Friday 26 July 2019

The Merry Pranksters - "The Acid Test Reels" (Bootleg) 1966



Hey cats,Dig Those Crazy Beatniks getting off their tits dude. A psychedelically painted school bus full of middle class drop outs ,pseudo intellectuals,and proto-psych muso's try to outdo each other  for 'crazy' weirdness maaaan,on a trip,both chemically and physically,around the posher parts of the US of A.
The music ,mainly by the nascent Grateful Dead, is mostly dreadful.....The Dreadful Dead.
Sounding like a really bad version of The Banana Splits,but with less depth.
Lots of crap white boy blues riffs and rock'n'rooooolllllll maaaaaan. They sound like a right bunch of hipiddy-doody twats on a trustfund cop out mission to make everyone they meet as pointless as they were. Personal freedom maaaan.......i notice they were free enough to do a drug fuelled trip around the USA.Maybe if they'd have done it in East Germany,or through Africa handing out food rather than LSD there would have been a worthwhile point to all this spoilt brat Counter Culture posing.
The Merry Pranksters, like a 1950's university fraternity reunion, are less annoying than Gerry Garcia's psychedelic cheerleaders.
They tend to use the word 'Rap' a lot,which was 'hip' talk for talking for the Beat generation. The spoken word sections and the tape collages are a better recreation of what it was like to be out of your skull on the Acid Tests of 1966.It is also an accurate portrayal of what a pain in the arse it is to around some idiot off his tits on drugs.There is no more boring a person than a person on any class A,or class B for that matter, drug.Alcohol is also included in this observation.
Just imagine being stuck on a bus with thirty or so of them quaffing jug loads of LSD.You'd be well advised to join them or be bored shitless.
Anyway, here's 6cd's worth of the recordings made during the Acid Tests of 1966.If you like bad blues riffs, 'poets' talking through echoplex tape effects,oscillator twiddling, and interviews with some trustafarian psychedelic narcisists,then this is for you.You can almost feel that you were there,even if you're glad you weren't.
Artists huh?

Tracklisting:

Disc 1:
The Fillmore Acid Test,
Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA
January 8, 1966
1. Stage Chaos/More Power Rap
2. King Bee
3. I'm A Hog For You Baby
4. Caution: Do Not Step On Tracks >
5. Death Don't Have No Mercy
6. Star Spangled Banner / closing remarks

Disc 2:
The Pico Acid Test,
Danish Center, Los Angeles, CA
March 12, 1966
1. Viola Lee Blues
2. You See A Broken Heart
3. In The Midnight Hour
[mis-dated, according to David Lemieux, and not corresponding to the vault copy's setlist; these are probably from 3/19/1966]

The San Francisco State Acid Test,
Whatever It Is Festival
San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
Stereo Control Room Master (rec. 4:00AM - 6:00AM)
October 2, 1966
4. The Head Has Become Fat Rap
5. A Mexican Story: 25 Bennies
6. A Tarnished Galahad
7. Get It Off The Ground Rap >
8. It's Good To Be God Rap >
9. Nirvana Army Rap >
10. The Butcher Is Back
11. Acid Test Graduation Announcement
12. Send Me To The Moon >Closing Rap
Credits on 10/2/66:
Voices: Ken Kesey and Hugh Romney
Guitar: Ken Kesey
Violin: Dale Kesey
Organ: Jerry Garcia
Engineering: Steve Newman, Ken Kesey, Mountain Girl


Disc 3:
The San Francisco State Acid Test
Whatever It Is Festival
San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
October 2, 1966
1. Ken Kesey's dialogue (isolated remix)

Merry Prankster Sound Collage Sequences
October 2, 1966
2. Prankster Music/Sound Collage #1(sequence 1)
3. Kesey Rap > Prankster Music/Sound Collage #2 (sequence 2)
4. Prankster Sound Collage #3 > Prankster Raga(sequence 3)
Prankster Recordings broadcast over the P.A.

End of Whatever It Is Festival,
October 2, 1966
5. Closing Jam
6. Prankster Electronics

Acid Test Graduation Jam,
Winterland, San Francisco, CA
October 31, 1966
7. Jam Session (musicians unknown)
from The World Of Acid film soundtrack

Disc 4:
Related Recordings,
Neal Cassady & The Warlocks 1965
1. Speed Limit
studio recording/Prankster production tape circa late 1965
Straight Theater, Haight Street, San Francisco, CA July 23, 1967
2. Neal Cassady Raps (backed by The Dead)
recording released as a flexi-disc in the 1st printing of The Dead Book
Acid Tests Production Reel
3. Jerry Garcia commentary with Acid Test audio
710 Haight Street House, San Francisco, CA summer 1967
4. - 6. Jerry Garcia
one hour interview about music, drugs, politics and social changes circa 1967


Disc 5:
1. Who Cares Rap (Pigpen, Weir, etc.)
2. Viola Lee Blues
3. One Kind Favor
4. I Know you Rider
5. You See a Broken Heart
6. It's a Sin
7. Beat It on Down the Line
8. Heads up
9. Next Time You See Me
10. Unknown Blues Instrumental
11. Death Don't Have no Mercy
12. Midnight Hour


Disc 6:
San Francisco State Acid Test (alternate version)
1. Jerry Garcia Intro
2. A Mexican Story: 25 Bennies
3. Get it off the Ground Rap
4. It's Good to be God Rap
5. Nirvana Army Rap
6. The Butcher Is Back
7. Acid Test Graduation Announcement
8. Send me to the Moon
9. Jerry Garcia interview
10. Sound Collage
11. Ken Kesey Interview
12. Sound Collage #2
13. Jerry Garcia Interview

14. Music / Sound Collage #1
15. Ken Kesey Interview
16. Sound Collage


DOWNLOAD and fail the acid test vol 1 - 3 HERE!

DOWNLOAD a fourth,a fifth,and a sixth HERE!

8 comments:

Burnt Toast said...

props on the blog, long time reader, first time poster.

Funny post this, and I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. But furthering attention on the unfurtherable just results in pondering polar bears or Chinese.
In particular "there would have been a worthwhile point to all this spoilt brat Counter Culture posing." hits so close to home. Post-post-irony, or is it post-post-post-irony; maybe postx4 given MP3s?

rev.b said...

Given a choice, I'd rather spend time with the Banana Splits. They has a whole adventure hour and everything, cool dune buggies too. I remember years ago a member of the starry-eyed chemically enlightened informed me I had to be 'on the bus or off the bus.' It was my pleasure to tell him what he could do with his elitism and his bus. baah!

Farquhar Throckmorton III said...

I know for a fact you're wearing a tie-dye shirt, granny glasses and headband, you hip-o-crit!

Jonny Zchivago said...

Ahaaa!...I thought i'd get some comments on this one.....surprisingly on the ball ones too.
The most Psychedelic one so far was from 'ceseon', you groovy cat you.

I always thought the Banana Splits were the Residents before they weren't famous?...i should post the 'splits' complete works after this maybe.Honest Psych was that.
Drug culture=divide and conquer ,doing the job that the ones 'On the Bus' were so against.Unwittingly working for the man, maaaaan.

In fact, Farquar i'm completly naked at the moment of typing,and most certainly not surrounded by impressionable girls,so that disqualifies me as a hippie svengali.....i do own some tie-dye underpants however.

Dear Burnt Toast....the irony and post irony levels are variable throughout the text...some of it may even be a camouflaged tribute.Its completely out of my control!

northfieldhat said...

No left turn unstoned! But "Sometimes a Great Notion" is an excellent novel.

Jonny Zchivago said...

PS....hey, didn't the Manson Family also have 'cool' dune buggies like the Banana Splits did too?..courtosy of Dennis Wilson......so maybe it was the Manson Family and not the Residents who were the persons unknown inside the Banana Splits costumes?....Charles Manson was Fleegle,Tex Watson was Bingo,Squeaky Fromme was Snorky,and Steve Grogan as Drooper...with Van Houten, Atkins, and Krenwinkel as the Three Musketeers....its all so clear to me now.

Bill said...

You're kidding! There are 6 discs of this sh--I mean performance art?

Jonny Zchivago said...

Yes indeed, six whole discs of pure unleaded performance art/living art. Designed to put us ordinary folk in our place.
Ahhh schucks,I wish i was a poet don't you?