Albert Hofmann (1906 - 2008)

Albert Hofmann dies at 102 @ BBC News

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss inventor of LSD, has passed away at the age of 102.

More Albert Hofmann search results @ YouTube

Robert Anton Wilson In Memoriam

Robert Anton Wilson passed away on the 11th of January 2007, at the age of 74. For some inexplicable rupture in space-time continuum, the tidings of his death reached pHinnWeb only now. An inspiration to psychonauts everywhere, Wilson (a.k.a. RAW) is best known for his 1975 The Illuminatus Trilogy, co-authored with Robert Shea (1933-1994), an anarchistic James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon-inspired mish-mash/parody/satire of occultism, post-hippie esotericism, psychedelic culture, numerology, and most of all, conspiracy theories. The same path was followed (though not exactly sharing RAW's cosmic slapstick anarchy) by Umberto Eco in his 1989 Foucault's Pendulum (and in a far, far more ham-fisted way by Dan Brown in that bestseller turd DaVinci Code).

What is the meaning of number 23? Why a dollar bill has in it an eye in the pyramid? Who were Adam Weisshaupt and the Bavarian Illuminati? What are "fnords"? These are only some of the questions The Illuminatus raises, and manages to (un)answer in a glorious way. One of the musical luminaries influenced by the book were The KLF who took the name of their side project Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu here, and countless other artists and scenesters in electronic music underground and rave culture have been influenced by the works of Robert Anton Wilson.

In a 2003 interview with High Times magazine, RAW described himself as a "Model Agnostic" which he says "consists of never regarding any model or map of the universe with total 100% belief or total 100% denial. Following [Alfred] Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes... My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory." More simply, he claims "not to believe anything," since "belief is the death of intelligence." He has described his approach as "Maybe Logic." [Wikipedia]

RAW's published output, general influence on underground culture and legacy are all too vast to be dissected here in any even nearly satisfying way, so I just recommend you follow the links below.

Robert Anton Wilson Homepage

Robert Anton Wilson @ Wikipedia

Robert Anton Wilson @ Blogspot

RAW Memorial @ MySpace

The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness by Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson

Psychedelic Phinland - Finnish Hippie & Underground Music

Title: Psychedelic Phinland - Finnish Hippie & Underground Music 1967-1974
Format: 2CD
Label: LOVE RECORDS
Date: 15 November 2006
Cat.No: LXCD 651

From press release notes (translation from Finnish and all ensuing errors by pHinn):

The hippie ideals and that fiercer underground arrived to Finland in the mental turmoil of the end of the 1960s. Their blooming was cut short, but both left their permanent mark on pop culture. The 2-CD Psychedelic Phinland collects together the nation's first hippie troubadours, pioneers of psychedelic prog, vanguard warriors of anarcho rock, acoustic tribal musicians and the extreme daredevils of the arctic avantgarde. The album presents the mashers of the fringes of consciousness from Blues Section to Tylympi Kohtalo ("The Grimmer Fate"), the wanderers of stellar spheres from Pekka Streng to Jukka Kuoppamäki, the gravediggers for the Establishment from Suomen Talvisota 1939-40 ("The Finnish Winter War 1939-40") to Apollo, those who grasped the meaning of the holy simplicity from Those Lovely Hula Hands to Kruununhaan Dynamo ("Kruununhaka's Dynamo") and the midwives of sonic revolution from The Sperm to Sähkökvartetti ("The Electric Quartet"). It's a unique sound documentary of the alternative music of the turn of the 1960s and 70s. For those already familiar with Suomen Talvisota and The Sperm are offered some curiosities which amaze by their sheer existence. Everything essential concerning the topic is presented here -- from Jorma Ikävalko's no-holds-barred hippie comedy to the flute meditation reaching for the world spirit by Sikiöt ("The Foetuses"). This compilation produced by Jukka Lindfors includes 29 tracks from 20 different artists or bands, including self-releases, radio and TV performances and live recordings. The sleeve illustration is provided by Timo Aarniala, the court artist of Finnish underground. The whole it can be best described by the words of the poet Markku Into: "Everyone does their own thing. A symphony for every member of the family, for everyone their own alienation".

CD1:

1. Topmost: The End
2. Hector & Oscar: Savu
3. Jukka Kuoppamäki: Kukkasen valta
4. Jorma Ikävalko: Hippijortsut pöhkölässä
5. Blues Section: Cherry-Cup Cake Twist
6. Wigwam: Must Be The Devil
7. Baby Grandmothers: Being Is More Than Life
8. Eero Koivistoinen: Pientä peliä urbaanissa limousinessa
9. Charlies: Taiteen kriitikistä
10. Apollo: Ajatuksia
11. Suomen Talvisota 1939-40: Kasvoton kuolema ja Sirhan Sirhan
12. Suomen Talvisota 1939-40: Tehtaan vahtimestarit
13. Suomen Talvisota 1939-40: Flaggorna fladdrade i gentlemannens WC
14. Tylympi Kohtalo: Näkemiin, voi hyvin ystäväni
15. Pekka Streng: Olen erilainen
16. Juice Leskinen & Coitus Int: Zeppeliini
17. Hector: Meiran Laulu
18. Jukka Kuoppamäki: Aurinkomaa
19. Markku Into: Olen puhunut utopiaa

CD2:

1. Those Lovely Hula Hands: Tarzan apornas apa / Tarzan gregah / Jane Porter sivistyksen muurilla
2. Those Lovely Hula Hands: Menevät miehet
3. Pekka Airaksinen: Fos 2
4. The Sperm: Heinäsirkat I
5. Sähkökvartetti: Kaukana väijyy ystäviä
6. Kruununhaan Dynamo: Simple Things
7. Sikiöt: Side One
8. Sikiöt: Trippin' Together
9. Those Lovely Hula Hands: Missä on Marilyn?
10. J.O. Mallander: Degnahc Ev'uoY

Contact:

Love Records / Siboney

HÄMEENTIE 6 A 4 00530 HELSINKI FINLAND

Tel. +351-(0)9 -417 66 640

FAX +351-(0)9-417 66 650


Psychedelic rock in 60s Finland @ pHinnWeb

Early Years of Finnish Electronic Music & Avantgarde @ pHinnWeb

Rosemary

Charlie Manson's Philosophy of Fear

Let it be made clear that I'm not a Mansonite myself but one quote allegedly from him has really haunted me for years:

One aspect of Manson's philosophy especially puzzled me: his strange attitude toward fear. He not only preached that fear was beautiful, he often told the Family that they should live in a constant state of fear. What did he mean by that? [ ... ]

To Charlie fear was the same thing as awareness [ ... ] The more fear you have, the more awareness, hence the more love. When you're really afraid, you come to "Now". And when you are at Now, you are totally conscious.

Manson claimed that children were more aware than adults, because they were naturally afraid. But animals were even more aware than people, he said, because they always live at Now. The coyote was the most aware creature there was, Manson maintained, because he was completely paranoid. Being frightened of everything he missed nothing.

- Vincent Bugliosi: Helter Skelter, p. 320

Hair Musical by Tampere Pop Theatre

http://www.sunpoint.net/~hair1969/

The Pop Theatre of Tampere was established by Orthodox Youth Association and Finnish Youth Association in autumn 1966. It was to be a rival amateur group and it assumed as early as then its popular character. It is no wonder that "Hair" has become the greatest success of our theatre's history. It has caused an enormous reaction in Finland, taboos have been overturned and the young people of our time have conquered everybody's mind with their absoluteness. The revolution of music, theatre and love has swept over the country and forced professional theatres to estimate the situation anew.

Hair would have hardly ever been performed in Finland without the Pop Theatre. Yet the group from Tampere had been looking for a musical with modern pop music. It found Hair and managed to get the rights of presentatiom. The group had not been busy in vain. It was able to carry its ideas out. The page of the amateur theatre opened in theatre history. There has been more than 140 performances by spring 1970 and the number of spectators is almost 100 000, which is almost the same as that of the largest professional theatres of our country.

The Hair interpretation of the theatre has visited almost every professional theatre in Finland and frequently the main stages of the country in Helsinki.

Also Helsinki got its Hair in November 1969. It is performed by The International Theatre of Finland. The Hair in Kotka will be completed in spring '70 and more is to come. Finland seems to be the promised land of the American hippie musical!

The next première of the Pop Theatre of Tampere will be in May 1970 in Helsinki during the Helsinki Festival Weeks and the group will likely preserve its musical style.

Performances of "Hair" will continue in the Tampere Theatre Summer in August '70 and in Tampereen Teatteri in autumn.

[from the 1970 press release]

John Peel: Getting Older and Still Getting Into New Music

[John Peel: you can be an old fart, but you don't have to be a boring old fart!]

One person I admire very much -- and also look up to as a role model in what I'm trying to do myself -- is the late British radio DJ John Peel. He started his career during the early 60s beat era and then became one of the most prominent voices in the 1960s UK musical underground with his radio shows such as Perfumed Garden. John Peel was born in 1939 so he wasn't exactly a young turk any more even in those days.

And to the late-60s musical era Peel might have as well stuck for the rest of his life, just keeping playing his hippie music favourites for his aging peers as a nostalgia act, but instead, he preferred to go on. He kept up with was happening in the musical underground -- punk, alternative, indie, electronic dance music, you name it, and without prejudices and getting stuck to any purist ghettos -- all the way to October 2004 when he sadly passed away. All this time championing new music and acts, spreading the word about them to people, constantly seeking for what is fresh and innovative. My intention here is not to pay lip service, only to show that a person can go on musically even after that dreaded milestone of thirty years of age.

Kari Sipilä

Juri provided info on some Kari Sipilä's early 1970s hippie comic books on Mysteeni Publications. It would be interesting to find more info on Mr. Sipilä's works. Anyone? For more information, see Jorma Elovaara & The Finnish Age of Aquarius.

Author: Kari Sipilä
Title: Zen 1: Aika Ibizalla
Published: Helsinki : Mysteeni r.y, 1972
26 p : 21 cm

Author: Kari Sipilä
Title: Zen 2: Sarjakuvia
Published: Helsinki: Mysteeni r.y, 1975
25 p : 21 cm
("Tähti" : an occultist magazine ; 1972: 5.)

An example of Kari Sipilä's art

The Miskatonic Acid Test

I just got this mysterious message from a gentleman called Rob MacKenzie; probably his interest was raised by pHinnWeb's Beyond The Calico Wall page, dedicated to 1960s psychedelic garage rock (for me, the best rock'n'roll ever made):

I'm writing to spread the word about The Miskatonic Acid Test, a very ambitious feature length movie which is currently filming in Maine and Massachusetts, USA. The film combines psychedelic rock (influenced by groups like the Elevators, Watchband, Stooges, etc.) with cosmic horror concepts pioneered by the writer H.P. Lovecraft, mixing in a good bit of philosophy, antiwar politics, and humor along the way. It's going to be a gas... and did I mention the psychedelic rock?

Here's the outline: in 1969 a group of students at Miskatonic University in witch-haunted Arkham, Massachusetts decided to emulate the West Coast and put on their own sort of "happening", where "music and atmosphere could combine to create an alteration of consciousness", with the clandestine help of a little LSD. Or maybe a lot. Unfortunately, the professor they chose to serve as faculty adviser on the project had an agenda of his own; see, he was a philosophy professor, one who specialized in the "study of Evil", and one who saw the Miskatonic Acid Test as an opportunity for a little experiment. As the music and drugs reached their peak he ascended the stage and began to read incantations from the dread Necronomicon... and soon everybody learned a lesson about "cosmic consciousness"... they learned that some things are cosmic, and, unfortunately for us, they are also conscious.

The official site at http://miskatonic.americanentropy.com has more on the film, including set photos, a "teaser" trailer, an early script draft, and - just added! - the first of many soundtrack downloads, "Where the Sun Touches the Sky" by The Conqueror Wyrms.

A bit about me... I'm Dark Lord Rob, the writer and director of the film (I also play Professor Firth, the evil philosophy professor). Before this I was founder and bass player for the well-regarded 80's/90's garage/psych combo The Not Quite ("a major band" - Pulsebeat; "classic psychedelia by any standards" - Freakbeat; "One of the strongest bands in the genre" - Knights of Fuzz). After the band evaporated I turned my hand to writing, creating the Electric Druid website, which evolved into American Entropy.com, where literally dozens of projects are evolving - novels, screenplays, teleplays, and, um, other. The Miskatonic Acid Test will be my first film... a lifelong dream achieved.

Also in the all-star cast is Chris Horne, formerly with garage legends The Brood.

If this sounds like an exciting concept, I hope you'll take a moment to have a look and a listen on the website. If you like what you see/hear, I hope you'll help spread the word about the movie (with a link, news blurb, or just by telling your friends) so that we can start building some momentum and make this film an event. Thanks!

Dark Lord Rob
American Entropy Productions
http://americanentropy.com