Joe Byrd & the Field Hippies: Guest Post

Guest Post - by Spencer Corwright. Back in the 70's when I was in college in St. Louis, the radio station of choice was KSHE-FM. Late at night they would sometimes play really weird stuff. If we liked it, we'd scour the local used record store to find the LP. That's how I happened on Joe Byrd & the Field Hippies and their ablum "The American Metaphysical Circus" (other bands we found were Aphrodite's Child, McKendree Spring, and It's a Beautiful Day). While electronic music had been around since at least the 1920's with composers such as Varese and with the invention of the theremin and such, the 1960's and parts of this album seemed to be a peak of electronic composition. This album is divided into four parts with kooky names such as "The Sub-Sylvian Litanies" and "The Southwestern Geriatrics Arts and Crafts Festival". Far and away the best part is right at the start, the spooky electronic opener "Kalyani" with vocals that finally come together repeating the words "waiting to die", which immediately segues into a great rocker "You Can't Ever Come Down". The rest of the album is DIVERSE to say the least if not less, way before being diverse was politically cool. I see on Amazon.com that used copies of the original pressing go for $60-85!