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| Note Robin Williams, John Phillip Law, Groucho Marx. Note hippie decor. Enough noting, awready. |
The estate of our Mystery Guest has bloodhounds snuffling all over the internet for copyright infringement. Willard (of Wormhole memory, although I dug him more back in the old Never Get Out Of The Boat days) ran a swell website (For The Love Of Harry) entirely devoted to him; a labor of love, offering lo-def mp3 and a ton of rare stuff, articles, clips, photos ... everything the fan could want. It was a model of how the music business should be exploiting the internet - beautiful to look at, fun to read, and a potentially dynamite sales portal. But no. The lawyers tunneled down his throat with wirecutters. So he just shut the store and the subject was verboten (in his own words - "I'm not a people person").
All of which is a preamble to this here FoamFeature© on one of the most talented and frustrating pop artists ever to tremble his tonsils at a microphone. A couple of his more obscure waxings - the soundtracks shewn (unsearchably) hereunder - and maybe some more cryptically enveloped in the comments.
From smart pop to crooning, he delighted and delivered, never falling into pastiche [type of beer nut - Ed.]. But he was happy to fall into Lennon's poisoned chalice, a bottomless well of damage. Drunks can't think straight, leave alone walk, and Harry staggered on until 1993, when his beat-up heart finally gave up the fight.
Features extry disc of demos!
Features nightmare Carol Channing track!
This post made possible in part thru th' ægis of Sitarswami. Jaigurudev, hombre!
Movies that portrayed Haight Ashbury/Sunset Strip hippiness? Why are they so few, and so poor? It's because by the time the suits caught onto the *something happening*, it was already over, or mostly. The big studios missed the boat (never got out of it). Bullitt was made (I think) in '67 San Francisco, and you'd think hippy never happened. It must have been in development for a year or so - when the script first got talked up, Hashbury was a tiny local phenom, invisible to the H'wood suits. Model Shop comes close. Skidoo not even. Head - is something else. The cash-in exploito companies could make quickies, but had never cared about quality, so why start now? Psych-Out is good for a giggle. Easy Rider was a swan-song.
ReplyDeleteGot any suggestion, favorites?
Roger Corman's "The Trip" with Peter Fonda (natch) experiencing his first ever LSD tab. My favourite just for its mind-expanding effects.
ReplyDeleteOn a completely unrelated note - other than being the subject of this post (sheesh!) - I can't begin to explain how much Harry means to me. I can not be objective about his output - I am simply in awe of the man, his talent and music. Frankly he's the artist The Beatles could only dream of being. He's probably the only artist I can listen to who makes me feel overwhelmed emotionally with conflicting feelings of gratitude and gladness and gut wrenching sorrow and anger - at once delighted that we should have been blessed by someone of his brilliance and simultaneously unreasonably angry that he should have died so young (and effectively retired even earlier) thus robbing us of his same talent. It's just so damned unfair! And to think the the world went nuts when Ron Nasty got plugged on a New York street. It makes no sense I tells ya!
Ah but - Lennon was - in the public eye at least - a Martyr. Harry just faded away, never a good move for record sales or anything else. He lost me when he lost his voice, when he wanted to rough it with the rock n' roll gang.
DeleteAnd Corman never had a clue - or cared - what his movies were about. Not that it stopped him from being, on his own terms, a great filmmaker. It would be, well, groovy, if a director had seen the nascent hippy phenom and decided to weave a real story into it, giving us a kind of docu insight.
For me, he will always be Countdown...
ReplyDeletethe heir to a throne renounced!
Just about the way I liked my tripping.
I couldn't stand the thought of being in a crowd full of Volkswagen engines trying to burn rocket fuel through their intakes. So, the hippy scene seemed torturous as well as contrived. Many was the time that lysergic festivities were cancelled due to the people that showed up to TRIP OUT, DUDE!
About Harry, I saw him at a Beatlefest, and I knew a girl who was best friends with his daughter. She was very young and I never even considered her hints that I should go visit him with her. "He lives in Thousand Oaks"! It was 1992 and he was already very sick. But, if I were a vampire, I'd want to be just like Countdown.
(Son Of Dracula[full movie] is still on YouTube. Bobby --->Keyes<--- is in it as are a bunch of other Daybreakers)
Noted. I loved the Point from first hearing it, back when FM radio stations played such things. The man had a voice, some good tunes and arrangements, pretty good taste, and commercial instincts for a while there. Scuffled significantly before and after, of course. Some UK writer whose name escapes me made me aware of Hari's tune "All I Think About Is You". Some aching beauty there, it's worth seeking out.
ReplyDeleteI love The Point. Love it, love it, love it. Perfect in its quiet modesty.
DeleteWild in the Streets from 1968
ReplyDeleteA Rock Star becomes President of the United States..... Puts everyone over 30 in an acid concentration camp, including his mother (Shelley Winters).....Richard Pryor puts acid in the Washington DC water supply.....One of the Brady kids is a terrorist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcUv4dAiCkA
Ahh to be in that studio when HN first played his super-stately 'Without You' to a surprised Pete Ham & the boys,coincidentally working in room next door...Harry was made for the studio multitrack recording, w/ the best voice to splurge parts & harmonies.
ReplyDeleteYoko's record of HN songs is a good listen also oi say!
The ones that come to mind are also psychoploitation flicks about teens gone bad but very fun nonetheless like Wild in the Streets from 1968 (groovy soundtrack). I was thinking of Village of the Giants but that's from 65 and more SoCal surfer culture oriented.
ReplyDeleteToo bad Peter Fonda is no longer around; it would be interesting to hear him answer this question.
ReplyDeleteGee, color me disappoint when I found out he wus just a actor.
DeleteHe was also a hippie, even if only of the Hollywood variety. As someone with passing knowledge of the real thing who was in several psychsploitation movies he might have a unique take.
DeleteYes, he would. As Hollywood Hippies go, Jack Nicholson was hipper.
DeletePsychfan - O have an idea for a weekly piece - Psychfan's Trip O' Th' Week, wherein you'd choose a nalbum you rate primo psych. Write a couple of lines to go with. You up for this?
An intriguing invitation and I thank you. One a week should be manageable. How would I submit that?
DeleteEmail me at bc427a (at) (g mail) (dot) (com)
DeleteWhenever you feel like it would be swell! If you can, sleeve art and a loaddown link would be gravy.
OK. Will do.
DeleteHey, Farq!
ReplyDeleteIf you are trying to make us worry...
you're doing a good job.
I think I speak for all 4 or 5 guys here when I say:
I hope you are safe and enjoying life with your family.
Pets are included. Don't forget who loves you. We will be fine while we anxiously await your return!
Sincerely,
Kwai Chang
Everything copacetic, Kwai!
DeleteI left a comment yesterday about Harry 'Countdown' Nilsson. Perhaps the spam magnet took it away. Just saying in case you needed more work! That's all!
ReplyDelete'Fess up time - I just watched the Friends reunion (I know, I KNOW, okay?) and I have to say that I still find Jennifer Aniston hot, and Courtney Cox a dry birdsnest of bitter despair, and Lisa Kudrow a hair nuisance. One of the reasons Aniston is hot is that she would apparently put out for pretty much anyone, which I always thought very Christian of her. Of the guys, only Schwimmer had anything approaching charisma. These people got a million bucks a show? It's a strange world.
ReplyDeleteSpot on re the Friends chicks; Schimmer and charisma should not be in the same sentence however (except this one!). But why are you watching a Friends reunion when you should be posting our link?!?
DeleteI said Schwimmer approached charisma, not that he sweated it out his pores.
DeleteHey - you want these albums? You know the rules, right?
Aniston may be hotter now than then. She was hot then, too.
Please, sir, may I have a some linkage?
ReplyDeleteAt the time, the only movie that I saw (and loved) that captured the psychedelic zeitgeist was Performance. I know, London not San Francisco and a year or so later, but I'd been reading Borges and dropping acid, and it all made perfect sense to me. I'd lived in San Francisco during the late Summer of Love®, and certainly took advantage of the available drugs and music, but if anybody had called me a hippie I'd have belted him. Didn't stop me from accepting cash from tourists who wanted to give me money to buy a pair of shoes and get back on my feet, though. Now can we please have the link?
ReplyDeletePerformance is a Real Film, but at 1970 it misses the Summer Of Love© by those essential time and space parameters.
DeletePerformance was made in 1968 but the studio was reluctant to release it until 1970, with some major re-editing. It's certainly not a Summer of Love® vibe but it reflects that seamy slide into darkness that would be confirmed by Altamont the following year.
DeleteLink coming up. I felt so sorry for Nancy Priddy sharing th' Dumpster O' Doom™ with Slayer that I'm including her swell album in this loaddown for youse bums.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThis should unwrap into a bunch of stuff.
Nilsson? Willard? Ge? Candyside? Kwai Chang? I seem to recall these names from a previous lifetime! So when I then factor in the zany humour, the irreverence and splendid graphics, could this conceivably be my old acquaintance '.' of 'Liquid Sunshine Donovan' fame?
ReplyDeleteGood to see you here, Miles! Have a wander around th' IoF© using our patented Rand-O-Button™ - if you want something re-upped, just ax in the comments to that piece. And welcome to th' Isle O' Foam©, home to astral travelers, cut-rate gurus and freeloadin' bums!
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