Film Review: ‘My Generation’

by Jay Weissberg, Variety.com: http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/my-generation-review-1202595221/

Director:

 

David Batty

Cast:

 

Michael Caine

85 minutes

Official Site: 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6264954/reference

There’s a tremendous amount of pleasure to be had in David Batty’s “My Generation,” a sloppy wet kiss to Michael Caine and British youth culture of the 1960s. Loaded with great footage from the era and accompanied by superbly cleaned-up music tracks from the Kinks, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many others, this love letter-as-documentary offers 85 minutes of good old fun. What it doesn’t do is posit any genuine analysis or even make a head-nod to diversity. But this is Caine’s narrative about the unapologetic working class taking over popular culture, and the writers as well as music mogul Simon Fuller, acting as top producer, have no interest in countering their star’s gleefully empowering chronicle of his youth. Voiceover interviews with such key players of the era as Paul McCartney, Marianne Faithfull, Twiggy and Mary Quant add to the overall feast, making the film an attractive offering for all platforms.

Britain in the 1950s was dull, announces Caine, though doesn’t every generation say that about the era before their own gloriously self-satisfied arrival? What’s undeniable is the momentous shift toward youth culture beginning in the 1960s, as well as the opening up of opportunities for white working-class creative types who no longer submitted to makeovers designed to smooth out their roughness. In one of the more telling anecdotes, Caine talks about auditioning for “Zulu,” his breakthrough role, and accurately suggests that had the director, Cy Endfield, been British instead of American, Caine’s working class London accent would have eliminated any hope of being cast in the role of an upper-class officer. That’s an undeniable fact.

Far more shaky is the suggestion that the working class in the 1960s was the first generation in Britain to thumb its collective nose at convention. On-the-street interviews from the era with stuffed shirts bemoaning the appearance of long-haired men in flowery blouses expose middle-class attitudes, but the filmmakers choose to ignore the fact that the upper class has always played with transgression in ways designed to shock the bourgeoisie. What made the 1960s different was that the working class was playing the same game, and emulating “our betters” was no longer an acceptable form of behavior. Nor was emulating our elders: Freedom from convention was the hallmark of a social revolution that impacted everything from art, music and clothing to changing concepts of morality. Of course, every Englishman knows the class system remains the key determinant of opportunity, but in the art and entertainment world, coming from the wrong side of the tracks is actually now more desirable than a boarding school certificate, and that’s definitely due to the upheavals of the 1960s.

Batty divides the film into three parts, roughly corresponding to the awakening, the flourishing and the decline of 1960s pop culture. Alongside nods to expected historic markers like the Beatles performing at Liverpool’s Cavern Club are more unanticipated moments, such as Roger Daltry talking about the profound impact of seeing Elvis perform: “For the first time in my life, I saw someone who was free.” That’s about the only time in the film there’s a mention of transatlantic influences on the British scene.

From there, the documentary plunges headlong into the intoxicating psychedelic playpen of Pop Art, Vidal Sassoon haircuts, and Mary Quant micro-miniskirts, reminding audiences (or teaching them for the first time) that in the 1960s, color and pattern were transgressive and hip, unlike today’s tediously conformist black monochromaticity. Suddenly, thanks to the British Invasion, being young and British meant you were cool, stylish and glam, tuned into the best music, clothes and art movements. Models such as Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy set new standards for beauty, and groups like the Animals, the Kinks, the Stones and of course the Beatles set the tone, guiding a generation from the innocent charm of “Love Me Do” to the raucous hunger of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” By the end of the decade, hedonism took a darker turn. The Vietnam War acted as a political coming of age, and the destructive nature of so much heavy drug use began to take its toll, symbolized by the death of Brian Jones and Faithfull’s near-fatal drug overdose, both in 1969.

For Caine, “My Generation” is a chance to look back in nostalgic delight at his salad days, allowing him to gamely reminisce about his time as one of the “it” boys of London. He even gets to swan around in the original Aston Martin DB4 he drove in “The Italian Job.” None of the others interviewed are seen on screen — whether that’s because the producers wanted to maintain the aura of 1960s youth, or it was the only way to get these people to talk, remains open for speculation. It’s also likely that writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais allowed themselves to be guided by Caine’s insistence on working-class culture, ignoring the fact that some of those included, most especially Faithfull, are from posh backgrounds.

If you set aside analytical skills however, it’s easy to sit back and enjoy the wealth of archival clips accompanied by fantastic music tracks that seem to have been remastered for the occasion (lord knows how much all the music rights must have cost). Ben Hilton’s editing successfully crams in a great deal without a sense of whiplash.

Film Review: 'My Generation'

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition), Sept. 4, 2017. (Also in London Film Festival – Journey.)

PRODUCTION: (Documentary — U.K.) An XIX Entertainment presentation, in association with IM Global, of a Raymi Films production, in association with Ingenious Media. (International sales: IM Global, Los Angeles.)  Producers: Simon Fuller, Michael Caine, Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly. Executive producer: James Clayton. Co-producer: Ben Hilton. CREW: Director: David Batty. Writers: Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais. Camera (color): Ben Hodgson. Editor: Ben Hilton. Music supervisor: Tarquin Gotch.

WITH: Michael CaineVoices of David Bailey, Twiggy, Terry O’Neill, Roger Daltrey, Marianne Faithfull, Paul McCartney, Lulu, Joan Collins, Sandie Shaw, Penelope Tree, Dudley Edwards, Mary Quant, Mim Scala, David Putnam, Barbara Hulanicki.

Ready for Their Closeups: The Top 5 Beatles Music Videos

by THE CS TEAM, Culture Sonar:









http://www.culturesonar.com/beatles-music-videos/ 

Let’s put aside their individual mega-hits post-breakup like “Imagine,”
“Band on the Run,” and “Got My Mind Set on You.” Let’s also take out of 
consideration such memorable covers as Marvin Gaye’s exquisite
rendition of “Yesterday” and The Fifth Dimension’s rockin’ “I’ve Got a 
Feeling.” Instead, let’s focus specifically on the official videos on YouTube
— in particular, on The Beatles Vevo channel. What are people watching 
when it comes to Fab Four songs? Well first and foremost, it is not “Let It 
Be.” Below is a list of the five music videos with the most views to date on 
Vevo. At least so far …

1. “Don’t Let Me Down”: 88 million plays and counting
It might not feature their most beloved song or their most popular one but
this video does commemorate the Fab Four’s final public performance via
their immortal rooftop concert at Apple Studios in London circa 1969 —
with both Lennon and Harrison decked out in furs, McCartney sporting a
thick beard, and Ringo upstaging them all with his red plastic jacket. Pay 
close attention and you’ll spot Billy Preston accompanying the guys on 
the keyboards, too.

2. “Hey Jude”: 74 million plays and counting
First seen on the fairly short-lived Frost on Sunday on LWT (a.k.a. London
Weekend Television) in 1968, this video encored in America on The 
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour later that same year. Stick around past
the 47-second intro and you’re brought up close to McCartney’s face
singing straight into the camera, with some cut-aways to the other band
members — most memorably a gum-chewing Lennon who looks to be
making faces at McCartney at one point in an attempt to make him laugh.
The emergence of a studio audience onstage at the end doubles as a
time capsule of period fashions.

3. “Hello, Goodbye”: 56 million plays and counting
The eye-popping, candy-colored, silken military uniforms of Sgt. Pepper‘s
fame may partially distract you from some lip syncing that doesn’t always
sync up and those preposterous hulu dancers who suddenly pop up at
the end. This is actually one of a trio of videos that McCartney himself
directed for the song and it debuted on The Ed Sullivan Show in
November 1967. (It was banned on Britain’s Top of the Pops because of
its illegal use of miming!)

4. “A Day in the Life”: 48 million plays and counting
Given the song pays homage to avant-garde titans John Cage and
Karlheinz Stockhausen among others, the video’s experimental feel —
part light show, part cinema verite, part family home movies — feels
perfectly appropriate. Quick glimpses of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
amid a montage of increasingly hallucinatory power adds a layer of
glamor. Why are the tuxedoed orchestra members wearing
strange noses and silly hats? Because they were asked to!

5. “Penny Lane”: 44 millions plays and counting
Deemed by none other than the Museum of Modern Art to be among the
most influential music promos of its time, this 1967 short was helmed by
Peter Emmanuel Goldman, a now largely-forgotten director who
Susan Sontag referred to as “the most exciting filmmaker in recent years.”
So decades before MTV came into existence, The Beatles were ahead
of their time in yet another art form: the music video.

– The CS Team

PS. If you want to watch more of The Beatles, check out
our post on 5 movies by the Fab Four. You may also enjoy
The Fascinating But Forgotten Films of Ringo Starr and
8 “Yesterday” Covers to Make Paul McCartney Proud.

Photo: Keystone/Stringer (courtesy Getty Images)

Hear Lost Acetate Versions of Songs from The Velvet Underground & Nico (1966)

by Colin Marshall, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/hear_newly_released_material_from_ithe_velvet_underground_nicosi_lost_acetate_version_1966.html



While the first Velvet Underground album may only have sold 30,000 copies, everyone who bought one started a band. You know, if you have even a faint acquaintance with rock history, that that well-worn observation comes from producer, artistic innovator, and "non-musician" musician Brian Eno.

And whether you could get into it or not, you've no doubt heard at least parts of that first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, the 1967 release that brought together such soon-to-be rock luminaries as Lou Reed, John Cale, and the titular German vocalist/Warhol Superstar Nico.

The whole album, in fact, appeared under Warhol's aegis, and like most works associated with him, it tends to push opinions far in one direction or the other. The Velvet Undergound & Nico may still move you to found a rock band - or to scrap your interest in rock altogether - 45 years after its first release.



I refer to the record's "first release" because it's recently undergone a couple more, both of which originate in a version never even intended for market. "In 2002, a fellow paid 75 cents at a New York City flea market for a curious acetate recording of the Velvet Underground," reports Boing Boing's David Pescovitz.

"Turns out, the acetate contained early recorded takes and mixes of songs in different form." That man had stumbled upon the coveted Scepter Studios acetate version of the album that launched 30,000 bands, bootleg files of which soon began circulating on the net.

The acetate received a legitimate release last year as part of The Velvet Underground & Nico's "45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition," and you can hear cuts from it, like "Heroin" at the top of this post and "All Tomorrow's Parties" just above. For Velvet Underground purists, of course, only hearing the acetate disc itself will do. They'll have a hard time doing so - it last changed hands for $25,200 - but luckily they can now get at least one step closer with its brand new vinyl release.

Ken Kesey Talks About the Meaning of the Acid Tests

For me, there have always been at least three Ken Keseys. First, there was the antiauthoritarian author of the madcap 1962 classic One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Inspired by Kesey’s own work as an orderly at a Menlo Park mental hospital, the author’s voice disappears into that of the narrator, Chief Bromden, and the dialogue of the most memorable ensemble of troubled personalities in twentieth century literature. Then there’s the Kesey of the 1964 Sometimes a Great Notion, a Pacific Northwest epic and the work of a serious novelist pulling American archetypes from rough-hewn Oregon logging country. Finally, there’s Kesey the Merry Prankster, the mad scientist who almost single-handedly invented sixties drug culture with his ‘64 psychedelic bus tour and acid test parties. It’s a little hard to put them all together sometimes. Ken Kesey contained multitudes.

The acid test parties began after Kesey’s experience with mind-altering drugs as a volunteer test subject for Army experiments in 1960 (later revealed to be part of the CIA’s mind control experiment, Project MKUltra). Kesey stole LSD and invited friends to try it with him. In 1965, after Hunter S. Thompson introduced Kesey to the Hell’s Angels, he expanded his test parties to real happenings at larger venues, beginning at his home in La Honda, California. Always present was the music of The Grateful Dead, who debuted under that name at one of Kesey’s parties after losing their original name, The Warlocks. The cast of characters also included Jack Kerouac’s traveling buddy Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and Dr. Timothy Leary. Out of what Hunter Thompson called “the world capital of madness,” the psychedelic counter-culture of Haight-Ashbury was born.

In the interview above, Kesey talks about the acid tests as much more than an excuse to trip for hours and hear The Dead play for a buck. No, he says, “there were people who passed and people who didn’t pass” the test. What it all meant perhaps only Kesey knew for sure. (He is quoted as saying that he and his band of compatriots, the Merry Pranksters, were trying to “stop the coming end of the world”). In any case, it’s a strange story—stranger than any of Ken Kesey’s works of fiction: covert government mind control program turns on one of the generation’s most subversive novelists, who then masterminds the hippy movement. The video below, from the Kesey documentary Magic Trip, takes us back to where it started with animation of a tape recording of Kesey narrating his first government-sponsored acid trip.

Josh Jones is a writer and musician. He recently completed a dissertation on landscape, literature, and labor.

VIDEOS: The History of the Blues in 50 Riffs: From Blind Lemon Jefferson (1928) to Joe Bonamassa (2009)

If you’ve ever had any doubt, for some reason or other, that rock and roll descended directly from the blues, the video above, a history of the blues in 50 riffs, should convince you. And while you might think a blues history that ends in rock n roll would start with Robert Johnson, this guitarist reaches back to the country blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Black Snake Moan” from 1928 then moves through legendarily tuneful players like Skip James and Reverend Gary Davis before we get to the infamous Mr. Johnson.

Big Bill Broonzy is, as he should be, represented. Other country blues greats like soft-spoken farmer Mississippi John Hurt and hardened felon Lead Belly, “King of the 12 String Guitar,” are not. Say what you will about that. The recordings these artists made with Okeh Records and Alan Lomax, despite their commercial failure in the 30s, midwifed the blues revival of the fifties and sixties. Hear Lead Belly's version of folk ballad “Gallows Pole” above, a song Led Zeppelin made famous. Lead Belly’s acoustic blues inspired everyone from John Fogerty to Skiffle King Lonnie Donegan, Pete Seeger to Jimmy Page, as did the rootsy country blues of Lightnin’ Hopkins, who is included in the 50 riffs. As are John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and BB King’s electric styles---all of them picked up by blues rock revivalists, including, of course, Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix’s “Red House” riff makes the cut here, as we move slowly into rock and roll. But before we get to Hendrix, we must first check in with two other Kings, Freddie and Albert—especially Albert. Hendrix “was star struck,” says Rolling Stone, “when his hero [Albert King] opened for him at the Fillmore in 1967.” For his part, King said, “I taught [Hendrix] a lesson about the blues. I could have easily played his songs, but he couldn’t play mine.” See King play “Born Under a Bad Sign” in 1981, above, and hear why Hendrix worshipped him.

Mississippi blues moved to Memphis, Chicago, New York and to Texas, where by the 70s and 80s, ZZ Top and Stevie Ray Vaughan added their own southwest roadhouse swagger. (No Johnny Winter, alas.) Many people will be pleased to see Irish rocker Rory Gallagher in the mix, and amused that The Blues Brothers get a mention. Many more usual suspects appear, and a few unusual picks. I’m very glad to hear a brief R.L. Burnside riff. The White Stripes, Tedeschi Trucks Band, and Joe Bonamassa round things out into the 2010’s. Everyone will miss their favorite blues player. (As usual, the powerhouse gospel blues guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe gets overlooked.) I would love to see included in any history of blues such obscure but brilliant guitarists as Evan Johns (above), whose rockabilly blues guitar freakouts sound like nothing else. Or John Dee Holeman, below, whose effortless, understated rhythm playing goes unmatched in my book.

Like so many of the bluesmen who came before them, these gentlemen seem to represent a dying breed. And yet the blues lives on and evolves in artists like Gary Clark Jr., The Black Keys, and Alabama Shakes. And of course there’s the prodigy Bonamassa, whom you absolutely have to see below at age 12, jamming with experimental country speed demon Danny Gatton’s band (he gets going around 1:05).

If you’re missing your favorites, give them a shout out below. Who do you think has to be included in any history of the blues—told in riffs or otherwise---and why?

The Rolling Stones Introduce Bluesman Howlin’ Wolf on US TV, One of the “Greatest Cultural Moments of the 20th Century” (1965)

by Josh Jones, Open Culture:

http://www.openculture.com/2016/08/the-rolling-stones-introduce-bluesman-howlin-wolf-on-us-tv.html

Josh is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

Howlin’ Wolf may well have been the greatest blues singer of the 20th century. Certainly many people have said so, but there are other measurements than mere opinion, though it’s one I happen to share. The man born Chester Arthur Burnett also had a profound historical effect on popular culture, and on the way the Chicago blues carried “the sound of Jim Crow,” as Eric Lott writes, into American cities in the north, and into Europe and the UK. Recording for both Chess and Sun Records in the 50s (Sam Phillips said of his voice, “It's where the soul of man never dies”), Burnett’s raw sound “was at once urgently urban and country plain… southern and rural in instrumentation and howlingly electric in form.”

He was also phenomenal on stage. His hulking six-foot-six frame and intense glowering stare belied some very smooth moves, but his finesse only enhanced his edginess. He seemed at any moment like he might actually turn into a wolf, letting the impulse give out in plaintive, ragged howls and prowls around the stage. “I couldn’t do no yodelin’,” he said, “so I turned to howlin’. And it’s done me just fine.” He played a very mean harmonica and did acrobatic guitar tricks before Hendrix, picked up from his mentor Charlie Patton. And he played with the best musicians, in large part because he was known to pay well and on time. If you wanted to play electric blues, Howlin’ Wolf was a man to watch.

This reputation was Wolf’s entrée to the stage of ABC variety show Shindig! in 1965, opening for the Rolling Stones. He had just returned from his 1964 tour of Europe and the UK with the American Folk Blues Festival, playing to large, appreciative crossover crowds. He’d also just released “Killing Floor,” a record Ted Gioia notes “reached out to young listeners without losing the deep blues feeling that stood as the cornerstone of Wolf’s sound.” The following year, the Rolling Stones insisted that Shindig!’s producers “also feature either Muddy Waters or Howlin’ Wolf” before they would go on the show. Wolf won out over his rival Waters, toned down the theatrics of his act for a more prudish white audience, and “for the first time in his storied career, the celebrated bluesman performed on a national television broadcast.”

Why is this significant? Over the decades, the Stones regularly performed with their blues heroes. But this was new media ground. Brian Jones' shy, starstruck introduction to Wolf before his performance above conveys what he saw as the importance of the moment. Jones' biographer Paul Trynka may overstate the case, but in some degree at least, Wolf’s appearance on Shindig! “built a bridge over a cultural abyss and connected America with its own black culture.” The show constituted “a life-changing moment, both for the American teenagers clustered round the TV in their living rooms, and for a generation of blues performers who had been stuck in a cultural ghetto.” One of these teenagers described the event as “like Christmas morning.”

Eric Lott points to the show's formative importance to the Stones, who “sit scattered around the Shindig! set watching Wolf in full-metal idolatry” as he sings "How Many More Years," a song Led Zeppelin would later turn into "How Many More Times." (See the Stones do their Shindig! performance of jangly, subdued "The Last Time," above.)  The performance represents more, however, than the "British Invasion embrace" of the blues. It shows Wolf's mainstream breakout, and the Stones paying tribute to a founding father of rock and roll, an act of humility in a band not especially known or appreciated for that quality.

“It was altogether appropriate,” says music writer Peter Guralnick, “that they would be sitting at Wolf’s feet… that’s what it represented. His music was not simply the foundation or the cornerstone; it was the most vital thing you could ever imagine.” Guralnick, notes John Burnett at NPR, calls it "one of the the greatest cultural moments of the 20th century." At minimum, Burnett writes, it's "one of the most incongruous moments in American pop music"---up until the mid-sixties, at least.

Whether or not the moment could live up to its legend, the people involved saw it as groundbreaking. The venerable Son House sat in attendance---“the man who knew Robert Johnson and Charley Patton,” remarked Brian Jones in awe. And the Rolling Stone positioning himself in deference to “Chicago blues," Trynka writes, "uncompromising music aimed at a black audience, was a radical, epoch-changing step, both for baby boomer Americans and the musicians themselves. Fourteen and fifteen-year-old kids… hardly understood the growth of civil rights; but they could understand the importance of a handsome Englishman who described the mountainous, gravel-voiced bluesman as a ‘hero’ and sat smiling at his feet.”

Related Content:

Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sister Rosetta Tharpe & Other American Blues Legends Perform in the UK (1963-66)

Chuck Berry Takes Keith Richards to School, Shows Him How to Rock (1987)

The Rolling Stones Jam With Their Idol, Muddy Waters

The Mind-Altering Trip of Acid Countess Amanda Feilding: A Psychedelic Revolutionary

Amanda Feilding drilled a hole in her head and fell in love with a pigeon. Now, after five decades of pioneering research into drugs, scientists are finally catching up to her ideas.

Evening light is breaking through the leaves of London’s Battersea Park, where three friends – Amanda Feilding, Joe Mellen and Bart Huges – are tripping on acid.

It’s the height of the 1960s and the group are talking animatedly about their shared passions – the ego mechanism, cerebral circulation – as a pigeon named Birdie nestles into Amanda’s shoulder, cooing affectionately and pecking her neck.

But this isn’t just a bunch of hippy waffle. These sunny outings are an integral part of the trio’s pioneering investigations into LSD.

Fifty years later, those same hypotheses about psychedelics and brain function are finally being recognised by science.

Today Amanda is director of the Beckley Foundation, a think-tank which has been an instrumental force in global drug policy reform. At 74, she has proved a tireless and often lone voice fighting for research into the potential benefits of psychoactive substances.

Photo by Olivia Bohac

Countess Feilding of Wemyss and March, to use Amanda’s full title, is a descendent of King Charles II. She still lives at Beckley Park in Oxfordshire, where she grew up; it’s a beautiful three-towered Tudor hunting lodge, complete with moats, and reachable only by a long, bumpy track. But like many people born into a British peerage, Amanda’s grand title didn’t equate to wealth.

“My childhood was quite unique because it was very isolated,” says Amanda, sitting in her wood-panelled study surrounded by books on drugs, science and spirituality. “We had absolutely no money, so no petrol, no heating, no school uniforms, anything like that. The whole upbringing was slightly on the wild side of life.”

Inspired by her godfather, a Buddhist monk, Amanda became fascinated by the mystics. After winning a science prize aged 16, she asked the nuns at her school for books on Buddhism and mysticism, but they refused – so she left to go travelling in the Middle East with no money and no passport, ending up in the entourage of a Bedouin Sheikh.

Photo courtesy of the Beckley Foundation

But it was back in London, during her early twenties, where she met Dutch chemist Bart Huges as well as Joe Mellen, whose writing on trepanation – drilling a hole in the skull to expose the brain – made him a cult figure.

Together they began to experiment with LSD, exploring how increased blood ow and ego suppression could help unlock the mind.

“[These early experiments] made me realise this was something worth dedicating my life’s energies to understand,” says Amanda who, in person, comes across as an eccentric aunt brimming with captivating tales.

Take the story of Birdie, for instance. She met him as a featherless fledgling before nursing him back to health with Weetabix and warm milk on a paintbrush. “We were definitely in love,” she says. “He was never in a cage and lived freely wherever I was, in the house or outside. Our relationship was so close, we had several indisputable telepathic communications.”

Photo by Olivia Bohac

Together with Bart and Joe, Amanda’s research contributed to a wealth of scientific evidence on the effects of psychedelics. But as acid found its way out of the laboratory and into the hands of countercultural figures like Timothy Leary, the establishment panicked: LSD was banned, research was curtailed and Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs.

By then, Amanda began pursuing other avenues to enhance brain function. In 1970, she directed documentary Heartbeat in the Brain, trepanning herself on camera in an attempt to dispel stigma around the procedure.

She even ran for Parliament on the Trepanation for the National Health platform in 1979 and 1983. “It’s all part of the same intellectual process, exploring how cerebral circulation can be restored to the level it was in childhood, before the skull was sealed.”

In the early ’90s, Amanda promised Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD in 1943, that she would restart research into his “problem child”.

She got serious about activism, founding the Beckley Foundation in 1998, raising support for increasingly ambitious studies. In 2016, after years of regulatory hurdles, The Beckley/Imperial Research Programme published two groundbreaking studies.

Photo courtesy of the Beckley Foundation

One was the first UK government-funded research into psilocybin as a treatment for depression. Three months in, 42 per cent of patients remained depression-free.

Then, the world’s first LSD imaging study charted how the drug affects the brain, validating Amanda’s early hypotheses about a system now known as the Default Mode Network.

“That’s basically the ego mechanism that keeps us in control of ourselves. It centres our experience by altering perceptions and keeps everything normal.”

Both studies generated significant scientific and media attention around the world.

“I think it really was a changing of the tide,” says Amanda. Still convinced that psychedelics could help tackle some of the greatest challenges in modern medicine, she is determined to establish enough scientific evidence to justify continued research.

Photo by Olivia Bohac

This year, the Beckley Foundation is supporting more pioneering studies on psychedelics, from ayahuasca’s potential to generate new neurons – which could help people with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s Disease – to the role of psilocybin in treating PTSD.

“All the great societies had [psychedelic experiences] at their core, from Egypt to Ancient Greece – the basis of western civilisation,” she says. “But all of this knowledge has been suppressed; it became taboo… The purpose of my work is to help transform society to not be so scared of the wilder shores of consciousness – to use psychedelics to develop a new understanding of it, to discover possible treatments for illness and to help us find our way through the jungle.”

Text by Alex King 
Photography © Olivia Bohac / Beckley Foundation 

The Hell With Concept Albums! Parliament Did a Concept Series

by Tim Kinley in Hear, Culture Sonar: http://www.culturesonar.com/parliament-concept-series/ 

In the post-Sgt. Pepper era of popular music, the conversation regarding the most pivotal concept albums usually directs itself to the arena of classic rock bands, such as The Who’s Tommy and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

Overlooked in that same conversation are R&B and Soul masterpieces such as Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? and Sly & the Family Stone’s Stand. While musicians such as Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield would also further the conceptual aspect on vinyl, no artist took the thematic approach as far as George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic in the second half of the 1970’s.

Developing a concept alongside an ever-evolving, intergalactic storyline, the P-Funk crew fueled the imagination much in the same way that the revolutionary instrumentation of Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Garry Shider, Jerome Brailey, and the recently departed Junie Morrison fed our quest for rhythmic liberation.

This analysis of the Parliament albums released between 1975 and 1980 attempts to shine the Flash Light on the grand, far-reaching concepts that made these albums the untouchable landmarks that they are today. 

Chocolate City (1975)

Parliament’s conceptual approach begins with their second release for Casablanca Records, the label that the band signed with a year earlier. Portraying African-Americans in situations that white folks would least expect (a through-line in all subsequent Parliament albums), Chocolate City envisions black folks in all facets of the U.S. government. From the White House on down.

While only the title track embraces the overall concept, the idea informs for the remaining eight tracks, energetically and emotionally. Imagine if you will, Muhammad Ali welcoming all visitors (who possess a James Brown pass), Reverend Ike as Secretary of the Treasury, Richard Pryor as Minister of Education, and Aretha Franklin as the First Lady.

It’s a far-reaching vision powered by the ridiculous grooves of Collins, Worrell and the rest of the Funk Mob. Did someone slip this album to Barack Obama in his eighth grade social studies class? You decide. 

Mothership Connection (1975)

Originally titled Landing In The Ghetto, Mothership Connection descended upon the planet in December of 1975 and launched Parliament’s cosmic mythology. George Clinton now transports Black folks to outer space while embarking on the mission - relayed through the slick talking interplanetary representative Star Child the long haired sucker - to drop THE BOMB on a Funkless existence.

But unlike previous P-Funk albums, this particular project would be bolstered by a live stage extravaganza that represented uncharted territory for an African-American band. The grand visual spectacle would include the landing of one the greatest stage props in rock history: The Mothership.

Designed by renowned lighting/stage designer Jules Fisher (who performed similar magic for Kiss, David Bowie, and The Rolling Stones), this theatrical innovation combined with the band’s first million selling single “Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)” propelled this album to platinum status. 

The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein (1976)

Released during the fall of 1976 (while Mothership Connection was still on the album charts), the follow-up introduces the outer-wordly Dr. Funkenstein to the Parliament mythos. A cool ghoul with a bump transplant, Star Child’s father is a disco fiend with a monster sound, poised to Funkatize this galaxy and beyond, aided and abetted by his Children of Production.

This project also sports one of the most bizarre album covers ever released by a platinum selling Black musical act, showcasing all of the doctor’s clones within the Mothership itself, thoroughly proving that everything is on the one when your Funkin’ for fun! Ya dig!? 

Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome (1977)

 Another grand stocking-stuffer for Funkateers worldwide, Funkentelechy encapsulates the narrative in just six songs that take the entire Funk genre in a completely fresh direction. Enter the arch nemesis Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk, an un-funky wallflower who will never dance, the physical embodiment of the con job perpetuated by the Placebo Syndrome, which Sir Nose spreads throughout the galaxy. It is because of this intergalactic threat that Dr. Funkenstein arms Star Child with a state-of-the-art weapon: THE BOP GUN!!!

Shooting Sir Nose with the Bop Gun results in our archenemy giving up the Funk in a Flash of Light, in turn spawning the smash hit “Flash Light”. This chapter is thoroughly explained in an 8-page comic illustrated by in house P-Funk illustrator Overton Loyd who also drew the poster of Sir Nose that is included with the album. 

Motor Booty Affair (1978)

Emerging from the aquatic depths on Nov. 20, 1978, MBA takes Parliament in a new direction: the undersea world of Atlantis, a world now populated by … you guessed … black folks, and poised to be raised to the surface. Sir Nose now states that he can’t swim (and won’t sweat for that matter), since he remains D’Voidoffunk. He has now teamed up with the Bumpnoxious Rumpofsteelskin to once again, sydromize the planet.

In retaliation, Dr. Funkenstein commands Star Child to gather the baddest master-Funkers from throughout the galaxy, dancing down Bimini Road to the Emerald City doing the Aqua Boogie. Easily the most fully realized concept album in the Parliament discography, this album sports one of the most elaborate packaging efforts of the era, featuring a gatefold that contains a pop up display of Atlantis along with stand-up cut-outs of MBA characters such as Mr. Wiggles, Octave Pussy, Rita Mermaid, and Howard Codsell. Also released in picture disc format. 

Gloryhallastoopid (1979)

 The last Parliament album of the 1970s sees Mr. Wiggles from the Motor Booty Affair using the rhythms of Pyschoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop to rearrange the molecular structure of Rumpofsteelskin’s “Don’t Try It!” megatons. Sounds a bit convoluted? Ridiculous? Preposterous? Yes, it does. Even by P-Funk standards. That’s because Dr. Funkenstein is now taking credit for the original Big Bang (you know … the one that started the universe!).

This latest installment also sees Sir Nose organizing a nefarious collection of intergalactic villains known as the Unfunkables. Their objective? To turn Star Child into an ass (literally) in front of all the Party People currently throwing down at the Jam Station by way of the Black Hole. A nonsensical Funk fantasy that has everything: assendectomies, flea powder, bootleg T-shirts, P.C.P., alien burgers, and even a guest appearance by Robin Williams. In the end, however, all that fuss was us! 

Trombipulation (1980)

The Parliament saga surprisingly comes to a quiet end with the arrival of a new decade as Sir Nose fulfills his ultimate dream - taking over the Funk Mob. New revelations are revealed in the New Doo Review, combining a clever mix of Egyptology, Congolese-inspired hairstyles, cro-nasal sapiens, and physical manipulation of elephant trunks. Have we encountered the missing link or the missing stink? After you finish dancing to this climatic party platter, you’ll have to figure that out by yourself.

Hear Lost Recording of Pink Floyd Playing with Jazz Violinist Stéphane Grappelli on “Wish You Were Here”

by Colin Marshall, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/pink-floyds-wish-you-were-here-with-stephane-grappelli.html

Those of you deeply into both jazz violin and progressive rock no doubt jumped right on the play button above. Quite a few more will listen - so experience has taught me - purely out of interest in anything and everything Pink Floyd has done.

But on the level of music history, the track above, a version of the cerebral English rock band’s Pink Floyd’s well-known 1975 song “With You Were Here” prominently featuring a solo from the French “Grandfather of Jazz Violinists” Stéphane Grappelli, should fascinate just about anyone.

It speaks to the particular kind of high-profile musical experimentalism that thrived in that era, at least in some quarters - or, rather, in some studios. In this case, the Grappelli and the Floyd boys found themselves recording in adjacent ones. Why would the latter invite the former, already an elder statesman of jazz and a collaborator with the likes of Django Reinhardt, to sit in on a session? (Watch Django and Grappelli play together in the 1938 film, Jazz Hot here.) Well … why not? They needed something impressive to follow Dark Side of the Moon, after all.

Still, for all the richness of the result you hear here and all the fan-hours spent listening to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album in the 35 years after it came out, the public never got to hear Grappelli’s playing foregrounded until Immersion reissued it three years ago.

This long-lost but rediscovered mix of the title track marks, to the mind of Pink Floyd founding member Nick Mason, a marked improvement over the version on the original album. “I think that was the jewel in that particular crown,” he said to Sonic Reality. “It was something that I assumed had been lost forever. I thought we’d recorded over it. [ … ] I can’t imagine why we didn’t use it at the time.”

In the one they did use at the time, what remains of Grappelli’s playing came out so inaudible that the album’s credits didn’t even name the violinist. I’d like to chalk up another point for the cultural revision made possible by our technological age, but alas, I doubt any sort of rediscovery will break true Floyd acolytes of their adherence to the canon. 

Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes essays on cities, language, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.