Brown Acid and Werewolves on Wheels: The Endless Bummer of the '60s and '70s

 

The late 1960s and early 1970s in America were the site of massive, well-trodden cultural changes. The idealistic promise of the "Summer of Love" in 1967 and the years following proved more difficult to realize in practice. While the broad message was "love and peace," this didn't mean a culture-wide push for equality in terms of gender, race, sexual orientation and gender identity, or even an agreement on politics on any meaningful scale. This led to ideological and creative splintering, spawning a number of social, musical, artistic and creative movements, but also fostering resentment and disillusionment within the true believers of a hippie "movement" that maybe only ever existed from the outside looking in.

1971 film Werewolves on Wheels is a stoned, freewheeling, Satanic expression of the comedown from the Summer of Love. An occult horror/outlaw biker hybrid about a nihilistic hippie biker gang who anger a Satanic cult, Werewolves isn't the over-the-top goofy punchline or action-packed horrorfest the name and (admittedly very cool) poster suggest. Instead, it's a self-serious, meandering look at the group dynamics of a motorcycle gang that's eating itself from the inside out after getting mixed up with something it didn't ever fully understand.

The story opens on the gang, called The Devil's Advocates. After stopping at a monastery that they quickly discern is run by Satanic monks, the Advocates are tricked into staying until nightfall, at which point one of their number is pulled into a Satanic ritual. They manage to free her and continue on "to the desert, to get [their] heads straight." But every night when they set up camp, some portion of their party is brutally murdered, and they must struggle to stick together as a waning unit and figure out the root of the attacks.

"Snort a little cocaine with the devil! Pop a litte LSD with the devil!"- Adam, Werewolves on Wheels (1971)

This is at its heart a counterculture movie, and drugs, alcohol and uninhibited sex abound. The supporting cast was supposedly made up of real bikers, and the scenes of partying and camaraderie feel almost entirely unrehearsed. The characters are as lived-in as their filthy jeans and vests, even if none of them are fleshed out more than a name and a defining trait.

Stoner rock oozes from this movie, with none of the edges sanded off for public consumption. The cinematography revels in long, languid shots of the desert and the open highway, or framed group shots of the gang and the cultists. The soundtrack is fiery heavy psych, jangly folk-country and atmospheric free improvisation.

For all their talk of love and brotherhood, these bikers are nasty, self-centered and more than a little sexist. There's little in the way of salvation or redemption to be found for them here, either. But despite the grit, grime and wear, this is a dust-caked gem of 1970s counterculture cinema, and a trip worth taking for a viewer in the right state of mind.

Riding Easy Records' Brown Acid is a currently 12-volume compilation series (with the 12th volume having just been released as of publication) collecting rare heavy rock from the 1960s and 1970s. It's the hard-edged answer to the Nuggets series of compilations and its many acolytes and imitators. The "Brown Acid" title comes from a now-legendary PA announcement made at 1969's Woodstock festival warning festivalgoers not to take "the brown acid" being dealt on the grounds, and suggests the danger of a possible "bad trip" or worse.

Similarly, the slogan on the cover of Brown Acid: The Sixth Trip is "Heavy Rock from the Underground Comedown," a reference to the collective cultural hangover felt after waking up from the hippie dream. That feeling of strung-out nihilism is present across these collections. With a large enough dose of this brown acid, you'll be waking up bleary-eyed on the shag carpet of a Volkswagen van with little memory of how you got there and a killer guitar riff stuck in your head.

The songs collected on these volumes are fuzzed-out, loud, psychedelic, sloppy and vital. None of these bands ever sold many records, and many never released more than a few singles, let alone an LP. While there is certainly commercial appeal to some of these tracks, in many cases they're either too lo-fi, too heavy, too strange or too taboo to ever have made a mainstream impact.

Some of these tracks, even a few series standouts, are held together by sheer momentum. The Third Trip is opened by "Scream (It's Eating Me Alive)" by Grand Theft, a grooving slab of stoner rock punctuated by barely-contained vocal howls about being eaten alive by loneliness after being left by a partner. George Brigman's "Blowin' Smoke" from The Fifth Trip is lo-fi blues rock reminiscent of Safe as Milk-era Captain Beefhart, with Beefhart-esque talk-sung vocals that wander charmingly all over the track, sometimes matching the rest of the band and sometimes not so much. The psych rock of Renaissance Fair's "In Wyrd" from The Eleventh Trip is all lurking, horror movie menace, with stabbing keyboards, snarling hippie vocals and a long solo section in the middle.

From The Sixth Trip, "Inferno" by Heat Exchange is ripping, tight heavy prog supported by organ and saxophone about eternal damnation in Hell. "Dancing in the Ruin" by Debb Johnson, from The Eleventh Trip, is a politically-motivated mid-tempo psych groover about preventing the Apocalypse, punctuated by a downright Chicago-esque horn section. Captain Foam's "No Reason," from The Fifth Trip, melds Black Sabbath at their absolute heaviest with plaintive '60s psych-folk singing a la The Byrds and lyrics about the nature of existence. By contrast, all these tracks have the chops to hang in the mainstream, but their subject matter and heaviness were clear limiting factors.

As suggested by the series name, more than a few of these songs involve drugs, alcohol and being under the influence. "Don't kill the roach! Save it for later!" implores "The Roach" by Brood, from The Tenth Trip. Opening with the inhalation of someone hitting a joint, "Numbers" by Bungi from The Fourth Trip plainly states, "We came here to turn you on," then backpedals to sly double entendre, using "numbers" as now-outdated slang for a joint as well as a reference to the growing youth movement in the 1960s. "Wasted" by Zebra, from The First Trip is a tale of drug burnout and finding "the mess you left behind you" in the inevitable comedown from a binge.

50 years later, our cultural consciousness tends to distill this period into the most popular and striking art and culture. Werewolves on Wheels and the songs from the Brown Acid collections fit in the gulfs between those bullet points. Messy, meandering and sometimes socially regessive, they're also vital documents of perceived and imagined life during the period.

This is a sliver of the late 1960s and the early 1970s with its patina of scuzz left intact, smelling like sweat and weed and sex. It's important to remember all the voices these documents leave out, and to seek out those voices where still available. But also, sometimes you want to watch werewolves slit bikers' throats to a soundtrack of fiery feedback, or hear a man yell, "It's eating me alive!" as a ripping stoner riff comes in, and that's okay too.

Werewolves on Wheels is free to watch with ads on Tubi, both online and in the app.

Brown Acid Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 are available to buy digitally from Riding Easy Records' Bandcamp page, and in physical editions on a case-by-case basis. The newest volume, Brown Acid: The Twelfth Trip is available now from Riding Easy Records' Bandcamp in digital, vinyl and CD editions.

For those wishing to explore the many volumes of Brown Acid before buying them, stream this helpful user-created Spotify playlist of the first 11 trips, then support the artists by buying their music.