Page 24 - the NOISE February 2013

bandmates at a love-in and it seemed like fate. They named themselves Spirit, after a Khalil Gibran passage. Thanks to Cassidy’s connec- tions, they landed a manager/producer in music business entrepreneur Lou Adler, who signed Spirit to his new Ode label. They be- gan recording their first album and playing gigs.
The presence of Ed Cassidy gave Spirit a strange but memorable look. In the “Don’t trust anyone over 30” era, when young men were growing their hair past their shoulders, a bald man in his 40s behind the drums was a definite oddity. Luckily, Spirit more than proved themselves musically. With Randy Cal- ifornia’s searing leads up front and Cassidy’s precise jazzy drumming as an anchor, Spirit were one of the more adventurous and eclec- tic groups of their time.
Cassidy had a unique setup for his kit. In ad- dition to all the standard drums and cymbals, he used two huge parade bass drums facing each other and tilted at 45-degree angles. Cassidy would hammer on them like tympani.
The band lived in a big sprawling house in Topanga Canyon, with neighbors like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. They had a room- mate and roadie named Barret Hansen, a bookish cat with a beard. He was kind of a nut, but when it came to music, he was dead serious. Hansen graduated from Reed College in Portland with a degree in ethnomusicol- ogy and held a master’s in folklore from UCLA. He owned a primitive 4 track reel-to-reel and recorded the demo that got Spirit signed to Ode. Hansen also possessed an enormous re- cord collection, mostly old 78s, and seemed to know the story behind each one. He had stuff from bands even Cassidy had never heard of.
Barret Hansen stayed abreast of current music as well. One day he brought home the debut LP by a new hotshot guitarist everyone was talking about named Jimi Hendrix. Randy California stared at the cover photo of a black man standing between two white English- men and felt the tiniest jolt. Was it him? He couldn’t be sure. Then Barret put the record on and within 30 seconds Randy was con- vinced: Jimi Hendrix was Jimmy James from the Village. Randy had no idea his friend had been using a pseudonym.
In June 1967, Jimi Hendrix played a now- legendary set at the Monterey Pop Festival, setting his guitar on fire during the finale
Barret Hansen, aka Doctor Demento
of “Wild Thing.” After the show, Hendrix was whisked back to L.A. to attend a bash at Ste- phen Stills’ pad, where he met the hippest of the local musicians.
Randy California entered the party and spied Hendrix immediately, although his back was turned to him. Everything stopped in Randy’s head. The house was packed but he only saw himself and Hendrix. It was just last summer that they were two nobodies in the big city, playing music no one cared about to near nonexistent crowds.
Jimmy was a freak in the Village, ignored by most. Now he set trends, simply with a juiced up version of the Blue Flame’s stage show. He looked like the epitome of cool, dressed in Carnaby Street fashions: a Sgt. Pepper jacket, purple crushed velvet bellbottoms, black boots and a Spanish wide-brimmed hat. He had grown his hair and teased it into an out- rageous conk that stuck out from beneath his brim.
Randy had changed as well: he let his hair and beard grow to a near freakish length, and he wore the latest West Coast hippie duds: an elegantly stitched poncho, baggy canvas pants, sandals, and groovy love beads. He had taken LSD and his mind was opened. Randy was still only 16, but not so much of a kid any- more.
Jimi had just released his first album; Randy was recording his. It made perfect sense for the two of them to be in this place at this mo- ment: on the opposite coast from where they had said goodbye nearly a year ago. The air in the room felt electric. Randy walked up be- hind Hendrix and said his name.
“Jimmy James.”
Hendrix turned around, their eyes locked,
and POW! The jolt came as it did that day at Manny’s. Time froze for a half second. Once again, Jimi broke into his goofy smile. He spoke as if Randy’s presence was no surprise, like he had been waiting for him.
“Hey ... Randy California. All right.”
Spirit’s debut was released in January 1968, on the eve of their guitarist’s 17th birthday.
Over the next three years, they recorded two more albums for Ode before moving to Epic Records. Their fourth LP, Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, is widely considered their master- piece and contains “Mr. Skin”, a song about their drummer. Randy California wrote and sang many of the group’s popular tunes, such
24 • FEBRUARY 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us