Tune in, turn on, drop out.
by GRATEFUL DEAD and Ken Kesey
First Edition
Offered by: Ken Lopez Bookseller, ABAA
Seller Inventory #: 029100
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Sound City Productions
Place: San Francisco
Date published: [1966]
Description:
San Francisco: Sound City Productions. [1966]. The first recording by the Grateful Dead, who had been known as the Warlocks about a month earlier. This is a 7″ 33 RPM promotional record, labeled “For Radio Play Only, Not for Sale” and consists of excerpts from the Acid Test album that Sound City was producing. The recording was made at the Sound City studio and was the seventh Acid Test — communal events/happenings that were open to the public and at which LSD, “acid” — which was still legal in California at the time — was freely distributed to the attendees. The Sound City Acid Test, because it took place in a recording studio, was more of a private event than earlier, or later, Acid Tests. It was also the last one Kesey himself participated in. He had been arrested for marijuana possession for the second time two weeks earlier, and had had to show up in disguise at the sixth Acid Test a week earlier at Longshoremen’s Hall in San Francisco, in order to avoid reporters and the police. Within a week of the Sound City Acid Test, Kesey had left the country and gone into hiding in Mexico. The Grateful Dead had been the house band for the Acid Tests since they began in 1965, but under their earlier name of The Warlocks. By December 1965 they were starting to use their new name, and at the Acid Tests in January they were being billed as The Grateful Dead. This is the first time they were recorded as the Dead in a recording made for general release. The promo record was issued in March, 1966, and preceded the full length album (30+ minutes) released later that month. The only earlier recordings of the Grateful Dead are private ones that have made it into circulation as bootlegs; this, and the Acid Test album from which it was excerpted, were not only intended for public release but were also covered by “a couple of radio stations and a photographer for Look magazine” according to the Sound City press release, although the Look article apparently never appeared. “The purpose of the recording was to produce an album of unusual sounds, mental manipulations of the sometimes considered genius of Mr. Kesey and his cohorts during the actual happenings of a ‘sugar’ party. The results are different to say the least…” The Acid Test album itself is quite scarce; it was re-released in the 1980s. The promotional giveaway record is exceedingly uncommon, and a landmark for one of the most influential and long-lasting rock and roll bands to come out of the San Francisco Bay Area of the 1960s. The Grateful Dead went on to a 30-year career and became the most popular “jam band” of its time, triggering any number of similar jamming, touring bands in its wake, and capturing an essence of the hippie counterculture that lived on long after its historical moment had passed. Fine, in a plain white sleeve. First Edition.
Price $1,500
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
by WOLFE, Tom
First Edition
Offered by: Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA
Seller Inventory #: 351535
Edition: First
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
Place: New York
Date published: (1968)
Description:
New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux. (1968). First. First edition. Edges of the boards toned as usual, with some smudging and a bit cocked, very good in fine dustwrapper. Nicely Inscribed by the author using most of the front fly. The author’s most eagerly sought after book, the story of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.
Price $650
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