Text by Bruce Gallanther (DMG Newsletter for April 14th, 2023)
“The Garden of Earthly Delights” performed by The United States Of America, released in 1968. Written by Joseph Byrd and Dorothy Moskowitz
Poisonous gardens, lethal and sweet
Venomous blossoms
Choleric fruit, deadly to eat
Violet nightshades, innocent bloom
Omnivourous orchids
Cautiously wait, hungrily loom
Text by Bruce Gallanther (DMG Newsletter for February 16th, 2023)
Photograph of The Byrds (1965): http://www.drb-fans.com/pre-drb.html, Copyright : Sony Music Entertainment, 1965 (then CBS, Inc.)
“Eight Miles High” written by Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn & David Crosby. Released as a single on March 14, 1966. Performed by The Byrds, from their Fifth Dimension LP,
Eight miles high, and when you touch down
You’ll find that it’s stranger than known
Signs in the street, that say where you’re going
Are somewhere just being their own
Nowhere is there warmth to be found
Among those afraid of losing their ground
Rain gray town, known for its sound
In places, small faces unbound
Round the squares, huddled in storms
Some laughing, some just shapeless forms
Sidewalk scenes, and black limousines
Some living, some standing alone
Text by Bruce Gallanther (Downtown Music Gallery, November 4th, 2022)
Up until the time I was 13, when I bought the first album by the Mothers of Invention, titled Freak-Out!, I never really questioned the fact that the U.S. was called “the land of the free & the home of the brave”. The concept of “Freedom” always appealed to me but I never considered how much we were being manipulated into believing that things that are not really the truth of what is actually going on around us. Protest music/songs by Bob Dylan, PF Sloan’s “The Eve of Destruction” and “Trouble Every Day” by the Mothers often made me reconsider my view of what is just and what is unfair or just not right. I’ve shed many skins and worn many hats over time: being a hippie in the sixties, being a proghead in the seventies, being a hard-core punk in the eighties and then discarding all of those pigeonholes as I got older to become a Wise Old Man (sometimes) in my post millenium Golden Years.
Text by Bruce Gallanter (Downtown Music Gallery, October 14th, 2022)
“Babylon” written by Dr. John, the Night Tripper, title track from Dr. John’s 2nd album Babylon released in 1969
Babylon
Is represented in the Bible by a stone
Babylon
Is thrown in a river and lost in a storm
Babylon
And never, never, ever again
Will anybody ever wanna call you they home
In this episode of MFM Speaks Out, Dawoud Kringle interviews Bruce Lee Gallanter, the owner and proprietor of Downtown Music Gallery.
