Where'd My Mind Go? A Holy Modal Rounders Quiz

Answer: The Fugs

The Holy Modal Rounders (THMR from here on) recorded and released their first two albums in 1964 and 1965 on the Prestige label. After the release of the second album they briefly hooked up the Fugs and recorded what originally was released as 'The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Point of Views, and General Dissatisfaction' and then reissued as 'The Fugs First Album'.

The Velvet Underground were the band that Lou Reed was in with the Andy Warhol affiliations, The Ultimate Spinach was a band from Boston that included Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter, who actually played with THMR briefly AFTER leaving The Ultimate Spinach (and prior to his joining Steely Dan) and The Moray Eels may (or may not) have been an early name the band used for a moment.

Answer: Hesitation Blues

'Euphoria' and 'Hesitation Blues' are both from their 1964 debut album. 'My Mind Capsized' is off of their brilliant 1968 album 'The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders' and 'Crowley Waltz' is off of their 1965 release 'The Holy Modal Rounders 2'.

Answer: The Pooh Slinging Monkey Mamas

According to every source you'll ever find these were three of a number of names the band actually used for however briefly. As to how they settled on 'The Holy Modal Rounders', as per Stampfel's explanation in their webzine 'Perfect Sound Forever', they were sitting around stoned and were toying with 'The Total Modal Rounders' when a band member (Peter remembers it as being Steve Close) said 'The Holy Modal Rounders' by mistake, which everybody in the band loved and appeared to be the one that audiences liked the most during their "A New Day, A New Band Name" days.

The 'Pooh Slinging Monkey Mamas' is a name I made up. But one they most surely would have considered for a moment, I should think.

Answer: 2 before the Fugs, 4 as part of the Fugs

THMR issued their first two albums under their own name prior to hooking up with the Fugs in 1965 for what was the first Fugs album, first released on Broadside as 'The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Point of Views, and General Dissatisfaction' and then reissued on ESP Disk as 'The Fugs First Album' (so those two count as ONE album as, content-wise, they are the exact same album issued under two different titles), then the 'Virgin Fugs' album (which ESP Disk released without the consent of the band), the semi retrospective 'Fugs 4 Rounders Score' AS WELL as an album Wikipedia missed: the 1982 PVC Records release 'The Fugs Greatest Hits Volume 1 Proto Punk' (admit it: you forgot about that one didn't you?).

Answer: Sam Shepard

After Peter and Steve left the Fugs they reformed the Rounders with Lee Crabtree and Sam Shepard to record their third album - 1967's 'Indian War Whoop' - as well as appear in Sam's play 'Forensic'. This was a VERY different sounding band than the first two albums.

Some fans might consider this version of the band the best version and some the worst version, depending on if they prefer their Rounders as a folk outfit or a rock outfit (I myself veer toward the rock end of fan). On their third album, 1968's 'The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders' Sam played drums and by their fifth - and most well-known - album Sam was down to playing just tambourine.

By the time of their fifth album - 1971's 'Good Taste Is Timeless' - Sam was gone. I have no idea if he quit or was asked to leave.

Answer: Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley was part of the Greenwich Village folk scene during the same time that THMR were. He drew some of their album covers: 'Good Taste Is Timeless' as well as the cover for the Michael Hurley/Holy Modal Rounders collaboration 'Have Moicy'. Michael Hurley is also the composer of one of the HMR's three most well best known songs: 'The Werewolf' (which appears on their 'The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders' album). Byron Coley is the brilliant music writer from Massachusetts, Larry Kessler is the former bass player of the hugely underrated band The Godz (oh believe me: I am already planning a Godz quiz if I can ever finish it) and Dennis Hopper is the great actor and director who included HMR's 'The Bird Song' to great affect in the soundtrack of the movie 'Easy Rider'.

Answer: Jock

As per their song 'Boobs A Lot':

"Do you wear your jock a lot?
(Yes, I wear my jock a lot.)
Got to wear your jock a lot.
(Got to wear your jock a lot.)
Jock a lot, jock a lot.
(You gotta wear your jock a lot.)
Got to wear your jock a lot.
(You gotta wear your jock a lot.)"

So there!

The song usually is attributed to the Fugs, from the very brief period when Stampfel and Weber were members of that band. But it is obviously an HMR song that wound up going to the Fugs. Ed Sanders confirmed this to me when I met him in the 1980s.

Answer: My Mind Capsized

This song might well be my entire reason for wanting to create an actual Holy Modal Rounders quiz. It has been one of my personal Top Ten songs ever since I first heard it. While there are many songs by this band that have captured my attention and imagination ever since I first got the 'The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders' LP in 1968 (the album this song is from) when I was nine years old, none of their songs have had as strong a hold on me as My Mind Capsized. It is squeaky, noisy and just plain weird. But underneath all of that there is, in my opinion, a gorgeous melody waiting to be unleashed. If I ever get to record an album one of these years 'My Mind Capsized' is one of the songs I will be covering on it. As the beautiful song I hear it as inside my head. Here are the complete lyrics (well... almost complete - you'll notice two question marks - if anybody out there knows the missing words for certain PLEASE pm me):

"My mind capsized, I'm hanging to the hull
No now wait a minute, that's just my skull
There's a jackhammer and it seems to be hidden in my brain
And it feels like my blood is torrential rain, torrential rain

My favorite rainbow has just turned on
I do believe I'm coming down
My favorite rainbow has just turned on
I believe I am coming down, coming down, coming down.

The law of gravity's a friend of mine
It's a sensible law, I think it's fine
If a thing goes up eternity it must come back
That's a bona-fide certified natural fact, natural fact

But I hate to whine or be a bore
There's a (?) data a little more
Hate to whine or come on and be like a bore
But I wished I collated data a little more, a little more, a little more.

Why can't I stay up high there's (?) cloudy
In the open sky
Oppression and (?) dashing through the stars
Maybe Neptune Saturn even Mars, even Mars

But we must bow down to temporal worth
We must all come back to the planet earth
Bow down bow down to temporal worth
And we must come back down to earth, down to earth, down to earth
Ouch."

Answer: The Bottle Caps

Peter's 'other' band is The Bottle Caps, named after his number one hobby; he is a huge collector of bottle caps. They have actually recorded a number of records over the decades: 'Peter Stampfel and the Bottlecaps' (1986), 'The People's Republic of Rock n' Roll' (1989), 'You Must Remember This' (1994). I made up the other three band names. That said there actually was a Peter-fronted Unholy Modal Rounders in the mid seventies (which was the name the band went by for the Michael Hurley/HMR collaboration 'Have Moicy'). Steve Weber was not a part of this line-up of the band.

Answer: True

Believe it or not it's true. Not for anything he ever did with THMR but still true nonetheless! In 1998 he won a Grammy for writing the liner notes to the cd reissue of 'The Anthology of American Folk Music'. After winning the award he was asked what sort of plans he had for it. As per The New York Times he said "I'm going to put honey on mine and lick it off".