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Back in 1971 a book called Be
Here Now blew my mind & a lot of others ( and probably still
does ! ) . It charted the transformation of Dr Richard Alpert a
professor at Harvard & Stanford Universities & a colleague
of Dr Timothy Leary, with whom he researched and digested psychedelics,
most notably pyslocybin . It changed him forever & seeing a
parallel between the psychedelic experience & the ecstastic
mystical, he split to India ( with a bottle of pure LSD ) to begin
a pilgrimage that culminated in him meeting his guru & becoming
Baba Ram Das. He’s written & spoken on the subject ever
since. On that journey he encountered a 6’ 7” American
Michael Riggs who had been in India since 1965 when he arrived put
on a loin cloth and decided to experience the life of a sadhu (this
was long before Lonely Planet guides & the Discovery channel
). He became Bhagavan Das & meeting Alpert led him to his guru
to whom they gave an almighty multi dose of LSD. He didn’t
seem affected at all. To them this meant that he was always there.
The picture of Bhagavan Das & his portrayal
in the book was a startling revelation to many in the west who harboured
similar aspirations & had experienced similar altered states
of conciousness. This was no drop something & go to a danceclub
generation, many treated their psychedelic experiments with an earnestness
to experience themselves & the world in a different way. So
in 1973 when I was cruising Readings Book & Record Shop in Carlton
I came upon a copy of a lavishly packaged double album called “AH”
by Bhagavan Das himself, the colour picture on the back showed the
blond giant with hair way beyond dreads & a look of stoned ecstacy
on his weathered face. I had to have it! It was 4 sides of him chanting
& singing virtually unaccompanied that gave me & my cadre
a contact high. The package also included a booklet that featured
an Alan Ginsberg poem, an hilarious & informative interview
about how to brew chai & heaps of photos of this guy who had
gone further inward & outward than any one else we could think
of. Apparently he had returned to America in the early 70s befriended
Ginsberg etc. & had been seized upon by Mike Jeffries the notorious
manager of Jimi Hendrix who wanted to make Das a star. Jeffries
died in a plane crash 2 weeks later, but the recording still took
place at Electric Ladyland studios while Led Zeppelin were recording
just along the corridor. We heard nothing since.
So it was with some surprise that 30 years later
I came across a CD called “Now” by guess who? And produced
& played upon by Beastie Boy Mike D! Once again I just had to
have it! And it even sounds more stoned & ecstatic with dense
sampled grooves blunted rhythms & his still seasoned voice “dialling
up the mystic mama on the mantric telephone “ as Ginsberg
had described it.
I was curious as to what had happened in the 3
decades since Das had first been heard of & managed to track
down his autobiography “It’s Here Now (Are You? ), that
tells a story that reveals his life back in America has been even
more extreme & amazing than the years that he spent in India
. He’s had so many lifetimes in one!
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