Mickey Hart Accelerates Next Stage in Music’s Evolution

Throughout a career spanning over 50 years, Mickey Hart has been an innovative and inspirational leader in musical research and performance.   Known as “The Rhythm Devils,” Mickey and Bill Kreutzman were the driving force behind The Grateful Dead – particularly during their extended jam experiences.  It is only fitting that Mickey’s latest venture – Mysterium Tremendum – is ground-breaking and entertaining at the same time.  Mickey and his band weave together a host of musical styles and influences, including world music, electronic wizardry, hippie rock, and psychedelic trance.

In this article I will personally review Mickey’s latest CD project.  I will include selected lyrics – written by Dead lyricist, Robert Hunter.  After that I will summarize some other CD reviews, as well as reviews of the band’s live performances.    I have abstracted  some recent interviews with Mickey and several band members – bassist Dave Schools and producer/keyboardist Ben Yonas.  After that you can read about some of Mickey’s innovative, interdisciplinary research projects, as well as some of the awards he has received.  He is truly an interdisciplinary musical scholar who has written some really fine books.

I find the fact that Mickey has been a lifelong musician, who has also explored cutting-edge science to be personally and professionally very inspirational and unique.  I just spent almost three decades in academia earning degrees in Biology, Journalism, and Sociology (Ph.D. Iowa State University in 1986.)   I worked as a Professor of Sociology and Food Science at North Carolina State University from 1987 – 2010.  For the last 15 years I have again been playing a lot of music (guitar, mandolin, and percussion) – something I had done a lot between 1965 and 1980.

Click Below to learn “all you need to know” about Mickey Hart’s life-long and continuing contributions to the evolution of music (and society.)

Hippies Deserve Respect for their Values and Vision

The Occupy Movement owes much to the Hippie Movement of the sixties.  Now, the right wing has predictably started another round of “Hippie Bashing.”   The hippie subculture was a youth movement that began in the United States during the early 1960s and was largely gone by 1973.    The word hippie is from hipster (used to describe kids who flocked into San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district.  Hippies inherited the counter-cultural values of the Beat Generation.  They also created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs such as marijuana and LSD to explore alternative states of consciousness.  Above all, hippies were promoting the idea of peace, love, unity and freedom.

Hippie fashions and values had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts.  Since the 1960s, many aspects of hippie culture have been assimilated by mainstream society.  The religious and cultural diversity espoused by the hippies has gained widespread acceptance.  Their adoption of Eastern philosophy and spiritual concepts has now spread to a wide audience.  The hippie legacy can also be observed in contemporary culture from health food, to music festivals, to contemporary sexual mores, and the cyberspace revolution.  It is also clear that the well-established environmental movement owes a lot to the hippies (i.e., tree-huggers.)

This article includes recent reflections on the hippie movement in light of the occupy movement.  Original writings about the hippies from the sixties are also included.  This article includes quotes from Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Eldridge Cleaver and others. Finally, there are links to the best hippie videos on Youtube.   Click below to learn more about why the hippies are more important now than ever.

Jim Morrison Urged Us to Break on Through to the Other Side

During his short life, Jim Morrison of the Doors was a role model to men and sex symbol for women.  In this article you will learn about the man, music and messages associated with one of the best Rock bands and political provocateurs we have witnessed. His life was filled with creativity and chaos; along with conflicts and contradictions.   Here you will find a carefully selected set of articles, pix, quotes, lyrics and more.  I hope you will find lessons here and buy some of the MP3 files that are available from the live performances!!  I have had a long random play list going!!  It includes the awesome 2000 Tribute CD entitled “Stoned Immaculate.”

Like many others, he had a major influence on my young life – sparking seeds of rebellion and spirituality that have burned throughout my life.  He tied our generation to that of the beat poets.  He also tied us back to our natural roots and native American heritage.  I also went down the alcohol road between 17 and 24 (1968-1973).  Although I used to pride myself on looking, thinking, and acting like Jim;  I was blessed to not meet his same fate with booze. This marks the third and final volume in my trilogy of tributes (see also my writings on Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.)  I was further blessed to have seen them each perform live in the late sixties around Chicago (their spirits are with me still.)  I hope that you will find encouragement, enchantment and enlightenment from their lives and legacies as I have over the past 40 years!!

Jimi Hendrix Taught How to Change the World Together

Jimi Hendrix was an amazing guitar player, but he also had much to teach us about how to change our own lives and society.  His legacy includes an open embrace of the great potential within our minds to achieve higher levels of consciousness.  He was a fearless spiritual adventurer – boldly going where no man had yet gone.  His lyrics and life provide valuable insights into the nature of the sixties counterculture.  For many of us, Jimi Hendrix was truly the “High Priest of Rock and Roll.”   He also was the first multi-ethnic person to become famous.  This article includes excerpts from the best articles about Jimi; as well as lots of quotes, pix, and lyrics.   So for now, as Jimi would say: “Excuse me while I kiss the sky!!”