Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Turn On, Tune in…and pay heed.
The Counter Culture, the one great promise afforded to many who would see the world for its truth after World War Two, was sold a lie in many respects, it was one that was compounded by the sincerity of belief of two people to whom had decency in their heart at the outset, and one that carried a message that there is more to life than the capitalist scream that saw millions adopt an alien experience, running themselves into the ground in search of The American Dream.
That one moment that epitomises the counterculture argument and desire was arguably the festival at Woodstock, the towering example of being against the expected resolution passed down by archaic political will and the hangover of belief that the world had not changed its outlook that had lasted for several generations; a festival that is steeped in a mythos that resonates in the mind, that still excites the music lover and freedom movement with such regularity that the myth has given way to legend.
Counterculture’s supposed greatest gift was that of LSD, of acid, a small microdot taken would expand the mind, make you more open to transformation and life, and whilst Woodstock was its zenith in terms of public knowledge, the fact that it was produced by a student aiming for his own personal academic high and his girlfriend, is perhaps the story less known, and one that is given finally its true place at the podium of knowledge in the Rhys Ifans narrated Acid Dream: The Great LSD Plot.
The six-part radio series lays bare the myth and truth of scientist Richard Kemp’s discovery, the revolution that was expected, and the unbelievable fact that 60 percent of Acid production at that time was made and distributed from a small area of Wales.
Creating a disturbing but scintillating account of The Microdot Gang, of Richard Kemp’s own unexpected trip when he cut himself on broken glass from a test tube that had been holding the drug, of the public announcements that rounds of bad acid had made its way into the Woodstock crowd, and the finality that was inevitable as the powers that be deemed it dangerous enough to close it down and make examples of those at the top.
Whilst Operation Julie has been touched upon, the story behind Acid Dream: The Great LSD Plot has never found a way to be filmed, and yet its story is one of the most compelling of the 20th Century, the players, the network, and maybe its good intention, which has been shown by science since to have remarkable effects in others of medicinal application, are driven with tremendous appeal by its narrator, the talented Rhys Ifans.
There is so much to unpick from the experience of listening to the six-part radio series, so many rabbit holes of information, the understanding that the desire to create initially a better society, one that was derided by many as a hippie utopia, and one that broke arguably the hearts of Christie Bott and Richard Kemp as they became embroiled in what was essentially a business; the dream of rebellion and peace broken by the lure of money.
A lot to unpick, but worth every moment as the truth is revealed.
Turn On, Tune in…and pay heed; for the road to good intentions is littered with those who wish to make your dream a nightmare.
Ian D. Hall