Mind Garage was an American psychedelic rock and roll band from Morgantown, West Virginia, and a progenitor of Christian rock music. Their "Electric Liturgy" performed in 1968 was the first documented Christian rock worship service, and their 1969 eponymous debut RCA album was one of the earliest Christian rock albums released.
Mind Garage was formed after a five person band from Morgantown, West Virginia called the Glass Menagerie disbanded in July 1967 after touring the Midwest. Those leaving the Glass Menagerie were John Fisher, lead guitarist, who joined the Shadows of Knight as a bass player; and Jim Straub, the drummer. The remaining three members, Larry McClurg, Jack Bond, and Norris Lytton returned to Morgantown where they were all students at West Virginia University. After meeting two other WVU students, John Vaughan and Ted Smith, it was decided to form a new band. The band was encouraged by WVU's campus minister, Episcopal priest Rev. Michael Paine, who helped the group to organize its religious repertory.[1] Paine's wife, Victoria "Tori" Paine, suggested the name Mind Garage to the band.[2]
The Electric Liturgy
In 1967 Paine suggested the band write rock music with Christian content for use in the church, following the tradition of Bach who used popular tavern songs in his music. "At that time, there were virtually no albums available to a national audience that could remotely be described as Christian rock; it's impossible to overstate how radical the "Electric Liturgy" was in that context.[3] The Mind Garage, which never limited itself to one style of music began composing the Electric Liturgy[4] in Paine's attic with a serious intent[5] to get the message across. The Electric Liturgy was conceived as an orthodox Episcopalian service, but was immediately transformed into an inter-denominational service by the people themselves. It was not uncommon to witness Episcopalians, Catholics, Protestants and Jews together, all taking Communion. People who were out of religion found a meaning in the music.[6]
The live presentation of the Electric Liturgy contains the Kyrie Eleison and The Service of the Word (Greeting, Opening Prayer, First Reading, Psalm, Epistle Reading, Gospel Reading, Sermon, Creed, Pastoral Prayer and the Offertory), immediately followed by the Service of Communion which concludes with a prayer and Benediction and the dismissal of the congregation. The church programs explained that "the Holy Communion is the Creator's act through His people of binding the wounds and healing a broken humanity. Sometimes it is a party, sometimes not. But participation in it signals your desire to take on hope. Therefore all people confessing their frail humanity and yearning for a greater are welcome to come to the altar and receive Holy Communion."[7]
This is the same format used by "Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopal service books, historic liturgies from the Catholic Church and the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church, and ancient liturgies from Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Cappadocia...which all have the same basic structure."[8]
On March 10, 1968, in the first documented Christian rock worship service, the Mind Garage played live in church, "...as cymbals crashed and voices called for love and thanksgiving, babies squealed and happy smiles spontaneously flickered across the congregation".[9] As a result, "those dirty, beatnick-hippies began to have a new image. 'I didn't know they were like THAT,' one woman exclaimed, "That was beautiful!"
The April 14, 1968 Easter Sunday performance originally scheduled on West Virginia University property was cancelled when university administrators backed out of the previous arrangement with Paine and declared the performance unconstitutional. Paine then bargained with the First Presbyterian church to use their parking lot. In the mounting tension the church elders refused to allow the band to use the church facilities when the local paper ran a photo of the Mind Garage in a tree with Paine and friends standing about. At the last moment Rev. Jennings Fast of Wesley Methodist Church provided a place for the service.
The Electric Liturgy became so popular the band was invited to perform the worship service in churches throughout the Eastern United States including Washington, D.C., New York, and Princeton University Chapel. The Electric Liturgy was shocking. Dean Ernest Gordon of Princeton University said, "We could all do with a shocking splendid spiritual surprise."[10]
On July 24, 1968, the term "theo-rock" was coined in the Village Voice in reference to The Mind Garage music.[11] By the end of 1968, the Mind Garage had performed the "Electric Liturgy" live more than a dozen times, in Episcopal, Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist churches, each time with people dancing in the aisles. Each time the services were attended by Christians and non Christians alike in a communal celebration of life. The Mind Garage "literally packed the church". What they did was "...to contemporize religious music. Make it for people today, much as John Wesley or Martin Luther did.[12]
Mind Garage: First nationally televised Christian Rock worship service
A nationally televised Christian Rock and Roll worship service was given by the Mind Garage in St. Mark's Episcopal church in New York on ABC TV, on April 13, 1969.[13]
The Electric Liturgy, recorded for RCA Victor (LSP-4319) in 1969 was the first Christian Rock album ever recorded in Nashville, at RCA's "Nashville Sound" Studio A, on Music Row.
An award-winning article by Joyce Tracewell[14] describes the Electric Mass: "Sun shines through stained glass and colors bounce until the kaleidoscopic vision is suddenly shattered by incredibly swelling music. Smiling musicians with flowery clothes, jeans, long hair, beards and sunglasses play deliberate alien music, the kind that makes you shiver. It fills the room to the ceiling pushing against the walls. They sing in voices that should have belonged to Druids or Incas, or Gypsies under a night sky, and you see Jesus smiling at them. When you leave you feel somebody has been dissecting your soul and everything is clearer. And that's what an Electric Mass is."
One poster associated with the Mind Garage[15] is a line drawing of a bare chested woman with long flowing hair that nearly covers the chest, with her arms raised, surrounded by the group. It was used several times as the cover for service booklets, most notably in St. Mark's Episcopal Church in New York City's Bowery. An adaptation was created for the Electric Liturgy by covering the woman's chest with a banner displaying the words "We Welcome You To The Electric Liturgy, A Festival of Feeling, The Electric Mass".[16]
Recording career
While still known only locally, the Mind Garage recorded an original single 45 rpm "Asphalt Mother", and drew the attention of major record companies like Chess Records, Atlantic Records and RCA. Marshall Chess came to see the band expecting to hear blues and went away baffled as to the kind of music they played. Atlantic Records only wanted to sign McClurg, but he refused to leave the band. Meanwhile, the Mind Garage continued to play the Electric Mass in church services for free wherever asked, while at the same time shocking and entertaining the audiences in clubs, concert halls and stadiums with their own style of secular, psychedelic rock.
In 1969 the group's newly acquired manager, Tom Surman, aka Cossie, negotiated a contract for the entire band with RCA. The Mind Garage recorded two albums and two singles in New York, Chicago and Nashville studios.
The Mind Garage declined the invitation to perform at Woodstock in 1969. In 1970, when their recording contract was about to expire, RCA offered to renew it but the band declined.[17] Without explanation they walked away from a recording career, and simply stopped playing. The band never officially broke up. There was no press release, and no dispute among members, or management. Drummer Ted Smith, acknowledged by Zildjian as one of the best drummers in the world,[18][unreliable source?] continued his career with the Spinners as tour drummer for the next several decades, and can be heard on the Spinners "LIVE" album (Atlantic SD 2-910-1198).
Reunion
Mind Garage at Goodstock Music Festival
In 2007 all five original band members reunited for a music festival. The Father of Woodstock Artie Kornfeld teamed up with Larry McClurg to promote Goodstock Music Festival, reported Pollstar.
According to Kornfeld,[19] "I consider Goodstock to be the first real attempt to have another 3 days of peace and music". "When everybody's doing Woodstocks in 2009, I'm going to be doing Goodstock -The Woodstock Reunion 2009, and that's my dream for Larry and I to have."
Significance
Christian rock music did not exist in 1967 for mainstream American media. As alternative styles of music developed "...Christian Rock Music began in the 1970s when a group known as the Mind Garage recorded "Electric Liturgy".[20] The Mind Garage is perhaps the first Christian Rock band,[21] with documentation going back to 1967 in local media and national magazines and newspapers and television such as The Village Voice,[11]Billboard and Rolling Stone magazine,[22] ABC and NBC TV.[23] "Today original records from many of the original Jesus Rock bands like The Mind Garage (arguably the first band of its kind), Aslan, Selah, The Concrete Rubber Band, and Agape go for hundreds of dollars to collectors...".[24]
For as little time as the Mind Garage performed, their original, unique style and energy had a ripple effect that reached the Punk era and new wave music and beyond. The late 1970s group The Fleshtones refer to the Mind Garage as an influence.[25] Noted folk rock musician John Denver acknowledged each member of the Mind Garage for contributing to his 1982 album, Seasons of the Heart.[26]
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to simply as Woodstock, was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles (65 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music" and alternatively referred to as the Woodstock Rock Festival, it attracted an audience of more than 400,000. Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite sporadic rain.
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to achieve international commercial success. They were headliners at the Monterey Pop Festival (1967), Woodstock (1969), Altamont Free Concert (1969), and the first Isle of Wight Festival (1968) in England. Their 1967 break-out album Surrealistic Pillow was one of the most significant recordings of the Summer of Love. Two songs from that album, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit", are among Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Christian rock is a form of rock music that features lyrics focusing on matters of Christian faith, often with an emphasis on Jesus, typically performed by self-proclaimed Christian individuals. The extent to which their lyrics are explicitly Christian varies between bands. Many bands who perform Christian rock have ties to the contemporary Christian music labels, media outlets, and festivals, while other bands are independent.
Country Joe and the Fish was an American psychedelic rock band formed in Berkeley, California, in 1965. The band was among the influential groups in the San Francisco music scene during the mid- to late 1960s. Much of the band's music was written by founding members Country Joe McDonald and Barry "The Fish" Melton, with lyrics pointedly addressing issues of importance to the counterculture, such as anti-war protests, free love, and recreational drug use. Through a combination of psychedelia and electronic music, the band's sound was marked by innovative guitar melodies and distorted organ-driven instrumentals which were significant to the development of acid rock.
Joseph Allen "Country Joe" McDonald is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.
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Michael Scott Lang was an American concert promoter, producer, and artistic manager who was best known as a co-creator of the Woodstock Music & Art Festival in 1969. Lang served as the organizer of the event, as well as the organizer for its follow-up events, Woodstock '94 and the ill-fated Woodstock '99. He later became a producer of records, films, and other concerts, as well as a manager for performing artists, a critically acclaimed author, and a sculptor.
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Mind Garage-Early Years was recorded by the Mind Garage, the first hard rock band recognized nationally as a Christian Rock band when America tuned into a Christian rock worship service in 1969 on ABC TV. The song, "Water" was used in the service. The term "Christian rock" had not yet been coined in 1968 and these compositions can be considered the missing link between secular and Christian rock music.
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The Tangerine Zoo was an American psychedelic rock band formed in Swansea, Massachusetts, in 1966. Encompassed in Boston's psychedelic scene and considered a part of the Bosstown Sound, the band became popular regionally, and released two albums on Mainstream Records during their recording career. The Tangerine Zoo had an opportunity to achieve national recognition at the Woodstock Festival, but was forced to decline the invitation. Nonetheless, the group's material has been reinstated into the public conscious after 1960s psychedelic music collectors have discovered the Tangerine Zoo's work years after their disbandment.
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References
↑ The Living Church, Vol. 157 (Morehouse-Gorham Co., 1968):70.
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