Rachael (Who is Awesome) attended her first Eeyore’s Birthday Party yesterday. She and about forty co-habitants paraded from the Goddam Hippie Commune to Pease Park, their GDHC banner proudly unfurled in the warm Austin breeze. Other GDH’s joined them on the way.

The Birthday Party was begun in the 1960′s as a small gathering to help de-stress UT students. It has grown to be one of the defining annual events in Austin, family friendly and sweet, but also unabashedly psychedelic. A couple of thousand people show up. Lots of drum circles and live music and costumery and community warmth. All free.

Rach says she didn’t spot any Eeyores, but there were lots of Tiggers to be had. There was a costume contest for the littles, and she remembers a particularly heart-melting two-year-old girl dressed as a Hershey’s Kiss.

It was a good day.

I’m alarmed to realize that I’ve never been to one. I promise to go to next year’s. Here’s a pic that Rach took:

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When we were discussing and googling about it the night before, I stumbled across something that gave me another unexpected Sixties nostalgia rush.

I haven’t thought about Shiva’s Head Band for about three decades now. Along with the 13th Floor Elevators, they were one of the premier psychedelic rock bands in Texas. I saw them perform quite a few times, though, as usual for that type of event at that time, the memories are synaesthetic and fragmentary. They were excellent musicians, and had a killer violin player, which, as with the electric jug-player the Elevators had, you don’t see much in rock bands these days.

In 1999, their leader, Spencer Perskin, was honored as ‘Austin’s Biggest Old Hippie’ at Eeyore’s Birthday Party.

I encourage you to browse Spencer’s site, and click through to the CD section, from which some excellent music can be streamed. Maybe even buy a CD or two.

The late Sixties is the time in my life when music became important to me. Music like Shiva’s, along with that of a lot of other Texas bands from that time, still sounds utterly right. Maybe some of it will for you, too.