Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Farrell Jackson - San Francisco Daze

Hear The Track Here


Although I am now old(er), and was once a 'hippie' I'll deck the first person who calls me an old hippie. See when I was young and malleable (not to mention stupid and arrogant) I actually believed in what hippies stood for. That's why, to this day, I still have long hair. It's a form of remembrance. IMHO out of all the charges that can be levelled at my (baby boomer) generation the most damning is that we dropped the ball (so to speak). Hippie ideals flowered and died in America under a wave of greed, amorality and a wave of brutal, pointless police aggression - ringing any bells Occupiers?.

The same thing happened all over Europe to the ideals that inspired us. I know it seems hokey to look back on it now but we really thought we COULD change things. Fact is though, you can't. The real problem here (and then) is human greed and fallibility and to change that, you have to change humans, and that's an infinitely more gargantuan, and slower, task. Resonances, my friends, resonances.Farrell Jackson is also a baby boomer and has lovingly recreated it in many of the tracks featured in these reviews and, consequently, has become one of my favourite rock veterans; we are on the same musical wavelength.

This is a song about 'hazy daze of San Francisco's Summer Of Love concerts' which - I guess - he must have attended, in which case he witnessed history in the making - and we all hate him, don't we? ;) After all we're talking Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and no doubt many more. Heap big shoes to fill maaaannnnn. To call this track a song is a bit of a misnomer. It's a fretboard mashup in the time honoured fashion; more rock lead guitar than you can shake a stick and the distinct whiff of something naughty in the air. Even Farrell admits he could have been a bit over the top with the leads but hey, that's what it was like back in the day.

Highly Recommended rock flashback. (Ed: and stay away from the brown acid...)

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