BEAUTIFUL 1967 ARIFACT "THE ACID TEST" KEN KESEY GRATEFUL DEAD PRANGSTERS PSYCH
  $   1,099

 


$ 1099 Sold For
May 22, 2016 Sold Date
May 21, 2016 Start Date
1 Number Of Bids
  USA Country Of Seller
eBay Sold at
 
save auction  

Description

  AMAZING =MINT= 1967 SAN FRANCISCO SOUND ARTIFACT!

                                           

                " The ACID TEST "

                    

             

                       

                                       

                       (USA) - PRIVATE PRESS


final collection copy

Ken Kesey:  "this whole party has been bought and paid for by the Horned Brother under the ground"!

Original LP; severely limited edition of only a few hundred copies pressed, not released in retail stores. Most of the pressings are long-long gone or wasted some 50 years later.

 Lesser condition copies have sold for $1400.- to $2500. - Here is an archive survivor - *best* copy you could (ever) hope to find:

"Archive" final collection copy...

 San Franciso State College October 1st - 2nd, 1966.
The Acid Test : interspersed with  segments by Ken Kesey and Jerry Garcia backed by the Grateful Dead. 

Though the original album was recorded at the tail end of 1966, it was actually released in '67.

This is the original 1967 release of "THE ACID TEST" L.P. by Sound City Production (363 6th St., San Francisco). The album was edited from recordings at Sound City's Studio around the time of the Trips Festival (January, 1966). As advised on the front cover, the album was made under the influence of LSD, the use of which became more prevalent as the session wore on. The main players (as was the case for the majority of the acid tests) are Ken Kesey, Ken Babbs of the Merry Pranksters & The Grateful Dead. Insanely tripped-out cover artwork, which includes a photo of Kesey, Jerry & Pigpen, comes courtesy of the head prankster himself, Kesey.

This legendary documentation of the 1965-66 Bay Area Acid Test scene shows the other side of acid culture, which is fun, unpredictable and avant-garde as opposed to Timothy Leary camp's solemn religious / psychological approach. Lots of amazing mind games and word play with Kesey and Ken Babbs in good form, ad-libed poetry with echo-devise enhancement, fractured Pig Pen harmonica solos, tape loops and the Grateful Dead lurking in the background. Released in March 1966, just as the Pranksters were splitting for Mexico.

The Pranksters showed creativity in the use of materials and objects for decoration, stringing huge billowing parachutes from the ceiling, covering walls with silver foil, bringing in trampolines and ladders, using day-glo, stroboscopes and black-lights everywhere. The concept of light shows, later highly popular for rock concerts, grew out of inventions for Acid Tests, though the Pranksters were freer in their visual imagination - such as putting a live bug and a live spider on an overhead projector and having them fight in huge scale on the wall.

The first notable manifestation of the Merry Pranksters was their 1964 coast-to-coast bus tour. Prior to this, a circle of like-minded characters in the San Francisco Bay Area had gathered around Kesey, who was a promising young author of the acclaimed 1962 novel, "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". After finishing his second novel "Sometimes A Great Notion" Kesey was looking to expand his artistic endeavors outside the world of literature. Based on his guinea pig experiences with psychedelic drugs at the CIA-sponsored Veteran's Hospital in Menlo Park, a new philosophy and lifestyle emerged among Kesey's friends and colleagues who took part in similar LSD experiences. This new attitude cannot be summarized in a few neat "-isms" and encyclopedia references, for as the Pranksters warned: "if you label it THIS, then it can't be THAT". Instead a few enigmatic phrases defined their lifestyle - "You're either on the bus or off the bus"; "Nothing lasts"; "Never trust a Prankster". Unconstrained by any agenda, they put vast amounts of energy into whatever project they were working on, and with Kesey as chief ideologist constantly tried to push into new realms of experience.


Consequently the acid-fuelled June 1964 cross-country trip with an old school bus, painted in day-glo colors and christened "Further", had no explicit artistic purpose - ostensibly they were shooting a documentary while on the way to New York City's World Fair in time for the publication of Kesey's second novel - yet it was centered around certain unique principles. The LSD sessions during the journey did not happen randomly, or constantly, but as designated events during which certain Pranksters took LSD, while others created the trip environment and documented the results through the array of advanced equipment they had brought along on the bus, such as tape recorders, 16mm movie cameras, internal and external speakers, intricately rewired headphones and microphones. Recordings, broadcasts, feedbacks, tape loops and tape delays were a constant part of their daily life. Apart from the purpose of documentation, the hi-tech gear was used to create an environment of aural/visual stimuli that would enhance the sense of spontaneity, or Now, and help breaking through the barriers of limited perception that the reasoning mind - and possibly society - had created for itself.


The idea of the Acid Tests grew out of gatherings and parties that Kesey held at a remote hunter's cabin in La Honda Calif after returning to the Bay Area from the 1964 bus trip. The most remarkable happening was a 3-day party in August 1965 with the Hell's Angels, who the Pranksters managed to turn into a peaceful group preoccupied with the LSD experience and the various aural/visual mind games the woods had been decorated with. Allen Ginsberg who was present wrote a poem about the experience, and the events are detailed in both Tom Wolfe's aforementioned book and Hunter Thompson's "Hell's Angels" (1966). This achievement of the Pranksters has been described as a breakthrough of the "real-life hangup" at which most artistic projects fail, due to the gap between the artist and society at large. Kesey & his associates had managed to bring the Hell's Angels, one of the most "real-life" phenomena there is, into their movie. Soon after the Trips Festival, things had taken a bad turn for the group. Kesey, having recently been arrested again for marijuana possession, staged a fake suicide and left for Mexico and plans were made for the others to join him there. Before doing this, the rest of the group arranged a few Tests in the Los Angeles era with the Grateful Dead, and now with Ken Babbs and Wavy Gravy at the wheel. These Tests were among the most successful and outrageous and may have had a significant impact in jump-starting the psychedelic era in L A, but lacking Kesey's calm and unquestionable leadership tensions started to mount. Finally, Babbs and a number of inner circle Pranksters took the Further bus and went down to Mexico, leaving several others behind. They met up with Kesey who was getting increasingly paranoid, and remained south of the border for a harrowing period of several months during which no significant Prankster activities occurred. In the Fall 1966 the Pranksters made their way back to the Bay Area in smaller groups and reunited for the S F State Acid Test, and preparing for a new grand vision of Kesey's, the Acid Test Graduation........
A1Ken Kesey
7:02 Ken Babbs w/ Pig Pen Harmonica  3:00
Take Two 0:43
Bull 0:47
Peggy The Pistol 4:05
One Way Ticket (A Classic) 8:11
Bells & Fairies 1:20
Levitation 3:41
Trip X 1:48 The End 0:30



CONDITION: The cover: rated: M- TOP COPY, beautiful, been in safe hands for 50 years and  remains with a fresh appearance, 4 sharp corners, no fade, no wear anywhere, no delete marks, no split seams, no bends, and no writing  ... VERY collection worthy investment rarity ...

The vinyl: Rated: M- TOP COPY ...completely clean, loaded with shine, looks like it was pressed yesterday even though it's 50 years old from 1966 - guaranteed! Both custom labels are spotless!



                        

         

      A cool addition to anyone's music library!

 

SEE: SELLERS OTher items for similar cool sounds for "head" people...

 

EFFICIENT/CAREFUL GRADING

All imperfections are noted both cover & record

 NOTE: All Items backed by  money back guarantee!IF you have a problem PLEASE let us solvefor you BEFORE leaving ANY negative feedback. Thanks! GRADING SCALE: M, M-, EX, VG++,VG+, VG, VG-M    Completely clean, no marksM-   Carefully used, looks clean, plays clean, shiny gloss, no marksEX   Faint scuff or superficial mark, near M-, high gloss, plays cleanVG++ Glossy with minimal scuffing or light mark playing very nice, cleanVG+ a bit more scuff or markls still plays well with very minimal surface at worseVG   more marks/scratches only minor, nothing deep, no loud clicks or pops        this grade is abused by many, VG here does not mean "trashed"VG-  surface noise present, will not have skips or jumps  ALL PAYMENTS SHOULD BE MADE WITHIN 5 DAYS Of AUCTIONS END BIDDERS PLEASE = Do Not Bid If You Are Not Serious About  Following Through The Transaction! ALL ITEMS GUARANTEED FOR WINNING BID - LESS SHIPPING!


price rating