Beautiful Freaks: Waving Our Flag High

Waving Our Freak Flag High, Wave On Wave On. Music from the original counterculture.

Anyone interested in '60 films and music, along with the cultural revolution that took place in that decade will no doubt have noted with sadness the recent passing of actor, screenwriter and activist Peter Fonda. I can't claim to be an expert on his life and I'll admit I've never actually seen Easy Rider, the film for which he's most famous. I do however own a vinyl copy of the film's soundtrack which I purchased as a teenager. The tracks I enjoyed most at the time were 'Born To Be Wild' and 'The Pusher' by Steppenwolf and 'The Ballad Of Easy Rider' and 'I Wasn't Born To Follow' by The Byrds.

One of the songs on the soundtrack that I didn't know previous to buying is 'If You Want To Be A Bird' by The Holy Modal Rounders. It's something of an anomaly sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the better known rockier tracks. The Holy Modal Rounders were originally a duo, formed in New York's Lower East Side during the early '60s folk boom. Their merging of folk, psychedelia and subversive comedy made them key players in the Greenwich Village scene. In many ways their appearance on the Easy Rider soundtrack encapsulates the film's countercultural slant more successfully than Hendrix, The Byrds and Steppenwolf combined.

Another of the group's songs 'The STP Song', appears on Beautiful Freaks, a brand new compilation expertly put together by Tony Harlow and released by Tad Records. It features a wealth of '60s underground talent, many with roots in the New York or San Francisco poetry scenes, or the politicised sections of the '60s folk boom. With detailed and insightful sleevenotes Beautiful Freaks captures the often overlooked DIY ethic adopted by acts that were too political or too quirky for the mainstream record labels.

Other bands featured include Country Joe & The Fish, David Peel & The Lower East Side, Yoko Ono, The Fugs, and Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, along with poet Allen Ginsberg and polemicist Timothy Leary. There's also a healthy quota of similarly idiosyncratic UK acts including Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, The Incredible String Band, Hawkwind and Third Ear Band. Absurdist humour, protest, civil rights, and satire are just a few of the threads that bind this eclectic and fascinating compilation together. The events of the '60s that required that musicians, poets and culture in general should rise up and say something. Truth to power if you will. And with the current political climate music and protest surely need to converge once more. Beautiful Freaks is an pointer, an early mapping of how that can be done. 

https://www.normanrecords.com/records/177247-various-beautiful-freaks-waving-our-flag 

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/various/beautiful-freaks-waving-our-flag-high-wave-on-wave-on-music-from-the-original-counter-culture 

Zachariah - DVD (1971)

There's something so enduringly naive about this movie that keeps pulling me back to it. Every couple of years I just have to dig it out and watch it again, usually on my own as it gets the thumbs down from everyone I've ever tried to show it to. Maybe I've bigged it up too much and it can only lead to their disappointment.

Anyhow what's not to like about a movie from the short lived "Acid Western" genre?! It's got all the usual western hallmarks - guns, saloons, loose moralled women etc.,  along with Fender guitars and tail end of the sixties acid blues rock.

The film is loosely based on Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha and is basically a moralistic buddie movie starring starring John Rubenstein as Zachariah and Don Johnson (yes that one!) as his sidekick Matthew. The addition of rock music from The James Gang and Country Joe And The Fish is what really sets this film apart though. Yes it is cheesy in places, thin on plot, and very much of it's time, but hey that's what I like about it.

It's billed on the cover as the film The Beatles would have made if they'd got around to filming their much mooted western (it's not, though don't let that put you off). 

A few years ago a friend was staying over at our house on the settee. He wanted to watch a movie late in to the night before going to sleep and asked what videos or DVD's I might have that he could watch. "On the Waterfront, or Dylan's Dont Look Back on VHS" I said, "or this thing called Zachariah I've got on DVD." He took a look at the cover and said "I'll pass on the Zachariah". I still think he missed out.

One of the best things about this film is the appearence of jazz drummer Elvin Jones, drummer of choice for no less than John Coltrane. Here he is in full flow..