love and peace, or else
“we are the cry of the exodus.
there is no home for us here.
we are a nomadic tribe of psalters,
walking in the footsteps of ancients past
to the far corners of the present,
united as one voice against the
oppression within and without.
one more echo in the eternal song of our
First Love, our Hope, our Pillar of Fire.”
So my latest experience with the hippie counter culture happened last night. I got an email from my friend about this group, The Psalters, and he was like bro, you have GOT to check this out. So I peeped around and discovered that in two days they were going to be doing a show in my very own San Francisco, in my old stomping grounds up in Haight-Ashbury. (for those of you reading from the Midwest, a simple Google image search can attest to the fact that Haight Street in San Fran makes Downtown Berkeley look like Pleasantville. Or Pleasanton. Or East Danville for that matter (West SIDE till I die, baby!). anyways, I am getting carried away. Back to the Psalters.
So I make my way down Haight looking for the Red Victorian hostel/inn (“A Center for Conversations about Peace and Love”) and on the way I am offered drugs no less then 16 times. With the smell of urine and marijuana in full competition for the most pungent odor, I am pretty sure Garrett wouldn’t walk down this street without a surgical mask and rubber gloves.
I found the venue, and ducked inside a dimly lit little dive off the main street, and the smells of urine and weed were immediately replaced with the much nicer aroma of incense and body odor.
I had a seat on a cushion and waited, a bit unsure of what to expect. My friend described the act as Appalachian Folk, with heavy African beats from about 12 different percussion instruments, and middle eastern Bedouin/jewish wailing for the vocals. How could I not know what to expect?
The Psalters bill themselves as “modern day psalm writers and hymn writers. They have traveled through Darfur, Baghdad, and other war torn areas and just marched through them, writing prayers to God, which in turn, became lyrics to some of their songs.
For a visual, imagine 14 nate elbrechts up on the stage, but elbrecht in full unshaven, unshorn glory, after not showering for 4 weeks in Africa type glory. With bigger, more hassidic beards. And more tats and piercings. And face paint. Now 10 of those 14 only play some kind of percussion instrument. And the rest alternate between banjo, accordion, guitar, keyboard and harmonica.
I don’t quite know how to sum up what I experienced. It completely rocked me. The beats just moved me, their lyrics crying out to God to bring about peace and mercy moved me. I felt like David felt, dancing wildly and nakedly before the Lord.
Bishop, if you don’t catch these guys when they hit the WA, I am going to come up there and kick your ass, and then leave without hanging out.
posted by drew @ 3:43 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
hippies at Haight-Ashbury you've gots to be shitting me.
finally you're coming back to my way of living. of course i was in my first drum circle back midway though high school at the summer rainbow fest where 40,000 hippies descended upon southern missouri.
of course trying to imagine what is going through the average muslim mind (let alone the extremist muslim mind) when a group of hippies sang their way down main street bagdad kinda puts a smile on my face. how culturally relevant of them.
finally tell me you saw hippies playing didgeridoos.
oh and PS DREW I HAD ALL THAT DAM NHIPPIE MUSIC WHEN I CAME BACK TO CALIFORNIA FROM OKLAHOMA BUT DID YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO IT THEN? NOOOOOO!!!! IT DIDN'T COME WITH A CANDLELIGHT VIGIL AND THE SMELL OF POT (i did provide the smell of urine though).
nice link modification, by the way.
very clever. hows that working out for you?
I have a friend that went to that. She said it sucked and they smelled like shit covered in burned hair.
so, funny story about Haight-Ashbury... that is where I got my ears pierced when I was there on my senior trip in high school.. and no this is not a joke!
well that does explain the mutant rash.
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