It’s official. “As the Wind: The Enchanted Life of Eden Ahbez” has launched a crowdsourcing campaign and we need your help. The link is here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/as-the-wind-the-enchanted-life-of-eden-ahbez#/ For those fans who are unaware, long-time Ahbez historian Brian Chidester teamed up with filmmaker John Winer in 2017, and the pair have been working on a feature-length documentary…
Follow the progress of the Eden Ahbez documentary, As the Wind, with this behind the scenes series. Part one of three is linked here: Vimeo link:
At long last! A 78rpm single, written by Eden Ahbez, which has eluded me for more than twenty years, has finally materialized!! It is titled “Gravy Train” b/w “Two Shades of Blue” and is by Nature Boy and His Orchestra, on Mercury Records. The single was announced in Billboard magazine on March 31, 1951 and…
It gives me great pleasure to announce it first here that I am now working on a feature-length documentary about the life and music of Eden Ahbez. The film is to be titled “As the Wind: The Enchanted Life of Eden Ahbez” and is currently in production. Here is the promo, or preview, of things…
Last month I posted a quick blog announcing the rediscovery—by David De La Vega—of the flexi-disk of “Divine Melody,” an uber-rare single he produced with Eden Ahbez in 1982. The song, however, was recorded over a decade prior, as well as several other tunes written and performed by Ahbez (also produced by De La Vega). I…
“Divine Melody” is a recording that Ahbez made in 1971 and had released on Elefunt Records (backed with the song “Richard Milhous”). Then, in 1982, Elefunt re-released it as a flexi-disc. Dave De La Vega, the engineer of the record (and label owner of the indie Elefunt) recently came across a small stash of them and…
Erik Davis, author of the book Techgnosis: Magic, Myth, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, recently interviewed yours truly (Brian Chidester) for the Progressive Radio Network about the making of the new Eden Ahbez compilation, Wild Boy, on Bear Family Records. The show is called Expanding Mind and the episode (from December 8, 2016)…
The last time I spoke to author Gordon Kennedy, his book Children of the Sun was out of print. To date, it remains the authoritative text on the California Nature Boys and the transference of alternative culture from Germany to the deserts and shores of California during the early 20th century. Recently, Kennedy’s book was reissued.…
Here’s hoping for a new summer of love and thinking back on the original one in 1967… Behold! A version of “Nature Boy” by Grace Slick, lead singer of that seminal San Francisco psychedelic act, Jefferson Airplane. This version is by her original band, Great Society. Enjoy!
EDEN’S ISLAND 