I'm continuing with my profiles of odd Warren Publications magazines, and this is one of the oddest. Dig that cover, man!Freak Out, U.S.A. was published in--surprise!--the late 60s (1967, to be exact) to, in Jim Warren's own words, "cash in on the current music scene." To be fair to Warren, this magazine did feature articles on actual musicians of the time, as opposed to one-hit wonders or Teen-Beat-esque cover boys.
There are articles on The Rascals, The Beatles, The Blades of Grass (?), Harper's Bizarre (??), The Happenings (???), Every Mother's Son (??--ok, I'll stop now), Country Joe and the Fish, The Doors, and the Bee-Gees. Plus the inside back cover comes with wallet-size photos of Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Donovan, Barry Gibb, and others! All I can say is...groovy.
There's also an ad for Teen Love Stories, another publication Warren meant to use to cash in on a craze. I haven't gotten ahold of those little beauties yet, but I plan to...
(BTW, it's hard to see here, but it says "No.2" on the cover, even though there was no previous issue. Warren, to avoid having newsstand vendors (worried about putting a new magazine up for sale) bury the magazine, continued the numbering from a previously unrelated one-shot so it looked like this Freak Out had a bit of a publishing history)
3 comments:
FYI...Harper's Bizarre covered "Feeling Groovy" and had a hit with it. Every Mother's Son was a garage/bubblegum group featuring a couple of guys with Austin Powers-type glasses. They had a hit with "Come On Down To My Boat." Never heard of those other two groups...
Actually, there IS a previous issue!!! I know, because I have both of them! It's dated "Fall 1967". I'll get you a scan.
AWESOME, joe! can't wait to see it!!
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