Why the Sixties Failed... In Me

When the Second World War was over everybody returned home from fighting and had babies. And then when the Sixties came along you had a great surplus of people. A big wave of surplus people. I was one of those surplus people. I still am. Only the wave’s a bit older now with different qualities. But in the sixties everybody was under twenty-five and it was one big party. And people bring music to a party. So it was with the Sixties.

So I was going to talk about the movie “Easy Rider” and the music that came with it. So I watched the movie again, and even if I had never seen it before I would have held it in my cultural collective memory. By the way, as for for the opening track, “Easy Rider” is an American movie but Steppenwulf is a Canadian/American band.  Which seems to be appropriate for a movie which is anti-traditional American values.  At least the traditional values of the sixties.  Now, I know there were positives and negatives within the Sixties and the new ideals that rose out of it.  There was a hyper-conservative mindset which needed changing, perhaps like the conservative midset today.  But the force of change in the sixties  was turmoil and partly youthful madness.   And, sorry man, I have to tell it like it is.

Click to see it like it is

“Easy Rider” is about two motorcycle riding drug dealers Wyatt and Billy (played by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda) who smuggle cocaine across the Mexican border. On the way to New Orleans, they pick up some LSD from a Hippie commune and an alcoholic lawyer named George (Jack Nicholson) from a jail cell. On route to New Orleans, George is brutally murdered. They take his credit cards, go to a fancy restaurant, a whorehouse and have an LSD orgy in New Orleans’ graveyard. Then they are killed on the road by two rednecks.

Maybe I’m getting old, conservative in my old age… getting all those Squaresville values. Because, I’ll tell you, man, “Easy Rider” is such a fantastic movie with such great music but, maybe, those kids in the movie trying to farm in the hippie commune were starving because 1. they chose a bad piece of land so they wouldn’t have to pay for it and 2. they were stoned half the time. Maybe some of those young kids needed to get a dose of family values and just go home. But, you know, I have to tell it like it is.

I am not going to dwell on Steppenwulf, or The Byrds, The Band, or The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Our memories become very selective. Not all that is forgotten is necessarily good… that is sometimes why it is forgotten. But nostalgia is often like catharsis. So what about The Electric Prunes, The Holy Modal Rounders, Fraternity of Man, and The Electric Flag?

The Electric Flag was a Mike Bloomfield band. In 1967 they wrote and performed the music soundtrack for The Trip, starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, written by Jack Nicholson and directed by Roger Corman about an LSD trip. See how these things are connected?

I’ve run through it a few times. It’s possible the gang that beat poor George (Jack Nicholson) to death was an hallucination by Billy. I think Billy killed George because Billy was constantly stoned and paranoid and George was constantly razzing Billy.  In the prison cell Billy threatened to kill George.  And when George was killed, Wyatt and Billy were not only untouched by the attackers, Wyatt slept through it. That puts a whole new twist on Kyrie Elieson by the Electric Prunes. Maybe when Wyatt say’s “We blew it” he’s feeling remorse for George’s death.

The Electric Prunes have 14 albums behind them and are currently active as the New Improved Prunes.  They are one heavy blues band with bass and solid lead and rhythm guitars and organ and when you combine that with Medieval harmonies and a taste of psychedelia as in their 1968 album “Mass in F Minor"…  Well, our mind opens more every day.  And a final word on the two movies, “The Trip” and “Easy Rider."  If I was to go by Peter Fonda’s acting, Dennis Hopper is a much better director than Roger Corman.  He just said “Don’t act, Pete.”

Look, I grew up on the sixties and the seventies, the music, TV and the movies. So I’m having real trouble writing this.   I’ve idealized it all in my head and the music and the ideals of peace and love are great, and the whole idea of psychedelia, the colors and sound, are fantastic, I think it is possible to get there creatively without ending up like Sid Barrett. Does that make me a drag man?

Suddenly I feel really old.

Peace and Love.