Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll Quotes

“This is the tale of Magic Alex, the man who was everywhere: with Leonard Cohen in Hydra; in Crete with Joni Mitchell; in a Paris bathroom when Jimmy Morrison went down; working as a roadie setting up the Beatles last rooftop gig; an assistant to John and Yoko when they had a bed-in at the Amsterdam Hilton; with the Stones when they were charged for pissing against a wall; the first to find and save Dylan after the motorcycle accident; having it off with Mama Cass hours before she choked the big one; arranging the security at Altamont; at Haight-Ashbury with George Harrison and the Grateful Dead; and in the Japanese airport with McCartney after the dope rap. He was the guy Carly Simon was really singing about and the missing slice of ‘Bye, Bye Miss American Pie’.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“At first, we were all watching butterflies and chasing rainbows and seeking out moonbeams. Then something changed. The viper got hold of the rainbows and roared into life. The high-octane tea went to work. Everyone went crackers.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“My sweet lordy, lordy. It built up to the Summer of Love down by the Psychedelic Shop on Haight-Ashbury when the sunshine poured in mellow yellow and the Age of Aquarius was rising and the tribes gathered in the rain, in the park and everything and everyone fringed the bottoms of their jeans and put flowers in their hair.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“I was born on the day the music died.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“I regained consciousness after a big night at the Cock and Bull Inn, or it could’ve been The Weasel’s Way or The Badger’s Breath, who knows with these weird English pub names. Anyway, it was somewhere near The Pig and Whistle. Not far up from the Scotsman’s Kilt.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“The story of how I threw up over John Lennon’s Beatle boots is worth telling.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“Out of that kitchen came food not only that I had never tasted, but that I hadn’t even dreamed of tasting. Gumbo, corn jacks and blackened fish was just the start of many dishes. It was like finding all the exotic scents in the world and wrapping as many of them as you can into a dish. Cumin and coriander, paprika, red peppers, anise and fennel, burnt orange peel and chili. It felt like the sailors from every port in the world from Morocco and Madagascar to the coast of Malabar had each brought a spice with them to throw into the cooking pot.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“Now you might remember the professor on the television show Gilligan’s Island. A really smart guy. He powered the island, developed a coconut clock, installed a plumbing and water system. He just never got around to fixing the boat. Brian was effective in just the same way.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“I came to, looking as together as one of Phil Spector’s hairdos. I felt like Clark Kent after a hard night on the kryptonite. I opened one eye. The morning sunlight slatted its way through the wooden shutters. The bed was strewn with naked bodies. A one-hundred-dollar bill was fluttering in the breeze, poised as it was, between a groupie’s buttocks. Even more concerning, a five-hundred-dollar bill was fluttering between mine.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“Don’t seem to matter much where you are, but folks are always saying you shoulda been here long, long ago, the scene has all dried up. Georgie Harrison said it about Haight–Ashbury, and Sid and Nancy said it about the Chelsea Hotel. The only place they could never really say that about was MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. There was a crackle in the air that just let you know you were alive. As Bobby sang it, later there was music in the cafes and revolution wafting in the wind.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“Elvis wasn’t always the over-weight and over-tasseled being you might have seen when he was way past his prime. Las Vegas always had a thing for the seedy and the needy.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“I had met Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol, previously in Spain in the company of his pet anteater and a glamorous model called Mercedes Benz.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“Man, that boy was so evil, the devil threw him out of hell.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“On the Greek island of Hydra there are no cars. You have to travel by donkey or walk. If you go up the hill from the harbor and walk the ancient paved pathways you will enter a square of sorts and find a tavern called Douskos. If you sit there under the tree, pick up a battered guitar and sing sweetly to the cat, they will kick you out. They’ve had enough of that sort of thing already at Douskos. Stop there if you can. I did. I had to. Leonard and Joni wanted some private time.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“The sweat poured in. It wasn’t that far in miles from Studio 54 to CBGB’s in the Bowery, but in terms of style, it was 2,000 light years from home. And then some. The scent was as far away from Giorgio as an old wet sock in a badger’s nest.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll