BUY NOWBefore Dylan went bonkers on the farm by redecorating a New York highway with his motorcycle he turned The Beatles on to reefer and suddenly guitar solos became longer than Leon Russell’s beard and old La Stu here started bakin’ the funny brownies.
Going "Psychedelic" wasn’t easy in Black Oak, Arkansas. Hell, I once got the giblets beat of me keester for wearing a Cowsills T-shirt in the 7th grade! If that town were any squarer it would’ve been a Volvo! Finding a turned-on crowd there was harder than Grandma La Stu’s meatloaf. But again that dominatrix of flickering frames came to my rescue, the cinema as savior, expanded my mind to the tune of a ninety- minute freak out/ toke-fest known as Head.
Like a redheaded step-child on Ritalin, Head is an A.D.D. addled series of vignettes anchored by those four misfits of musical manufacturing, The Monkees, in an attempt to flip their collective middle finger at the machine that spat them on to America’s T.V. tray and left them to languish in the Hollywood doggy bag.
Made at a time when Frank Zappa could get MGM to finance a picture and Ringo Starr had street -cred, this was a film for pre-heated minds best served baked. I went from John Denver to Capt.Beefheart faster than whiskey at a rodeo-clown wake upon first viewing. Micky, Davy, Peter, and Mike became my four-headed guru as the strains of The Porpoise Song came spilling out in glorious Technicolor mono. For a while after my initial viewing, I would only answer to the name Manavishnu La Stu.
I tell ya when I got Rhino’s DVD of this stoner-reffic crowd-pleaser, it was like striking Acapulco gold! The sixties may have gone the way of the 8-track tape and Mr.T Breakfast Cereal but the brain cells burn on thanks to Head turning on, tuning in and dropping out
Get your hands on this one before I get a case of the munchies and raid your icebox!
Peace and Love,
Vic La Stu
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