Pullout

The Original Tripper

Donovan Sets the Tone for Narcotic Sonic

by Kathleen Wilson

Tools

• Email This
• Print
• Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Newsvine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
• 0 comments

+ Enlarge this Image

Street Eats

• Northwest Hiphop Rockets to the Top: Major Players Break Down the Scene
• Other Breaking-Talent Hiphop Events of Note
• The Meaning of Clothes: A Thread Runs from Fashion to Art by Emily Hall
• Huffing the Spoken Word: Choice Literary Inhalants
• Dance Picks: Moody Movements
• Theater Preview: Super Stagings
• The Original Tripper: Donovan Sets the Tone for Narcotic Sonic by Kathleen Wilson
• Look and Listen: Ben Rubin Gives Shape to Sound by Emily Hall
• The Impresario: Warren Etheredge Makes a Safe Haven for Film Fanatics by Sean Nelson
• Shorty McShortersons: The 1 Reel Film Fest Puts On a Show by Bradley Steinbacher
• Pizzazz!
• Blow Your Mind Wide Open: Expansive Hiphop from the New and Old Schools by Charles Mudede
• Pharmaceutical Pop: The Dandy Warhols Bring It in Spades by Kathleen Wilson
• Boo-Tay-Licious: Bobby Bare Jr.'s Advice on the Birds and the Beeyotches
• All You Need to Know About the Ink Spot: But Were Too Confused to Ask--Plus, What to See and When by Christopher Frizzelle
• Hot or Snot?: The Deeper Question of Who's Hotter, Writers or Rock Stars?
• Advice for Young People: From Musicians Who Know Better
• Poet vs. Poet: Andrei Codrescu and Sheri-D Wilson square off in Bumbershoot's Heavyweight Poetry Bout by Christopher Frizzelle
• SELECT SHOWS: For Your Listening Pleasure and Pain
• SELECT ART: For Your Visual Pleasure (no pain)

Sunday, 8-9:30 pm, McCaw Hall

There was a time in the mid-'90s when the Leitch clan was bursting with star power. In addition to its patriarch Donovan's legendary notoriety as Scottish-born folk singer and Hurdy Gurdy Man (a hurdy-gurdy being a stringed instrument that's played by cranking a wheel and depressing keys--a word that sounds funnier than what it actually means), there was the matter of his actress daughter Ione Skye being married to Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz. Daughter Oriole Leitch married and bore the daughter of Happy Mondays/Black Grape singer Shaun Ryder, a notorious drug addict whom she met when older sister Astrella was living with Ryder's brother and bandmate, Paul. Before marrying a supermodel, Donovan Leitch Jr. shacked up with Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs (their pad appeared in Sassy) and enjoyed a short-lived career as a neo-glam rocker when he cofounded L.A.'s foppish Nancy Boy--with Monkee Mike Nesmith's son, Jason. Oh, and Donovan Jr.'s half-brother, Julian Jones, just happens to be the son of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones.

Clearly, Donovan's slightly dippy, dopey doodle songs took on a life of their own after "Catch the Wind" and "Atlantis" established that he had true talent. If you ask me, it all started with Mickie Most, who in 1966 persuaded Donovan to drop his folk-singer antiwar image and start hanging out with the trippers and heads. Sunshine Superman was the result (the singer originally wanted the album to be called For John and Paul), and "Mellow Yellow"--arranged by John Paul Jones, with Paul McCartney on backing vocals--became a slim-hipped anthem for those who'd rather remain sedated than get a real job.

"Epistle to Dippy" is a rally cry for the apathetic layabouts of the world and a virtual theme song for the fashionable denizens of the Pike/Pine corridor: "Rebelling against society/Such a tiny speculating whether to be a hip or/Skip along quite merrily." And despite Donovan's trip to India, where he studied transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (a bit of monkey-see, monkey-do, following the Beatles' visit) and decided drugs were for losers, he managed to pen two great acid-pop songs ("There Is a Mountain" and "Jennifer Juniper"), as well as the hilarious "Goo Goo Barabajagal (Love Is Hot)," a song in which all pain is freed by a wise man and his wild flower. Incense burns and all kinds of teas and special herbs are cooking away and the wise man, who may or may not be an angel, repeats, "Goo Goo, Goo Goo Barabajagal is his name now." Till the cows come home. Or till the buzz wears off, if you'd rather. And in my opinion, "Season of the Witch" is a damn sexy song, and that Courtney Love covered it on Unplugged is a head-shaking fucking travesty.

Thirty years later Donovan toured as the opening act for the Happy Mondays, and the aforementioned Shaun Ryder became the hedonistic antihero of the Madchester/baggy era. Despite the atrocious fashions, those years spawned a canon of woozy drug music propelled by acid house (by bands like 808 State, Paris Angels, the Charlatans, the Farm, Inspiral Carpets, Primal Scream, and, of course, the Stone Roses) that to this day makes you want to just lie in the grass and float--great big perma-grin plastered on your face. "What's that you say? Another Oxy? Brilliant. Let's crush it and wash it down with some beer--that Valium should make the line less interminable. Watch it with the Klonopin and booze, mate. You've got three days left of this band business to get through before Stipe hits the stage." Perhaps the Happy Mondays tribute "Donovan," off the aptly titled Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches, says it best, a play on "Sunshine Superman" that encapsulates so many years of history: "Six cheap people in an empty hotel/Every last one with a story to tell/Give them all pills so their heads won't swell/We were borne to a woman whose husband did quite well." Then, the typical anal-oriented Ryder finish: "Sunshine shone brightly through my asshole today/Could have tripped out quite easy but I decided to stay a while/Come up and see me make me smile."

kathleen@thestranger.com