Starting At Zero

by Jimi Hendrix

  Maybe the group only exists for one album, maybe they go on for a year or so together, but they don’t stretch it out once it has started losing the sheer exuberance of jamming together. Like they take up a kind of sound and then develop it, and out goes the heart of it. It becomes a sort of exercise in technique. Everybody loses interest, and back they go to a more basic thing. Blues is basic. So too is a lot of country music. So you get these two things there at the roots of what’s going on.

  {TOWARDS THE END OF 1968 THERE WERE RUMORS THAT THE EXPERIENCE WAS BREAKING UP.}

  We are not breaking up – no, no, no! There are so many rumors going round right now. We are discussed over and over. There has been too much talk about how I can go it alone. But I would never have made it as the Jimi Hendrix Experience without Noel and Mitch. I’ve always insisted we were a three-piece group and should be acknowledged as such. Our group is just going to be called “Experience” in the future. It’s wrong that the spotlight should just be turned on one guy all the time.

  What we need now is a good rest. We’ve hardly had a day off since the group was formed two years ago. None of us has had time to sit down and think by himself. We might be working a little less, but our records will be better, because we’ll have better peace of mind.

  You know, it’s like being married with me and Mitch and Noel. Sometimes they might want to tell me something and I might not be able to understand, and it gets frustrating. Anytime you make a song, you want your own personal thing in it as well as the group’s. So we’ll continue to play together, but we have to make sure that each one of us has a chance to grow within the group. All three of us have individual interests. We work together in the Experience, but we are not tied down to that alone.

  I’d like to see Mitch and Noel getting into the things that make them happy. Doing your own thing is what it’s all about. Noel has this thing called Fat Mattress and wants to go on an English rock thing. How about that! Anglo Rock! A pseudo blues-rock music! Mitch is involved in his Elvin Jones thing. He’s becoming a little monster on the drums. He’s the one I worry about losing. He’s becoming so heavy behind me that he frightens me!

  Oh, I’ll be around, don’t worry ... doing this and that. I’m not going solo, I’m just going to be a little different. I want to do a Super Group album with guests like Clapton, Winwood and Mayall. People I really dig. But we’ll still keep on with the Experience. We’re together as long as we want to be.

  THIS ROOM IS REALLY BEYOND MY IMAGINATION. THIS ROOM IS FULL OF MIRRORS. THERE’S NO DOOR, NO WINDOWS, NOT EVEN A CARPET AS OF WHERE I COULD VOMIT OUT MY OTHER THOUGHTS. TOP, BOTTOM, LEFT, RIGHT, FRONT, BEHIND ME, I CAN SEE NOTHING EXCEPT FOR THIS ROOM SET IN A MIRROR. AND WITH THIS ROOM BEING NOTHING BUT MIRRORS, I CAN PROBABLY STAY IN IT.

  THERE’S A CERTAIN PERSON THAT COMES IN HERE CERTAIN TIMES, AND HE LOOKS SOMETHING LIKE ME. REALLY STRANGE. I DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM, AND HE BRINGS HIS FRIENDS IN, AND HE BRINGS MY WHOLE WORLD, MY WHOLE DAY AND NIGHTS IN. HE CHANGES MILLIONS OF TIMES, HE TURNS ROUND ON A CIRCLE AND DRIVES ME COMPLETELY OUT OF MY MIND. THERE ARE VERY, VERY INTERESTING THINGS THAT HE TELLS ME. HE SAYS I AM HIM AND HE IS ME, AND HE SAYS, “MAN, YOU REALLY ARE IN NEED, AND YOU JUST SCREAM, BUT YOUR VOICE IS NOT HIGH ENOUGH TO SCREAM WHAT YOU WANT TO SCREAM.” I SAY, “MAN, DIG, WHAT DO I WANT TO SCREAM?” AND AS I SAY THIS THE MIRRORS ARE BEATING THE HELL OUT OF MY MIND. I FEEL LIKE MY MIND IS HUNG UP ON A CLOTHES RACK. WHERE’S MY LOVE? MY LOVE COMES INTO MY IMAGINATION, NOT TO MY EYES, BUT I CAN’T SEE MY LOVE. I WANT TO SO DESPERATELY.

  I WANT TO GRASP ON TO ANYTHING BESIDES MYSELF. I TURN TO THE WORLD. WHAT HAS THE WORLD TO OFFER ME EXCEPT PATS ON THE BACK, SHAKING HANDS, MAKING PLANS? HE SAYS, “YOU BETTER TURN THAT RECORD OVER. TAKE ALL SOUNDS OUT OF YOUR HEAD. YOU BETTER SCREAM FOR SOME KIND OF RELEASE.” I SAY, “MAN, DIG, I’VE BEEN SCREAMIN’. I SCREAM RAYS OF ACID, I SCREAM RAYS OF SPEED, I SCREAM RAYS OF TEA, COFFEE, MILK, CIGARETTES. WHAT ELSE? WHAT ELSE?” HE SAYS, “LET ME SEE YOUR FRIENDS. SCREAM OUT THE REFLECTION OF YOUR FRIENDS.” AND YOU KNOW I’M GONNA SCREAM. THERE ARE A MILLION LIONS TRAPPED IN THE GRAND CANYON. SCREAM OUT. FRIEND. GOD, TELL THIS IDIOT TO GET THE HELL OUT OF ME. “MAN,” HE SAYS, “SCREAM YOUR LOVE AGAIN.” AND I SCREAM AS HARD AS HELL. LOVE! SAY SOMETHING. EVEN IF YOU ARE NOTHING AT ALL, JUST HELP ME, FOR I FEEL RIGHT NOW THAT I AM LESS THAN THAT. I HEAR ANOTHER VOICE COMING THROUGH THE MIRROR TO THE FRONT, AND I SNATCH AND BREAK, SMASH IN FRUSTRATION. SOMEBODY HELP ME. SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME! SO HE SAYS, “START ALL OVER AGAIN.” I START ALL OVER AGAIN. MAN, I CAN’T EVEN TELL MY FEET FROM THE SAWDUST ON THE FLOOR. I can see through that.

  Yeah, brother, I can see that.

  Dear Sirs,

  Here are the pictures we would like for you to use anywhere on the LP cover. We would like to make an apology for taking so very long to send this, but we have been working very hard indeed, doing shows AND recording. And please send the pictures back to Jimi Hendrix Personal & Private, c/o Jeffrey & Chandler, 27 East 37th St., NY, NY, after you finish with them. Please, if you can, find a nice place and lettering for the few words I wrote named ... ‘Letter to a Room Full of Mirrors’ on the LP cover. The sketch on the other page is a rough idea of course … but please use ALL the pictures and the words. Any other drastic change from these directions would not be appropriate according to the music and our group’s present stage – and the music is most important. And we have enough personal problems without having to worry about this simple yet effective layout.

  Thank you.

  Jimi Hendrix

  {ELECTRIC LADYLAND HAD BEEN RELEASED IN THE U.S. IN OCTOBER 1968. IT WAS IN THE CHARTS FOR THIRTY-SEVEN WEEKS AND REACHED #1, THE ONLY EXPERIENCE ALBUM TO ACHIEVE TOP BILLING.}

  I’M KIND OF PROUD of Electric Ladyland because I really took the bulk of it through from beginning to end on my own, so I can’t deny that it represents exactly what I was feeling at the time of production. It was really expensive to produce, about sixty thousand dollars, I guess, because we were on tour at the same time, which is a whole lot of strain on you. It’s very hard jumping from the studio onto the plane, doing the gig and then jumping right back into the studio.

  We were having to always go back in the studio again and redo what we might have done two nights ago. We wanted a particular sound. We produced it and mixed it and all that mess, but when it came time for them to press it, quite naturally they screwed up, because they didn’t know what we wanted.

  There’s a 3-D sound being used on there that you can’t even appreciate because they didn’t want to cut it properly. They thought it was out of phase. See, when you cut the master, if you want a really deep sound, you must almost remix it again right there at the cutting place, and 99 percent don’t do this. They just say, “Oh yeah, turn it up there, make sure the needle doesn’t go over there, make sure it doesn’t go under.”

  We didn’t get a chance to complete it because we were on tour again. When I heard the end result I thought some of the mix came out kind of muddy. Not exactly muddy, but kind of bassy. Then the engineers retaped the whole original tape before they pressed the record for Britain, so much of the sound that existed on the American album was lost. Now I’m learning more about this kind of thing so that I can handle it myself.

  I care so much about my work. I record stuff I believe is great. The only time I get uneasy is when I know that the pop critics and writers are waiting for me to fail so they can jump all over me. This is how pop is. You have a hit record and, gee, they love you, but you have one failure and they kill you.

  It’s like a tightrope.

  THE NEW ALBUM, Electric Ladyland, seems to have got me into a bit more trouble with people. It seems that folks in Britain are kicking against the English cover. Man, I don’t blame them. I had no idea they had pictures of dozens of nude girls on it. I wouldn’t have put that picture on the sleeve myself, but it wasn’t my decision.

  Over here there’s just a picture of me and the boys. First I wanted to get this beautiful woman, Veruschka. Sh
e’s about six-foot-seven, and so sexy you just want to, hmmm . . . We wanted to have her leading us across the desert and have these chains on us. But we couldn’t find a desert because we were working, and we couldn’t get hold of her because she was in Rome. Then we had this one photo of us sitting on Alice In Wonderland, a bronze statue in Central Park, and we got some kids and all.

  I didn’t know a thing about the English sleeve. Still, you know me, I dug it anyway. Except I think it’s sad the way the photographer made the girls look ugly. Some of them are nice looking chicks, but the photographer distorted the photograph with a fish-eye lens or something. That’s mean. It made the girls look bad. But it’s not my fault. It’s the other folks, you know, the people who are dying off slowly but surely. Anybody as evil as that dies one day or another.

  I’ve got a lot to offer pop, but pop has less to offer me back because it is run by people who only talk about what is commercial. All these record companies, they want singles, because they think they can make more money. But you don’t just sit there and say, “Let’s make a single.” We’re not going to do that. I consider us more musicians, more in the minds of musicians. You’ll have a whole planned-out LP, and all of a sudden they’ll make, for instance, Crosstown Traffic a single. See, Electric Ladyland was in a certain way of thinking, and the sides were played in order for certain reasons. It’s almost like a sin for them to take out something in the middle to represent us at that particular time. They always take out the wrong ones. It shows you how some people in America are still not where it’s at.

  You don’t even have no friend scenes. I walked into a store and saw this record with my name on it. When I played it I discovered that it had been recorded during a jam session I did in New York when I was a backing musician with a group called Curtis Knight and the Squires. We had only been practicing in the studio, and I had no idea it was being recorded.

  That album was made from bits of tape, tiny little confetti bits of tape. Somebody has taken their scissors from Sears and Roebuck and spliced a few seconds of tape and put it on there. It’s a whole lot of hogwash. I’m only on about two tracks. I didn’t sing on Hush Now. That was dubbed on later by Knight trying to copy my voice. On the other, Flashing, all I do is play a couple of notes, and the guitar was out of tune, and I was stoned out of my mind.

  Man, I was shocked when I heard it. It was just a jam session, and here they just try to connive and cheat and use. It’s a really bad scene. Somebody trying to capitalize on somebody’s name. They never told me they were going to release that crap. That cat and I used to be friends. That’s the real drag about it.

  {JANUARY 4, 1969, THE EXPERIENCE APPEARED ON THE LULU SHOW ON BBC TV. JIMI UPSET LULU AND THE BBC BY ABRUPTLY SWITCHING FROM HEY JOE INTO SUNSHINE OF YOUR LOVE AS A DEDICATION TO THE RECENTLY DISBANDED CREAM.}

  It was the same old thing with people telling us what to do. They wanted to make us play Hey Joe. I was uptight about it, so I caught Noel’s and Mitch’s attention, and we went into Sunshine Of Your Love. If you play live, nobody can stop you or dictate what you play, beyond setting a time limit. I dream about having our own show.

  Say, wouldn’t it be great to take over the studio like they do in Cuba!

  We’d call it The Jimi Hendrix Show – Or Else! And there will be no smoking in the gas chamber while we’re on!

  We’re planning to promote our own concerts at the Royal Albert Hall on February 18 and 24. We’ll do two shows ourselves and book some nice groups. We’d like Jim Capaldi’s new band and Spike Milligan. We’d like him to be the compere. He’s my sort of comedian. They don’t have The Goon Show in America. They’re masterpieces. Those are classics. They’re the funniest things I’ve ever heard, beside Pinky Lee. Remember Pinky Lee? They are like a whole lot of Pinky Lees together. Just flop them out together. I used to be a Pinky Lee fan. I used to wear white socks.

  {FOR THE REST OF JANUARY THE EXPERIENCE TOURED EUROPE, PLAYING IN SWEDEN, DENMARK, GERMANY, FRANCE AND AUSTRIA.}

  It’s nice to be back in Stockholm. I like Sweden. I wanted to give everything to get them into my music, but I failed. We haven’t played in so long that it takes a while to get into the groove of it. It made me desperate. The worst of it was the staring, lifeless faces in the front row.

  We also played in Gothenburg, and many people wondered if it didn’t feel a little unpleasant to play there after the trouble with the broken window at the hotel last year. We stayed at another hotel this time.

  I think pop groups have a right to their own private life. People should judge them by what they do onstage, as singers and musicians. Their private life is their own business, and people shouldn’t know too much about that. You can’t expect artists to be goody-goodies all the time. In any case, kids aren’t as dumb and easily influenced as some people think. They have a lot of common sense. Any kid that does something bad because a certain pop idol did it would probably have done it anyway.

  LETTER FROM JIMI HENDRIX TO HIS MANAGER’S OFFICE, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1969:

  Most of these notes are in preference to a hopeful contact with England via phone ... The date of February 10th meet must be canceled because of exhausting but very important business over here ... If 24th Albert Hall England goes through confirmed we should, as you said, either abandon or really rethink the idea of the three individual groups idea for 24th and stress in England phone call that if by all means possible we should have previous day of concert (AH England) for ultimate private rehearsal in preparations for recording. Maybe afternoon, evening, whatever available …

  Tables: trash everything out of Generation that we do not need. This done as soon as possible.

  At least let it be mentioned, interview with Rolling Stone will not be over telephone but in person... Preferably tape interview. Matter of fact, please ask me about things like interviews in immediate future and please keep in mind that tape interviews are a must if it’s a major or important article. We have an offer from Village Other (weekly newspaper, very good) about interview. Please have them call if possible to set a date before I leave or call them.

  Recording: Albert Hall February 18th & 24th? Please try to find out definitely about who will engineer recordings. Very important As Soon As Possible. Please tell Mercury Records to stop hassling over names and payment agreements as far as Buddy Miles Express album goes. Please tell them both the group, the Emmy and myself are quite happy with the idea.

  I would like to see personal accounts on expenses (as close as possible) to the present. Also on personal rough net figures. I know they should be able to take at least 5 or 10 minutes today and reply over the phone or by messenger service in an envelope an estimate of what is happening … For replacing time and acts on the bill 24th please look into booking Jethro Tull, Noel Redding’s outfit (if not only for 20 minutes). A very definite word from Noel about that. We would like to try recording the Albert Hall on the 24th as well as the 18th. 24th possible: Jethro Tull, Cat Mother or Buddy Miles Express or “Face” (check with Speakeasy’s Roy Flynn).

  Later this evening I would like to check out moneys we may have coming in or lined up like posters, publishing royalties, record royalties, writer’s, etc.

  Oh yes, almost forgot: please make it clear to Mercury (contracts included or whatever legal means) that in due time the Buddy Miles Express new LP will be one of the biggest for Mercury and we are all (the group and myself) working very hard on it and it would seem to be honestly fair for my name alone to appear as producer and receive normal producer’s fee. If there are hang-ups on Ann Tanzy’s (sp.?) side of the fence as far as whose name goes where, she may very well be represented on the LP as supervisor. I know a name on an LP jacket sounds like a small tut, rather an ego thing, but one of my ambitions is to be a good producer and extend. Therefore that’s one of the main themes in the idea of the name being there. I plan to finish to the bone the whole LP as long as the necessary papers and attitudes on both sides (Mercury and us) are together. If I could work w
ith Buddy and group without being entirely hung up over this fact – over those fat starving sick hicks, about them wanting something for nothing – and to keep Ann in her proper place. I could most certainly write songs with Buddy … and that side is where I’m inching toward … percentage from writer’s royalties for sure.

  Jimi Hendrix

  {THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL CONCERTS ON FEBRUARY 18 AND 24, 1969, WERE THE EXPERIENCE’S LAST PERFORMANCES IN ENGLAND.}

  I feel so relaxed now at concerts. Our music is in a very solid state – not technically, just in the sense that we can feel around the music and get into things better. The communication is lovely. If I’m out of tune I just stop and get in tune. That’s the way I like it to be. It’s not a Flash Gordon show, everything all neat and rehearsed.

  I don’t read music, and it’s hard for me to remember any riffs because I’m constantly trying to create other things. That’s why I make a lot of mistakes. These days everybody seems to be busy showing what polished performers they are, and that means nothing. People are getting so much wiser. They don’t want to hear about this manufactured, tinfoil music. They want to hear the best in the field. I was talking to some little kids, the people they call teenyboppers, and I said, “What are your favorite groups?” They said, “We like the Cweam, we like y’alls group.” Beautiful. You know, their minds are different.

  A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO all I wanted out of life was to be heard. Now I’m trying to figure out the wisest way to be heard. I don’t want to be a clown anymore. I don’t want to be a rock and roll star. I’m just a musician. That is why we play more now and move around less. We don’t break things up too much anymore. We haven’t burned any guitars lately.