Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 103

Record label: Vanguard

Produced: Samuel Charters

Recorded: Vanguard Records’ 23rd Street Studio, New York City; June–September 1967

Released: November 1967

Chart peaks: None (UK) 67 (US)

Personnel: Joe McDonald (v, g, o); Barry Melton (g, v, kazoo); David Cohen (o, calliope, harpsichord, g, v); Bruce Barthol (bs, hm, v); Gary ‘Chicken’ Hirsh (d); Ed Friedner (e)

Track listing: The Fish Cheer And I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die-Rag; Who Am I (S/US); Pat’s Song; Rock Coast Blues; Magoo; Janis (S/US); Thought Dream; Thursday; Eastern Jam; Colors For Susan

Running time: 45.03

Current CD: VMD 79266-2

Further listening: Electric Music For The Mind And Body (1967), the band’s debut, which McDonald has proudly described as ‘the best psychedelic rock record ever made by anybody in the world’.

Further reading: www.countryjoe.com. Apart from being excellently informative, McDonald’s website gives you the chance to be the first on your block to buy a Gimme An F … condom!

Download: Not currently legally available

‘Gimme an F … Gimme an I … Gimme an S … Gimme an H … What’s that spell? FISH! What’s that spell? FISH!’ Country Joe’s second album begins, bizarrely, in a stoned, subversive, demented parody of high school cheerleaders. But they actually had their roots in the traditional US jugband and folk scenes, before developing their sound to become the Bay Area’s foremost psychedelic adventurers, dizzyingly blending acid rock, satire, revolutionary politics and mischief.

The rollicking title song, a satirical, anti-war masterpiece, was written as America’s involvement in Vietnam deepened disastrously. ‘Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box’ is typical of the lyrics, sung to a disconcertingly jaunty tune while the band cheerily chant, ‘Psychedelic, psychedelic!’ in the background. The song remains McDonald’s personal favourite.

‘It’s affected so many people’s lives and it’s affected history. I don’t know if I can claim writing it because it just popped out of my head one day, but I’m most proud of facilitating that.’

Janis is a tender love song for McDonald’s former girlfriend Janis Joplin, while unlisted between Thought Dream and Thursday is The Acid Commercial, a jolly jingle advertising lysergic pursuits: ‘If you’re tired or a bit rundown/Can’t seem to get your feet off the ground/Maybe you ought to try a little bit of LSD!’

The outrageousness of The Acid Commercial still startles. ‘The Establishment weren’t paying attention to what we were doing so we were able to do anything we wanted,’ reasons McDonald. ‘We were the best ever psychedelic band.’

They certainly took their role as acid pioneers seriously. ‘I’ve taken LSD 300 times,’ boasted guitarist Barry Melton in 1968. In a truly hallucinatory twist the same Melton, in another life, was in 1985 named by the San Francisco Bar Association as Outstanding Lawyer In Public Service.