(part 70) THE BOBBY JAMESON STORY CONTINUES...

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I get a lot of emails about what I write, as well as comments. Sometimes there are no comments, which is in a way the loudest of all commentary. Much of what is said is positive, but some of it is hard for me to understand, such as passing judgement on me for something that happened 40 years ago.

Some of what I describe is reiterated back to me, via comments and/or emails, as if it just took place, begging the question, "Are you sure you made the right, fair, or best decision in doing it?" Hell no! I'm not sure at all. It's just what I did back then.

If I sound pissed off and frustrated, I am. I'm relating my account, good and bad, about the past. I can't now change my decisions or judgement about the things I did then. I mean I could, but what would be the point? I could tell you a completely different story if I wanted to make myself look a whole lot better, but again, what would be the point?

The things I'm telling you here are at times difficult to relate publicly, because they make my judgement look flawed in some cases. It was, but it is still what I did at the time. Being screwed over, again and again, and taking too many drugs and drinking too much, was a good way to insure chaos, which I did. That is what I'm writing about here.

If you bring your own set of morals and beliefs to the table and read this, then I am sure of one thing, we will have disagreements. If on the other hand you come and read this like a text of a history, which it is, then you may gain an understanding of what I had to deal with, and how I tried to do it.

I am not proud of some of the things I did but they are done. Would I do some things differently now? Probably so, but I can't change the past so I am attempting to look at it for what it was. I was 19, 20, and 21 years old at the time of the story so far, and it was the 60's. Everything was much different then.

The world was changing by the second, and I was loaded and getting more loaded. Like it or not, the reality of alcoholism and drug addiction is progressive. You may think I could have done some things differently, but I am telling you flat out that what I did, even at my worst, was as good as I could do at that moment, whether you like it or not, or agree with me or not.

Once again, I didn't come here to make you like me or agree with me. I came here to tell my story, warts and all. Let's clear some things up! I don't like the music business at all. I have never met such dishonest two faced pricks in my life. I was not paid money I was owed for what I did, and in some cases, to varying degrees, was cheated out of the rights to my work.

To this day, I remain one of the victims of Tony Alamo, Andrew Oldham, Randy Wood, Betty Chiapetta, Abe Somer, Bob Cohen, Ken Handler, Steve Clark, and others.

If that fact changes in my lifetime, I'll become a nicer guy. Until then get off my ass with the, "Why are you so angry and bitter" bullshit. Man! If you don't know by now, at what, and why I am angry then I would suggest you stop reading anything I write because you've missed the point.

If you, your religion, or morals, have been offended or challenged, then maybe you don't really have any. Maybe what you think you believe in is so damned fragile that it's not worth much. I have stayed sober for 32 years living on piss water and phony goodness from condescending people from church's, 12 step programs, and everything else under the sun.

I learned a long time ago that if my sobriety was dependent on anything outside of my own deeply held and personal commitment to stay sober, no matter what happened or didn't happen, that I would be doomed to once again run from reality via drugs and/or the bottle.

I stay clean and sober even though everything that could have gone wrong did. Nobody can shake that, so nobody ought to be able to shake your beliefs about yourself. God is not offended, people are. God is not afraid, people are. God knows one thing about Bobby Jameson, and that is that I didn't quit, even though I had a million good reasons to throw in the towel.

Every day is like a disaster in my life, and it has been for many decades. I do not have the luxury of multiple choices in my daily life. I take what I've been given and I make use of it as best I can for today. I try and show up at this computer to spill my guts on the keyboard so some asshole can decide whether he or she agrees with me.

I don't care whether you agree with me or not. If that were the case I'd just stop writing this, and we'd all be comfortable in our ongoing state of denial. If I complain about not getting paid, somebody questions me for doing so. If I say people in the record business are assholes, somebody gets mad at me for that.

By the time I get through editing the things people don't think I should say, there won't be anything left to say! This is the Bobby Jameson story. This is the Bobby Jameson blog. It is not "critic"s corner" online. I have an attitude! So what? That's part of what makes me me. If you want to read about someone who you agree with you're probably reading the wrong blog.

If on the other hand you are interested in what happened to Chris Lucey/Bobby Jameson 40 years ago in the 60's, I can help you there. This is a true story. There are elements in it that will offend some of you. There are elements that you will disagree with, and you will question my actions and words.

The point of a true story is that it is true. It actually took place in the lives of real people, in real places somewhere in the past. I spent 27 years sober trying to believe that the past was the past and I should just let it be. That almost killed me. Now I am realizing that everything I am today is linked forever to what I have done, what I have said, and what I have thought about.

Only by joining my past with my present will I ever have a future and be a truly whole human being. The past and its wounds will only heal through honest recognition, by the creator of that past in the present light of day, or simply stated, "Acceptance of oneself."


This is another demo from the 1967-68 period...I will continue to post various demos as I go...

(part 69) TABOO LYRICS - DON'T QUESTION ANYTHING

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Either you have no opinion about the subject matter, or you do, and are offended, or possibly angered, or disappointed by it. Good! My intention when I wrote things like "HOLY HOLY HOLY" and others was to get your attention. The purpose was to mix positive and negative subjects into one single picture, and to draw a parallel to what I saw going on around me, and still see going on around me.

Good people doing bad things. Honest people being dishonest, and my favorite: spiritual people being hypocritical. I was a walking target for the hypocrisy of many, and remain so to this day. If you remember the beginning parts of this story, I had to endure the likes of Tony Alamo, one of the world's great con men, who became a so-called born again believer. He used his new found transformation to become an even bigger con man.

Presidents who lied to get us deeper into war, like Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam. The practice of mixing religion, patriotism, and morality to hide the treachery of the so-called good and decent people. Much like today, the same mixture of Jesus and America, or God and country, was intermingled by some to pressure the rest to go along with the great big lie, Iraq.

I was fighting this shit in 1967-68. The beginning of the "Jesus Movement" started in the late 60's. In 1967 I ran into Tony Alamo at Canters Deli on Fairfax Ave., a big hippie, and street people gathering place. He was out rounding up hippies for the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation.

He saw me about the same time I noticed him, and when we got close enough to each other he gave me the famous Tony Alamo stare and yelled, "There's only one Jesus and you're not him." This immediately brought back memories of the day Tony told someone that I was Jesus Christ.

The point is that the subject of Jesus and Bobby Jameson had a history that hasn't gone away. I liked Jesus Christ, but I don't like Christianity. Jesus, was a prophet in my way of thinking, not the head of some man made religion that twists everything into a state of mental illness, which is then used to back up every piss poor idea we as a country came up with, or continue to come up with.

Remember! George Bush was an alcoholic, born again christian, who used his beliefs to do more Goddamn damage then anyone I have ever seen in a long time. Conversely, the opposition has it's religious beliefs doing the same dance of death from the opposite end of the spectrum.

Again, the point is that beliefs, because they are beliefs, are dangerous. They allow people who believe in something, to justify behavior that is completely destructive and probably a state of mass nationalistic mental illness. I took the subject of Jesus and/or religion, and placed them in the most unlikely places I could think of for the purpose of examining the absurdity of what we do all the time.

Because we believe in God, we are right. Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side." But if you place God, or religion, in a setting where you do not expect to find them, everything changes. If we could look with an objective point of view at what we do, as a result of what we believe, we might well be horrified at what we see.

The trouble is that all of this is a taboo subject. No one wants to talk about certain things, like priests who molested children, so it just continued on for decades. My use of taboo lyrics was an attempt to break open the box. I don't really think God is threatened by me, but people certainly were, and probably still are.

It is the easiest thing in the world to dismiss differences by suggesting that the subject is without merit, and or purpose, in your or someone's opinion. I attempted to write an entire album of this kind of material that would have knocked your fucking head off, but I was systematically prevented from doing so by the powers that be at the time.

The fact that there was a market for this kind of material was made clear after one incomplete play of "Holy HoIy Holy" on a San Francisco radio station.



This is just one of many demos I made in the 1967-68 time frame. I will post others from this period as well since there are so many....

(part 68) LYRICS TO "HOLY HOLY HOLY" 1967

HOLY HOLY HOLY

I'M SURE THAT I WAS BAPTISED
BY A SUPERFICIAL MAN
THE WORDS HE SPOKE WERE MEANINGLESS
I COULD TELL WHEN HE BEGAN
THE WATER FROM HIS VESSEL
HAD BEEN GOTTEN FROM A TAP
HE RUBBED IT ON MY FOREHEAD
AND BEGAN TO RAP HIS CRAP
AND I SAID
HOLY HOLY HOLY
I THINK THAT YOU'RE A FAKE
IN FLOWING ROBES
YOU DO NOT KNOW
EXCEPT HOW MUCH TO TAKE
YOU MAKE THE SIGN OF JESUS
AND YOU BOW AND BEND YOUR KNEE
YOU DIG THE ANCIENT RITUAL
OF PLAYING AT BEING A PRIEST
HEY YOU THE PRIEST IN BLACK AND WHITE
IT'S SAID YOU WORK FOR GOD
YOU SAY YOU WORK FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS
AND BROTHER I SAY THAT YOU'RE A FRAUD
I'VE LISTENED AND I'VE HEARD YOU SAY
THE DAMNED ARE SENT TO HELL
WELL TAKE A GOOD LOOK AROUND YOU FRIEND
CAUSE I'M SURE YOU KNOW IT WELL
AND I SAY
HOLY HOLY HOLY
I THINK THAT YOU'RE A FAKE
IN FLOWING ROBES YOU DO NOT KNOW
EXCEPT HOW MUCH TO TAKE
YOU MAKE THE SIGN OF JESUS
AND DILIGENTLY
YOU BOW AND BEND YOUR KNEE
YOU LOVE THE ANCIENT RITUAL
OF PLAYING AT BEING A PRIEST
HOLY HOLY HOLY

Bobby Jameson 1967

(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!"