Groovy Times are Rear Again

Welcome back to Castle Rackula, my friends. I hope your Halloween was as eventful as mine. Tony Curtis showed up unexpectedly to the party at about one AM, but I’m still not sure whether that was meant to be a trick or a treat.

But all the debauchery has got me thinking about the most debauched periods I ever lived through (so to speak). There was the French Revolution of course, and the last days of Rome, but nothing really compared to the years I spend hob-knobbing with David Crosby down in Laurel Canyon.

In honor of those heady (pun skin-tended) times, I would like to visit some of my favorite hippie horror movies. So light up that incense, stick on that Blues Image record and join me, won’t you?

Read more after the bite. more…

Joe Papp’s esteemed Public Theater in New York City let its freak flag fly – and its tie-dyed costumes hit the stage floor – with the debut of Hair, the “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical”, on this date in 1967.

Aside from a songbook that produced such mega-hits as the title song and "Age of Aquarius", Hair chronicled the ’60s counter-culture with all the necessary flourishes: flower-power, psychedelia, free love, and live nude singers and dancers.

After several stop-and-start stagings, Hair turned on Broadway audiences in 1968, and ran for 1,742 performances at the Biltmore theaters.

The show was revived numerous times and performed by countless groups all over the world. In 1979, Milos Forman directed the movie version of Hair, which features totally groovy nudity (especially in a PG-rated film) from Beverly D’Angelo, along with Nell Carter and Charlotte Raye shaking their groove things in a most mind-expanding manner.

Click the pic to see Beverly D’Angelo in the buff. In public!
more…

Nude Broadway Classic Had Crowds Doing More Than Just Dancing in the Aisles!

The musical revue Oh! Calcutta! started as the brainchild of British intellectual and social critic Kenneth Tynan.

It featured naked people singing and dancing, and became a worldwide sensation any place where audiences were interested in seeing live nude bodies.

No wonder Oh! Calcutta! went on to reign as Broadway’s longest running production, closing after nearly 6,000 performances on this date in 1989.

For the full skinny on the Great White Way’s greatest pink exposure, join us after the jump. more…