You Are What You Eat

I've been an owner of this soundtrack album since 1968, and have always enjoyed it. It's a nice little time capsule of a long gone era.

I understand that the film is simply a documentary of a concert. Yes, it's true, I missed seeing the movie, although I had an opportunity to. You can't find it anywhere, either.

Peter Yarrow once told me (we spoke briefly in 1976) that Paul Stookey was the whispering voice on the song "Don't Remind Me Now Of Time" and that "EVERYBODY" was in on that recording session.

I believe that the movie title track was the best recording the Paul Butterfield band ever made. It's really hot!

If you ever see this LP at a used record store or convention, don't hesitate to buy it.

I agree with ALittleHawk. The locations were not solely in San Francisco, there are other locations and definitely one of them takes place in New York City. That's where Tiny Tim and Eleanor Barooshian were located at. Though, as to the claim that she was his girlfriend may be disputable. She looks very young in this clip. 1968?

The Cake were formed in 1967 and she looks to appear as a young woman in her very early 20s, although she was actually in her late teens. I think she is a year older than Jeanette Jacobs, who was born in Queens, in 1950. I have been having a difficult time searching for this movie as I realize it is rare.

I am actually trying to find more videos of The Cake, the best girl vocal group, IMHO, of the late 1960s.

I saw this at the Guild Theater in Portland when it first came out. It was a series of disconnected segments about various hip things going on in California in 1966-68, all set to music. Almost like a set of music videos.

A couple of the segments had to do with Family Dog, one of the more well known communal groups. One terrific segment was Frank Zappa playing a concert in LA. He was just sitting in a straight-back chair in one corner of a club with a light show going on playing unbeatable guitar.

Another part I vaguely remember was a song about a boy in his house. The song was silly/sweet and the camera followed a fiesty little three-year-old all over. Tiny Tim's number was mostly a head shot of him singing.

Peter, of Paul and Mary was one of the producers.

I liked it so much I went back to see it again. Mostly for the music. I'd like to get the soundtrack. I never met anyone else who saw it.

OK, to answer a few questions that others seem to have had:

1. Yes, this film *is* available, after a fashion. It's out there in collector's circles. I recently found a copy recently on a pirated DVD-R for under $20.00. It is the complete version, not the edited version. The transfer quality was excellent, whereas the quality of the original film reel was only good to very good.

2. The film soundtrack was released several years ago on CD. You can occasionally locate copies of it on E-Bay. That's where I got mine.

3. This is a very disjointed and boring film. If you are a Tiny Tim fan, or a Peter Yarrow fan, you will probably not be disappointed, but otherwise, unless you were part of the San Francisco Scene in the Summer of Love, you'll probably be as bored to tears as I was: this film was, according to the Album's liner notes an "anti-documentary" "about a particular moment in time." If you were there, you'll probably spot some familiar faces in the "Family Dog" sequence and in the "Be-In" footage. If you weren't, you'll see "just these spotty, dirty, kids" as George Harrison once described them-- it's clear this was not the Clearasil generation...

4. There is no logic, rhyme or reason to this film. No continuity. No order. Unrelated footage cuts in and out of scenes for no discernible reason.

5. The Tiny Tim sequences were filmed in the basement of Bob Dylan's "Big Pink" house with "The Band" (in their last appearance as "The Hawks" )as his back-up band in Woodstock, N.Y. Why Yarrow included them on this film, that otherwise limits itself to San Francisco is beyond reasoning. The raw tapes of this session are available on the bootleg "Bob Dylan, Tiny Tim and The Band: "Down In The Basement". What Mr. Tim (a New Yorker) has to do with the rest of the film, set as it is in San Francisco, and why they interspersed one of his performances with audience shots of the Beatles fans at Candlestick Park from two years earlier, is beyond explanation. (The only Beatles/Tiny Tim connections I know of are that the Beatles attended Mr. Tim's debut at the Royal Albert Hall in '68, and Mr. Tim later sang "Nowhere Man" on the Beatles 1969 Beatles Fan Club Christmas Record-- both of which are antecedent to this film's release.) Tiny's duet is with the lovely Elanor Baruchian, a young lady of his accquaintance (not his girlfriend as reported on The Band's website)who used to appear on the same bill with him at The Scene Club in New York City in 1966. Ms. Baruchian changed her name to Chelsea Lee and was a founding member of the Psychedelic Folk Rock trio "The Cake" and later was a vocalist in Ginger Baker's Air Force, and one of Dr. John's Nighttrippers. It was Tiny Tim's appearance in this film that opened the door for him to his invitation to appear on Laugh-In, The Tonight Show, and all of the subsequent fame to follow.

6. Frank Zappa, near as I can tell, does not appear in this film. His music certainly does not. Another reviewer claims that he is sitting on a chair on the side of the stage during the psychedelic light show of the topless go-go girl dancing... frankly, I nearly went blind trying to determine that the girls were, in fact, topless, and didn't notice Mr. Zappa anywhere on this film. The band playing during the Psychdelic Lightshow & Topless Go-go dancing was The Electric Flag, not The Mothers of Invention, who were an *L.A* Band, not a Frisco Band.

7. David Crosby *does* make a five second cameo in this film. He has no lines.

I found this soundtrack long ago, and it is really wacky and psychedelic. The Peter Yarrow song, "Silly Girl," is sweet and gentle as it segues into "Desert Moog," an early use of this keyboard. The Tiny Tim "Be My Baby" is hilarious, as are the seemingly meaningless quotes of the preacher man. I would really like to see this movie - the photos on the cover give some clue as to how irreverent and experimental it must have been. "The Helmet Commercial" for the German motorbike helmet is like old Firesign Theatre stuff. This soundtrack has influenced some funny moments in my personal life, as I have found myself thinking of the quotes and of Tiny Tim serenading some hog or politician's wife. Seeing this film would certainly solve a mystery for me.