Bobby Beausoleil: Lucifer Rising soundtrack (The Anja Offensive)
Purchased used at Music Millennium in Portland, OR
I'll confess there are records that I'm not proud of owning. Best example I can recall would be multiple records by Boyd Rice/NON, though I bought them before I understood he was an (ALLEGED) special-needs son abandoning, White Power promoting, "Men's Rights" asshole. His defenders would say it's all an act, but as they say, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
But...I don't want to get in trouble and be expected to remove this posting, so I can't say I know these things from first hand experience.
And what of Gesualdo? The 16th century nobleman/wife and lover murderer/composer? Five centuries have certainly blunted the sting of his crimes (though being royal, it didn't disqualify him from marrying again).
I was recently in Portland OR, on my annual family trip. As I think I've written before, my parents (both still alive) and three sisters have all migrated there. So hey, once a year take a family trip, and go to a location where there's things to do.
This year I bought a bus pass and felt like a real Portlander. Walk to Cesar Chavez Blvd, ride the bus up to Burnside, then a second bus into the Pearl District (more-or-less Downtown). Along the way on Burnside, Music Millennium, the best hybrid new/used CD and record store I know (except possibly Amoeba Music).
There's too much to check out in one visit. So I hit the usual spots: used jazz, new jazz (CD and vinyl), experimental (when I find it), look under classical for Feldman, and of course the new and used soundtrack sections.
Didn't take me too long to find this at a moderate price, used. Bobby Beausoleil, isn't that...? Yeah. The Manson Family. He's a murderer, serving life.
I thought, okay...vinyl weirdness, check. Unusual soundtrack, check. $10, check.
The album credits the performance by The Freedom Orchestra, eight men incarcerated at the time of this recording, dating 1975-1979. Okay, I'll bite.
Let me now back up, to a few months ago. Our family went to visit my wife's sister in Hanover, PA. She settle here after decades in Jackson Heights. We went together to an antiques mall, which had a record store. Yes I'll look, not getting my hopes up. Checking through the stacks, I found two particularly vile 10" picture discs by White Wash, one backed with Grinded Nig. On Straight Hate Records. Pure, unadulterated white power bullshit.
No. Absolutely not. I could not even entertain the idea of buying such vile material. If anything, I refused to buy anything else from whoever the asshole owner of that booth was.
Buying a Bobby Beausoleil record seems benign in comparison. I mean, he was a misguided hippy under the influence of more-or-less a cult leader, right?
And the music? Lo-fi, but cleaned up pretty well for vinyl and CD reissue. It's very listenable. All instrumental, invoking at times A Saucerful of Secrets or Ummagumma-era Pink Floyd. Hippy, trippy jamming. By the end of the record it starts to feel long, but for a time it's entertaining ambient-ish jamming.
I am not about to start wearing Charles Manson t-shirts like Axle Rose or Genesis P-Orridge, two more jerks.
Am I proud to own a Bobby Beausoleil album? Proud is definitely not the word. Won't deny, won't advertise besides this minor missive.
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