The strange rock ‘n’ roll sounds of the Source Family cult
If you’re going to join a cult formed around the ideas of communal living, free love and preaching Western esotericism, the chances are you’re going to want to find something else to do with your free time.
Only so much energy can be devoted to this sort of cause, and while sex, marijuana and yoga are all fun things to spend your day indulging in, a constant cycle of these three activities is going to get a bit tiresome after a while. For Father Yod of the Source Family, he had two outlets which he and his followers pursued in addition to following his teachings: setting up a chain of organic health food restaurants and being in a psychedelic rock group.
Cults and music have a long history of being intertwined, with the likes of Charles Manson having attempted to worm his way into the music business with a series of earnest folk rock records prior to his descent into preparing for an apocalyptic race war and murderous exploits. Waco siege leader David Koresh was also an active member of a cult, the Branch Davidians, and was known for having recorded his own music as well, which was also of a folk-oriented and heavily religious nature.
The Source Family were a little different, however, and not only were their ideals as a cult far from the horrifically violent and barbaric ways of the aforementioned examples, but their music was pretty far removed from what Manson and Koresh made as well. In fact, it was far removed from most music. Largely operating under the name Ya Ho Wha 13, a moniker given to them by their leader in honour of the tetragrammaton, or Hebrew name for God, they released nine albums of truly mind-bending psychedelic sounds that were often improvised or built around freakish jam sessions. Father Yod simply chose to splash $30,000 on instruments and recording gear and allowed the rest of his group to run free with their ideas.
Father Yod wasn’t exactly from a normal background prior to having formed the cult, and his colourful past as a jiujitsu master, wannabe Hollywood stuntman and the fact that he killed two men with his bare hands only tells a small fraction of his tale. The domineering figure, born Jim Baker, had by the early 1970s amassed a following of impressionable youngsters who were duped into becoming his ‘children’ or ‘wives’ and, more appealingly, being members of the Source Family band.
Musically, the group sat somewhere among other far-reaching psychedelic bands, such as the Jimi Hendrix Experience and 13th Floor Elevators, while also occasionally performing some slightly more conventional sunshine pop of the 5th Dimension. Characterised by tribal drumming and fuzzy electric guitar sounds, their music was pure, spontaneous expression fuelled by spirituality. Lyrically, the band would use their music to preach these New Age-adjacent beliefs, though their music was rarely ever heard outside of the cult due to limited pressings of their records.
Despite this, it could be said that they gained something of a cult following – as in, they had a small number of curious fans from outside of the sect. Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has rhapsodised about their output in the past, and Andrew Savage of Parquet Courts is a known fan of the group as well. Their recent resurgence in popularity is a result of the fact that US record label Drag City funded a documentary about the group in 2012 and issued a compilation of their work the following year as a follow-up to the film. To say that the Source Family have been sent to the depths of obscurity would be inaccurate, and they continue to be discovered to this day despite having disbanded after the death of Father Yod in 1975.
In addition to the nine releases by the band, there are said to be over 60 lost albums’ worth of material floating around, though the cult’s archivists and historians have not made the whereabouts of these tapes known or public. It’s doubtful as to whether all of it would be listenable or enjoyable either, but the fascinating story of how one megalomaniacal man who convinced a bunch of outcasts and dropouts to follow him on his spiritual journey makes the prospect of uncovering what offbeat and unconventional ideas they never released all the more exciting.
