Freak scene
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The freak scene was originally a component of the
Origins
In the United States of the 1960s, especially during the heyday of the
Barry Miles wrote: "The first hippies in Hollywood, perhaps the first hippies anywhere, were Vito, his wife Zsou [sic], Captain Fuck and their group of about thirty-five dancers. Calling themselves Freaks, they lived a semi-communal life and engaged in sex orgies and free-form dancing whenever they could."[3] Frank Zappa said of Vito's freaks: "As soon as they arrived they would make things happen, because they were dancing in a way nobody had seen before, screaming and yelling out on the floor and doing all kinds of weird things. They were dressed in a way that nobody could believe, and they gave life to everything that was going on."[2]
Musicians and others who became associated with the scene at the time included Zappa, his later wife
Wider use of the term
The term "freaks" became much more widely and generally used in the late 1960s and early 1970s, often as a synonym for "
Members of the Weather Underground drafted their manifesto and declaration of war on the U.S. state with the sentence: "Freaks are revolutionaries and revolutionaries are freaks".[9]
Freaks' hairstyles were mostly long and unkempt. The clothing of the freaks used elements of
Music and culture
Freak scene music was an eclectic mixture based around
J. R. R. Tolkien novels were big influences on lyrics of bands like Led Zeppelin, which created interest in the novels among followers of the bands.
The freak scene made inroads into the underground comix movement in The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers by Gilbert Shelton in 1968. Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics, an original underground comix scene, over three decades had influenced thousands of people and thousands of new readers yearly.[10]
Following the success of the 1978 smash hit "Le Freak" by
In politics
Journalist and writer Hunter S. Thompson was well-known for his embrace of the "Freak" moniker:
In 1970, Thompson ran for
Notable freak scene musicians
California
- Alice Cooper
- Captain Beefheart
- The Electric Flag
- The GTOs
- The Oxford Circle
- Sons of Champlin
- Wild Man Fischer
- The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
- Ya Ho Wha 13
- Frank Zappa
Michigan
New York
Texas
Pennsylvania
Britain
- Gong
- Hawkwind
- Pink Fairies
- Quintessence
- The Deviants
- The Edgar Broughton Band
- Third Ear Band
- Patto
See also
- Counterculture
- Counterculture of the 1960s
- Protopunk
- New Age travellers
- UK Underground
- Yippies
References
- ^ "John Trubee, Last of the Freaks: The Carl Franzoni Story, Scram magazine". Archived from the original on June 21, 2006.
- ^ a b c "David McGowan, Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation". Archived from the original on April 3, 2015.
- ISBN 978-0-7537-2456-9
- ^ Nik Cohn, AwopBopaLooBopaLopBamBoom: Pop from the Beginning (Paladin 1973), pp. 222-223
- ^ G. Legman, Rationale of the Dirty Joke Vol I (Panther 1973) p. 20
- ^ Jann Wenner ed., Lennon Remembers (Penguin 1971) p. 96
- ^ Anthony Scaduto, Bob Dylan (London 1973) p. 287
- ^ Craig McGregor, Bob Dylan: a Retrospective (London 1973) p. 266
- ^ "Democracy Now! | Ex-Weather Underground Member Kathy Boudin Granted Parole". Democracy Now!. Archived from the original on November 14, 2007.
- ^ "Faboulous Freak Out". irishtimes.com. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
- ^ Lauren Fitchett, "Food with attitude: the story of Freak Scene", Great British Chefs, 16 March 2023. Retrieved 4 January 2024
- ^ Gilbert, Sophie (June 26, 2014). "When Hunter S. Thompson Ran for Sheriff of Aspen". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on March 26, 2018. Retrieved March 25, 2018.
- ^ Anson, Robert Sam (December 10, 1970), "Rolling Stone, Part 2; Hunter Thompson Meets Fear and Loathing Face to Face", New Times
- ^ Hunter S. Thompson (2003), Kingdom of Fear, Simon & Schuster, p. 95.
- ISBN 9780316415194.
Further reading
- Fred Davis, Laura Munoz (2011), "8. Heads and freaks: patterns and meanings of drug use among hippies", in Lee Rainwater (ed.), Deviance and Liberty: Social Problems and Public Policy, Aldine Transaction, pp. 88–95, ISBN 978-1-4128-1503-1
External links
- Freaks and Monsters
- The Freak Zone programme on BBC 6Music
- Internet Archive Audio files featuring the descriptive term "freakout"
- Philm Freax Digital Archive
- More Phreak scene links
- Facsimile and excerpt from We are the people our parents warned us against by Nicholas Von Hoffman (historically interesting particularly for its demonstration of homophobia within a hippy social context preceding the freak scene's more enlightened attitude)
- An excerpt from Richard Neville's book Playpower Archived 2005-02-09 at the Wayback Machine on the author's website - Neville was one of the founders of Oz magazine.