Psychedelic Jukebox: [1967] Kim Fowley - Reincarnation

 

In the summer‐laden musical ferment of 1967, while bands like The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, The Yardbirds and Quicksilver Messenger Service pursued genuine journeys into inner space and Eastern mysticism, Kim Fowley offered something entirely different with “Reincarnation”, a two‐minute burst of sardonic energy that satirized psychedelic tropes even as it mimicked them. Released as track B1 on his album Love Is Alive and Well (Tower label catalog DT‑5080), this song encapsulates Fowley’s flair for provocation and his ambivalent engagement with counterculture.

Recorded at LWG Studios, self‑branded by Fowley as The House For the Homeless Groups, the album was infamously produced for just five dollars and completed in five minutes, a fact Fowley repeated in multiple interviews: “It’s always a blatant cash‑in with me! … we made the record for $5 and I think they gave us $10”. This admission was hardly self‑deprecation—it was ideological. Fowley saw the record business as a spectacle, not a sacred art, and “Reincarnation” served as both a sales tool and a cultural critique.

Musically the track is constructed on a rhythm lifted unapologetically from The Seeds’ “Pushin’ Too Hard”, a riff repurposed by Fowley with tongue firmly in cheek. According to psych‑garage archivist Dr. Schluss’ Garage of Psychedelic Obscurities, the song nicks “the ‘Pushin’ Too Hard’ beat, which the Seeds themselves admittedly reused… about 57 times”. Michael Lloyd, then just 18 years old, served as arranger, engineer, instrumentalist and de facto producer on the record. On Reincarnation, Lloyd played nine instruments, including Vox Continental organ, tambourine and guitar, and shaped the entire raw groove upon which Fowley delivered his vocal manifesto.

Fowley’s vocal delivery on “Reincarnation” alternates between sardonic drawl and mock sermonizing, promising posthumous reincarnations that subvert spiritual ideals: “I’ll be back / as a brown paper sack, a wretched guitar or a Chinese car… I’ll reappear as a reindeer or a tin can full of ice cold beer…” These grotesquely banal images deflate the era’s language of transcendence, redirecting it into toilet humor and consumer metaphors, effectively turning flower‑power dreams into cheap carnival props.

The album’s artwork and liner commentary reinforce its satirical thesis. Head Heritage describes Fowley parading on the cover in a velvet jacket, grinning under late evening sun, hands pressed in prayer around a flower while dancing flower children cavort behind him: “He had unfeasibly big balls to foist this platter upon the public”. The liner notes wax poetic about childhood innocence as “the only flash of beauty and light upon the cropless field of life”, language so drenched in cliché that it practically reads as parody itself. Fowley’s mock sincerity drips from every phrase.

In interviews years later Fowley would elaborate that he was “the Master of Ceremonies” at love‑ins on the Sunset Strip, booking bands like the Peanut Butter Conspiracy, engaging poets, inciting audience participation, and reveling in performative spectacle rather than ideology: “I was very clever. I learned how to perform in England, so I suddenly miraculously appeared in California as this really good guy on stage … I was the Master of Ceremonies …”. He framed the record as opportunistic, stating bluntly, “I don’t do this for fun or for art!”—his guiding credo for the session, the album, and “Reincarnation” in particular.

Despite—or because of—its lack of polish, the track later gained cult reappraisal among psych‑garage enthusiasts, eventually resurfacing on revival compilations such as Mondo Hollywood: Kim Fowley’s Jukebox from Rev‑Ola.

1967, historically, was a crucible: the release of albums such as Sgt. Pepper’s, Surrealistic Pillow, Freak Out!, Electric Ladyland, and events like Monterey Pop and the proliferation of Transcendental Meditation. Within this landscape, most artists treated reincarnation as mystical hope, Eastern promise, or at worst, hippie naivety. Fowley’s approach was the mirror image: he reduced those aspirations into absurdist countdowns—rebirth as garbage, human detritus, or an inanimate tin vessel.

Beyond “Reincarnation”, Fowley’s career in 1967 and beyond is filled with paradoxes he embodied so well. Born July 21, 1939, in Los Angeles, son of actor Douglas Fowley, he battled polio as a teen and spent time in foster care, later describing his life as “constant performance and survival.” His early 60s hits include co-writing and co-producing “Alley Oop” (a 1960 #1 hit with The Hollywood Argyles), producing Nut Rocker (#1 UK, 1962), Popsicles and Icicles (#3 hit, 1963), and even appearing on The Mothers of Invention’s Freak Out! in 1965 credited as “hypophone” operator.

Michael Lloyd, who co-wrote nearly every track on Love Is Alive and Well, went on to produce stars such as The Osmonds, Shaun Cassidy, Belinda Carlisle, and remain active across the 1970s and ’80s. At the time of recording he owned his own studio, led the band The Laughing Wind, and worked closely with Fowley to shape his teenage voice into manic psych‑parody covariance.

Fowley recorded exactly ten songs on Love Is Alive and Well, including titles like Flower City, Flower Drum Drum, Super Flower, War Game and Me, with Reincarnation clocking in at precisely 2 minutes 8 seconds — the shortest track on side B, though his absurdist Super Flower also features an interview spoof rather than singing.

Despite Tower Records’ backing, the album sank without commercial impact. But Fowley’s self‑awareness and ironic veneer gave it a shelf life beyond charts. Today it is evaluated less as a psychedelic lie and more as a meta‑commentary on the commodification of flower power. The layered irony—flower power as commodity, cynicism mission as artifact—links “Reincarnation” to proto‑punk lineage, DIY ethos, and the anti‑heroic critique of pop culture.

You might also like following track: Psychedelic Jukebox: [1966] Things - In Your Soul

Sources:

1. https://www.discogs.com/release/2494927-Kim-Fowley-Love-Is-Alive-And-Well
2. https://ugly-things.com/kim-fowley-sins-secrets-of-the-silver-sixties/
3. https://psychedelicobscurities.blogspot.com/2009/11/kim-fowley-1967-love-is-alive-and-well.html
4. https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/kim-fowley-love-is-alive-and-well
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Fowley
6. https://www.discogs.com/release/2344503-Kim-Fowley-Love-Is-Alive-And-Well