David Peel & The Lower East Side - Have A Marijuana

David Peel was, and still is, a street musician and political activist from the Lower East Side of New York City. With a collection of friends who became his bandmates and who were eponymously called the Lower East Side, he recorded two groundbreaking albums of social reflections, urban tales, and hippie mythology for Elektra Records.

The first, entitled "Have a Marijuana", was released in 1968. The second, "The American Revolution", was released in 1970. Both were just exactly as you would think they would be from their album titles: Musical Counterculture Manifestos Presented With Guitars and Grins. Fugs parallels are hard to avoid in his pre-punk erratic jug band fashion.

Here´s "Have A Marijuana" to celebrate his wonderful, far out gig here in town some years ago:

David Peel & The Lower East Side - Have A Marijuana
(192 kbps, front cover included)


Review onallmusic.com:

"At first, second and third listen the debut record by New York street musician and John Lennon protégé David Peel seems pretty ridiculous. Recorded live on the streets of New York, the production is patchy, yielding more of a "recorded live in someone's bathroom" vibe than anything else. Then there's the lyrics, all of which are juvenile, dated and delivered in an erratic Tiny Tim-meets-Cheech & Chong style. But somewhere around the fourth or fifth listen Peel and his merry band of misfits begin to grow on you. By the six or seventh spin songs like "I Do My Bawling in the Bathroom" and "I Like Marijuana," with their dumber than dumb choruses and out of tune folk-rock progressions, actually become charming. Perhaps it's because Peel, a marginal figure born to be a cultural relic, is a much more interesting, exciting and entertaining '60s icon than all the overblown, bloated characters like David Crosby and Grace Slick. Unlike them, Peel never came in from off the streets. In fact, he can still be found singing these songs in New York's Tompkins Square Park to this day. And while that's mildly pathetic, it's also heartening. When he sings about smoking some grass and getting harassed by lame cops (the topic of just about every track) you tend to believe him."