1970 back in Sydney
Melissa 1970
L to R: Wol Sparke, Bob Gunn, JC, Rick Barrett
|
1970 back in Sydney, I joined local unit 'Melissa' a rock-fusion band…… somewhere between Jethro Tul and Big Brother and the Holding Co. with a little Astral Weeks thrown in from yours truly for good measure. I lasted there for about a year, recorded an album, 'Midnight Trampoline' (even the title conjures up images of 'Spinal Tap's' 'Smell the Glove'), Alas, I got itchy feet to travel again… Back to the 'old sod' new wife in tow………… (yes Tony Lunn's sister Penny.) On the way through London I got 'converted' by the, at that time, 13 year old Guru Maharaj Ji and Divine Light Mission. It was kind of mandatory to have a guru at that time, the Beatles having led the way with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This of course was all part of the search started by the influences of certain hallucinogens and my avid reading of books such as Aldous Huxley's 'Doors of Perception, Heaven and Hell', Herman Hesse's 'Sidartha' and 'The Glass Bead Game', Yoginanda's 'Autobiography of a yogi'.....all mandatory reading at the time for any self respecting spiritual quester.
Looking back on it now it was quite a beneficial thing. It got me out of drugs and gave me a positive focus. It did however cause me to freak some of my friends out with my fervent proselytising. Why is it we need to recruit others when we find ' the real thing' or 'the secret of life'? Maybe is serves to help convince ourselves that we are right. I apologise to all those I did this to but my intentions were from the heart. I wanted to help build 'the Golden Age on earth'!!!! God help us! I will say that although I have not continued to follow Maharaj Ji, my life has certainly benefited through the practice of meditation. So back I went to Belfast and succeeded in converting most of the old crew to the practice of meditation… some cursed me, some still thank me. It was then I decided to make the pilgrimage to India. So I set off on a bus………… yes, a bus… all the way from London to Delhi, expected to take 6 weeks. But I didn't reckon on encountering the Indo-Pakistan war of '71 and was stranded in Kabul Afghanistan for a couple of months. 
JC and Sawada Kenji
|
Starting to run out of money, decided to go up into Russia, across Siberia and on to Japan where we had heard you could make money teaching English and in my case from playing western music. So up into Tashkent, Uzbekistan across Siberia we went and after many adventures to be told another day, landed in Yokohama with about $100 in my wallet. Within a week we had a small flat in a little village, Shinmachi in the suburbs of Tokyo. I worked singing in a bar in Roppongi (Romi's) where a lot of foreigners congregated. During this time, I also worked with Japanese heartthrob Sawada Kenji teaching him how to sing in English. His record company were grooming him for a US release. It was quite a challenge as he didn't speak any English and I knew very little Japanese. I also met a local artist Osamu Kitajima and I recorded with him on many of his projects and sung on quite a few jingles in Japanese. Dr Osamu, as he is known now, has gone on to enjoy great success with many albums and now lives in Los Angeles.
Check out his Web site: http://www.eastquest.com/ NEXT: chapter 5 - 1973 back to Australia
|
