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Yahowha 13

Yes, Father Yod, or James E. Baker in real life, was leader of a sect in California back in the sixties, no there were no murders involved, no mass suicides either, just plenty of drugs, kinky sex, long hair and pastel colored robes. He and his followers had just moved to Hawaii shortly after the Manson murders to flee (amongst other things) the whole media coverage and bad reputation of such religious cults. During his stay on the islands, Father Yod (apparently pronounced like "toad") died in 1975 after a first-time hang-gliding incident. He survived the crash but refused treatment, opting instead for salt compresses and prayer. He died a few hours later due to internal injuries.

Pretty freaky story, but what is even more freaky is the musical legacy he and his tribe (including The Seeds' Sky Saxon!) have left behind. Backed by a health food restaurant (apparently the first one in California at the time), the Yahowha clan released album upon album in very limited quantities (around five hundred copies of each record) on their own Higher Key imprint which they sold directly from their business. They've remained quite obscure over the last two decades until fans of psychedelic music and artists like Steve Stapleton of Nurse With Wound (plus the advent of CDs) have once again created interest in the group.

Most of the many incarnations of the sect (Father Yod And The Spirit Of '76, Yahowha 13, which included Father Yod amongst the musicians and the posthumous releases and side projects, such as Fire, Water, Air & Yodship) sound quite amateurish, Father Yod's singing abilities can be considered to be "less then good", yet the whole insight within this cult is quite fascinating and makes for an intense experience. Wild would be an understatement. Some of it sounds similar to what The Doors were doing at the time, with a less poetic, more religious effervescence, some other albums are more on the heavy-psyche side while others are just plain weird! Definitely worth investigating, but besides the slow re-release schedule of Swordfish, who is releasing the albums in the US, the only way to get most of the recorded history of this community is by purchasing the 13CD box set by japanese label Captain Trip (may I suspect that Makoto Kawabata of Acid Mothers Temple might have had something to do with this?). There are still copies out there, but the box set is now also out-of-print.

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