The Acid tests

While in Spain recently I read the Perry/Babbs book On the Bus, an account of the trip by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters across America in 1964. Since getting back I have been reading Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, his account of the events that occurred after the bus trip. I first read this when I was about 17, following on from the usual teenage reading of Kerouac's On the Road. And like so many, I found this to be very much a model of what life could be - a wide ranging view supported by my later reading of The Dharma Bums, The Snow Leopard, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Franny and Zooey - still my four favourite books, one of which I read every year without fail.

Recent downloads have included several hours of recordings from one of the Acid tests, plus some Grateful Dead/Merry Prankster rapping and a more-recent audio interview with Carolyn Adams - "Mountain Girl" - someone who I have always rather admired and who I was pleased to discover seems to be very much thriving as a farmer in Oregon these days.

So today's musical theme (if you can call it that) is based around the Acid Test recordings and some of the early Grateful Dead records. I had forgotten how good "Live Dead" was.

Mountain Girl beside the bus

Mountain Girl with Jerry Garcia, with whom she had two children.

Ken Babbs - "Intrepid Traveller" - at one of the Acid Tests

A much later photo of Mountain Girl and Ken Kesey with the bus