Acid tests

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Acid Test Leaflet, 1965.

As Acid tests was referred to a number of parties and happenings that from 1965 to 1967 mainly on the west coast of the United States took place. The initiator of these happenings was the writer Ken Kesey . The main elements of the acid tests were the live performances of the Grateful Dead and the Merry Pranksters, as well as group consumption of LSD .

Surname

The term "acid test" comes from gold prospecting jargon and means an acid test with which the gold content of rock is determined. In the context of the happenings, the term “acid test” was used playfully, as acid (“acid”) was also the slang word for lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).

meaning

The acid tests were an American phenomenon. The collective ingestion of LSD by different, often strangers to each other in different places in California created a completely new scene from which the subculture of the hippie gradually developed. The acid tests are therefore considered to be the nucleus of the hippie movement. At the same time, the so-called Deadheads developed from their supporters around the participating rock band Grateful Dead .

Emergence

prehistory

The writer Ken Kesey had bought a farm called La Honda from the royalties for his debut novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest south of San Francisco . Impressed by happenings by the artists George Stern, Michael McClure and Allen Ginsberg , he held acid parties every Saturday at La Honda, which were open to everyone and attended by artists, students and the curious as well as members of the local Hell's Angels . When these Saturday night events threatened to get bigger and bigger, Kesey moved the acid parties to other, public places where the Grateful Dead first appeared under this name. The brightly painted FURTHUR bus served as a means of transport .

First acid tests

The first acid test was supposed to take place in Santa Cruz , but the pranksters were unable to rent a room on site. Without further ado, the test was moved to Ken Babbs' farmhouse in Soquel , a parish near Santa Cruz. As a billboard, the Pranksters installed a cardboard sign in the local bookstore called Hip Pocket Bookstore with the question: "Do you pass the acid test?" The participants included the poet Allen Ginsberg.

The next venue was planned to be San Jose , where, in the absence of a hall, the home of a “local bohemian giant” called the Big Nig was avoided. This was the first appearance of the Grateful Dead, which had previously appeared under the name "The Warlocks". The guests of the second acid test also included some visitors to a Rolling Stones concert on December 4, 1965 in the Civic Auditorium, among whom leaflets were deliberately distributed after the concert. Around 400 people attended the second acid test - “the first mass acid experience, the dawn of the psychedelic era, the flower child generation”.

The third acid test took place on December 11, 1965 in a dance hall on the beach at Muir Beach .

Trips Festival

The Trips Festival was a three day party held at Longshoremen's Hall in San Francisco on the weekend of January 21, 22, and 23, 1966. For the first time, different groups of the psychedelic movement from the Bay Area came together at one event. The original idea for the Trips Festival came from Zack Stewart, Stewart Brand and Ramon Sender. Stewart Brand was friends with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, while Zack, Ramon and Morton Subotnick were involved with the Tape Music Center and the Ann Halprin Dance Company . The core audience was recruited from this environment. The organizers were Chet Helms and Bill Graham , who had already made professional appearances with the Mime Troupe . Ken Babbs from the Merry Pranksters acted as MC and host through the program. Ken Kesey appeared in a gold lamé suit with a crash helmet and gave speeches to the audience.

In addition to Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the rock bands Big Brother and the Holding Company , Jefferson Airplane , The Great Society , The Charlatans and the Grateful Dead were announced. However, the Dead's appearance was canceled because someone broke Jerry Garcia's guitar neck.

Every night between 2300 and 3200 guests came to Longshoremen's Hall, which was actually only designed for 1700 visitors. For Bill Graham, the festival weekend was the entry into the music business that led to his management of the Fillmore , the Winterland Ballroom and the Fillmore West in San Francisco .

The Trips Festival, organized as a collective initiative, was a blueprint for the upcoming rock festivals in Monterey and Woodstock .

Acid Test Graduation

On October 6, 1966, LSD was banned in the state of California by a resolution of the parliament (only two years later the United States Congress passed a nationwide ban with the Staggers-Dodd Bill ). Ken Kesey, temporarily detained for a January 1966 marijuana offense, was released on bail if he agreed to prevent the youth from using LSD. For this purpose, Kesey and the Merry Pranksters planned an Acid Test Graduation on Halloween , a kind of final event at which self-made “diplomas” were awarded to participants who had “passed” previous acid tests. The diplomas were awarded by Neal Cassady . This ended the series of acid tests in the California area.

All data

1965
  • November 27: Soquel , California (Ken Babb's farmhouse The Spread )
  • December 4: San Jose , California (private residence)
  • December 11th: Muir Beach , California
  • December 18: Palo Alto , California
  • December 24th: Portland , Oregon
1966
  • January 8: San Francisco, California ( Fillmore Auditorium )
  • January 15th: Portland
  • 21-23. January: San Francisco ( Trips Festival at Longshoremen's Hall)
  • January 29: San Francisco ( The Sound City Acid Test at Sound City Studios, 363 6th Street)
  • February 5: Los Angeles , California ( Northridge (Los Angeles) , Unitarian Church)
  • February 12: Los Angeles ( Youth Opportunities Center in Watts / Compton )
  • February 25: Los Angeles (Cinema Theater in Hollywood )
  • March 12: Los Angeles ( The Pico Acid Test at the Danish Center)
  • March 19: Los Angeles (Carthay Studios)
  • March 25: Los Angeles ( Troupers Club on the Sunset Strip )
  • September 30 - October 2: San Francisco ( Whatever It Is Festival at San Francisco State University )
  • October 31: San Francisco ( Acid Test Graduation in the Winterland Ballroom )
1967
  • March 16: Houston , Texas (Brown College, Rice University)

criticism

In his autobiography, Bill Graham recalls with horror that at the Trips Festival, LSD-infused ice was distributed to everyone, including children. There were tubs with prepared punch in the gallery, from which everyone could help themselves without warning signs indicating their contents.

In his documentary novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe used accounts by journalist Claire Bush about her participation in the Watts test on February 12, 1966. The Los Angeles Free Press employee attended the happening, which was attended by the caretaker in took place at a youth center to report on it. Unsuspectingly, she used the Kool-Aid shower , which was scooped out of a bucket and served as a "high -voltage shower ", without further labeling or explanation. When the effects started, Claire Bush experienced periods of both fear and well-being. Another event briefly led to a crisis among the Merry Pranksters. An unspecified girl had also drank the Kool Aid lemonade and had a panic attack during the event. Her screams were recorded with the microphone by Ken Babbs, who accompanied the test as a kind of moderator, commented on with his own raps and broadcast over the loudspeaker system in the premises of the youth center, while other members of the pranksters tried to calm the girl down.

literature

  • Bill Kreutzmann (with Benjy Eisen): Deal. My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead , 2015. ISBN 9781250033796
  • Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield: Bill Graham presents. A life between rock and roll , two thousand and one, Frankfurt am Main 1996. ISBN 9780306813498
  • Tom Wolfe: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The legendary journey of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters , Munich 2009. ISBN 9783453406216

Web links

Individual notes

  1. ↑ Jesse Jarnow: Acid Tests Turn 50: Wavy Gravy, Merry Prankster Ken Babbs Look Back , in Rolling Stone on November 30, 2015.
  2. ^ Bill Graham Presents, item 2764.
  3. ↑ Wolfe, Kool-Aid Acid Test, heading 4540.
  4. ↑ Wolfe, Kool-Aid Acid Test, heading 4575.
  5. ↑ Wolfe, Kool-Aid Acid Test, heading 4611.
  6. ^ Bill Graham Presents, item 2725.
  7. ^ The Acid Test Chronicles, Page 27: Acid Test Graduation - Oct. 31, 1966 .
  8. ↑ December 18, 1965: The Big Beat, Palo Alto - Lost and Found
  9. ↑ The Acid Test Reels: Ken Kesey & The Grateful Dead's Soundtrack for the 1960s Famous LSD Parties on Openculture on May 27, 2014.
  10. ↑ Whatever it is Festival on KRON-TV from September 30, 1966.
  11. ^ Bill Graham Presents, item 2737.