Charles Mason: A Real Freeq Folk

Murder’s bad. I think that we can all agree on that. There isn’t really anyway to figure that killing another human being is acceptable – well, self defense, but that’s about it. How ‘bout profiting off of a killing? That’s specious stuff right there.

Being released first in ’67 and then again reworked and distributed in ’68, Charles Manson’s Lie (The Love and Terror Cult) didn’t really move too well. Released through the ESP imprint, its label honcho figured that again reissuing the disc during the murder trials subsequent to the ’69 spree that the Family went on wouldn’t hurt.

Well, the album probably sold a bit more briskly. And I suppose that the moral aspect to this becomes moot considering that Manson wasn’t able to make a profit off of his crime, but still…you know.

The harrowing story of Manson begins in Cincinatti, where he was born to a teenage mother. Manson, who took his step father’s name, never met his father. That meeting might not have made too much of a difference. Manson’s mother at one point sold him to a waitress for some beer. It mighta been a good deal. Soon enough, Manson’s mother sent him up to some Boystown styled reformatory.

What follows is a twenty year period of Manson breaking out of state run facilities, stealing cars, drivin’ back and forth across the country and having two kids – poor kids. He’d spent such a great portion of his life behind bars, Manson at one point asked to just stay there when he was up for parole.

With all that living, Manson certainly had some material for writing songs. But first he shacked up with some East Bay resident and convinced her that bringing other woman on down to their shared apartment was a good idea. Either way, that was basically the beginning of the Family who Manson would eventually convince to kill a buncha folks to spur on a race war. Some Dennis Wilson stories are in there somewhere, but he’s really a tangential figure.

With or without the Beach Boys’ help, Manson went in on fourteen songs that were released as Lie (The Love and Terror Cult). One would expect that everything included would be a disjointed sham comprised of nonsensical tracks. That’s not way off base, but…

The shambolic folk of “Ego” and “Mechanical Man” (maybe Devo heard the track at some point) is still startling today, but in an enthralling manner. There dashes of Eastern influenced percussion and dronings on. But those two tracks are both on some other plane that ‘60s musicians hadn’t all completely grasped in ’67. Sgt. Pepper’s really had nothing on this stuff.

“Big Iron Door,” which has been covered a few times, is just a jail bird song, but a few tracks prior, on “Arkansas,” Manson get’s all country style – and it works. The lead guitar isn’t too impressive, but between that, the sloppy strummed guitar and Manson’s surprisingly pleasant voice, the song’s a winner. Seriously.

This all might be too bizarre for folks who can’t see Manson outside of history, but give it a shot.