Sunday, December 12, 2021

Foam-O-Drome© Dept. - Revolution

Today Malone, yesterday.


Revolution is one of the disappointingly few hippie movies made during the late 'sixties. It's also a, uh, documentary, something I didn't appreciate when I first picked up the soundtrack album in pre-internet ignorance. I thought it was another groovy 'sploitation movie I'd never get to see, along with Psych-Out, Riot On Sunset Strip, and Herbie Goes Bananas. It's no disappointment, but it's not exactly the coverage the subject needed. It (sorta) tells the story of nubile hippie chick Today Malone, who changed her name "illegally" - maybe her real name was Today O'Herlihy? Basically it's footage from footwork around Haight Ashbury, with some amusing acid trip scenes thrown in for free.

The old-guy-at-the-print-shop poster [left - Ed.] urges us to GASP, SHOCK, and LAUGH at the "weird rites of the hippies" although the screengrabs seem to show wholesome summer camp activities. The movie is lensed in hauntingly lifelike COLOR by DeLUXE® (the only color endorsed by th' IoF©) which is a welcome surprise.

Director Jack O'Connell also helmed Greenwich Village Story ('63) which looks like Foam-O-Drome© celluloid (see comments).


The soundtrack - you probably have it - is super-swell, even if it doesn't include the CJ & His Fish songs performed in the movie. Early Steve Miller Band, non-album cuts from Quicksilver, and Mother Earth make for a surprisingly classy package, with sleeve notes from Paul Krassner for street credibility. "The message of the liberating subculture," he intones, "is simply that the postponement of joy is a perversion of nature," a line whose get-your-panties-off-baby subtext must have worked well for him with young hippie chicks. Chicks like Today Malone.

It's easy to smirk at this for camp amusement, but fuck that. Young people waving their freak flag, and having the time of their lives, and making some fantastic music, in the belief that the future could and would be better. It was hopefully naive, and hopelessly wrong, but so what? Who gets it right?

Click to read


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16 comments:

  1. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 12, 2021 at 9:30 AM

    Today's multi-media pack will contain a nice, crisp copy of the movie, and the soundtrack. You can watch the movie on YouTube, if you're a total slob.

    I have to do seven things right now, and the eighth will be the loadup.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. One Buck GuyDecember 12, 2021 at 5:33 PM

      "The Seven Labours of Farquhar Throckmorton III"

      Now here's an epic pice of screed waiting to ha...wait, it involves bringing out the trash, washing the dogs and hitting the shitter, doesn' it? Never mind, then.

      Delete
    2. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 12, 2021 at 5:53 PM

      It's all very well bragging about how I have a to-do list, but my problem is that I can never remember the next damn thing on the list.

      Tell you what, though, OBG, I'm watching The Card Counter, the new Paul Schrader movie, which wasn't on the list, and it's the best first act I've seen in any movie since - well, effectively the beginning of time.

      Delete
    3. cowculatorDecember 13, 2021 at 6:42 AM

      You're lucky. I keep doing the same stuff over because I've forgotten I already did it....hmm, There's several things (or One) that I have to do yet..
      john

      Delete
  2. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 12, 2021 at 9:36 AM

    Bringing Today up to 1996:

    https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/The-Haight-Yesterday-and-Today-Ex-hippie-3499581.php

    ReplyDelete
  3. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 12, 2021 at 9:41 AM

    Greenwich Village Story:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMowELssDLs

    ReplyDelete
  4. Eric S.December 12, 2021 at 10:40 AM

    Well, this is exciting. Given that I have been interested in revolution since age 8--as my 86 year old mother still insists on telling people (Ethan Allen, Remember Baker, Seth Warner and the Green Mountain Boys) and it is theoretically my area of expertise you'd think I might heard of this epic documentary somewhere along the way. What I get for largely ignoring the US as a case (Green Corn Rebellion aside), including that political rebellion in some of Britain's North American colonies...how'd that work out?

    I await with bated breath (vastly preferably to baited breath, at least when you grow up in South Louisiana) the film and soundtrack and comments to come from this erudite crowd (still reeling over the rich Igglefest).

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    1. Eric S.December 12, 2021 at 10:56 AM

      ps my first experience with Quicksilver was at 13 a few days into the year we spent in Berkeley where my father had a sabbatical. Fresh off the boat from Baton Rouge, LA a friend took me over to San Francisco for an all day gig in Golden Gate Park with all the bands you'd ever expect and want to see. Contact high aside--I was new to all this--Quicksilver came on and their entire set was essentially a one hour version of "Who Do You Love" with few other odds and ends interpolated here and there. On a day full of amazing sounds and sights--I wanted to be Garcia or Weir, I wanted to be Jorma, I wanted to be all of them (did I mention the contact high which had now moved on to an actual high courtesy of various folx amused at two 13 year olds, one of them completely agog?) but mostly I knew I would grown out my hair (basketball coaches be damned; back in BRLA the fuckers made me put my pony tail down the back of my jersey) and learn to play the guitar and whip it around like John Cipollina did. Reader, I did. With none of his talent or looks, but I did. And it was good. Almost 30 years later I got to tell Jorma about this at the Union Bar in St Paul and he laughed at me pretty hard, not unkindly, was pleased that "Good Shepherd" was one of the first songs I learned to play, and marveled I remembered it all so clearly and well. Still do. I think.

      Delete
    2. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 12, 2021 at 11:49 AM

      Thank you, Eric!

      Delete
  5. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 12, 2021 at 11:48 AM

    Multi-media here, or, indeed, here


    here

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    1. MrDaveDecember 12, 2021 at 9:19 PM

      Thanks -- this looks great! I've just finished watching the Ken Kesey documentary, Magic Trip,, as well as The Sunshine Makers about Nick Sands and Timothy Scully so this will complete a nice trilogy of the rise and blossoming of the West Coast psychedelic era.

      Delete
  6. Eric S.December 13, 2021 at 1:59 AM

    Damn. I can kill a conversation, huh? Sorry about that. Duly noted.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 13, 2021 at 5:01 AM

      Are you kidding? Your comment was a post in itself, and this was never going to start a discussion like the Eagles. I thanked you, and I meant it. These personal reminiscences are gold dust. I'm not counting comments; quality not quantity is the slogan here at th' IoF©. So thank you again, and I don't much care if this piece doesn't get another comment, yours did the job (and it was nice to hear from Mr. Dave, too!)

      Delete
    2. Eric S.December 13, 2021 at 8:31 AM

      yet another reason to love this place...

      Delete
  7. bazmaniaDecember 14, 2021 at 6:58 PM

    I Was A Teenage DJ For The Communist Party
    In 1968 Me & my comrade had been putting on "Discos" at our high school when another card carrying commie comrade informed us that every saturday night the Young Communist League had a knees-up at their 3 storey HQ near the centre of Bristol & would welcome someone who could provide them with some far out groovy sounds. An apparatchik declared "you bring hip Western decadent platters We give you free beer (what? No Vodka!) & a party".
    Sounds good we replied. So we brought along some soul, Motown,reggae & some of those mind expanding psychedelic waxings. As it transpired a commissar was happy to select & play the discs.True to their word they supplied us with bottles of Newcastle Brown (a stalwart working class brew).
    Whilst some of the comrades settled down to debate whether scientific socialism was a more apposite description of their philosphy than communism, others indulged in what was known as idiot dancing or attempted to establish an entente with the female comrades.The popular rumour at the time was that the loud music was to drown out the drilling of a tunnel from YCL HQ to the Bristol Council House so thar hardcore Bolshies could blow it up.
    Older members of the congregation may recall the disc by The Showstoppers that celebrated those halycon days "It Aint Nothin but a Communist House Party"
    The Rev.Dr Baz

    ReplyDelete
  8. BambiDecember 16, 2021 at 6:09 PM

    I've just got round to watching Zachariah (that weird and almost wonderful groovy Western/60's hippy music film) that I think was posted here about 8 months ago. So a very belated thank you to whoever posted that.

    ReplyDelete

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