Some tracks from the best time of all in Rock History.
2. Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit
3. Big Brother & the Holding Company – Piece of my Heart
4. Quicksilver Messenger Service – Mona
5. Blue Cheer – Summertime Blues
Available on Amazon. In the UK:
Right now I am in a bit of a flux as I desperately try to catch up with myself.
I have five projects done and dusted – awaiting publication.
I have two that I am presently trying to complete
Finished Projects:
Ruminating on Roy Harper – I completed this book a year ago. It is presently with publishers awaiting acceptance. Roy has said that he will write a forward for it. I am presently waiting for that.
The Wilderness Years – my book on Nick Harper. I completed this last year. This is presently still with the designer waiting for the layout so that it can be properly published.
Zero to Infinity – My first Sci-Fi novel written in the 70s. I have typed it up from old typed manuscripts. I feel nostalgic about it even though it is not one of my best. I will publish it. I need to find time to re-edit it for the third time (following a suitable period of time to gain objectivity) and then I will publish it for myself to have a copy.
Poems for Hard times – another anthology of poems – my eighth. I completed this on my trip. I now have to find the time to actually design the cover and publish it.
Reality Dreams pt. 1 – My first book. A crazy sixties mish-mash of stories, poems and cartoons. I thought it was groundbreaking. Looking back it was probably just a typical product of its time – chaotic, flawed and stream of consciousness. About all I could manage back then. I have typed it up from the original manuscript. I now need to reread and check nothing more needs doing and I will publish it for myself. I have pt. 2 as a type-written document that I would like to get round to addressing in the near future.
While on my travels I have written first drafts of two novels:
Bodies in a Window – a novel which revolves around my father’s death. I thought of doing this back in 1981. It has taken me all this time to work out how.I have written the first draft and edited half of it. I have to complete that edit to produce the second draft. Then I will let it sit and review it before a (hopefully) final edit. I was really pleased with the way this came out though some of the sex is a bit raw and probably needs toning down.
Gordion Not – A Sci-Fi novel that has been in my head for decades. I was going to call it Human Zoo. I am just completing the first draft and should complete that this weekend. I will then do an edit to create a second draft while it is still fresh in my mind. Then I will let it sit in order to gain objectivity before doing a third edit. I am currently really pleased with this. It flowed out easily on to the screen and though I am at the very end it is still flowing.
If anybody would like to volunteer to be a reader and offer objective views on how to complete these projects I would be grateful for the help.
If anybody wishes to purchase any of my books you might try clicking on the links below or accessing Opher Goodwin on your local Amazon. All my books are up there.
If you wish to purchase any of my books you can do so by clicking on the links below (Click on the picture). That should take you to the place on Amazon where my books currently reside. I have noticed that sometimes this all plays up! You can go directly to Opher Goodwin at Amazon where they are all listed which might be less hassle. I have both kindle and paperback versions available.
If you wish to find out more about the books prior to purchase please go to the relevant book in ‘my books’. Descriptions of most of them are there.
Here’s a link to my page on Amazon UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1424949026&sr=1-2-ent
Thank you for purchasing my books! I hope you get immense pleasure out of them!
Education
1. A passion for Education – A Headteacher’s story
The Environment
1. Anthropocene Apocalypse
Books on Rock Music:
1. ‘In search of Captain Beefheart’ –
Paper back version with black & white photos:
Kindle version:
Paperback version:
2.The Times and Tales of a Sixties Freak
Kindle and Paperback:
3. 537 Essential Rock Albums pt. 1 – The first 270
Antitheist writing
1. The Antitheist’s Dictionary
Kindle & Paperback
2. The Antitheist’s Bible
Novels
1. Reflections from a Ditch
Kindle & Paperback
2. Goofin’ with the Cosmic Freaks
Kindle & Paperback – Kerouac meets the sixties
3. The Book of Ginny
Kindle & Paperback
Science Fiction
1. Green
Kindle & Paperback versions:
To buy Green, paper back version Click here
2. Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
Kindle version:
Paperback version:
3. Nosedive:
Kindle & Paperback versions:
4. Pornographic Syndromes
Kindle & Paperback
5. Hallucination
Kindle & Paperback
More will be with us shortly!
Country Joe and the Fish started life as a political Jug Band and went on to become the most radical voice coming out of Berkley. They pioneered the San Franciscan Acid sound of the sixties and melded it to social comment and particularly anti-Vietnam war songs.
Their first album – Electric Music for the Mind and Body, with its overtly LSD based lyrics, was the first Acid Rock album to be released and was a gem. They created a totally new sound that ranged from ethereal to strident and was ideally suited to the new climate of young minds, the light shows and use of Acid. Joe McDonald’s voice was pure and melodic and Barry Melton’s guitar sound was totally unique. I had never heard anything quite like it before.
The second album -I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die – continued the acid theme but added some more political songs such as Untitled Protest and the title track.
They were famous for the Fish Cheer – Give me an F, Give me a U, give me a C, give me a K – What’s that spell? Which was tidied up for the album to spell FISH. Back in those days of censorship and conservatism it was considered totally obscene.
Country Joe and the Fish epitomised the generation gap, antiestablishment stance and protest of the sixties more than any other band.
Their third album Together was good but showing signs of running out of steam. After that it was pretty much downhill.
I saw them on tour in Britain (without Barry Melton) in the 2000s and they were brilliant. Oh for a band of that magnitude of idealism and protest in these times!! Oh for a unified protest movement and a generation who cared about the environment, social problems and civil rights. The time is ripe.
I’ve see most of the world’s greatest bands from Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones to Stiff Little Fingers and Ian Dury & the Blockheads but right up there with Jimi for excitement and brilliance is Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band.
Don Van Vliet came out of the desert with his acid drenched blues poetry in 1967. I saw them play at Middle Earth and it blew me away. I’d never heard anything like it. The beat was incredible, complex and heavy. The guitars weaved in and out of each other, swapping riffs, spikey and jagged and that voice growled and boomed over the top of it all with such range and intensity. Then we get to the lyrics. You can talk of poetry but there is nobody who plays with words and sounds like Don Van Vliet.
At first hearing the sound is so different to anything you’ve ever heard that it appears discordant. That soon passes when you get into it. The power drives you forward and what appears at first to be clashing guitars rapidly clarifies into complex mesmerising brilliance. There is nothing subtle of simple about it and that is what makes it so interesting. I never grow tired of listening to the music or lyrics because the complexity yields more and more pleasure and insight. This is the classical music of Rock. This is when it all came of age. There is an emotional and intellectual depth to it.
I think one of the problems people sometimes have with Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band is that it is so opaque at first that it is difficult to find a way in. I was fortunate because that first album was less complex and so more accessible and I also got to see them perform live. When you experience the band in a live situation in a small club you cannot help getting sucked into their spell. It is so pulsatingly powerful that it overwhelms you. It is loud, aggressive, raw and yet sophisticated at the same time.
I’d bombarded my youngest son with Beefheart most of his life and he hated it. Then I persuaded him to go to a Magic Band concert and he was as blown away as me. He came out saying that it was the best thing he’d ever heard. It is. It was as exciting as Hendrix!
One of my best concerts ever was seeing Beefheart at the Rainbow around 1973 with Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morton, Drumbo and Alex St Clare. The band was steamin’.
There were lots of stories surrounding Don Van Vliet and the band. It’s all part of the mythology. He supposedly took on a bunch of people who couldn’t play instruments and taught them from scratch. That wasn’t true. He didn’t teach them to play but he certainly taught them to play differently to anyone else. He could neither read or play music and hummed and sang his stuff so that Drumbo (John French) could interpret it and teach it to the band. That is as maybe. You might think that John French was the force behind it all – and there’s no denying the man played a major part – if it wasn’t for the fact that (with the exception of the mediocre Tragic Band of 1974) he took on a series of musicians and got them all to perform in the same extraordinary manner. Don was a genius on many fronts. I even love his saxophone playing which wails and screeches perfectly with the music. He might be an untutored musician but he had an ear for perfection.
While the band did not achieve the commercial recognition it should have done it did gain a huge reputation and has had an influence well beyond their financial success. Many great artists cite Don as a major influence.
Don became ill and stopped producing music in 1981. That was a tragedy. But he left us with a string of outstanding albums, incredible poetry and stupendous sounds. He went on to produce equally impressive art. Fortunately for us John French went and put the Magic Band together with Rockette Morton, Denny Walley and Eric Klerks and it is brilliant. It keeps the music alive.
Check out more at the Radar Station. Which has lots and is run by a good friend of mine!!
http://www.beefheart.com/category/music-info/live-performances/shows/
Or check out my books on Rock. You’ll love ’em! :
