A Word with Jerry Lucky

What inspired you to write The Psychedelic Rock Files? You refer to it in the introduction as a "dream come true."

I had written two other books, one of which was entitled The Progressive Rock Files that dealt similarly with bands such as Yes, Genesis, Emerson Lake and Palmer and all the new Prog bands like Spocks Beard and Flower Kings. It too had been received well and a while after it's release I had started to think about what to write next. Coincidentally I had also discovered I could now afford to start collecting psychedelic posters from San Francisco. So in short order my den was covered in posters from the Avalon and the Fillmore. I remember sitting at the computer one day thinking about what to write and looking around at the posters and it just became obvious that I needed to write about the psychedelic era. After all if it hadn't been for the experimentation of the psychedelic era the whole genre of Progressive Rock wouldn't have happened. I had always envisioned the "rock files" as a series so it seemed perfect that the second volume in the series would be the Psychedelic Rock Files. 

I guess the "dream comes true" in terms of being able to physically own the posters and then actually contribute something to the body of literature devoted to the era. In some respects the dream is still coming true as I've almost completed a fourth book which is a history of The Family Dog and the Avalon Ballroom. After that I may do another book, perhaps focusing on "Space Rock" like Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream.

There's so many great facts and details in the book that many music buffs from the era will really enjoy. Was part of your thought process when writing the book to correct and set the facts straight since there is so much misinformation out there about the Psychedelic era?

Well there's no question that in doing my research I came across quite a few seeming conflicts and yes even outright misinformation. I take from your question you're probably referring to the time-line portion of the book. People have described me as an Analytical-Idealist so facts and figures come easy to me. However, I initially struggled with whether to include the time-line or not, but in the end it seemed that, that was a very important part. To me anyway. I like to be able to see the "big picture" but at the same time be able to focus down to the day-to-day. Creating the time-line allowed me to see the big sweep of psychedelia around the world. I could see the first night Jimi Hendrix performed in London, but also see what was happening in San Francisco that night. It really begins to put things into perspective. If in the process of doing this I had the opportunity to correct some misinformation that will be a spin-off benefit.

I guess the other thing is, I tried to write the book without a hidden agenda. You know like some authors might have an agenda for-or-against drugs, or wish to promote certain bands or movements with in the psychedelic genre. My goal was to lay it all out there and talk about how and why it came together and then what happened to it along the way and what eventually led to it's demise if you will. 

In the course of writing the book, if there was one aspect that struck close to home was how rock music became big business by the end of the sixties and how that changed the industry. And as you can tell by the tone of my writing I'm not convinced the changes were all for the good. Something was lost in the process and we all suffer as a result of it. It's true we all have greater access to product now but something was sacrificed on the "alter of big business" in order for for that to happen. Still life is a continuum and we wouldn't have the good stuff we have today without going through the bad stuff of yesterday I guess.

You are correct. In talking to individuals who lived through the sixties, each has some vivid memories but when it comes to pinning down dates and times things get pretty blurry, pretty fast. When it came to getting the dates and times, I realized that I was going to have to dig deep and rely on multiple sources. I collected obscure books, many acquired through eBay or used book stores, went to San Francisco and chatted with a some people there, went on-line and then seemed to do it all over again, each time making changes along the way correcting or verifying the information. The easiest "checking-guide" was to ensure a date was verified by two separate sources. In many cases (not all unfortunately) I was able to confirm certain events by finding consistent information from different sources. I say not all all because I'm sure there will be some who will "call me" on some inconsistencies. If that happens and the book sells well enough I may be able to make corrections.

Doing the research for the book, what were some of the more fascinating insights you got into the music and culture of the sixties?

A number of things come to mind. I was struck by how much the sixties have shaped our present day consciousness. Not just in music but in lifestyles and attitudes. We are today very much products of all those things that were happening in the sixties specifically in San Francisco. Things like the ecology, civil rights, sex and attitudes about spirituality, postmodernism, relativism, and social awareness. While we still share some or many of these traits what we seemed to have lost is what I refer to as "the collective idealism" that was much stronger in the sixties. Today individualism is stronger than shared experience.

Musically, the sixties was an exciting time of experimentation. What I love about that time was the diversity. Today things are so much more cookie-cutter because of how the business side controls access. Take a look at Monterey and Woodstock and then compare that to most of the outdoor festivals today and it's all about similarity, consistency, homogenous, sameness. Youth are deprived of musical diversity on the mass-communication scene. So while little pockets of diversity exist there is never enough momentum gathered to propel it into the mass-consciousness. I blame the industry. Having managed a radio station for a few years in the late eighties, It was troubling how the record companies even then, would try to focus only on a few artists, ignoring most of the other releases. It's no secret that when I hear about the plight of the recording industry, I secretly am somewhat pleased. They've created their own monster and it's turned on them. Great. They did it to themselves. They've only started to see the light by lowering the price of CDs. It's been long known they've gouged the consumer by artificially maintaining high prices. Now they're all hot and bothered about downloading off the internet. What they fail to recognize is that many who download do this because of the appalling lack of diversity that exists at the store level. Anyway sorry about the rant, but in many respects all of this started in the sixties. I love to reflect back on the innocence and naiveté of the era. We need a bit of that again today.

You dedicate a portion of the book to detailing the great artwork that came from the era and you turned into a bit of a collector yourself. What are some of the things that stuck with you when speaking to some of the artists that came from that period?

Much like the music, it was the willingness to experiment. They were all working in a traditional medium but they were making it their own. But with that, what I appreciate most is that the art has a warmth and positive spirit. And the artists working in the sixties approached their art with an attitude of the times. For them it was something new and untried. By contrast, much (not all) of the new art today while it still has a direct connection with the sixties, there is a "meaner spirit" that infects the work. It's more cynical, more aggressive. Some would say it's a natural outgrowth and perhaps they're right. What I like about the sixties artistic efforts is, for lack of a better word, it's very "peaceful" nature. They're sensitive works and the artists were reflecting a growing sense of awareness and a legitimate peaceful nature that was strong in the beginning. I can show any of those early works to my 12 year old daughter and she instinctively gets it and has her favorites. The same is not so with much of the modern work. 

While doing your research, was there anything that really surprised you about the whole Psychedelic scene? Something you think that maybe gets overlooked?

I think it's what I mentioned earlier. It was such an exciting time with musical diversity and artistic boundary stretching. It's common to refer to the sixties in a nostalgic manner. We make fun of the fashions, the attitudes, the general lifestyle and even some of the music. We use the term hippie with almost a certain sense of disdain but we totally ignore how much the sixties shaped our social and musical consciousness for good or for bad in some respects. Perhaps it's the amateur-historian in me that begs to look for why we behave the way we do today. Or understand why we listen to what we listen to today. Or why we write and draw the way we do today. So much of "us" was created and/or nurtured by the sixties. But most people don't realize this at all. Its a bit of a cliché to say that "in order to know where you're going you need to understand where you've been" but that makes sense to me. We could learn a lot about ourselves but on the larger scale the record companies could learn a lot too. And I'm not suggesting we somehow all need to go back to wearing fringe and sandals (not that there's anything wrong with that) but from an attitudinal sense there is much that we have lost or choose to overlook. And I'm referring to the music as well. The mass media's addiction to "Idol" shows is appalling and does absolutely nothing to further music, only their own bottom line.

The sixties was an exciting time because none of that mattered. We could do a lot worse than take a lesson from the sixties. 

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