This marks one of my infrequent autobiographical entries, unrelated to the history of science; thus, if that\u2019s your sole interest, feel free to bypass this post. I also detail my extensive use of psychedelic substances, so if that is a concern for you, once again, you can skip this entry.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, March 7, the singer, songwriter, musician, and political activist, Joseph Allen McDonald, famously known as Country Joe, passed away in Berkeley, California, due to complications from Parkinson\u2019s disease. Country Joe and his music intertwined with my life over several years and profoundly influenced my personal growth.<\/p>\n
As I’ve shared in other contexts, my mother tragically passed away from a heart attack during Christmas in 1966. My brother had already left home, being married and a father to my eldest nephew. My two older sisters departed in the summer of 1967 to pursue their careers, leaving only my father and me in the family home. We relocated from the village in northeast Essex, where I was raised, to London for my father’s job. He thought it best that my education remained uninterrupted, so I entered the boarding house at the grammar school in Colchester, where I had spent four years of my secondary education, in the fall of 1967. Claiming I was unhappy would be an understatement, as I gradually sank into a state of malaise, culminating in my expulsion at the end of the 1968\/69 academic year.<\/p>\n
My father subsequently arranged for me to attend Holland Park Comprehensive School, the flagship of the Labour Government\u2019s comprehensive education initiative. Notable alumni included Stephen and Hilary Benn, sons of the infamous Labour politician Anthony Benn, along with the stepchildren of Roy Jenkins, the future European Commission President. Other attendees included Damien and Nico Korner, sons of blues icon Alexis Korner, who chaired the PTA. The school was enormous but had a relatively small sixth form, of which I became a member. Like me, many sixth formers had been expelled from various institutions, including some prestigious public schools.<\/p>\n
During this chapter of my life, I resided with my father and my first stepmother on Colville Place, near Tottenham Court Road in the West End. Shortly after enrolling at Holland Park, a fellow student introduced me to DSK, a wild white Rhodesian Jew, as he identified himself, who had been expelled from both Westminster Public School and Holland Park. He lived nearby on Grape Street, behind the Shaftesbury Theatre, the long-time venue for the musical Hair. I had started smoking cannabis shortly before my expulsion from Colchester, and DSK introduced me to LSD, commonly referred to as Acid.<\/p>\n
We became inseparable, spending most of our free time together, consuming vast amounts of cannabis and dropping acid approximately once a week. DSK was a minor dealer, so my drug expenses were negligible. We roamed the streets of Soho at night, completely immersed in altered states, often stopping at the all-night Wimpy Bar for nourishment. We attended concerts; I experienced Sly and the Family Stone in a euphoric state at the Lyceum Theatre, which was an incredible experience, but often we simply remained in DSK\u2019s room, enjoying albums while exploring the psychedelic realms. A lot of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett\u2019s The Madcap Laughs frequently found its way onto the turntable, yet two albums significantly influenced me and my future. Firstly, the Grateful Dead\u2019s Live Dead, which turned me into a lifelong Dead Head and remains my all-time favorite album, and secondly, Country Joe and the Fish\u2019s Electric Music for the Mind and Body, marking the beginning of a lifelong passion for Country Joe\u2019s music.<\/p>\n
This was the era of grand rock festivals, and in the summer of 1970, the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music was announced, boasting a remarkable lineup that included Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Flock, It\u2019s a Beautiful Day, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Frank Zappa, and the Mothers of Invention, among many others. My desire to attend stemmed from the inclusion of Country Joe on the bill. To fund a ticket and the coach fare to Bath, I worked for a time at the Fitzroy Tavern, a legendary hangout of the Bloomsbury Set, frequented by figures like Dylan Thomas and Augustus John. When the time arrived, I took a coach to Bath and then a bus to the festival site in Shepton Mallet.<\/p>\n
From the outset, the festival exceeded all expectations, with one remarkable performance after another. On Saturday evening, Led Zeppelin took the stage and unleashed three hours of sheer brilliance. Those who care about such matters consider it one of their<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This marks one of my infrequent autobiographical entries, unrelated to the history of science; thus, if that\u2019s your sole interest, feel free to bypass this post. I also detail my extensive use of psychedelic substances, so if that is a concern for you, once again, you can skip this entry. On Saturday, March 7, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-371872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-source-thonyc-wordpress-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/371873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}