big for his slight frame. Everyone was pulling for him, we all wanted this to be amazing and triumphant, but frankly it didn’t look very promising. Within seconds however, he had strapped on his big hollow body electric guitar, smiled broadly, stood straight up and he became the great Arthur Lee before our very eyes. It was like watching Clark Kent turn into Superman and it was another truly magical musical event. Lee’s voice had lost none of its beauty and range during his prison stint; the songs none of their power over the decades. Audience members were moved to tears. It felt like a holy moment, it really did. (Of the third occasion, a tragically ill-fated show at UCLA in front of an audience that included some major celebrities and rock stars, the less said the better.)

Around that time, a friend of mine told me that Arthur ate nearly every day at a Mexican restaurant in Studio City called Casa Vega, which was near where I lived and sure enough when I walked in one day, curious if this was true, there he was sitting at the bar by himself. There were only two other people in the place. I told the waiter to please tell the gentleman seated at the bar that I was a huge fan of his work and that he should bring Arthur’s tab to me. The waiter informed him and Lee swiveled around on his barstool, held up his water glass and nodded to me. When I left I went up to him to pay my respects and said some fanboyish things—among them that Forever Changes was my #1 favorite album of all time and it was the album that I had played the most in my lifetime. He told me that an English tour was being set up and humbly how he was just so grateful that people still cared so much about him and his music. Before it got awkward I said goodbye, but believe me when I tell you that I was thrilled to have met him. Just to thank him for what he’d given to me. How often do you get a chance to do that?
 

 
And it’s true what I told him about how Forever Changes being my favorite record. I’ve played it in the thousands of times. Not hundreds, but thousands of times. I’ve probably played it over a dozen times so far in 2018. It’s an album for virtually any mood. One that never loses its power after that many listens. It’s one of the best albums to drive around Los Angeles listening to ever made. It’s a masterpiece of a ridiculously high caliber and it’s being feted by Rhino in a new deluxe box set which features a new digital remastering by the original co-producer Bruce Botnick which is on CD, an LP cut by Bernie Grundman and on a DVD as a high resolution 96/24 file. Additionally the little heard mono mix of the album is present, along with a host of alternate versions, non-album cuts and the video for “Your Mind And We Belong Together.” 

One of the things included in the new box set that I wanted to point out is the alternate version of the Forever Changes’ closing number “You Set the Scene.” If this is my favorite album, this is my favorite song on my favorite album. First heard on the 2001 CD release of the album, the alternate version, which clocks in about fifteen seconds longer, contains a sort of shouted/sung proto-rap skat singing double-tracked call-and-response section at about the six minute mark. If you know this song well already, and have never heard this alt version, be prepared to be stunned. A song that is already soaring so high and then it soars A LOT HIGHER at the very end? The first time I heard it was like a mental orgasm (not trying to be arch here, but trying to describe a sincere mental explosion of pure “Holy shit!” psychedelic righteousness the song’s extra moments engender. Can it really be as good as I say? You’ll just have to listen below won’t you?)

But WHY did they not release THIS version on the album? I think it’s better than the canonical version. It’s certainly not worse, that’s for sure. The only reason I can think of is length, that it was edited for time constraints on a 33 1/3 rpm record album. First pressings of the album are known for their excessive surface noise. At 42 minutes, Forever Changes had to be mastered very quietly due to its length, dynamic range and stereo separation. Fifteen seconds might have made a real difference at the end of side two. It’s just speculation, but I’m guessing that the reason for the “alternate version” being jettisoned for the classic version—which isn’t exactly inferior, of course, I don’t want to imply that—probably came down to a compromise like that. Really, how else to explain not using this amazing version???  Imagine an extra section section of “Hey Jude” or “I Am the Walrus” or “Good Vibrations” or something like that that had to be cut out.

You will notice the difference just after six minutes in. Love Forever Changes 50th Anniversary Edition is available starting today.
 

 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.05.2018
08:12 pm
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‘Love Story’: Definitive doc on the great Arthur Lee and Love
03.21.2017
01:27 pm
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It seems that Love is in the air…. Just a few days ago we featured a swell duvet cover featuring the cover art of Forever Changes as the prevailing design.

Love was perfectly primed to become an object of cult adoration. They were an interracial band that was smack in the middle of a very fertile California music scene in the 1960s. The quality of their output was very high, and reflected a very important transition in the maturation of the rock scene as a whole. Love’s “classic” line-up didn’t last long. They were a hard-luck band with more than its share of uncommonly punitive arrests and premature deaths. On top of all that, Love did produce the one clear masterpiece, the aforementioned Forever Changes that is today widely regarded to be one of the greatest albums ever recorded.
 

 
The documentary Love Story was released just after frontman Arthur Lee’s death from leukemia in 2006. While it is properly adulatory, directors Chris Hall and Mike Kerry largely manage to keep the distorting effect of sadness and grief out of it, presumably because much of the footage was filmed before the deaths of Lee as well as the (unrelated) 1998 deaths of Ken Forssi and Bryan Maclean.

Feel the Love after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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03.21.2017
01:27 pm
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Julian Cope’s SydArthur Festival celebrates psychedelic giants Syd Barrett and Arthur Lee
07.07.2016
11:22 am
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Today—July 7th—marks the beginning of the first SydArthur Festival, a mental celebration (or “cerebration”) of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett (who died ten years ago today) and Love’s Arthur Lee (who died 28 days later). The SydArthur Festival—organized by Arch Drude Julian Cope, his wife Dorian Cope (proprietor of the On This Deity blog) and their daughter Avalon—takes place entirely in your mind, and aims to get you (yes you) to contemplate the lives, art and influence of not only Syd and Arthur, but also Percy Bysshe Shelley, Henry David Thoreau, Roky Erickson, Nico, Cluster’s Dieter Moebius, George Clinton, English poet Robert Graves, Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley, Vincent Van Gogh, 17th century apocalyptic anarchist Abiezer Coppe (who, I am guessing, must be a Cope ancestor?) Jerry Garcia, William S. Burroughs and more.

There’s a SydArthur Festival website and a printed 28 page program. From the manifesto:

By dint of having died just one lunar month apart, Syd and Arthur have given us the rich opportunity to celebrate the summer henceforth and under the given name of the Buddha ‘Siddhartha’. Despite not being Buddhists ourselves, we’re nevertheless delighted to appropriate his name for rock’n’roll: For a great name it is. And ‘twas ever the truth that our divine artform takes, takes and takes whenever and wherever its voracious trip will best be served.

These 28 days are a grand opportunity to make a carnival time of this serendipitous cosmic accident. Accident? Do the heroes of Western culture move in any less mysterious manner than the gods of ancient times? Let’s take advantage of their overt poetry, of their celestial dance, and avail ourselves of the chance to build the first truly psychic and near-religious rock’n’roll festival. For this is – in the psychedelic spirit of its two major players – a mind-manifesting festival. No pricey tickets, no camping like sardines in some infernal swamp. For those of you who choose to engage in these proceedings, you may do so from your own homes, your favourite areas, but most specifically from within your own minds.

Between the pillars of Arthur and Syd lies a rich fertile land inhabited by a multitude of psychedelic events and of artists, authors and practitioners whose births and deaths fall conveniently within this 28-day period. These too are venerated. Miffed we are that not all of our heroes can be included. But hey, this be just the first such festival.

Let us put our minds together, deeply consider these people and events, and in doing so harness the energy of their seismic actions. Overall, during this moon tour let us consciously raise our Collective Consciousness.

A fun idea, I think you’ll agree, but especially when they put it that way. So if you will click on over to the SydArthur website, you can read today’s meditation on Syd Barrett and cerebrate his contributions. The Copes chose “Astronomy Domine” as the track they posted to represent maximum Sydness asking “Was psychedelic rock’n’roll ever more advanced than this?”

As I listened, I thought about that question, before ultimately coming to the conclusion that no, it never was.

Here’s my contribution to today’s festivities: Dig the sprawling freeform psychedelic jazz of Barrett’s 20-minute long shambolic—yet extremely cool—low-fi improvised jam (with Steve Peregrin Took from Tyrannosaurus Rex on congas) titled “Rhamadan.”

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.07.2016
11:22 am
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‘Thomasine & Bushrod,’ the blaxploitation Western with music by Arthur Lee and Love


 
Thomasine & Bushrod is one of four movies Super Fly director Gordon Parks, Jr. (son of the director of Shaft) made before his death in a plane crash at the age of 44. Written by its leading man, Max Julien of Psych-Out and The Mack fame, the movie—often called the “black Bonnie and Clyde”—costarred Julien’s longtime girlfriend, the formidable Vonetta McGee. Julien had previously written Cleopatra Jones for McGee, who appeared in the contemporary genre pictures Blacula and Shaft in Africa, but after Warner Brothers cast Tamara Dobson in the title role, the couple undertook this collaboration, a revisionist Western in which two sexy fugitives deal out justice to despicable white sadists.

(Incidentally, this was not McGee’s first Western. A decade after Thomasine & Bushrod, Alex Cox cast McGee in Repo Man on the strength of her performance in “the greatest of all Italian westerns, Sergio Corbucci’s Il Grande Silenzio.”)
 

Love circa 1973
 
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s score quotes the melody of the film’s lovely theme song by Arthur Lee of Love, first heard at the 29:20 mark. I assume Julien and Lee knew each other through Hollywood circles; all John Einarson’s Love biography Forever Changes has to say on the subject is that Lee sold Julien his house on Avenida del Sol in the Hollywood Hills before moving to Sherman Oaks in 1975. Lee’s “Thomasine & Bushrod” is now available as a bonus track on the CD edition of Black Beauty, the 1973 album recorded by an all-black lineup of Love that sat on the shelves until High Moon released it in 2012. This less-than-optimal-quality sound file is the only version on YouTube:
 
Arthur Lee, “Thomasine & Bushrod”:

 
As for the movie, you can now rent it for $2.99 (in SD) or $3.99 (HD) on Amazon or YouTube (embedded below). Lee’s song doesn’t play in full until the end credits. I hope the rattlesnake that bit McGee during filming got a taste of outlaw justice from Jomo’s pistols.
 

Posted by Oliver Hall
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12.24.2015
01:53 pm
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Love’s final album to be reissued; listen to the unreleased track ‘Graveyard Hop’ exclusively on DM
10.22.2015
09:32 am
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That Arthur Lee entered such a long creative and personal wilderness phase after the ‘60s maybe shouldn’t be such a surprise. His first significant release, the self-titled debut album by his band Love, was one of the greatest rock albums of all time, and he followed that with the poor-selling-but-influential experiment Da Capo and the immortal psych-rock landmark Forever Changes, the album someone has if they only have one Love album. After that triumphant beginning, the band dissolved in the familiar ‘60s miasma of dope, money issues, and personal tensions, but Lee, perhaps unwisely, kept the name alive with new lineups. Without guitarist Bryan MacLean, it was never the same—the contractual obligation album Four Sail remains justly well-regarded, and Out Here, culled from the same sessions and released within months of Four Sail, is also worth a spin, but Forever Changes was a hard act to follow, and subsequent Love and Arthur Lee solo albums are generally considered marginal.
 

 
In particular, the final non-archival LP to bear the Love imprimatur, 1974’s Reel to Real, has gone so neglected that its first pressing was its ONLY pressing. Usually, when an album dies like that, it either becomes a “lost classic” or it’s the sign of an unlistenable dog of a record. But in this case, the lack of a reissue is kind of understandable—there’s nothing about the album that even remotely resembles the music of Love’s enduring reputation. That doesn’t make it a bad album on its own terms, though, and the reissue label High Moon—previously responsible for exhuming Love’s actual lost album Black Beauty—is giving Reel to Real a second airing, 41 years after its release and disappearance.

I had to request a copy to listen to—I wasn’t merely unfamiliar with much of the music on the album, I was at most only vaguely aware that it existed, and I’m not even sure I’ve ever beheld a physical copy. This album wasn’t just lost to the years, it was pretty much goddamn buried under them. But it’s neither an unheralded gem nor a total dud—it’s half of an excellent soul album, with some badass horns and some outstanding vocal performances by Lee. Just one example should suffice—check out “Who Are You,” and see how it compares to “Alone Again Or.”
 

 
See? Pretty much all of side one is of that caliber, so it’s almost frustrating that Lee felt like it was a good idea to call this a Love album. Had it been a solo album, perhaps it might have stood a chance at a life of its own, without Forever Changes casting a shadow over its reputation?

Things take an unfortunate downward turn on side two—there’s still some worthy stuff there, in particular a reverent and satisfying cover of William DeVaughn’s signature tune “Be Thankful for What You’ve Got,” but that side also revisits material from Four Sail and Lee’s solo debut Vindicator, in inferior versions that prompt wonder at why he bothered. But like any reissue worth discussing, Reel to Real is loaded with unreleased outtakes, alternate versions, and rehearsal recordings, including a stripped-down take of the non-LP Forever Changes era favorite “Wonder People (I Do Wonder),” a hornless version of “Stop the Music” with a more relaxed vocal take, and the straight-up oddity “Graveyard Hop,” a downright feral travesty of “Jailhouse Rock,” wherein Lee channels the howls of Little Richard. It’s never been released before, and DM is glad to be able to debut it for you today.
 

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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10.22.2015
09:32 am
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Jimi Hendrix’s mescaline-fueled session with Arthur Lee and Love
04.03.2015
07:49 am
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Arthur Lee and Jimi Hendrix, 1969
 
Jimi Hendrix and Arthur Lee met in 1964 or 1965 at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, where singer Rosa Lee Brooks was recording Lee’s song “My Diary.” Lee claimed the session was Hendrix’s first time in a recording studio, though it seems likely Hendrix had already cut “Testify” with the Isley Brothers.
 

 
The two men remained friends, and on St. Patrick’s Day 1970, after Love finished a European tour, Hendrix joined the band in London’s Olympic Studios. There, Lee says Jimi and the band all ate mescaline (or “Huxley’s hooch,” as we used to call it in the San Fernando Valley). From Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book Of Love—The Authorized Biography of Arthur Lee, here are Lee’s recollections of the Olympic session:

Boy, did we have fun at the Olympic recording studio. The band and Jimi all took mescaline. Although they didn’t know it, I was as straight as Cochise’s arrow. Somebody had to steer the ship. [...]

One of the ways I got Jimi to do the session in the first place—or how I got his attention, anyway—happened one night at the Speakeasy. He and I arrived together. The guy at the front door told me I could come in but Jimi couldn’t. When I asked him why, he said that Jimi had been fighting in the club on an earlier occasion and they didn’t want that happening again. So I told him that Jimi was cool, the entourage that was with us was cool, and I didn’t think any fighting would be going on that night. He finally agreed. I said to Jimi, “Look, man, neither one of us is going to be around much longer, anyway; so while we’re here, we might as well do something together.” When I said that, whatever we were talking about, or he was thinking about, just seemed to stop and I had his full attention. He really went into some deep thought as he looked at me from across the table. He was looking into my eyes and I knew he could only be thinking about our early deaths.

The session went completely differently from the way I was used to recording. I thought it was to be a private session. I don’t remember telling anyone to come, except the band; but, to my surprise, there were people all over the place. There were girls I’d never seen before and faces popping out from where you would least expect a person to be. I was in a state of shock, but Jimi said, “It’s OK, let them stay.” More than once, Jimi thought we were done and went to pack everything up. Then he would come back into the studio while we were playing and say, “What key?” Once, when we were learning a song I wrote, called “Ride That Vibration,” Jimi came walking back in during the middle of it. He asked me, “What did you just say in that song?” I said, “Ride the vibration down like a six foot grave / Don’t let it get you down.” Then he said, “I gotta go; it’s getting too heavy.” He called a cab, took [drummer George Suranovich’s] girlfriend, and was out the door. George just looked at me as if to say, “That’s Jimi.” After a while, Jimi came back and suggested that everyone jam, and were my band members ever happy!

On that session in London, we managed to lay down a few tracks, among them “E-Z Rider,” “The Everlasting First,” and a jam that I would later add lyrics to. Jimi sang on “E-Z Rider.” I gave the master reel to [Blue Thumb Records president] Bob Krasnow. He never gave it back. At the time, I wondered if someone was filming us, although I never saw a camera. I found out, in the early 90s, they had been.

Back in the studio, it was almost daylight, so I signaled to H to start wrapping it up. I don’t think Jimi was ready to quit, but it had been a long night for me. The tour we were doing was over with; I just wanted to get back to Studio City in California. As we were walking out of the building, Jimi asked, “Where are you going?” I said, “Man, I gotta get back to LA; to my woman, dogs, and pigeons.” Jimi said, “Come here, I want to show you something.” We walked back inside the studio. He pointed to his guitar case on the floor. Then he opened it up. I thought he had a stash in there, but as he stood up, he pointed to it again and said, “This is all I have.” I couldn’t figure it out at first, but then it hit me. He was telling me that the white Stratocaster guitar in the case were his only possessions. I felt kind of sad for him.

 

 
Of the three songs Hendrix cut with Love at Olympic, only “The Everlasting First”—the single from Love’s False Start album—was officially released. The other two songs, Hendrix’s “Ezy Rider” and the jam “Loon,” surfaced on an acetate that turned up on eBay in 2009.

The music, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Oliver Hall
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04.03.2015
07:49 am
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Classic rock conspiracy theory: ‘Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon,’ the dark heart of the hippie dream


 
The standard modus operandi of a work of “conspiracy theory” is fairly straightforward. The author/researcher takes some commonly accepted historical narrative, and lavishes scepticism upon it, while simultaneously maintaining an alternative understanding of what “really” happened, one that ostensibly better fits the considered facts.

While Dave McGowan’s Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon : Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream, indubitably follows this approach, its focus is utterly unique. Not to put too fine a point on it, the book is no less than the Official Classic Rock Conspiracy Theory, with individual chapters tackling the unlikely subjects of Frank Zappa, the Doors, Love, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, Gram Parsons and more, the careers of which are scrutinized for the fingerprints of the secret state.

What you make of McGowan’s criteria in and of itself (which ranges fairly widely, and at times wildly, from a “tell-tale” preoccupation with the occult to heavy military-industrial family ties), to my mind the virtue of Weird Scenes dwells in the ensuing atmosphere of incredible fairy-tale strangeness—not unlike Joan Didion’s own famous look at California in the late sixties, The White Album. On almost every page, movie-star mansions, knitted with secret passages, spontaneously combust; murders, suicides and overdoses spread through the celebrity populace; cults spring up peopled with mobsters and spies… and all the while, this timeless, intriguing music keeps on geysering away. I contacted McGowan about his bizarre book earlier this week…

Thomas McGrath: Hi Dave. Could you begin please by telling us something about your previous work?

David McGowan: My work as a political/social critic began around 1997, when I began to see signs that the political landscape in this country was about to change in rather profound ways. That was also the time that I first ventured onto the internet, which opened up a wealth of new research possibilities. I put up my first website circa 1998, and an adaptation of that became my first book, Derailing Democracy, in 2000. That first book, now out of print, was a warning to the American people that all the changes we have seen since the events of September 11, 2001 – the attacks on civil rights, privacy rights, and due process rights; the militarization of the nation’s police forces; the waging of multiple wars; the rise of surveillance technology and data mining, etc. – were already in the works and just waiting for a provocation to justify their implementation. My second book, Understanding the F-Word, was a review of twentieth-century US history that attempted to answer the question: “if this is in fact where we’re headed, then how did we get here?” Since 9-11, I’ve spent a good deal of time researching the events of that day and looked into a wide range of other topics. My third book, Programmed to Kill, was a look at the reality and mythology of what exactly a serial killer is. For the past six years, I have spent most of my time digging into the 1960s and 1970s Laurel Canyon counterculture scene, which has now become my fourth book, Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon.

Thomas McGrath:  Am I right in presuming that you take it as a given fact that power networks are essentially infected by occultism? Are these cults essentially Satanic, or what?

David McGowan: Yes, I do believe that what you refer to as power networks, otherwise known as secret societies, are occult in nature. The symbolism can be seen everywhere, if you choose not to maneuver your way through the world deaf, dumb and blind. And I believe that it has been that way for a very long time. As for them being Satanic, I suppose it depends upon how you define Satanic. I personally don’t believe the teachings of either Satanism or Christianity, which are really just opposite sides of the same coin. I don’t believe that there is a God or a devil, and I don’t believe that those on the upper rungs of the ladder on either side believe so either. These are belief systems that are used to manipulate the minds of impressionable followers. In the case of Satanism, it is, to me, a way to covertly sell a fascist mindset, which is the direction the country, and the rest of the world, is moving. Those embracing the teachings think they are rebelling against the system, but they are in reality reinforcing it. Just as the hippies did. And just as so-called Patriots and Anarchists are. I don’t believe there has been a legitimate resistance movement in this country for a very long time.

Thomas McGrath: Tell us about Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon. What is this new book’s central thesis?

David McGowan: To the extent that it has a central thesis, I would say that it is that the music and counterculture scene that sprung to life in the 1960s was not the organic, grassroots resistance movement that it is generally perceived to be, but rather a movement that was essentially manufactured and steered. And a corollary to that would be that for a scene that was supposed to be all about peace, love and understanding, there was a very dark, violent underbelly that this book attempts to expose.

Thomas McGrath: How convinced are you by it and why?

David McGowan: Very convinced. It’s been a long journey and virtually everything I have discovered – including the military/intelligence family backgrounds of so many of those on the scene, both among the musicians and among their actor counterparts; the existence of a covert military facility right in the heart of the canyon; the prior connections among many of the most prominent stars; the fact that some of the guiding lights behind both the Rand Corporation and the Project for a New American Century were hanging out there at the time, as were the future governor and lieutenant governor of California, and, by some reports, J. Edgar Hoover and various other unnamed politicos and law enforcement personnel; and the uncanny number of violent deaths connected to the scene – all tend to indicate that the 1960s counterculture was an intelligence operation.

Thomas McGrath: You propose that hippie culture was established to neutralise the anti-war movement. But I also interpreted your book as suggesting that, as far as you’re concerned, there’s also some resonance between what you term “psychedelic occultism” (the hippie counterculture) and the “elite” philosophy/theology? You think this was a second reason for its dissemination?

David McGowan: Yes, I do. Hippie culture is now viewed as synonymous with the anti-war movement, but as the book points out, that wasn’t always the case. A thriving anti-war movement existed before the first hippie emerged on the scene, along with a women’s rights movement, a black empowerment/Black Panther movement, and various other movements aimed at bringing about major changes in society. All of that was eclipsed by and subsumed by the hippies and flower children, who put a face on those movements that was offensive to mainstream America and easy to demonize. And as you mentioned, a second purpose was served as well – indoctrinating the young and impressionable into a belief system that serves the agenda of the powers that be.

Thomas McGrath: One thing your book does very convincingly, I think, is argue that many if not most of the main movers in the sixties counterculture were, not to put too fine a point on it, horrendous, cynical degenerates. However, one might argue that a predilection for drugs, alcohol, and even things like violence and child abuse, does not make you a member of a government cult. You disagree?

David McGowan:  No. I’ve known a lot of people throughout my life with a predilection for drugs and alcohol, none of whom were involved in any cults, government or otherwise. And I don’t believe that a predilection for drugs makes one a degenerate. The focus on drug use in the book is to illustrate the point that none of the scene’s movers and shakers ever suffered any legal consequences for their rampant and very open use of, and sometimes trafficking of, illicit drugs. The question posed is why, if these people were really challenging the status quo, did the state not use its law enforcement powers to silence troublemakers? I do have zero tolerance for violence towards and abuse of children, which some people in this story were guilty of. But that again doesn’t make someone a member of a cult – though it does make them seriously morally challenged.

Thomas McGrath: You say in the book that you were always a fan of sixties music and culture. Weirdly, I found that, even while reading Weird Scenes, I was almost constantly listening to the artists you were denouncing. I mean, I found albums like Pet Sounds, Forever Changes, Return of the Grievous Angel,et al sounded especially weird in the context, but I still couldn’t resist sticking them on. I was wondering if you still listen to these records yourself?

David McGowan: Yes, I do. The very first rock concert I ever attended was Three Dog Night circa 1973 – a Laurel Canyon band, though I did not know that until about five years ago. To my mind, the greatest guitarist who ever lived was Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin was arguably the finest female vocalist – in terms of raw power and emotion – to ever take the stage. I don’t know that it is accurate to describe my book as “denouncing” various artists. Brian Wilson, who composed Pet Sounds, is described as the finest and most admired composer of his generation. The guys from Love, architects of Forever Changes, are presented as among the most talented musicians of the era. Frank Zappa is acknowledged as an immensely talented musician, composer and arranger. And so on. It is true that I believe that some of the most famed artists to emerge from Laurel Canyon are vastly overrated, with Jim Morrison and David Crosby quickly coming to mind. And it’s true that on some of the most loved albums that came out of the canyon, the musicians who interpreted the songs weren’t the ones on the album covers. And it’s also true that, unlike other books that have covered the Laurel Canyon scene, Weird Scenes doesn’t sugarcoat things. But the undeniable talent and artistry of many of the canyon’s luminaries is acknowledged. And the book also shines a little bit of light on some of the tragically forgotten figures from that era, like Judee Sill and David Blue, which could lead to readers rediscovering some of those artists and the talents that they had to offer.
 
Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream is available now in special pre-release hardback only from Headpress. The paperback is out next month, and should be available from all strange bookshops.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Beyond the Doors: Conspiracy theories about the deaths of Jimi, Janis and Jim

Posted by Thomas McGrath
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03.28.2014
01:30 pm
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An Arthur Lee video I bet you’ve never seen before
05.06.2012
07:06 pm
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image
 
I’m a huge fan of Arthur Lee and Love and am always grateful for any new video I find related to Lee or his band. So, I was thrilled to find this fan-shot video of Lee performing in Greece in 2003 on his Forever Changes tour.

The video is a little wobbly but the audio is very nice indeed. “Live and Let Live.”
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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05.06.2012
07:06 pm
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Arthur Lee and Love performing ‘Signed D.C.’ live in 1970
10.03.2011
07:29 pm
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The immortal Arthur Lee and Love performing “Signed D.C.” on Danish TV special A Group By The Name Of Love that aired in July of 1970.

The concert footage is from a Love gig at Tivoli Koncertsal, Copenhagen, March 12, 1970.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.03.2011
07:29 pm
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Rarely seen documentary on Arthur Lee from 1991
08.12.2011
04:41 pm
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There’s very little information to be found on this 1991 “documentary” on Arthur Lee. The three key people involved in its creation are dead or, in the case of Crimson Crout, nowhere to be found. Directed by the mysterious Crout from a concept by Arthur Lee and compiled by Los Angeles writer, deejay and garage/punk/psychedelic promoter Frank Beeson, the video has amateur production values overall but is redeemed by laid back interviews with Lee (conducted by a barely present Beeson) and some decent live footage of Lee performing with latter day Love members Melvan Whittington and Joe Blocker as well as two members of The Knack, Bruce Gary and Berton Averre.

The film was made during Lee’s tentative re-emergence as an artist after a long dormant period during the 1980s. His return to the public eye was interrupted when he was incarcerated in 1995 for possession of a hand gun.

The live footage is taken from a series of gigs in 1989, during which Lee was regaining his footing as a performer.

The documentary, like Lee, is a bit ramshackle. The good news is that a decade after it was shot, a re-invigorated Arthur Lee returned to the stage for some of the best live shows of his incredible life, receiving the accolades he so richly deserved.

I can’t find anything on director Crimson Crout other than he released a 45rpm record in 1975 with two songs, “10,000 Years” and Redneck Ways.” John Einarson, author of the excellent Arthur Lee biography Forever Changes Arthur Lee And The Book Of Love was unable to track down the “elusive” Crout in researching his book. Who is this mystery man? Beeson?
 

 
Photo: Andy Willsher.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.12.2011
04:41 pm
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Arthur Lee’s 1973 album ‘Black Beauty’ is finally being released
03.03.2011
08:00 pm
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Love, the 1973 incarnation.
 
Arthur Lee’s lost album Black Beauty is finally receiving an official release after nearly 40 years of being in bootleg limbo. Newly launched label High Moon Records is releasing it on June 7.

Originally planned to be released by Buffalo Records in 1973, Black Beauty was shelved when the label went bankrupt. It was recorded by one of Lee’s various incarnations of his band Love: Robert Rozelle, Bass Guitar ~ Joe Blocker, Drums ~ Melvan Whittington, Lead Guitar.

High Moon founder George Wallace stated in a press release that Black Beauty is “that rarest of rock artifacts: a never-before-released, full-length studio album, from an undisputed musical genius.”

You can listen to tracks from Black Beauty here.

Fan made video of the song “Midnight Sun” from Black Beauty:

 
Via The Daily Swarm

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.03.2011
08:00 pm
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Promo video for Love’s ‘Your Mind And We Belong Together’
01.07.2011
07:48 pm
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Love’s 1968 single “Your Mind And We Belong Together” was Arthur Lee’s first solo outing as a producer and the last record to feature all of the band’s original members. This promo clip was directed by Mark Abramson who co-produced Love’s debut album.

For you Love fans out there, I recommend a recent biography of Arthur Lee, “Forever Changes, Arthur Lee And The Book Of Love,” by John Einarson. It includes long passages from Lee’s heretofore unpublished memoirs. For that reason alone, it’s invaluable. His recollections of working with Jimi Hendrix and encounters with The Doors are rock history from the inside. You can pick up a copy here.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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01.07.2011
07:48 pm
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Arthur Lee and Love: ‘She Comes In Colors’
08.13.2010
11:16 pm
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She Comes In Colors by Arthur Lee and Love.

Thanks, Butch!

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.13.2010
11:16 pm
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