Free Starting At Zero by Jimi Hendrix

were much better. We got screams and good reactions, and some kids even rushed the stage. The kids started digging us
more than the plastic Beatles!
    Then some parents who brought their young kids complained that our act was vulgar.
     
    They’d say, “What is this all about – kid’s rushing that!?
    Ugh! Too erotic!”
     
    I am bemused by the whole thing. I suppose I might move around in certain ways, and girls in the front seats might have funny expressions on their faces, but it’s not downright sexy. I
believe it might have something to do with just the idea of somebody being on stage and showing themselves, and the people knowing they can’t really touch them but they would like to.
It’s a frustrated feeling, but it’s a good feeling. They probably don’t get a chance to scream until this one time, and then they let EVERYTHING out.
    We hadn’t really played to that kind of kids’ audience before, and you have to realize that though the parents of the kids in England don’t interfere too much, the parents in
the States are something else. And then there are all those different kinds of stuffy organizations over here, right? In New York the Daughters of the American Revolution tried to stop our show
because they said we were too sexy. Imagine how these old ladies must have been turned on. They were turned on so bad they had to try and stop us from doing our thing. So this is where it’s
at now!
    We decided it was just the wrong audience. I think they replaced me with Mickey Mouse .
     
    A MERICA’S JUST LIKE ANY OTHER COUNTRY. It just takes a little more time. We did different little places around like the club scene in New
York, Central Park; Washington, D.C.; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and the Hollywood Bowl. We didn’t know where we were sometimes.
    We were taken around a little with the Mamas and Papas. In New York we all went out to the Electric Circus club in the Village, which completely blew my mind. There was a group called the Seeds
playing there, but they had all these funny little acts going on between things. One guy walked up onto the stage and stood there and growled for about five minutes. Then he said, “Thank
you” and walked off! There was another guy who came on in a straitjacket and just rolled around on the floor for half an hour.
    Then some funny little guys came swinging down on ropes from the ceiling. We couldn’t believe it! The Village Fugs are real crazy. They do things arranged from William Burroughs, songs
about lesbians and things like freaking out with a barrel of tomatoes, squashing them all between your armpits. Euuuggghh! You’d never believe it, man, those
cats are downright vulgar. They tell these nasty, beautiful poems, the nastiest ones you can think of.
    Yeah, it was a really groovy time in the States. Except I got pulled up by the police in Washington, D.C. and I was refused entry to one or two restaurants, but that was because I was with a
couple of hippies. One of them looked like Sitting Bull. It wasn’t a racial thing.
    In New York taxi drivers would drive up to me, take a look at my appearance then drive away. Some of these guys want everybody to be the same conforming type as themselves. Well, they
ain’t gonna catch me like that. Why should I be like the taxi driver?
    I was completely unknown in America until the word got back that the British dug my kind of music. Now it’s sellout business here. At the clubs in Greenwich Village we were welcomed like
gods. Nobody who is continually experimenting with music makes big money, but they get respect in the right quarters.
    I don’t do anything all that different, but suddenly the magazines like LIFE and TIME are writing about me. It’s a funny feeling. These are the same people who first laughed. Ha, Ha! Now I’m not stupid Jimi anymore, I’m Mr. Hendrix. They try to analyze me and come
up with a psychiatrist’s report, and it doesn’t sound like me one little bit. They don’t know what’s