Gary Higgins
Red Hash

You know, right, that sooner or later you'll have to put your feet, now accustomed to shuffling around all day, back into those damned shoes?

Are you enjoying this substitute of the retired life which, now more than ever, will be just a fleeting chimera for many of us?

We're living like lovable seventy-year-olds and, perhaps, we even like it.

I've prepared myself. Here I am annoying everyone with my stories, pajama pants pulled up to my armpits, ranting at the television along with our Mayors and regional Governors.

IN JAIL! IN JAIL!

Now, to give myself some credibility, I'll say that at least one category of people – I know for sure – can greatly benefit from prison: singer-songwriters!

But do you know how many songwriters in search of inspiration could do well with a little vacation at the State's expense?

No, I haven't gone totally senile (maybe even that, but that's another matter). And I have proof of what I'm saying!

Take, for example, our Gary "the red".

(Okay, it's a story from fifty years ago, a retiree’s tale. Exactly!)

So, he had been strumming around for about ten years. He even shared the stage with Gary U. S. Bond, and played in a band with a future Silver Apples, but – nothing! – he never managed to be more than a Mr. Nobody.

So there we find him in '73, in a commune, buried under a beard and red hair, a late-coming freak trying to make ends meet by dealing a little hashish with his friend Chico Cardillo.

The problem is that good old Nixon, right around that time, decided to clean up the country. And he decided to start with small-time dealers, hippies, long-haired and various wasted folks.

Our Gary – a guy whom Nixon's g-men would have locked up anyway – gets caught red-handed (hash jam) and earns himself three years in the slammer.

But, before the sentence becomes effective, Gary decides to record an album.

Like the convict's last wish.

A bunch of friends (including a splendid cellist, named Maureen Wells) play for him, and his buddy Chico produces it. They even invent a record label to produce it.

They print a couple thousand copies and then head off to jail.

And so Gary disappears.

But the album does not!

And damn, it's beautiful!

Those who know more than me will write that it's a miracle balanced between Skip Spence's "OAR" and Crosby who can't remember his name; as for me, not knowing how to read or write, I'd say: even Tom Rapp and his more acoustic Pearls Before Swine.

A miraculous blend of folk songwriting, dreamy psychedelia, subdued oddities, and a subtle sadness of "end of an era" feels.

Gary disappears, but the album starts circulating under the radar; it ends up in many right hands, David Tibet, Joanna Newsom, "parsley" Banhart, Kid Millions from Oneida, and so on.....

In Italy, it’s printed in pirated copies sold at cutthroat prices.

Then it ends up in Ben Chasny's hands. And Ben really gets hooked: he records a cover of "Thicker Than A Smokey" from that album, then talks to the Drag City folks and convinces them to reissue "Red Hash" and sign Gary "The Red".

Okay, but where is Gary?

Well, Gary has disappeared.

But Ben won’t give up!

So he prints on the cover of one of his Six Organs of Admittance’s albums, a message: "anyone with information about Gary Higgins is requested to contact Drag City."

Moral of the story: Gary reappears, the album is now in Drag City’s catalog. And Ben, he's even taken Gary on tour with him.

Drag City has also made him record another album: "Second".

"Second" is beautiful, undoubtedly beautiful.

But....

Something is missing....

How should I say: that magic....

Should we consider sending him back to jail?