#1 · Jan 23, 2011 04:27 UTC
I was in the back seat of the car riding with a few of my lifelong friends, it was at the beginning of the hippy daze as it hit the east coast one or two summers after the Height became famous.
Kenny Smith (now departed and one of the most favorite people of mine whom ever crossed my path) came home from the Height after the summer of love. He came walking up the street to his family home for the first time since he came back. His brother and Hooder my then best friend were sitting on the steps with me when we saw Ken come walking up the street. He had this far away look and he sat down with us, we noticed his hair looked like Jimi Hendrix hair. We looked at each other like what the fuck happened to Ken, he was definitely acting and talking weird, way different from the last time we had seen him a year before.
At the time we were already friends with 'erb, but we had never seen anything like Ken looked like that day except on TV, (and we thought those freaks were definitely crazy). After a bit of small talk he took out these vials and said this is real Owsley acid wanna do some. We looked at each other and oh my gawd what the fuck is with Kenny??????? He has made it round the bend for sure. Not the first one to do so in our little town. We all declined the trip.
Anyways back then we had an a-capella group we called the Soundmasters, Ken was our lead singer at the time. So we said lets hit a note and all was well.
Now back to the back seat of the car I talked about at the beginning of this thread. Jay Suhm also now departed was back there with me. He took out these pills, red ones, white ones, and blue ones; they had a peace sign embossed at the top. He looked at me and said wanna do some acid. I was of course undecided, and his answer was, "I got two left after the guys in the front took theirs, eat it now or I gonna do them both myself".
Oh well, time to jump in with both feet I guess and I ate the tab.
I found myself at some distant acquaintance's house. Barry and his lady Sam (I guess her name was Samantha) So I started peeking and pretty soon I was trippin full on. I was pretty whacked as we had also smoked some high quality 'erb on the way there. Anyways after I came on to the acid, I started seeing shit that I had never seen before. Man it was awesome. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes actually enlightening. So there I was in a brave new world. Barry and Sam seemed to be "something else" they were kinda Bohemian is some sort of beatnik way and they seemed to be able to read/see inside me. For a bit I was unnerved by that, but Jay who knew where I was for the very first time, and a friend of mine, came up behind me and clapped a set of headphones on my head, playing at high volume was the Crossroads by the Cream from the Wheels of Fire album. I had never heard anything like that in my life, that moment was the trigger to change my musical direction. At the time we were definitely into the Temptations, Miracles, Flamingos, all that doo wop shit from the fifties. We had dabbled in the psychedelic music a little bit with groups like Vanilla Fudge, & others like that because they also had harmonies in their tunes.
By the way Jay Shum had also sung with the group but departed for instrumental persuits, he was in it before me as second tenor but Hooder replaced him and I took over baritone. Hooder and I had started in another group and the Soundmasters had other guys but none stuck with it so we formed what was left of the two and came out with a harmony sound that rivaled any three voice back up group. We even sang on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City and recorded some stuff at Leo's Barbershop down there (at the time an underground studio and Leo's hobby). We had no money to pay him so we never heard those tapes, he later said that he erased them, but that was bullshit, it was Temptations quality music, every note right on key in three-part harmony. He kept those recording for his own private collection I bet.
Anyways I typed this little tale into this forum because I was listening to Crossroads on my MP3 player and decided to tell that story here.
As you can see I survived that experience pretty well, although I never came back from that acid trip. Not all the way. I was forever changed.............
Kenny Smith (now departed and one of the most favorite people of mine whom ever crossed my path) came home from the Height after the summer of love. He came walking up the street to his family home for the first time since he came back. His brother and Hooder my then best friend were sitting on the steps with me when we saw Ken come walking up the street. He had this far away look and he sat down with us, we noticed his hair looked like Jimi Hendrix hair. We looked at each other like what the fuck happened to Ken, he was definitely acting and talking weird, way different from the last time we had seen him a year before.
At the time we were already friends with 'erb, but we had never seen anything like Ken looked like that day except on TV, (and we thought those freaks were definitely crazy). After a bit of small talk he took out these vials and said this is real Owsley acid wanna do some. We looked at each other and oh my gawd what the fuck is with Kenny??????? He has made it round the bend for sure. Not the first one to do so in our little town. We all declined the trip.
Anyways back then we had an a-capella group we called the Soundmasters, Ken was our lead singer at the time. So we said lets hit a note and all was well.
Now back to the back seat of the car I talked about at the beginning of this thread. Jay Suhm also now departed was back there with me. He took out these pills, red ones, white ones, and blue ones; they had a peace sign embossed at the top. He looked at me and said wanna do some acid. I was of course undecided, and his answer was, "I got two left after the guys in the front took theirs, eat it now or I gonna do them both myself".
Oh well, time to jump in with both feet I guess and I ate the tab.
I found myself at some distant acquaintance's house. Barry and his lady Sam (I guess her name was Samantha) So I started peeking and pretty soon I was trippin full on. I was pretty whacked as we had also smoked some high quality 'erb on the way there. Anyways after I came on to the acid, I started seeing shit that I had never seen before. Man it was awesome. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes actually enlightening. So there I was in a brave new world. Barry and Sam seemed to be "something else" they were kinda Bohemian is some sort of beatnik way and they seemed to be able to read/see inside me. For a bit I was unnerved by that, but Jay who knew where I was for the very first time, and a friend of mine, came up behind me and clapped a set of headphones on my head, playing at high volume was the Crossroads by the Cream from the Wheels of Fire album. I had never heard anything like that in my life, that moment was the trigger to change my musical direction. At the time we were definitely into the Temptations, Miracles, Flamingos, all that doo wop shit from the fifties. We had dabbled in the psychedelic music a little bit with groups like Vanilla Fudge, & others like that because they also had harmonies in their tunes.
By the way Jay Shum had also sung with the group but departed for instrumental persuits, he was in it before me as second tenor but Hooder replaced him and I took over baritone. Hooder and I had started in another group and the Soundmasters had other guys but none stuck with it so we formed what was left of the two and came out with a harmony sound that rivaled any three voice back up group. We even sang on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City and recorded some stuff at Leo's Barbershop down there (at the time an underground studio and Leo's hobby). We had no money to pay him so we never heard those tapes, he later said that he erased them, but that was bullshit, it was Temptations quality music, every note right on key in three-part harmony. He kept those recording for his own private collection I bet.
Anyways I typed this little tale into this forum because I was listening to Crossroads on my MP3 player and decided to tell that story here.
As you can see I survived that experience pretty well, although I never came back from that acid trip. Not all the way. I was forever changed.............
