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PREMESSA: LA SUPERIORITA’ DELLA MUSICA SU VINILE E’ ANCOR OGGI SANCITA, NOTORIA ED EVIDENTE. NON TANTO DA UN PUNTO DI VISTA DI RESA, QUALITA’ E PULIZIA DEL SUONO, TANTOMENO DA QUELLO DEL RIMPIANTO RETROSPETTIVO E NOSTALGICO , MA SOPRATTUTTO DA QUELLO PIU’ PALPABILE ED INOPPUGNABILE DELL’ ESSENZA, DELL’ ANIMA E DELLA SUBLIMAZIONE CREATIVA. IL DISCO IN VINILE HA PULSAZIONE ARTISTICA, PASSIONE ARMONICA E SPLENDORE GRAFICO , E’ PIACEVOLE DA OSSERVARE E DA TENERE IN MANO, RISPLENDE, PROFUMA E VIBRA DI VITA, DI EMOZIONE E  DI SENSIBILITA’. E’ TUTTO QUELLO CHE NON E’ E NON POTRA’ MAI ESSERE IL CD, CHE AL CONTRARIO E’ SOLO UN OGGETTO MERAMENTE COMMERCIALE, POVERO, ARIDO, CINICO, STERILE ED ORWELLIANO,  UNA DEGENERAZIONE INDUSTRIALE SCHIZOFRENICA E NECROFILA, LA DESOLANTE SOLUZIONE FINALE DELL’ AVIDITA’ DEL MERCATO E DELL’ ARROGANZA DEI DISCOGRAFICI .

MICHAEL CASSIDY & VIRGINIA JOHNSTON
take me back

Disco LP 33 giri , 1979, Golden Lotus Records ,GL-3, USA

CONDIZIONI MOLTO BUONE,  vinyl ex++,  cover vg+

ALBUM DI COUNTRY ROCK PIUTTOSTO SOFT E MODERATO, A TRATTI QUASI ANONIMO, RILASSANTE E LASSATIVO, PRODOTTO DALLA GOLDEN LOTUS SOTTO LA BENEDIZIONE DEGLI ISKCON PROJECTS, OVVERO IL BRACCIO ARTISTICO DEL MOVIMENTO HARE  KRISHNA, UNA INIZIATIVA CHE NEL VERSANTE MUSICALE AVEVA VISTO ALL’ EPOCA ADESIONI ILLUSTRI, TRA CUI GEORGE HARRISON, STEVE WONDER, NEIL DIAMOND, JOHN FAHEY, JAMES HUNTER E ALTRI.

• Etichetta: Golden Lotus
• Catalogo:  GL – 3
  
• Data di pubblicazione: 1979

• Supporto:vinile 33 giri
• Tipo audio: stereo
• Dimensioni: 30 cm.
• Facciate: 2
• White paper inner sleeve

Michael Cassidy-Average Soul (Mangalananda)

Michael was born in Manchester, NH U.S.A. His mother was a singer and
his grandmother a published songwriter. Traveling all over America and
Europe with his military Dad formed Michael’s eclectic spirit.
Early-on he liked the surfing sounds of The Ventures and Dwayne Eddie.
Later his tastes expanded to the finger-styles of Chet Atkins and Jose
Feliciano. “Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen inspired me to
express myself with words, and my Dad’s jazz collection had some
influence on the harmonic structure of my compositions.”
His songs are reflections and descriptive stories driven by
thoughtfulness, humor, and emotion. Some of the themes that frame these
songs are loss and gain, self-deception, freedom, and true love. His
web site is www.averagesoul.net.

In all my Krsna Rock research, one name seemed to be always
surface-Michael Cassidy. Regardless of the label or band name, he
seemed to be involved. So you can imagine how suprised I was when he
got it touch and directed me to his website! This was a major breakthrough!
He
is still playing and was kind enought to help me sort out some of the
confusion I had about various Krsna related records. These stories
document some pretty wild times.

WWDIS: How did you get involved in Krishna consciousness? Were you in bands early on?
MC:
I first heard the maha-mantra when I was in a band in high school
called Gobi Desert. The mantra was on a record our drummer picked up in
the East Village. Later in 1970 we had a group called the Moon Farm
Band. We rented this great place just outside Walden, New York. I met a
devotee couple who moved into the cottage just behind the band’s
farmhouse. I dropped in to say hi one evening and they had an LP of
A.C. Bhaktivedanta singing the Brahma Samhita. I asked them what is was
and the guy picked up the album and pointed to Prabhupada on the back
cover and said “It’s the Swami. He’s spiritually very high.” Then he
turned the LP over and pointed to a picture of Radha and Krishna and
said, “This is God and this is His Girlfriend. He’s got His own
planet.” I just look in amazement and said, “Of course.”

WWDIS: Did either Moon Farm Band or Gobi Desert record? (can’t help it, I’m a record nerd, first!)
MC:
Gobi Desert did some basement recordings. One was an original called
“Sunday Kind of Love” but I have no idea where any of those are. The
Moon Farm Band was a good sounding five-piece acoustic folk-rock group
with guitars, bass, fiddle, and hand drums. No recordings.

WWDIS: What was the progression of the albums and labels?
MC:
The first temple I visited was New Vrindavan in West Virginia—January
1st, 1971. But I ended up staying in the Columbus, Ohio temple and
found a guitar in the basement. I wrote a song a few months later
called “Lord Chaitanya’s Moon is Rising. *Note: Early roadshow
impromptu recording put to kirtan footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NftMllYi_w&feature=related

When
Kirtanananda Swami came to Columbus to do a radio show, he heard my
song and asked me to play it at the interview so I did. The people at
the station liked it and Kirtanananda had me join him for several more
shows. Later that year he formed The Roadshow—a drama/music troupe. We
did college engagements throughout the South. It’s all in a book called
Radha-Damodara Vilasa by Vaiysaki dasa Adhikari.

So The
Roadshow was the first Krishna-music band I was in. We did a lot of
gigs but our biggest was the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
We toured for a little over a year and also played in New England and
Montreal.

WWDIS: Was there a second Golden Avatar record?
MC:
In 1975 I played some demos of my songs for my teacher A. C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami at the Golden Avatar studio in Los Angeles to ask
him what he thought. He listened to three songs and said, “Do it. It
will be successful.” At that point I felt the whole project was
blessed. My partner Carl Lang and I soon met David Stout, who was a
great arranger. David agreed to work on the project for a minimal
amount and a lot of free studio time. Besides a pretty decent 16-track,
we didn’t have much. I didn’t even own a guitar. John Fahey, who lived
in the neighborhood and sometimes dropped into the studio, had offered
me his Martin to record. That’s how we made the demos.

Carl
and I soon got a $4500 personal loan from a friend to produce the LP “A
Change of Heart.” Later when the person who loaned us the money heard
the finished product, he told us to consider it a donation.

Everything
was perfect, well almost. To make a long story short, I soon lost
control of the LP “A Change of Heart” in 1976 because of a temple
leader. The temple used the name of the studio, Golden Avatar, as a
band name. So that’s how that band name happened. I got the Master
Recording back in 2000.

The album never got me any monetary
gain, but my real purpose was served. I had said to my teacher my idea
of the LP was to promote the values and concepts of Krishna
consciousness, and as he predicted, that happened. MIllions of LPs were
distributed all over the world.

“A Change of Heart” received
a Gold Record in Canada for units sold. Six years ago I spoke to the
former temple president of the Toronto Temple to see if he would send
me the mounted Gold Record plaque. He said that back then they
regrettably considered the award mundane. It was tossed into a closet
and he hadn’t seen it in 25 years.

I still receive letters
of appreciation about “A Change of Heart”—from the U.S. and Canada, and
from people in Europe, South America, and Australia.

In
1977 I released “Nature’s Secret.” I produced this project myself and
was able to get more of the sound I was looking for. A friend who heard
The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo gave me Steve Bartek’s number.
Steve and I got along great. When I heard his solo for the song Spirit
of Reason, I knew he was the man for the job. I ended up having him
play on “Beyond Illusion” as well. *Note: “Nature’s Secret” on his
current site, but not “Beyond Illusion”:
http://www.stevebartek.com/

I
went for a bigger production in 1978 with “Beyond Illusion.” I asked
David Stout to do the arranging. We recorded at Spectrum Studios,
Venice Beach. I sent a finished copy of that LP to Jaya Tirtha, then
head of London temple, to see if he wanted to buy the rights to
manufacture and distribute it in the British Isles. He said he loved
the album but wasn’t able to make that happen. Two months later a
friend living in South Africa sent me a copy of the London Temple’s new
LP “Progress” which was a mutated bootleg version of “Beyond Illusion”
redone with a few other songs on it. I sued Jaya Tirtha for $4000
dollars, my original asking price, and won.

In 1979 I
recorded “Take Me Back.” It was a bluegrass acoustic album I did with
Virginia Johnston. On all of those original four LPs, I used some songs
I had co-written with my good friend Jeffery Armstrong. These days he’s
a published author and still writes great poetry.

WWDIS: Have you seen a Golden Avatar record called “Pastimes”? Were you involved in this or was it another hijack?
MC: I found this “Pastimes”:
link
I’m
not sure, but it appears someone in Australia re-packaged “Beyond
Illusion” as “Pastimes.” Just a note about “Pastimes”: The songs listed
on the album are the songs from “Beyond Illusion” but the credits were
copied from the back of “A Change of Heart” and pasted as the “Beyond
Illusion” credits. My best explanation for these copyright
infringements is that many early ISKCON devotees had a
misinterpretation of “Everything belongs to Krishna.”

WWDIS: Was the Golden Avatar Studio a Krishna enterprise or was it outside the movement?
MC:
The business was owned by the temple, but it was a hybrid; we were
allowed to book the studio to local acts to make money to upgrade the
equipment, and we traded studio time for help with our own projects.

WWDIS: What was it like to meet Prabhupada?
MC:
He was grave. He was focused. He was funny. He was an exciting man to
be around. I had been in the movement for five years and had attended
eight or more lectures in different temples across the country where I
heard Prabhupada speak in person. But to sit and talk with him face to
face about something that meant so much to me, and was so controversial
in the movement, had to be the most intense experience of my life.