Before you check out the Black Angels this weekend at Warehouse Live or watch Roky Erickson’s recently taped Austin City Limits episode (featuring special guest Billy Gibbons; scheduled to air January 12), David Adickes will help you brush up on the early days of Texas psych 7:30 p.m. tonight at NotSuOh (314 Main).
Adickes is perhaps best known as the sculptor of the gargantuan, small-children-frightening 76-foot statue of Sam Houston on I-45 south of Huntsville, but in June 1967 he opened one of Texas’s first venues devoted to the new mind-bending sound bubbling up from garage rock, bongwater and LSD labs, Love Street Light Circus Feel Good Machine – that’s right, that was its full name – at 1019 Commerce near Allen’s Landing.
Adickes was the original owner, manager and projectionist for Love Street, which despite being open barely three years hosted a who’s who of Texas psych: the Red Krayola, Erickson’s Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Johnny Winter, Bubble Puppy, Shiva’s Headband, Fever Tree, Gibbons’s pre-ZZ Top band Moving Sidewalks and American Blues, featuring his future bandmates Dusty Hill and Frank Beard. Appropriately enough, it was also the site of ZZ Top’s first shows on July 4 and 5, 1969.
Love Street tried to branch out into Corpus Christi and San Antonio with little success, and closed down in Houston on June 6, 1970. The building, built in the ‘30s to house the Sunset Coffee company, is still standing near Fannin and Commerce, and according to Wikipedia is slated to be remodeled as part of the Buffalo Bayou Project’s ongoing revitalization of the Allen’s Landing area, although it doesn’t look like much remodeling (or anything else) is going on there at the moment.
Tonight’s lecture is free. Love Street was memorialized in an eponymous 2004 song recorded by folk-rock duo the Fall Guys on their album Another Place… Another Time. Scroll down for the lyrics. – Chris Gray
Hangin’ out at Allen’s Landing All the Hippies on the grass Cosmic visions in the night Voyages of Peace and Light We were tripping, flying Eight Miles High We were looking through kaleidoscope eyes Three floors above Music is love Down at Love Street Light Circus Feel Good Machine
It was the summer of ‘67 The Universal Summer of Love In the shadow of the Hawk Soaring high the lonely Dove Sergeant Pepper to the rescue Everything fit like a glove Three floors above Music is love Down at Love Street Light Circus Feel Good Machine
Daddy Cliff and Granny Will greet you at the door Where the tie-dyed underground Joins the circus of sound The Wizard paints the walls With his Symphony of light The Jelly Wall Eyes Pack Is smoking tonight Phosphorescent Pinks & Greens A mind experience Black light dream Flashing strobes create a Crystal Maze Good Vibrations & Purple Haze Three floors above Music is love
Things were moving at a fever pitch In the Season of the witch Cosmic visions in the night Voyages of Peace and Light We were tripping, flying Eight Miles High We were looking through kaleidoscope eyes Three floors above Music is love Down at Love Street Light Circus Feel Good Machine
Summer of Love L-O-V-E Love Love
