Foggy Notion: Dave Bixby

Return to Quetzalcoatl

Return to Quetzalcoatl. Since its rediscovery a few years ago, Dave Bixby's legendary 1969 album "Ode to Quetzalcoatl" has been considered a highlight of the loner/psych folk genre among record collectors, and the private pressing of the album has already sold for over €2000 at Sammplernerds.

After being active in Michigan's folk and garage rock scene in the 1960s with bands like "The Shillelaghs" and "Peter & The Prophets," Bixby began playing acoustic guitar and experimenting around with LSD. After a year of drug abuse, he felt broken. He embarked on a spiritual journey and wrote "Ode to Quetzalcoatl" and most of the material for his second album, Harbinger's "Second Coming," in just a month and a half.

Aided by fellow musician Brian MacInness, who played some guitar parts on the album, Dave recorded "Quetzalcoatl" on an echoey four-track in the living room of an apartment. The sound is lo-fi and sparse: just acoustic guitars and occasional harmonica and flute, complemented by Bixby's haunting, emotional vocals, spiritual lyrics and solid songwriting. The opening track, the eerie and painful "Drug Song," sets the mood perfectly for the rest of the album, which includes more tortured tracks like "666," "Lonely faces," "Open Doors," "Secret forest... Never did an acoustic folk album sound so intense as this one.

On this tour Bixby will play songs from both Albums "Ode to Quetzalcoatl" and Harbinger's "Second Coming".