Hi Sam and Tom,
Glad you enjoyed listening to the Humble Pie Song "30 days in the hole" : )- The CD is still sitting in my old boom box in the laundry room, ready for whenever I need a little inspiratioon or a trip down memory lane.
I'm basically always available for a chat - one of the benefits of retirement. Pick your time next week and it should be fine for me.
Like I said on the back cover of EPID, I'd definitely read my Kerouac. I'd read his classic "On The Road" in high school, but reading "Dharma Bums" a few years later was probably far more important to my developing belief system.
As I also said on the back cover blurb, I was shy bookworm until I fell into the Eel Pie hippie lifestyle. My Brit dad was a big fan of George Orwell (altho Orwell's progressive politics and inquisitive mindset didn't seem to rub off on him). Orwell's adventures in "Road to Wigan Pier" and esp. in "Down and Out in Paris and London" were almost guidebooks for me for surviving the somewhat outrageous lifestyle I was thrust into after I resisted the Vietnam War.
Of course I'd read Basho's "Narrow Road to the Deep North", and styled myself a 'pschedelic Basho' in one of the early chapter headings of EPID.
A quirky book from my dad's bookshelf which resonated during my UK years was "Lavengro: The Romany Rye".
In the youth hostel visits of early days in the UK I carried around a copy of Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver's bio, "Soul on Ice".
Even tho reading was generally frowned upon as a waste of time in the commune, I remained a regular reader, and for some ungodly reason the first Christmas, while down with a horrible bout of flu, I read Norman Mailer's egocentric "Advertisements for Myself".
Another Eel Pier, Jumbo, exposed me to some of the 60s crop of Brit poets like Adrian Henri - I remember a horrible pun, his?, about 'Liverpool's horny handed tons of soil' or somesuch.
While staying at Debbie Squires's (Little Debbie) house for short periods I listened to her eclectic, and in retrospective very tasteful, collection of late 60s music albums. I remember listening to the killer new Stones' album, "Let It Bleed" there. She was also a fan of fellow Canuck poet turned musician Leonard Cohen. Also Moody Blues, Incredible String Band, Tea for the Tillerman, etc..
Of course THE BEATLES remained godlike figures for me and many other hippies. Surprisingly, tho, some Brit hippies didn't seem as taken with The Beatles as hippie avatars as we had been in North America. Those with avant-garde pretensions preferred Pink Floyd's albums (oh, and I did attend a Floyd concert in Hyde Park - I remember the big buzz was having huge speakers placed around the site).
Of course I'd pretty well memorized the lyrics to every Bob Dylan album up to my exile. Some of the lyrics were so pertinent to my situation - think "Like a Rolling Stone" - 'how does it feel, to be out on your own, with no direction home, a complete unknown, just like a rolling stone'.
There are a lot of events I didn't cram into EPID. I wanted the book to be a scan, a concise overview of my adventures representing a kind of everyman hippie. Events I believe omitted from EPID include attending the Doors Concert at Dinner Key Auditorium in Coconut Grove, Miami, the night he was busted for obscenity. Then I flew to England a few weeks later in time to attend The Stones memorial concert for Brian Jones in Hyde Park. I really felt I was on some sort of dharmic hippie wavelength for a year or two in 1969. Also a bit earlier I'd heard Hendrix in a high school gym on Miami Beach, The Velvet Underground on Miami Beach, and The Grateful Dead at one of the first Miami love-ins, The Jefferson Airplane in a Fort Lauderdale amusement park, etc. etc. .
memories, memories!
The tail end of the 60 was a time of wild experimentation and creativity for the human race. Evolution even ("Hair" - we're evolving thru the drugs ; )-
peace and best wishes!
Canadian Chris ; )-
On 2018-09-19, at 7:28 PM, Sam Gillett wrote:
Love it. Funny - Read so much about Newcastle Brown, nearly every piece on Eel Pie pays it it respects. Tried one the other day - not good. But apparently Heineken brews it now, which might explain things.
As Tom said finished 1st draft now. Lots more work to do, as I'm sure is the case with any 1st draft.
Would really love to get the chance to speak to you about the kind of books, poetry, and music you were into at the time. Are you free anytime next week to chat?
Very best
Sam
On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 at 04:16, Chris Faiers <zenriver@sympatico.ca> wrote:
The lyrics include a description that sounds an awful lot like the Eel Pie Hotel ballroom:
'you take a greasy whore
and a rolling dance floor'
also 'Newcastle Brown
it'll sure smack you you down'
(first time I visited the dance hall I bought a booze can bottle of Newcastle Brown from a rusty fridge)
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