Tag Archives: mel lyman

$148 LEVIS by Peter Nolan Smith

My mother dressed my older brother and me in jeans for most of the 1950s and early 1960s, however when the hippies adopted the tough western trousers as part of their unofficial uniform, Cardinal Cushing of the Boston diocese banned Levis on his evening rosary program. A fierce Catholic my mother obeyed the Pope’s representative […]

FUCK, SHIT, CUNT, PISS / Boston Avatar

Mel Lyman played banjo and harmonica for the Jim Kweskin Jug Band out of Boston in the 60s. The charismatic musician formed a neo-transcendental commune on Fort Hill in economically depressed Roxbury and in 1967 released a bi-weekly journal called AVATAR espousing the re-birth of the inner-self as reflected by the glory of Mel Lyman. […]

I Fought The Law

On August 23, 1973 accidental actor Mark Frechette was arrested for bank robbery a few blocks away from Mel Lyman’s commune in Boston. Boston police responded to the silent alarm and shot dead of his accomplices.. Mark threw his gun on the floor. It was unloaded. Bail was set at $2500. He didn’t go to […]