Ken Babbs - Acid Tests and Furthur

Acid Tests and Furthur

What started as a Happening emerged into a global frenzy and inspired people, still today. According to Babbs, a Happening is something that “can’t be planned ..It just happens! It takes place in public or private and involves everyone present. In Phoenix in 1964, we painted ‘A Vot for Barry is a Vot for Fun’ on the side of the bus and waved flags and played stars and stripes forever..this qualified as both a prank and a Happening.” .

The most famous happening of the Pranksters was the nationwide trip on the Furthur. While on a trip to New York, the Pranksters needed an automobile that could hold fourteen people and all of their filming and taping equipment. One of the members saw a “revamped school bus” in San Francisco that was for sale. The Pranksters bought the bus and named it “Furthur”. Babbs was the engineer for the bus. Babbs is mostly credited for the sound systems he created for the Trips Festival. Prior to Babbs’ creation, it was discovered that particular music usually sounded distorted when cranked to high levels because of the cement floor on the San Francisco Longshoreman’s Union Hall (where the Trips Festival was taking place). Babbs being a sound engineer resolved the problem. He made sound amplifiers that, when turned up to high sound levels would not create distorted sounds.

The purpose for this Happening was to link the psychedelic tribes from the west and the east. Many people tend to remember the east tribe because of Timothy Leary and LSD. Many misjudgments have been made on the Pranksters and their promotion of LSD. However, Babbs makes it clear that “just because we used LSD does not mean we were promoting its use. (LSD) is a dangerous drug.. a way, I guess, of breaking down the conformist ideology.” .

During the legendary Prankster cross country bus trip to the New York World's fair in 1964, an epic movie was filmed and shown at several “Acid Tests”. The film is called "The Merry Pranksters Search for a Kool Place". Some have compared the Prankster’s trip to the Acid Tests. Babbs assures that the “Acid Tests came after the bus trip and came about because we were editing the movie of the bus trip and began renting places to show the movie and play our music.” What inspired the Acid Tests was when the Pranksters met the Grateful Dead. Babbs relates to that time as “it was the power that propelled the rocket ship everyone rode to the stars and beyond the whole night the acid test took place.”

Looking back at his experiences as a Merry Prankster, Babbs says he wants younger and future generations to carry on “love, peace, and happiness; extended in practicality to the simple act of helping one another out, being kind and generous.”