This constitutes one of my sporadic autobiographical entries and is unrelated to the history of science; therefore, if you’re here exclusively for that, feel free to bypass this entry. I also detail my extensive experience with psychedelic drugs, so if that’s an issue for you, once again, you can skip this entry.
On Saturday, March 7, the singer, songwriter, musician, and political activist, Joseph Allen McDonald, more famously known as Country Joe, passed away due to complications from Parkinson’s disease in Berkeley, California. Country Joe and his music intertwined with my life for many years, leaving a lasting impact on my growth.
As I have recorded elsewhere, my mother passed away under tragic circumstances due to a heart attack during Christmas in 1966. At that time, my brother had already moved out, being married and a father to my eldest nephew. My two sisters, both older than me, departed in the summer of 1967 to embark on their careers, leaving just my father and me in the family home. We left the village in northeast Essex where I was raised and relocated to London for my father’s job. He believed it would be best if my education was uninterrupted, so I entered the boarding house of the grammar school in Colchester, where I had completed the first four years of my secondary education, in the autumn of 1967. To say I was miserable would be an understatement, and I gradually sank deeper into a malaise, culminating in my expulsion at the end of the academic year 68/69.
My father subsequently managed to enroll me in Holland Park Comprehensive School, a flagship of the Labour Government’s comprehensive education initiative. Among its pupils were both Stephen and Hilary Benn, sons of the infamous Labour politician Anthony Benn, and the stepchildren of Roy Jenkins, the future President of the European Commission. Also present were Damien and Nico Korner, sons of blues musician Alexis Korner, who served as the PTA’s chairman. The school was vast but had a relatively small sixth form, which I had now joined. Like me, many of the sixth formers had been expelled from other schools, including some from prominent public institutions.
At this stage, I resided with my father and first stepmother in Colville Place, near Tottenham Court Road in the West End. Shortly after I began at Holland Park, one of my classmates connected me with DSK, a wild white Rhodesian Jew, as he described himself, who had been expelled from both Westminster Public School and Holland Park and lived nearby on Grape Street, which lies behind the Shaftsbury Theatre, longtime host of the musical Hair. I had already begun smoking cannabis just before my expulsion in Colchester, and DSK introduced me to LSD, or as we referred to it, Acid.
We became inseparable friends, spending most of our free time together, consuming large amounts of cannabis and taking acid roughly once a week. DSK was a minor dealer, which meant my drug use wasn’t financially burdensome. We would roam the streets of Soho at night, experiencing our trips, stopping at the all-night Whimpey Bar for food. We attended concerts, including a mind-blowing performance by Sly and the Family Stone at the Lyceum Theatre while I was high as a kite, but often we simply remained in DSK’s room, listening to records while exploring the psychedelic atmosphere. Much of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs frequently graced the turntable, but two albums significantly influenced me and my subsequent development. Firstly, the Grateful Dead’s Live Dead, which made me a devoted Dead Head and remains my all-time favorite album; secondly, Country Joe and the Fish’s Electric Music for the Mind and Body, which sparked a lifelong adoration for Country Joe’s music.
This was the era of monumental rock festivals, and in the summer of 1970, the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music was announced with an outstanding lineup that included Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Flock, It’s a Beautiful Day, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, among many others. I was eager to attend because Country Joe was on the lineup. To fund my ticket and the coach fare to Bath, I worked for a while at the Fitzroy Tavern, a legendary haunt of the Bloomsbury Set, Dylan Thomas, Augustus John, and many others. At the designated time, I took a coach to Bath and then a bus to the festival site in Shepton Mallet.
From the outset, the festival exceeded all expectations, with one remarkable set after another. On Saturday night, Led Zeppelin took the stage and delivered three hours of pure dynamite. Those who gauge such matters consider it perhaps their finest live performance ever.