Cyclic Selects: Geoffrey Hales aka Rip Van Hippy

Rip Van Hippy is a pioneering figure in the Australian electronic psychedelic and ambient music scene. I first discovered his music via his 1999 album When Bernie Was A Tree, released on the forward thinking Psy-Harmonics label, where the compact disc was made up to look like a twisted Little Golden Book – not sure if your parents ever read them to you – but mine did. The music was a kind of demented brain frying psychedelic trance, with clipped kookaburra’s and all manner of gurgling hyperactive bleeps and bloops. He recorded four albums of psychedelic electrics between 1997 and 2007, with a long gap between albums until 2020 with a Bits And Bobs, A Collection Of Rip Van Hippy Rarities, tunes recorded between 1996 and 2015, some of which were released on compilations, others previously unreleased.

It turns out that Geoffrey Hales, the man behind the myth of Rip Van Hippy also has an extensive musical history, which includes performing with Osama Kitajima, and on various movie soundtracks such as Shogun, The Year of Living Dangerously and The Truman Show. He played at the Monterey Jazz Festival (81) and the Technics Jazz Festival in Tokyo and was also one half of Fluro Conspiracy with Ollie Olsen. That said we’ll leave him to tell us more about his musical journey in one of our more uniquely structured Cyclic Selects. We’ve used the occasion of Rip Van Hippy’s new EP, Song of the Sea Pandas, his return to Psy-Harmonics, to pin him down to find out about the music that moves him.

Geoffrey:

I was born in the late 40’s in Melbourne, grew up in the 50’s and 60’s, at first I was into jazz, I played washboard in a band when I was 14, soon graduated to r and b, I didn’t care for the Beatles until “Rubber Soul” came out, my first pick…

one night in April 1966 I was at my favorite club “The Thumpin Tum” and I met a couple of American musicians, they were looking to score some pot so I went in a taxi with them to South Yarra and bought them a huge lump of Lebanese hash, we took it back to their hotel in Spring St., just after we arrived Bob Dylan came in the room with Melbourne poet and scenester Adrian Rawlins, who I knew from his time running “The Fat Black Pussycat” Bob grabbed a chunk of hash and invited me and Adrian up to his room, he made a pipe out of a glass and some silver foil with holes punched in it, and we got high, he played a few songs, I played drums on his guitar case, he talked into the early hours, his manager Albert came in and Bob organized some excellent tickets for the next night at Festival Hall, it was all a bit of a blur, the first half was acoustic, all his early folky stuff, we went backstage at half time, then for the second half he picked up his electric guitar and started tuning it with a wry grin on his face, the audience started booing and calling out “traitor!” he just kept tuning and detuning his guitar until they eventually shut up, my friends from the previous night took the stage and one of the greatest shows I have ever seen began, I don’t remember much till he sat down at the grand piano wearing his polka dot shirt and top hat and played “Ballad Of A Thin Man” that’s seared into my brain and is my next pick….

around about this time my friend Charlie bought a copy of the Mingus album “Black Saint And The Sinner Lady” an absolute masterpiece that I still have, next pick…

my friend Charlie and I also loved the very kitsch but marvelous Yma Sumac, we drove up to Sydney to see her perform at Chequers nightclub, it was a tad disappointing as she had modernized her act and was singing Lennon/McCartney etc but listen to “Chuncho” to hear her at her best, my next pick…

In 1969 I caught the Achille Laura passenger liner to Europe to catch up with my girlfriend who was working in Paris as a house model for Nina Ricci, one sunday walking in the bois de boulogne we came across a free concert by the great Sun Ra Arkestra, my next pick would have to be “Space Is The Place”…

As winter descended on Paris we hightailed it for Morocco, we ended up in a little village that you had to walk to down the coast from Essaouira, after walking down the beach, crossing a river with a ruined Roman bridge, you came to ruined palace turned left through a little forest and came to the village of Diabat, the ruined palace was where Jimi Hendrix wrote “Castles Made Of Sand” that can be my next pick…

After Morocco we went back to Paris then onto London, we lived in a houseboat in Chelsea. From there I headed out on my own to India, and then back to Australia, I was touring Australia with a music/ theatre group called The White Company, a group put together to perform at all the universities to promote the upcoming Aquarius Festival in Nimbin, as luck would have it the brilliant Stevie Dunstan was involved, he built his own synths, he became a music sensei for me, one day he was explaining that music didn’t need lot’s of chords it could be modal like Coltranes “A Love Supreme” next pick…

I joined the very popular Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band and toured for three years, one day the mandolin player Mick handed me the wailers first album “Catch a Fire” and said you should listen to this, next pick…

I left Matchbox and went to LA, Laurel Canyon, I lived in LA for 14 years, (I did see the Wailers live, 2 nights in a row) I worked doing sessions, painting and exhibiting and played percussion for many years for Osamu Kitajima, before I joined his band he recorded his psychedelic rock classic “Benzaitan” next pick…

After I arrived back in Australia in 89 I was playing wherever I could, one of the gig’s was playing percussion for Ollie Olsen and Gus Till in Third Eye, then Gus moved OS and I moved into a flat with Ollie, he had purchased an Atari computer with all the bells and whistles and dongles and commenced to program his solo Third Eye album Ancient future, I sat behind him watching the process for hours every day, and that is how I learnt to program, so final pick “Ancient Future” by the great Ollie Olsen.