Tag: Peter Ivers

Weekend links 497

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Poster by Zdenek Ziegler for Roma (1972), a film by Federico Fellini.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: a short history of Straight to Hell, a long-running fanzine launched by Boyd McDonald in 1971 dedicated to true stories of men having sex with other men. The post gives an idea of the contents but for a deep dive I’d suggest Meat (1994) at the Internet Archive, a collection of the best of the early editions of STH. Related: “Straight to Hell was an immensely popular underground publication. John Waters, William S. Burroughs, and Robert Mapplethorpe were fans; Gore Vidal called it ‘one of the best radical papers in the country.'” Erin Sheehy on Boyd McDonald’s determination to kick against the pricks.

• RIP psychedelic voyager and spiritual guide Richard Alpert/(Baba) Ram Dass. The Alpert/Ram Dass bibliography includes The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead (1964), an acid-trip manual written in collaboration with Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner from which John Lennon borrowed lines for the lyrics of Tomorrow Never Knows. But the most celebrated Ram Dass volume is Be Here Now (1971), a fixture of countless hippy bookshelves whose first editions were all handmade.

• “An Einstein among Neanderthals”: the tragic prince of LA counterculture. Gabriel Szatan talks to David Lynch, Devo and others about the eccentric songwriter, performer and voice of Lynch’s Lady in the Radiator, Peter Ivers.

• For the forthcoming centenary of Federico Fellini’s birth Stephen Puddicombe offers suggestions for where to begin with the director’s “exuberant extravaganzas”. Related: Samuel Wigley on 8½ films inspired by 8½.

• “I met resident Tony Notarberardino for the first time in 2015 and entering his apartment was like crossing into another dimension.” Collin Miller explores the Chelsea Hotel.

• “More green tea, professor?” The haunted academic, a reading list by Peter Meinertzhagen. Related: Our Haunted Year: 2019 by Swan River Press.

• “30 July, Yorkshire. Thunder, which is somehow old-fashioned.” Alan Bennett’s 2019 diary.

• More acid trips: Joan Harvey on the resurgence of interest in psychedelic drugs.

• At Lithub: Werner Herzog’s prose script for Nosferatu the Vampyre.

• Tief gesunken, a new recording by Bohren & Der Club Of Gore.

• In Heaven (1979) by Tuxedomoon | Die Nacht Der Himmel (1979) by Popol Vuh | Roma (1981) by Steve Lacy

LSD-25 by The Gamblers

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A post last year concerned some of the songs that have flaunted their acid credentials by incorporating the letters L-S-D in their titles, the most famous being (of course) Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. While it might be an idea to follow that post by tracking down songs with the word LSD in their title, a quick glance at Discogs shows an entire blotting pad of potential candidates. So I’ll let someone else do the leg-work on that one.

This post is less ambitious, prompted by a brief history of surf music in Rob Chapman’s Psychedelia and Other Colours. The Gamblers receive a mention for being the first group to record a piece of music with LSD in the title: LSD-25 was the B-side of their first single, Moon Dawg!, released in 1960. Moon Dawg! has the distinction of also being one of the first (if not the first) surf singles, and was later covered by The Beach Boys on their debut album, Surfin’ Safari (1962). With its hyperactive drums and twanging guitar Moon Dawg! certainly sounds like a surf number, whereas LSD-25 is more like one of Link Wray’s smouldering instrumentals. I’d heard the A-side on a Cramps-related singles compilation, Loose Lips Might Sink Ships, but hadn’t heard LSD-25 before so this is a welcome discovery. Someone had to be first with the LSD reference (chosen at random by a studio engineer according to Chapman), and we could have done much worse than this.

The Gamblers only recorded one more single before disbanding but guitarist Eliot Ingber had a distinguished career playing with Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, Little Feat, Captain Beefheart (as Winged Eel Fingerling), and (I didn’t know this) as a member of The Peter Peter Ivers Band (sic) on Terminal Love (1974). You may not know Ivers’ name but you’ll probably know his voice when it appears in David Lynch’s Eraserhead in the guise of the Lady in the Radiator singing In Heaven.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• More trip texts
• Trip texts
• Acid albums
• Acid covers
• Lyrical Substance Deliberated
• The Art of Tripping, a documentary by Storm Thorgerson
• Enter the Void
• In the Land of Retinal Delights
• Haschisch Hallucinations by HE Gowers
• The art of LSD
• Hep cats