I just watched an amazing documentary on Netflix: The Source Family, the story the early-’70s cult led by James “Father Yod” Baker. Baker’s Sunset Strip restaurant, the Source, was a fixture of my LA youth — a popular hang for both hippies and music-industry types. (You’ve probably seen it as the backdrop for the breakup scene in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall.)
James “Father Yod” Baker (with mallets towards none) fronting Ya Ho Wa 13.
One of Baker’s less eccentric notions was to blow a fortune on music gear and a pro studio, where his self-styled “band,” Ya Ho Wa 13, reportedly recorded 65 albums’ worth of improvised music, much of which has been reissued in recent years. Prolific, chaotic, and fueled by a philosophy comprehensible only to its creator, the body of work is a bit reminiscent of Sun Ra’s, minus the talent.
Perhaps the best thing you can say about Baker is that he was no Manson. I don’t know that anyone died on his watch other than Baker himself (in an idiotic stunt I’ll refrain from sharing so as not to spoil the film’s stupefying denouement, though you can devour the details here if you like).
But he was a serial psycho-sexual abuser who acquired 14 very young wives while liberating hundreds of starry-eyed acolytes from their worldly possessions and cruising LA in a white Rolls Royce. Among the film’s most remarkable scenes are Ya Ho Wa 13’s recruiting concerts held at well-to-do West Side high schools and colleges, including my alma mater. Just … wow.
(Buttloads more audio/video here.)
To its credit, though, the film isn’t moralistic in the slightest — directors Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille tell the story via the words of its witnesses, supplemented by film and photos of the cult’s own Isis Aquarian, Baker’s anointed archivist. (They report — you gawp in astonishment.) Many surviving members appear onscreen, as do such rock admirers as Billy Corgan and Don Bolles of the Germs.
The film is a companion to Isis Aquarian’s 2007 book (co-written with fellow Source family member Electricity Aquarian), The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13, and the Source Family. The book includes a CD of Ya Ho Wa 13’s music. I haven’t read it — but will now!
I knew the general outlines of the Source story, but not the hundreds of bizarre details that make it so compelling. Elise Malmberg and I drew from it a decade ago while creating Clubbo Records, our “music fiction” project. We concocted the Fold, a fictional hippie cult band, using bits pilfered from various spiritual scams of the era, including the Source and the equally fascinating Process Church. (A fictionalized Process Church also figures in Last Days, a darn good horror novel by Adam Nevill, though not quite as awesome as Nevill’s The Ritual, with its Scandinavian black metal underpinnings. It’s as scary/funny as actual black metal.)
Naturally, our fake story isn’t one-tenth as interesting as the shit that actually happened. But it did produce “Into the Fold,” one of our best bits of counterfeit music, featuring the brilliant Chuck Prophet singing the Morrison-esque role of Gary “Shep” Shepheard, who fronted the Fold’s rock band under the direction of cult leader Maestro Ludgang. (Elise wrote the song, and I played the music, except the drums, which are by Patrick Campbell. Other friends served as photo models.)
Meanwhile, I’ve been working on a new piece that has some sounds and phrases I like, but has steadfastly refused to take shape. I tried recording it the other night, but every soloistic element I added sounded stupid. When live-looping, I’m so self-conscious about excessive repetition that I use every trick I can muster to vary the sound and move things along. This time, though — under the spiritual influence of The Source Family, perhaps? — I just let the loops roll, visualized my ego dissolving into a pool of pearlescent light, and dug on the trance. Man.
It’s called “Unfolded,” after the Fold, of course.
But please, folks — if I start calling myself Maestro Ludgang Aquarian, do me a favor and stage an intervention.
UPDATE [06.16.14]: Okay, this is too great: I just shared this post with my pal/fellow Premier Guitar editor Charlie Saufely, who told me he played for a Ya Ho Wa 13 tribute band that performed in front of original band members when this film premiered at San Francisco’s Roxy Theater. Afterwards he got to jam with Djin, the guitarist. “It was a thrill,” Charlie says. “He was way more into skronking than blues jamming. We kinda went off on a Thurston-and-Lee, hail of sonic scree barrage. He had the Firebird … it was surreal. He reached over at one point and started scraping my strings with his fingernails. That was pretty sweet!”
