The movie that left Jimi Hendrix “in pieces”
The quest for the greatest guitarist of the past century invariably leads back to Jimi Hendrix. Although many have attempted to replicate what he could do both in the studio and onstage, no one can quite capture his aura when he strapped to a guitar, emoting through his instrument every time he played. Despite Hendrix being a major figure in the music world, he admitted that the indie film The Awakening Urge was a mind-blowing moment for him upon seeing it for the first time.
For many artists looking to find their calling in the arts in the late 1960s, a number of the mediums had started blending. Even though Hendrix was responsible for expanding the vocabulary of what a guitar could do at the best of times, many of his contemporaries were also delving into the film world.
Far from the rock and roll movies that Elvis Presley had made famous in the 1950s, movies like The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour were expanding the minds of those who were used to the standard dramas that had come out of the past few years of cinema. One aspiring filmmaker making his name around the same time was Jonathan Stathakis, who was just hitting the ground running with his indie upstart The Awakening Urge.
Even though many films around that time were experimenting with what could be done behind the camera on movies like Wonderwall, The Awakening Urge took the psychedelic aesthetic to the next level, featuring different moments that captured the imagination of what the ‘Swinging London’ scene was up to during the summer of love.
While the movie would only be given a limited release, Stathakis would not stand by the film afterwards, calling most of the work done on the film “a total piece of shit”. Although Stathakis would later turn in time to work on bigger budget films like 1966’s Electronic Lover, he did have a fan in the guitar-playing legend.
In his book Jimi and Me, Stathakis remembered his first meeting with Hendrix after coming off the release of The Awakening Urge, initially being too starstruck to speak to the musician. Once his latest indie film was brought up, though, Hendrix said that he had never seen anything like what the director was able to capture.
Waxing poetic about the film, Stathakis remembered Hendrix seeing the beauty in what the director had made, saying, “[He said], ‘“I caught it in London. Saw it by accident. I don’t even know the theatre. Man, talk about one long, wild acid ride. Left me in pieces. Trippin’ off the planet. You know, Lucy in the sky and all that shit.’ I was no longer talking to a legendary guitarist but to some guy who liked a movie made by a bunch of amateurs, me included, that had somehow ended up playing in some obscure theatre in London”.
Even though Hendrix was proud to share his love of the film, it would eventually be lost to history. Outside of its casual mention, it has not been available on any streaming platforms. It has remained a lost artefact of the time, with Stathakis not putting it alongside any of his central works.
Despite not surviving through the years, Hendrix seemed to take inspiration from the imagery from the film, with songs like ‘1983 (A Merman I Should Be…)’ practically capturing the same freeform psychedelia that he described about the film. Hendrix may have been able to translate all of his interests into his music, but The Awakening Urge remains a potential indie classic lost to time.
