The L.A. Musical History Tour
Youth Opportunities Center (former site)
9027 South Figueroa, Los Angeles
On February 12, 1966, the Watts Acid Test, immortalized in Tom Wolfe's book
The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, was held here. San Franciscans Ken Kesey and
Ken Babbs
rented this hall to hold a "happening" that set the stage for
"psychedelic" concerts to come.
Kool-Aid spiked with LSD (which was not illegal yet) was served to six hundred
revelers
who danced and "tripped out" in an atmosphere stacked to resemble
a psychedelic
experience, with multiple movie projections, strobe-light dancing, black
light painting, and
music performed by the Grateful Dead (the Dead lived in L.A. for six weeks
in 1966).
(Surely the partygoers didn't realize they were two block from the motel
where Sam Cooke
had been shot dead just over a year earlier -- see SAM COOKE.)
The building is now Prince Hall, a Masonic Lodge.