I have a deep, deep hatred of hippies, dating back to my childhood growing up near Santa Cruz California being suffocated by mellowness. I used to want to make a mock up of the Sex Pistol's God Save The Queen art, only with Jerry Garcia's face. As I've gotten older, however, I've started to embrace some of the very hippy tropes that used to make me want to throw up on myself. For example, I go to yoga, I try to eat organic, whole food, I wear hemp shoes, I recycle, and, most disturbingly, I wear essential oils, including the dreaded patchouli. Patchouli has become my signature scent in some ways, because I use Lush's Aramaco deodorant which has patchouli.
A staple of being an Angry Punk Rock kid was hating the Grateful Dead. I still don't fuck with Jerry and Crew, but I no longer detest them, and compared to a lot of the horseshit being put out today they seem downright innocuous. What really freaks me out is that I've gotten in to two bands recently who are basically (GASP) JAM BANDS.
The first is My Morning Jacket. They are from Kentucky, and do a kind of stoned, Southern-fried indie country that is much, much better than it should be. I have only heard Z, which came out a few years ago, but it is one of my favorite albums of this decade. They got the chops, the songwriting, and they reference classic rock while still being interesting and innovative.
The other hippy-ass band i've been listening to is Wilco, ten years after everyone first started telling me they were amazing. I saw the documentary about them called "I Am Breaking Your Heart" a few weeks ago, and have been listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot obsessively since. Like MMJ, they mix classic rock elements with alt-country, and then fuck with it enough to make it sound new and un-tired.
As I was cruising up the Sonoma Coast last weekend in a rented Prius, "Kamera" came on, and I realized that with it's sweetly sung, country-lite harmonies, it could easily be a "Working Dead" era Grateful Dead song. And still I love it. I still detest tie dye, so I got that going for me, but I'm wondering these days when I became such a goddamn hippie. Maybe getting older means becoming what you hate, and realizing it wasn't as bad as you thought.
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