THE organ, dimly at first, begins to play a soft, floating melody. Then the drums pick up, and the bass quickly joins in with a muffled, steady beat. Finally, a fellow in a red-striped T-shirt, smiling but otherwise motionless, steps to the microphone, and, about as pleasantly as a human being can make a sound, begins to follow the organ with his voice. The lyrics are simple: "lalalalalalalala." But the meaning is clear.

Country Joe and the Fish live in a kind of superworld--a turned-on bastion of people together and peace and independence. "The time has come for us to create a world where nobody strongarms us," Joe MacDonald, the group's lead singer and spokesman, said last Friday night at a dirty, overprcied little dump in Boston called the Psychedelic Supermarket.

But even here, even with rotten acoustics, a small stage, and dungeon-like atmosphere, the message of the Fish comes through. It's an easy message--one of love and feeling.

From "Happiness is a Porpoise Mouth":

The white doves fly on past the sun

Their wings flash silver at the moon

While waters flush down water tongues

My organ plays a circus tune.

The Fish are as proficient musically as Joe is lyrically. Barry Nelson, the lead guitar player, who sings most of the group's boisterous songs, David Cohen, the organist, Bruce Barthol on bass, and Chicken Hirsch on the drums are all freaked out to various degrees, all, as Barry put it, "avoiding the draft" (presumably through mental or psychological deferments) and all superb musicians.

Drugs have played a part in the development of the group. There is little doubt that many of the group's songs concern experiences with pot and LSD. From "Bass Strings":

I believe I'll go out to the seashore

Let the waves wash my mind

Open up my head now

Just to see what I can find.

Just one more trip now