'The Fish' talks Afghanistan and acid trips
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LD16Ae01.html
Apr 16, 2010
By Richard S Ehrlich
BANGKOK - When Country Joe and The Fish performed their famous
satirical protest song I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die during the
1960s, they influenced many people's decision to oppose America's
disastrous Vietnam War.
Today, Barry "The Fish" Melton - still a self-proclaimed "leftist"
- grimly predicts that the US is doomed to also lose its war in Afghanistan.
"I don't think we should be involved in Afghanistan, I think it is a
waste of time and energy," Melton said in an interview on April 3,
when he arrived in Bangkok for his first visit to Southeast Asia.
"I've got to believe that whatever we are doing in Afghanistan will
end up in failure, that it can't have an outcome that is particularly
positive for anybody."
When Melton and "Country" Joe MacDonald formed the San
Francisco-based band, one of their most catchy and powerful songs had
a vaudeville-style chorus which mockingly taunted:
"And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam."
Gray-haired Melton, 63, now performs with other bands in California
and Europe. He is scheduled to perform at several venues in Bangkok,
Chiang Mai and Krabi in April.
But he worries that if he writes protest songs against the war in
Afghanistan, it might prove counter-productive.
"When we were doing our music in the '60s, we were doing our music
for people our age, who were often-times conscripted into the
service, to fight in a war that they didn't believe in, or
understand," he said. "It's much more difficult, in modern times,
with an all-volunteer army, and in a situation where I'm no longer of
the generation that's fighting. In a way, it's almost as remote as
going to fight a war on behalf of people who live 10,000 miles away.
It's not my generation's fight. It's another generation's fight.
"I'm not saying that I can't write a protest song. I'm sure I can.
I've written some before. I can write some more. But I can't tell my
kids what to do. In fact, if I wrote an anti-war song, one of them
might go join the military just to piss me off. I've got two boys,
one who is going to be 24 in July, and one who just turned 33," he
said. "I'm happy they're not soldiers."
Melton said his wife has "a nephew in the military. He's a sweet kid.
It's complicated stuff. He thinks he's doing the right thing, I'm sure.
"The country's always going to need a military, on some level. And
then the question becomes, 'So what are they doing?' - not, 'Why do
people join the military?'
"Sadly, we need cops too. Given what I've done for the last 27 years,
I'm not really a cop kind of guy, but I have friends who are cops."
Melton recently retired from a 27-year career as a California
criminal defense lawyer, including a decade as a public defender.
Over the years, Melton's strongest protests have been expressed
through his work as a defense lawyer.
"In my world, the issues that are paramount in importance are such
small issues as the over-incarceration of people of color, or the
over-incarceration of people, period.
"The repression of drug laws. The ridiculousness of laws that govern
people's sexual conduct, other than the exploitation of children. A
whole panoply of repressive laws, and questionable constitutional
practices, from an American point of view. Those issues are more
intimate to me."
Many fans heard Melton's opulent and eloquent guitar-playing with
Country Joe and The Fish on vinyl record albums, and at anti-war
rallies, Woodstock, the Monterey Pop Festival, and outdoor
psychedelic love-ins.
"We took acid a lot," a grinning Melton said, while describing some
of the band's early creative styles and the evolution of their unique
sound. "Certainly we recorded while we were high on acid. And we
certainly listened to music on acid, and used whatever state of
awareness we were in, while high, to make certain judgment calls.
"We were ordering peyote caps from a store in Texas or New Mexico,
because back in 1965 they were selling it legally. I want you to know
I didn't break the law. You could actually order it from some, like
nursery, or something like that in Texas or New Mexico.
"We sent for it in the mail, and they mailed us the peyote buttons,
and then we took the peyote buttons. And I used that to go mix the
first electric EP [extended play recording] of the band. By the way,
LSD wasn't illegal either, but that's another story."
Melton says he voted for President Barack Obama, but now suffers from
political bait-and-switch.
"Like most of my friends on the left, we have been disappointed that
the guy hasn't done more," Melton said. "He seems all too willing to
compromise on all too many issues, including Afghanistan, and the war
in Iraq, and the closing of Guantanamo Bay, and all kinds of issues
where he had a chance to really take a firm stance - and has not.
"Look, I thought that I was voting for the second coming of Franklin
D Roosevelt, OK? Call me crazy. I contributed a lot of money to his
campaign, and I thought he would take sweeping, broad moves like
Roosevelt did. Roosevelt put it all on the line.
"People don't realize how courageous Franklin Roosevelt was until
they look at somebody like Barack Obama and realize how
'uncourageous' he is. He is not Franklin D Roosevelt. Not even close.
He doesn't have the stature, and he doesn't have the character to
call himself a Roosevelt transformational figure."
Despite his shattered illusions, Melton remains loyal. "I'll probably
vote for him again. Especially if they put up somebody like Sarah Palin."
Ironically, Obama's election slogans were dreamy lyrics to Melton,
who ended up dancing to a seemingly imaginary tune.
"When he said 'hope' and 'change' and all those magical words, and it
was coming out of an African-American guy and me being an old civil
rights worker - I thought, 'wow, it's happening man'."
Melton arrived in Thailand for a one-month tour and the region with
his wife, Barbara, to visit a friend who lives in Bangkok, and see if
this region is "a viable option for playing music" alongside local musicians.
"I've been touring in Europe now for the last decade or so. In a lot
of ways, I'm probably more appreciated for my music in Europe than I
am at home. I want to see if there is a market here for what I do."
No longer jamming with Country Joe, Melton plays in and around San
Francisco in his own group - The Barry "The Fish" Melton Band - with
other aging rockers.
"I have Peter Albin on bass, who was the bass player with Big Brother
and the Holding Company; Banana on keyboards, who was a
multi-instrumentalist with the Youngbloods; and Roy Blumenfeld on
drums, who was the drummer for The Blues Project and for Sea Train.
"Now we're playing rock music, probably linked to our period, but
it's become in many respects an improvisational art form, akin to
jazz. It's a certain kind of improvisational rock."
.
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