And then I'll stay high all the time.

JOE tends to put drugs down. "They're an escape trip," he said Friday night. "I don't think drugs revolutionize you--sometimes they really mess you up." Joe himself has had several bad experiences associated with drug use. "I've been practically insane three times," he said. "But I now get higher being straight than I ever did when I was high."

Joe doesn't feel that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's meditation program can succeed where drugs don't. "I think meditation is a bunch of crap," Joe said. "Anybody who says people are poor because they want to be doesn't know what's happening. And anybody who says you can solve the problems of the world through meditation is tripped out."

In their music, the Fish have fun with drugs. 'We're gonna make him drop some acid," someone mutters at the fadeout of "Superbird," a direct and bitter stab at President Johnson.

"The Acid Commercial" mocks the use of drugs. With background accompaniment of an acosutic guitar and a kazoo--certainly not psychedelic--David sings:

Now if you're tired and a bit rundown

Can't seem to get your feet off the ground

Maybe you ought to try a little bit of LSD

(Only if you want to).

Perhaps more than other musical groups, the Fish are very politically and socially oriented. Joe spent a good deal of time Friday night building up the planned "YIP" Convention--the Youth International Party--that he has been organizing along with Arlo Guthrie and other musicians. He views the convention as opposition to the "National Death Party." In Chicago, Joe said, from August 25 to August 30, "there's going to be something happening all the time."

WHETHER all this will change because of McCarthy's success in New Hampshire is uncertain. Friday night Joe did call McCarthy "a groovy guy. He's like a genius." There is no doubt, however, that Joe and the Fish are sincerely against President Johnson and the War. In their "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag," the Fish decry the War with an alternating background of "sock it to me" and "do wacka do" by singing:

And it's one, two, three what are we fighting for

Don't ask me I don't give a damn

Next stop is Vietnam

And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates