Freak Out, U.S.A. #1 - Warren

Fall 1967 - When I first talked about this magazine, I assumed that the issue I had was the only one--boy, I could not have been more wrong.

Not only did our Joe Jusko send me a scan of the cover to the first issue(I apparently owned the second issue--thanks Joe!), which he owns, but a quick look in the Checklist section in the back of TwoMorrows' The Warren Companion lists a third and fourth issue! Even TwoMorrows couldn't find any info on #s 3 and 4, so I don't know if I will ever find copies, but I plan to keep trying.

Anyway, the first issue--as you can see from the cover, Freak Out, U.S.A. was pretty indistinguishable from all the other music magazines of the time, and I'd say except for the tiny "A Warren Magazine" credit line on the upper left, you'd never know this was a Warren mag at all.

It starts off with articles on the Mamas and the Papas("They Show What Love is Like", "The Mamas and the Papas Talk About Kooks They Have Known and Loved"), and then devotes a whopping sixteen pages to the Monkees, featuring articles like this one:

Then there's a few pages on Paul Revere and the Raiders(including a separate article on someone in the band named...Fang?), Herman and the Hermits("Some Birds Really Bug Me!"), the Lovin' Spoonful, The Supremes(with all the psychedelia on display, it's nice to see some good old-fashioned Motown included), and then a piece on The Fugs, featuring a less-than-flattering promo shot:

Big-time rock stars or edgy drifters who will kill you in the back of their van? You decide!

There's more articles, on Jefferson Airplane, The Mothers of Invention, and then for a change of pace it ends with a piece on Twiggy. Groooovy.

Since I doubt I'll find the other two issues of Freak Out, U.S.A., this might be the last time we get to feature this mag on the blog. So let's end with Jim Warren's own thoughts on it, again courtesy of The Warren Companion:

Freak Out, U.S.A. - Warren

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)