The Aquarian Kid: plugged in and on

‘Nuclear Medicine’, says Carlos, ‘that’s what keeps me going. When my mind works it burns up six steaks in one minute flat. Who can afford it? I need an energy source that’s on all the time. Nuclear Medicine. On! Every try it?’  Terms of Use

When Carlos says on it’s like a verbal karate chop upside the head. It carries the universality of a Hare Krishna chant—OM—his own man-trie code that says it all and which fixes him in the cosmic eye more decidedly than his birth certificate. It is meant as an explosive rather than a meditative catalyst, worrying the rest of his monologue into a dizzy ziggurat, out of sight and out of mind, leaving only the clap of a sonic boom. On! His abstractions wave themselves into a pattern of theories, postulates and corrolaries that blazon the emblems of the new age—the Age of Aquarius which he celebrates each night dancing in the French production of Hair on the stage of the Theatre St. Martin in Paris. And when he is not dancing he talks. Communicates. Relates to people. Opens their minds. Turns them on!

 

What’s bin hid and what’s bin did

All good things must come to an end. And it looks suspiciously as if the happy days are through for meditation maestro the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, everyone’s favourite guru in the palmy days of 1967. Register

A week’s pay was the toll he would charge for the indoctrination and the trip to Nirvana. Obviously the weeks have been mounting up.

 

Look at me I’m wonderful

It’s all too easy after the magnifi-cance of Let it Bleed to blame the lack of excitement at the recent Rolling Stone’s concerts on one thing: the non-appearance of Leon Russell, Al Kooper, Nanette New­man, the London Bach Choir et. al. at their live gigs. WeddingPraise Certainly the band lacks the precision and the power that it had five or six years ago, despite a month’s constant practice in the States. Obviously the com­bined talents of Jimmy Miller and Glyn Johns do the Stones rather more than justice; seeing them in the raw for the first time in so long made it apparent just how far away from their audiences a group of their stature can get. The Hyde Park scene didn’t count: that was too emotional for any reasonable musical analysis to make sense (cf. Blind Faith).

 

The Blimp refeels itself

In an exclusive, Trans-Atlantic hot-Line telephone Call to his LA home, Captain Beefheart revealed plans for a new line-up in the Magic Band, already into recording and live gigs.

One of the few positive moves following Monitors the break-up of the Mothers has resulted in Ian Under­wood, ace horns man, coming in to play guitar, and Artie Tripp taking over from Jumbo on drums. Jumbo only stayed with the Band for a matter of weeks: his first gig was at the Actuel Festival, and the original drummer, John French, was still with them for Trout Mask Replica, though for reasons unknown to anybody, he wasn’t credited.

 

Gene machines

Those of you who read about the recent isolation of a gene by Harvard biologists are probably still freaked out by the blaring headlines of the nation’s dailies that the Harvard madmen have unleashed a destruc­tive force more potent than the hydrogen bomb remixes. The five penny rags were full of statements about ‘biological bombs’ capable of creat­ing a race of supermen who would dominate their genetically inferior subhuman slaves. Brave new world is just around the corner.

These fantastic claims are far from justified. Geneticists won’t be messing about with your body David Guetta as a result of the Harvard work. How­ever, your children might see the effects, and they may be beneficial.