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Acid Tests
The 'Sound City Acid Test', originally made in 1965 as The Pranksters' venture into 'the world of The Beatles' is released for the first time on CD. Seventy-four minutes of reading, poetry, music and mayhem from the archives of Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs. Acid Test Vol 1 document their attempt to enact an acid test within the recording studio environment. After its release as a 1000-copy limited-edition LP, it was repeatedly boot-legged. This CD also features 'Vietnam Day 1966' a previously unreleased musical reconstruction (recorded in 1967) of the Pranksters' famous meeting with the Hell's Angels which subsequently launched the career of visiting Prankster, Hunter S. Thompson.
- GenresFiction
1 pages, Audio CD
First published January 1, 1965
1 person is currently reading
660 people want to read
About the author
Ken Kesey
67 books2,969 followersKen Kesey was American writer, who gained world fame with his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962, filmed 1975). In the 1960s, Kesey became a counterculture hero and a guru of psychedelic drugs with Timothy Leary. Kesey has been called the Pied Piper, who changed the beat generation into the hippie movement.
Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, CO, and brought up in Eugene, OR. He spent his early years hunting, fishing, swimming; he learned to box and wrestle, and he was a star football player. He studied at the University of Oregon, where he acted in college plays. On graduating he won a scholarship to Stanford University. Kesey soon dropped out, joined the counterculture movement, and began experimenting with drugs. In 1956 he married his school sweetheart, Faye Haxby.
Kesey attended a creative writing course taught by the novelist Wallace Stegner. His first work was an unpublished novel, ZOO, about the beatniks of the North Beach community in San Francisco. Tom Wolfe described in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) Kesey and his friends, called the Merry Pranksters, as they traveled the country and used various hallucinogens. Their bus, called Furthur, was painted in Day-Glo colors. In California Kesey's friends served LSD-laced Kool-Aid to members of their parties.
At a Veterans' Administration hospital in Menlo Park, California, Kesey was paid as a volunteer experimental subject, taking mind-altering drugs and reporting their effects. These experiences as a part-time aide at a psychiatric hospital, LSD sessions - and a vision of an Indian sweeping there the floor - formed the background for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, set in a mental hospital. While writing the work, and continuing in the footsteps of such writers as Thomas De Quincy (Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821), Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception, 1954), and William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch, 1959), Kesey took peyote. The story is narrated by Chief Bromden. Into his world enters the petty criminal and prankster Randall Patrick McMurphy with his efforts to change the bureaucratic system of the institution, ruled by Nurse Ratched.
The film adaptation of the book gained a huge success. When the film won five Academy Awards, Kesey was barely mentioned during the award ceremonies, and he made known his unhappiness with the film. He did not like Jack Nicholson, or the script, and sued the producers.
Kesey's next novel, Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), appeared two years later and was also made into a film, this time directed by Paul Newman. The story was set in a logging community and centered on two brothers and their bitter rivalry in the family. After the work, Kesey gave up publishing novels. He formed a band of "Merry Pranksters", set up a commune in La Honda, California, bought an old school bus, and toured America and Mexico with his friends, among them Neal Cassady, Kerouac's travel companion. Dressed in a jester's outfit, Kesey was the chief prankster.
In 1965 Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana. He fled to Mexico, where he faked an unconvincing suicide and then returned to the United States, serving a five-month prison sentence at the San Mateo County Jail. After this tumultuous period he bought farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, settled down with his wife to raise their four children, and taught a graduate writing seminar at the University of Oregon. In the early 1970s Kesey returned to writing and published Kesey's Garage Sale (1973). His later works include the children's book Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear(1990) and Sailor Song (1992), a futuristic tale about an Alaskan fishing village and Hollywood film crew. Last Go Around (1994), Kesey's last book, was an account of a famous Oregon rodeo written in the form of pulp fiction. In 2001, Kesey died of complications after surgery for liver cance
Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, CO, and brought up in Eugene, OR. He spent his early years hunting, fishing, swimming; he learned to box and wrestle, and he was a star football player. He studied at the University of Oregon, where he acted in college plays. On graduating he won a scholarship to Stanford University. Kesey soon dropped out, joined the counterculture movement, and began experimenting with drugs. In 1956 he married his school sweetheart, Faye Haxby.
Kesey attended a creative writing course taught by the novelist Wallace Stegner. His first work was an unpublished novel, ZOO, about the beatniks of the North Beach community in San Francisco. Tom Wolfe described in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) Kesey and his friends, called the Merry Pranksters, as they traveled the country and used various hallucinogens. Their bus, called Furthur, was painted in Day-Glo colors. In California Kesey's friends served LSD-laced Kool-Aid to members of their parties.
At a Veterans' Administration hospital in Menlo Park, California, Kesey was paid as a volunteer experimental subject, taking mind-altering drugs and reporting their effects. These experiences as a part-time aide at a psychiatric hospital, LSD sessions - and a vision of an Indian sweeping there the floor - formed the background for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, set in a mental hospital. While writing the work, and continuing in the footsteps of such writers as Thomas De Quincy (Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821), Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception, 1954), and William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch, 1959), Kesey took peyote. The story is narrated by Chief Bromden. Into his world enters the petty criminal and prankster Randall Patrick McMurphy with his efforts to change the bureaucratic system of the institution, ruled by Nurse Ratched.
The film adaptation of the book gained a huge success. When the film won five Academy Awards, Kesey was barely mentioned during the award ceremonies, and he made known his unhappiness with the film. He did not like Jack Nicholson, or the script, and sued the producers.
Kesey's next novel, Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), appeared two years later and was also made into a film, this time directed by Paul Newman. The story was set in a logging community and centered on two brothers and their bitter rivalry in the family. After the work, Kesey gave up publishing novels. He formed a band of "Merry Pranksters", set up a commune in La Honda, California, bought an old school bus, and toured America and Mexico with his friends, among them Neal Cassady, Kerouac's travel companion. Dressed in a jester's outfit, Kesey was the chief prankster.
In 1965 Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana. He fled to Mexico, where he faked an unconvincing suicide and then returned to the United States, serving a five-month prison sentence at the San Mateo County Jail. After this tumultuous period he bought farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, settled down with his wife to raise their four children, and taught a graduate writing seminar at the University of Oregon. In the early 1970s Kesey returned to writing and published Kesey's Garage Sale (1973). His later works include the children's book Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear(1990) and Sailor Song (1992), a futuristic tale about an Alaskan fishing village and Hollywood film crew. Last Go Around (1994), Kesey's last book, was an account of a famous Oregon rodeo written in the form of pulp fiction. In 2001, Kesey died of complications after surgery for liver cance
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 16, 2008
Another book brought to me by my drug using friends in high school. They would sit around inside Denny's and order Coffee and quote lines to each other from this book. So I decided to check it out for myself and hated it. Luckily they never pushed their drugs or their books on me.
February 18, 2008
The actual title of this book is the Electric Kool-
Aid Acid test. It is the story of Ken Kesey just getting out of jail and spending time with his friends. The group of them were called the Merry Pranksters. The group included notable rock legends such as the Grateful
Dead, as well as luminaries such as Timothy Leary. Among other things, they decide to travel around California in a psychedelic bus, and turn on the world with LSD laced Kool Aid. It was called taking the ACID TEST. A very interesting read if you like Keseys writing. I find his writing somewhat tedious at times, but the subject matter is astounding. He wrote One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest and when it was purchased for the screen movie, he had lots of money to subsize himself and the Merry Pranksters for a good long while of party time. Kesey wrote many other books after this. Most of them I have not read. If you like the craziness of the mid-60's in California, you could do worse than read this tome of the times.
Malcolm Watts BA MSW
Visit my Writing Website:
My Novel, Stories, Poetry, Opinion
www.authorsden.com/malcolmwatts
Aid Acid test. It is the story of Ken Kesey just getting out of jail and spending time with his friends. The group of them were called the Merry Pranksters. The group included notable rock legends such as the Grateful
Dead, as well as luminaries such as Timothy Leary. Among other things, they decide to travel around California in a psychedelic bus, and turn on the world with LSD laced Kool Aid. It was called taking the ACID TEST. A very interesting read if you like Keseys writing. I find his writing somewhat tedious at times, but the subject matter is astounding. He wrote One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest and when it was purchased for the screen movie, he had lots of money to subsize himself and the Merry Pranksters for a good long while of party time. Kesey wrote many other books after this. Most of them I have not read. If you like the craziness of the mid-60's in California, you could do worse than read this tome of the times.
Malcolm Watts BA MSW
Visit my Writing Website:
My Novel, Stories, Poetry, Opinion
www.authorsden.com/malcolmwatts
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 4, 2018
sdtsdf
November 28, 2012
thought it was a riot, must have been my state of mind.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews