THIS IS BOSTON, NOT LA, OR "ASTRAL WEEKS: A SECRET HISTORY OF 1968"

 Van Morrison's 1968 album "Astral Weeks" is a yearning, poetic masterpiece, a blend of jazz, folk and ...I dunno, some sort of ancient Celtic mysticism. For all my music nerddom, I only listened to it for the first time about a year ago, probably because I didn't feel I needed to hear anything more from the guy responsible for "Brown Eyed Girl," a song I've probably heard more than "Happy Birthday" or "Jingle Bells," and one that usually comes right before the hated Jimmy Buffett when someone is playing an acoustic guitar out in public, and I politely get up and leave. 

I was browsing the music section at the used book store a couple months ago and came across Ryan H. Walsh's "Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968." I had a ton of credit, and had heard that Van Morrison was kind of a prick, which always makes for an entertaining read, so I bought it without any investigation.

Astral plane, baby!

I wonder how many other people bought this expecting it to be a recounting of the making of "Astral Weeks," and were disappointed? Because I totally was not. Living up to the book's subtitle, this is basically a history of the '60s counterculture in Boston with Van Morrison kind of threaded throughout.

Actually, the bigger story throughout "Astral Weeks" is the Lyman Family, a cult who built an abandoned castle into a walled fortress and was partially funded by artist Thomas Hart Benton's granddaughter. Apparently at the time they were right below Manson's family in terms of notoriety (even without a body count), and were mentioned by Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and Lester Bangs. Founder Mel Lyman did the usual cult leader stuff - controlling when his flock slept, who they slept with, when they could speak - with generous amounts of LSD and hippy daddy authoritarianism. They also published "Avatar," an underground newspaper which did not sit well with Mayor William Hayes' declared "War on Hippies."

Along the way we discover "What's Happening, Mr. Silver," a surreal psychedelic TV show years ahead of its time, the occult history of Boston, Harvard and the CIA's history with LSD, James Brown stopping riots in the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr's death, how Boston was an epicenter of draft resistance, the star of "Zabriski Point" robbing a bank for the revolution, and Warner Brothers pushing something called "The Boston Sound," and creating 'franchise bands' that could tour the country under an established bands name. 

Walsh ably keeps things flowing and manages to keep the reader's interest through all these interlocking parts, and he has a fine, workmanlike style which helps ground the craziness of the stories. And the thing seems remarkable free of typos and fact errors, unlike last month's book. 

Sex/Drugs/Bad Behavior - 7/10  There's acid and weed all over the damn place, and lots of 'breaking society's taboos' type stuff with nudity and bad words, but nothing super explicit - even the freaky cult stuff is more hinted at.

Percentage of Music in Bio - Overall, let's say 50 percent. Just don't go in expecting a straight Van Morrison bio, and you'll be alright. 

Namedropping - Not really namedropping, but pretty much everyone alive at the time makes an appearance - Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, Michelangelo Antonioni, Timothy Leary - if they were around at the time, they probably show up.

Buy, Borrow from the Library, or Pass - Breaking my tightwad streak here, but if you have any interest in the '60s counterculture away from the usual New York/ San Francisco axis, you should buy it.