Father Yod and the Spirit of '76 - "Anthology" (Higher Key records) 1973-74

DIY music ,i'll admit did not exist only between 1978 and 1983.......the hippies (spit!), were very adept at self producing their own releases too.My favourite of which was the various releases by cult leader Father Yod and his hippie followers.
Father Yod was really James Edward Baker ,born on July 4, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Baker earned the Silver Star as United States Marine in WWII and became an expert in Jujitsu. He moved to California to become a Hollywood stuntman and became influenced by the Nature Boys, a Los Angeles-based group of beatniks who lived a natural lifestyle, maintained vegetarian diets, and lived "according to Nature's Laws."Baker also studied philosophy, religion, and esoteric spiritual teachings, even becoming a Vedantic monk for a time. He later became a devoted follower of Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh spiritual leader and teacher of Kundalini Yoga.
In 1969, Baker founded the Source Restaurant in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles, on the Sunset Strip. The restaurant served organic vegetarian food, with such celebrity regulars as John Lennon, Julie Christie, and Marlon Brando.Founded in 1973 in the Los Angeles area, Ya Ho Wha 13, otherwise known Yahowha 13 is a psychedelic rock band fronted by Father Yod, spiritual leader of a religious cult/commune called the Source Family. Ya Ho Wha without the vowels and spaces reduces to YHWH, the tetragrammaton. The band recorded nine LPs full of their broken down and deranged psychedelic nonsense with tribal drums and crackling guitars, some of which were completely improvised jam sessions, others which contained more conventional rock songs.
Members of The Source Family, who lived in the Hollywood Hills in the early 1970s, had decided to fuse their musical 'talents' and 'spirituality' by forming an improvisational, psychedelic group. They began to press LPs in 1973, most of which were recorded after hours of meditation between 3:00-6:00 a.m. in a soundproofed garage that served as the musicians’ studio at the family's communal residence. All of the records with Father Yod’s participation were completely improvised, with no rehearsals or overdubs. Most of the albums were pressed in small runs of only 500 to 1000 copies on the Higher Key label. They were sold to the general public in Father Yod’s popular vegetarian Source Restaurant for $10 each. Though only nine LPs were produced and released, it is rumored that more than 65 albums were recorded by the group but were lost over the years.
The band changed members occasionally, morphing into various incarnations, from Father Yod and the Spirit of ’76 to Ya Ho Wha 13 to The Savage Sons of Ya Ho Wha, Yodship, and Fire Water Air; but the key players were always the same: (Djin Aquarian on guitar, Octavious Aquarian on drums, and Sunflower Aquarian on bass). Father Yod does not appear on all their album releases, but for those on which he participates, he handles lead vocals and percussion, via a kettle drum. Former pop star Sky Saxon of The Seeds had joined the Source Family in 1973 and occasionally appeared on the band's recordings.
Yod had established a council of 13 women and later sealed these women as his wives. On August 25, 1975, despite having no previous hang-gliding experience, YaHoWha used a hang glider to leap off a 1300-foot cliff on the eastern shore of Oahu.He crash-landed on the beach and died nine hours later.After three days of vigil, YaHoWha was cremated.

The albums from the first incarnation of the father yod nutters was, Father Yod And The Spirit Of 76(Ironic as he never made it beyond 1975?). The downloads of which can be found below.
BUT, I would recommend the Yo Ha Wha 13 records following this post, namely "Penetration- an aquarian symphony" and "I'm Gonna Take You Home", being the places to start.They being far superior and weirder than any of the others.
The Covers are interesting enough,"Kohoutek" is like a manson family slogan scrawled on a wall with a hollywood starlet's freshly spilled blood.
"Contraction" features Yod as creepy cross between(in)sanity claus and Chuck manson,surrounded by his blood crazed followers.
Then aptly following Contraction, we see a proud sexual predator/cult leader holding one of his progeny, on the cover of "Expansion".......quite sickening; but the music kicks ass in an "out there" kind of way.



















"Kohoutek" (1973) download


















"Contraction" (1974) download



















"Expansion" (1974) download