(part 67) "HOLY HOLY HOLY" ON THE AIR IN SAN FRANCISCO

This is only a demo of the song Holy Holy Holy and probably only some of the final lyrics, but I wanted to get something up to give this song a real sense of existing.. I put the words, as they are, into the video to make it easier to understand. Sorry for the spelling mistakes in the video...

What I am writing about here regarding religious beliefs, or the lack thereof, was an extremely important subject to me back in the 60's. There wasn't an evangelical movement back then like there is today. Religion was viewed somewhat differently in that time frame by mainstream America.

There was no TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) on cable TV, or anything else like we have come to take for granted presently. There were no cell phones, no cable news channels, etc. Newspapers and magazines, network news in the morning and evening, and AM radio was where we learned about our world, unless you were part of what was making the news, which we were. We, being the anti-war pro peace hippie movement.

Religion represented the establishment and all the establishment stood for, which in our opinion was the war, fear of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, guilt, and fear of self expression. Religion and government were intertwined in such a way that set up false moral structures, which were assumed by it's supporters to be the last word on all things moral and important to the whole collective body of America.

The hippie and peace movements were embraced by the new direction of music and art and most of it's creators. They, for the most part, had very different ideas about their world. Most of these ideas were not shared by those in positions of power within the entertainment and radio broadcast mediums. As a fact, that became one of the driving forces behind underground FM radio in the 60's.

The tensions that existed between this duality of forces was what I was attempting to get at by writing some of the kinds of songs I wrote at the time, like Hitler and Jesus. The title itself was a perfect metaphor for the pairs-of-opposites philosophy I was experimenting with. Yin and Yang, positive and negative, light and dark, etc.

I saw Holy Holy Holy as a way to draw a distinction between the supposed goodness of religion, and religion's inability, to produce members who could see that blowing up Vietnam was not a net positive for the world. I saw that people who were going to church, and proclaiming their moral high ground, were also supporting a war which I, and much of the country was against.

Establishment types were afraid of braless hippie girls, but seemingly unmoved by the war's increasing body count on television and in print news media. The priests, who I saw as leaders within religious structures, whatever the denomination, had, in my opinion and that of others, a moral obligation to speak out against the ongoing slaughter of human beings.

I should add, that I am aware what I'm saying was not true in all cases. There were many, but never enough, who did speak out, such a Martin Luther King, in his brilliant speech against the war in April of 1968. My need, which was to articulate through music and lyrics, my own growing dissatisfaction with the world around me, was met with animosity and skepticism by many, and down right hatred by some.

The more I worked at capturing, through art, what I believed to be the truth, the further I was pushed to the side of the "money for music" business. A lot of music business people said, "Yeah, the guy's real talented, but why doesn't he write something commercial?"

This infuriated me, because I had written many things that were commercial and they'd complained about them too. I decided that if they were going to keep me out I might as well write the kind of songs I wanted to. I knew by then that I was far more serious about what I did than they ever figured out. I'd already had my shot at bubble gum music and wasn't planning to go back to it again.

Sometime after I'd recorded "Holy Holy Holy," and had a tape copy in my hands, I ventured up to San Francisco to see a friend of mine, Greg Thomas. Greg introduced me to the band Blue Cheer. I told them about the tape of Holy Holy Holy and they all thought it sounded pretty interesting.

One of the guys in the band said he knew the girl who was a DJ on the first underground FM rock station on the west coast. He said she was on that afternoon, and we ought to go to the station and see if she'd play the tape on the air. We all decided it was a good idea and piled into the car and headed for the station.

The lady DJ was on the air when we arrived but she invited us in anyway, feeling loved by all the attention she was getting from Blue Cheer. It seems this particular lady was known to like downers so we asked her if she wanted a couple? She, without hesitation, said, "Yes!" I pulled a couple of 3 grain Tuenals out of my pocket and handed them to her. She promptly swallowed both of them.

We all broke up laughing and said, "Damn girl, you really do like those things." While we joked around for twenty or thirty minutes it became apparent that the DJ lady was getting pretty loaded and beginning to slur her words. It was at that point we brought up the tape. Without batting an eyelash, or knowing full well what was on the tape, she asked, " Do you have it with you? Give to me, I'll put it on."

I handed her the tape and watched as she threaded it through the machine and picked up her mic, hitting the cut-in switch. Now you have to remember that this was a live broadcast. "Hello all you.." She broke in, "I have some special guests in the studio with me today."

She went on saying, "I'm here with some of the guys from Blue Cheer, Greg Thomas of Mint Tattoo, and Bobby Jameson, who's visiting us from L.A.. I'm gonna to play a brand new song of Bobby's for the first time anywhere." She clicked on the tape and let it rip. I stood back listening to the song play, when about half way through it the telephone switchboard lit up like a christmas tree and all hell broke loose.

The tape was quickly yanked off the air and the lady DJ handed it back to me saying, "You guys better get out a here because the station owner is on his way and we got big trouble." I apologized to her as we left saying, "I hope you don't get in any trouble or fired." She said, "Don't worry about it. It was worth it. Trippy song Bobby."

We thanked her for playing the tape and exited through the door and down the stairs to the street below. We didn't know whether we should feel guilty, happy, or impressed that the song had caused such a reaction. Someone said as we got in the car, "Yeah, and they didn't even hear the whole thing!"

(part 66) HENDRIX, ZAPPA, AND LEAVING NEW YORK

After seeing and hearing Hendrix on that muggy afternoon in the Village, Frank took me to the Le Figaro Cafe to introduce me to Jimi. When we got there Hendrix was already at a table with two or three girls and otherwise occupied. The cafe was pretty empty so even from across the room you could see everybody in the place.

At one point, Hendrix looked up and caught sight of Frank and me and acknowledged Zappa's presence with a smile and a wave. He was so loaded, that at best, it was a half hearted attempt to be cordial. I told Frank it was OK, and that it was obvious that Jimi was in no shape to meet me or anybody else at the time. "

It's cool Frank," I said, "I don't think he needs to be interrupted right now." Frank agreed and we left the Le Figaro and I carried the memory of Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and me, on that hot muggy afternoon in Greenwich Village, New York in 1967.

I remembered hearing about the Monterey Pop Festival a month or so earlier, and some guy who had blown everybody's mind along with Janice Joplin. It was this guy I had just seen and heard with Frank, Jimi Hendrix. I always remembered what Frank said to me, "This guy's gonna be the next Elvis Presley." It stuck in my mind as an odd way for Frank to put it, but I never forgot it, and in some ways it turned out to be true.

When I got back to L.A. I was all hyped up about writing new songs, promising myself that what had happened in New York with Tom Wilson would never happen again. I started writing all kinds of heavy lyrics that were extreme versions of the opposing parallels I'd used in songs like "Sea Dawn" from "Color Him In."

Somehow I got it in my mind that the point of "Sea Dawn" was right, but that I needed to make it more like a sledge hammer. Two of these songs were, as I mentioned, "Holy Holy Holy" and "Hitler And Jesus." Nobody was too sure about what I was doing, but I just kept writing whether they liked it or not.

I managed to convince Steve Clark to record a couple of these songs after telling him if he didn't Tom Wilson would. Whatever it was I told Steve, it worked. I ended up in the same studio where I'd cut "Color Him In" with a 30 or 40 piece orchestra and recorded "Holy Holy Holy."

"Holy Holy Holy" was about the hypocrisy of the church and the priests' shortcomings according to me. We cut the track with no problem, but when it was time for me to lay down the lyrics the engineer got up and walked out of the studio about half way through the song.

The session stopped and Steve went running after the engineer, who we later found out was a devout Catholic. He told Steve he couldn't be a part of something like that, because it was blasphemy according to his belief. After about 40 minutes or so Steve and the engineer came back together and the session went on.

I later asked Steve how he got the guy to come back and Steve said he reasoned with him that this was art, and that I had a right to express my opinion artistically, even if it offended some people. The guy thought about that and decided he agreed with Steve's reasoning and was willing to finish the session, but said he wouldn't do any more if they were like this. I thought that was pretty clever of Steve to bring up this particular point of logic which I fully agreed with.

(part 65) TOM WILSON, ZAPPA, AND JIMI HENDRIX

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I am going to try and make a point that I believe was not fully understood regarding my description of a bad acid trip. I received emails and comments that led me to do this, because I didn't just tell that story for the sake of telling it.

Following that trip, I was informed by Henry Jaglom, the person I got the LSD from, that it was a multiple hit of Owsley acid and was enough to get a large number of people extremely high. I was pissed off by the information, after the fact, but in essence realized that I was the one who had chosen to take it.

There was no gun to my head. I made the choice. Ok! What's the point? The point is that it changed my life. It left me so shattered at the time that I had problems coping with it. It produced a paranoia and a sense of something irreversible having taken place. I was left with a peculiar knowledge of the power of the human mind that I had never glimpsed before, and was sure I didn't want to visit again.

What I write on these pages, in words, is inadequate to correctly describe the event and its consequences for me. It was in the aftermath that the real point lies, not in the description of the trip or the hallucinations. I had hallucinated many times before, but this stuff, and the fact that I took way too much of it, was totally different.

It was like somebody who had used heroin for a long time and then got something close to pure and overdosed on it. This was not just an acid trip. It was a life altering experience. It caused, more than anything else, the major upswing in my use of drugs and alcohol. I needed the sedation effect of other substances to deal with the anxiety I was left with after this experience.

This traceable lineage of what happened caused many things to occur. There is a line of progressive events that lead from where I started to where I ended up. This is key to the story and to the events as they unfolded in my life. Without context, what I write becomes a series of stories without a point. There is a point to everything I write, because each thing written about was central to the overall context. Like dot to dot drawing.

The music I wrote after this experience was completely different than what I wrote before it. The music was altered, as was I. Before I recorded "WORKING" in 1968, I wrote and recorded a number of songs that I worked on with Steve Clark, but which were never released.

The titles of these songs indicate to some degree the text of these unknown works. "Holy Holy Holy" "Hitler And Jesus" and a number of other songs I have little recollection of. I will try and discuss, as best I can, how these songs came to be and what events preceded and followed their creation.

As "Color Him In" began to fade out of my consciousness, as the thing that would make my life better, I ended up in New York City at Verve Records. I wanted to know why they weren't working the album, and I wanted to see Tom Wilson, which I succeeded in doing.

I found Tom in a recording studio working with Johnny Nash. I told him I wanted to cut another record and that I needed his help. Tom was gracious as always and tried to get me to see how busy he was with the Nash record, and that I was putting him on the spot, which I was.

I told him I'd come to New York and it was a big deal for me. I said I had to get something going with him while I was there or my coming would be for nothing. As I said, Tom Wilson was extremely respectful, and literally stopped the Nash session to talk with me. He said, "OK, let's hear what you got in the way of material." For the first time in my life I was unprepared to come up with some songs to record.

I stood there like an asshole, and knew it. Tom told me to go back to L.A. and get my music ready. He said we'd get together on it at a later date. As I left the studio, feeling awkward and foolish for not having any tunes ready, both Johnny Nash and Tom Wilson said I hadn't done anything to hurt them and what they were doing. I have never forgotten how well they treated me in light of my forcing myself into their important work at the time.

As I wandered aimlessly through the streets of New York, following my meeting with Tom Wilson, I began writing a song called "Black Brick Wall" which I eventually recorded but never released. The title speaks for itself. I felt like I had hit a brick wall and that it was indeed black.

After a couple of hours of walking and writing, I ended up In Greenwich Village with Frank Zappa who was playing with The Mother's Of Invention at the Garrick Theater. It was the summer of 1967 and hot and sticky in New York City and Frank was glad to see me, which was a relief.

I told him about Tom Wilson and what had happened and Frank told me not to let it get me down. "Just go write some songs back in L.A.," he said. I told him I'd already started and recited some of the lyrics. Frank nodded his approval and we let the subject drop.

Frank said he wanted me to go to a club with him so I could hear this guy play guitar. I agreed. When we neared the club I heard this thundering sound coming out of the place even though the door was closed. I touched the door handle to open it and it was literally vibrating.

We walked inside and there were three guys playing on a small stage, making more noise than I'd ever heard in my life. When I use the word "noise" I mean it in the most positive way. I looked at Frank and smiled my approval and Frank yelled in my ear, "This guy's going to be the next Elvis Presley." He was referring to his growing popularity not the sound. "What's his name?" I yelled back. "Jimi Hendrix! His name is Jimi Hendrix!"

(part 64) BEING BOBBY JAMESON SUCKS!

I guess I could write something else. Something pleasant and uplifting about my wonderful life in the music business, and how I made a host of life long friends, and am happily married and have two children, a boy and a girl, who's names are Mo and Jo and we all go to church together.

I could write that, but it would be a lie, so I write my own story. My story isn't a "happy" story but it is a true story. If you think I get a kick out of telling you about "The Christ Complex," or about a bad acid trip that changed my life, or posting a list of all the records I made and wasn't paid for, you'd be wrong.

When I complain in written words about lack of airplay in L.A. this isn't a 40 year old sour grapes issue, it's a fact that I had to contend with at the time. What do you think it felt like to make record after record, good or bad, that never got played on L.A. radio from 1964 until now?

Either the records I made were so Goddamn piss poor that they didn't deserve to be played, or I was getting screwed around. Something you don't know is that I was not really known for being a recording artist in L.A. as much as I was for being the guy in the street during riots with the police over curfew laws imposed to impede anti-war demonstrations.

How could I be known for music when nobody in L.A. ever heard it? I was considered a joke by the music industry back then and I still am today. Do you think everybody who knew me then is glad to see me back? They're not. I think about a half a dozen or so people who knew me have contacted me on myspace and said hello. Mostly I am ignored by those who knew me.

Do you think anybody has offered to help me get this mess straightened out so I can get back my life after my long absence? Not one thing has changed in my life or the music business other than 2 United Kingdom record labels have illegally released two of my old albums on cd.

One of them gave me nothing (REV-OLA UK) and the other one (Fallout Records UK) gave me $1000 and 50 cd's of my own work. That's the big change since the 60's. $1127 and 50 cd's. I guess I should be grateful. All I am accomplishing, by doing this, is to once again put myself in a position to have people pass judgement on me. I made the choice to do that.

Sometimes it feels like the facts are getting in the way of the story. I sense that the more I tell you what happened the less pleasing it is to those who read what I write. I am afraid that many of you ought to abandon reading this all together, because the story isn't going to get better it's going to get worse, a lot worse.

The reason for that are the facts. This story isn't going to have a happy ending where all my cares from the past are going to be magically transformed by a miracle of God and I live happily ever after. I am going to get the literal crap kicked out of me over and over until I finally just gave the fuck up and tried to kill myself numerous times.

If you want to know when I am going to get to the good part, forget it there isn't any. Some would say, "But you got sober and you're alive and that is a miracle." On that we can agree. But the circumstances by which I exist are demoralizing in the extreme.

As I continue to write I have to struggle with the facts of my life. I thought, and still have hope, that by writing this God awful story something will change in my life. I hope that someday I can walk away from my past and actually have a life worth living in, but so far that is something I have no experience with... Being Bobby Jameson sucks!

(part 63) ZONE X REALITY "WHAT'S YOURS IS YOURS, AND WHAT'S MINE IS YOURS"

This is a table of Bobby Jameson and Chris Lucey Songs, and Recording/Publishing Revenue from 1964 to 2008.

(1) TALAMO RECORDS "I'm So Lonely/I Wanna Love You" 1964-2008-Written by B. Jameson. No revenue whatsoever from any source. No accounting from any source. Artist revenue 0. Publishing revenue 0. Performance revenue of any kind 0. BMI or ASCAP revenue 0. No Union revenue, AFTRA or Musician Union Local 47. Lots of airplay.

(2) TALAMO RECORDS "Okey Fanokey Baby/Meadow Green" 1964-2008-Written by B. Jameson No revenue of any kind from any source. Airplay (Revenue for all songs, records, and/or performances on this list are the same as above)

(3) DECCA RECORDS and UK LONDON RECORDS WORLDWIDE "All I Want Is My Baby/Each And Every Day" 1964-2008-Artist Bobby Jameson. No revenue of any kind. Various ROLLING STONES ALBUM RELEASES WORLD WIDE. No revenue of any kind from any source. Lots of airplay Worldwide.

(4) BRIT RECORDS UK LONDON RECORDS WORLDWIDE "Rum Pum Mum Num/I Wanna Know" "Rum Pum Mum Num/Please Mr. Mailman" 1965-2008-Written by B. Jameson. No revenue of any kind from any source. Airplay Worldwide.

(5) MIRA/SURREY RECORDS "SONGS OF PROTEST AND ANTI PROTEST" Chris Lucey/Bobby Jameson-1965-2008-Written by B. Jameson, W. Jameson, B. Hinds- $200 to $250 in 1965, and $127 from ACE Records in 2007 after 2002 rerelease as CD by REV-OLA RECORDS UK. No other revenue from any other source 1965 to 2008. Airplay Worldwide.

(6) MIRA RECORDS "Vietnam/Metropolitan Man" 1966-2008-Written by B. Jameson, No revenue of any kind from any source. No Airplay

(7) PENTHOUSE RECORDS "Reconsider Baby/Low Down Funky Blues" 1966-2008-Written by B. Jameson. No revenue of any kind from any source. No Airplay.

(8) PENTHOUSE RECORDS "Gotta Find My Roogalator/Lowdown Funky Blues" 1966-2008-Written by B. Jameson. No revenue of any kind from any source. No Airplay.

(9) CURRENT RECORDS "All Alone/Your Sweet Lovin" 1966-2008-Written by B. Jameson. no revenue of any kind from any source. No Airplay.

(10) TOWER RECORDS/ SIDEWALK RECORDS "Mondo Hollywood Soundtrack "Vietnam" 1967-2008-Written by B. Jameson. No revenue of any kind from any source. Some Airplay.

(11) RAD FILMS "MONDO HOLLYWOOD" The Film 1967-2008-Bobby Jameson. No revenue of any kind from any source.
Played In Theaters World Wide, Video, and DVD Sales.

(12) JOY RECORDS "ONE TOO MANY MORNINGS" by Bobby Jameson 1966-2008-written by B. Jameson, W. Jameson, B. Hinds. Re-release of "SONGS OF PROTEST AND ANTI PROTEST" in Canada and Europe. No revenue of any kind from any source.
Airplay Worldwide.

(13) VERVE RECORDS "COLOR HIM IN" 1967-2008-Written by B. Jameson. No revenue of any kind from any source. Airplay Worldwide. Re-released and UNLICENSED in 2006-07 as CD by FALLOUT RECORDS UK. Received $1000 and 50 cd's. Airplay Worldwide.

(14) MIRA RECORDS "HEY JOE" album and singles by THE LEAVES 1966-2008-containing "Girl From The East" Written by B. Jameson. No revenue of any kind from any source. Airplay Worldwide.


If you have not figured this out already, I am not living the life of a successful recording artist and writer. The list above may provide you with some insight as to how well I have done in the "Music Business.. Not only is this a factual account of how it has been, it is a factual account of exactly how it remains. It is pleasing to me to know that there are people who like some of my music and records, but it is another thing to realize in "real" terms what my life is actually like. It is like ZONE X.

I have never received any accounting from any publisher, record company, manager, or BMI and ASCAP for any of my songs and recordings from 1964 through 2008. I did not receive any money from AFTRA or Local 47 Musician Union for 95 % of my work on these recordings from 1964 through 2008.

(part 62) A VERY BAD TRIP ON OWSLEY ACID

I had very good luck with LSD until I ran into some of the very first Owsley Acid to hit Southern California. I knew a film director named Henry Jaglom, and he'd gotten a batch of this from San Francisco. He'd been warned about the stuff, and told that it was not your run of the mill street shit that had been floating around L.A. for the last couple of years.

Henry was a bit worried about the warning so he contacted me and said he'd gotten some high quality LSD from San Francisco, but didn't know how strong it was, and if I was willing to test it for him he'd lay it on me for free. Like an asshole I agreed, figuring, "How bad could it be? I've taken a lot of acid and never had a problem."

I met with Henry and he gave me a big fat gelatin capsule of this stuff. Without so much as batting an eyelash I dropped it in my mouth and smiled. I told him I'd get back to him the next day and tell him how good or bad I thought it was. I then drove to Bel Air and went to Jerry Doff's house. He was a lawyer I'd gotten to know, and where I occasionally stayed.

It was a huge mansion inside the gates of Bel Air and I settled into a small bedroom off the kitchen, which was used as a utility room and playroom for Doff''s kids. I didn't think anything about the fact that I'd just taken this stuff without any information about it, and was curious as to what kind of trip it would be.

I was lying on the bed and started noticing crayola marks the kids had made on the wall. I stared at one of these marks for awhile and it started to multiply. I looked away thinking I was just getting blurry eyed, and then looked back at the dot like mark.

Again, the marks started multiplying. They began flying off the wall into the room around me filling the air with thousands of flying dots. Pretty soon the whole damn room was filled with literally tens of thousands of furiously little spinning dots that seemed to attack me.

I became lost in my war with the dots, when all of a sudden I realized it was the acid kicking in and I was hallucinating. I got off the bed and stood up trying to clear my mind and gather my senses. I was beginning a trip that I knew nothing about and was entering a zone I had never known. I was totally unprepared to deal with what was coming.

As I stood in the middle of the room, all the depth perception of everything ran together as if that room, and everything in it, had become liquid as opposed to solid. It is difficult to find the right words to explain the enormity of the hallucinations I began to experience.

I had hallucinated before, but this was completely different. This had an edge to it that dwarfed any previous experience I'd had, and caused me to go in and out of deep psychosis. I completely lost sight of myself from within myself. I was a spectator of someone who was me. This will take no more than minutes to explain, but it took hours to occur, so keep that in mind as I describe to you part of what happened.

I managed to leave the room, because the smallness of it was unbearable. It felt, and appeared, that the walls, ceiling, and floor were all moving in towards each other, and that I would be crushed within them when they met. I stood out in the hall. It looked like it went on forever. As I stared down it's endless length I had no idea of where I was, or for that matter, who I was.

I was just a thing, thinking things, that had no connection to anything. When I was sure I was lost I would suddenly reappear to myself, realizing how powerful the drug I was on was. I had no capacity to control, in the slightest way, what was happening to me. I understand that using LSD is a form of giving up control, and just tripping out, but this was completely terrifying.

It was like losing your mind and being a witness to the fact that you were losing your mind. I finally made my way to Jerry's bedroom, which was massive, and tried to speak to him. He looked up at me and said, "Oh hi Bobby, how's it going?" I stared at him and tried to talk but no words came out. I couldn't make my mind formulate thoughts and turn them into words.

Jerry realized something was wrong and said, "What's the matter Bobby? Is something wrong?" I looked down at a coffee table on the floor and watched it start to disappear. It began at both ends simultaneously, disappearing as it moved to the middle and was gone. It just went away. Then all of a sudden it reappeared by the same procedure in reverse.

I was completely mesmerized by this visual phenomenon and would guess my silence started to scare Jerry. "Are you on some drug Bobby?" he asked. I motioned as best I could to the affirmative which understandably pissed him off. I couldn't blame him, because the whole damn thing was pretty weird and I was in his house.

He finally got that I was in deep shit and called UCLA Medical Center in Westwood. He was able to get a psychologist on the phone and described to the guy what seemed to be happening to me. The doctor asked if I could talk and Jerry handed me the phone.

I managed to mumble something incoherent into it when a voice came out of the ear piece asking, "Are you hallucinating now Mr. Jameson?" As the sound of this guy's voice echoed in my ear the telephone began to melt in my hand, and I remember distinctly thinking that the guy on the other end of the line was in no way any more equipped to deal with the situation than I was.

I sank into a deep sense of loss while the disintegration of my mind continued. I recall vividly just plain giving into the madness. At that moment I was sure I would never come back from where I was. What happened to me in fact, took 20 years to get over and to reach a point where I felt I'd gotten beyond it.

I am again telling you something that is intricately involved in the changes that occurred in me during the 60's. I feel obligated to report specific moments in time that I know were turning points for me, and because this trip was so powerful and frightening, I increased, once again, my dependency on other drugs.

My ever increasing intake of more powerful drugs and sedatives was the eventual downfall of the person Bobby Jameson, although much that was negative arose out of other actions I took as well. I have written about them here on this blog and will continue to write about them. I will add, that in the long run some good was gained.