Cassady and Kerouac

I was always inspired by both the Beat Generation and Ken Kesey and the Merry Prankster crew. I joined a band called The Raging Weasels around 1999. A year or two later we needed another guitarist and someone in the band used to play with Neal Cassady’s son John many years earlier. John showed up and joined the band. He had many stories of the old days with his dad Neal and of course characters like Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, the Grateful Dead and others in that crowd. One day John got a call from someone at the Kesey estate and there was some story that the rock and roll museum in Cleveland wanted the Furthur bus. Apparently it was on the Kesey farm and wasn’t running. But they got another bus together and wanted John to be one of the drivers to keep his father’s legacy alive. It was just another of John’s adventures. After John left the band we recruited a couple new people and became Jamnesia2. A while later somewhat out of the blue the inspiration for a song called Cassady and Kerouac hit me and I wrote the lyrics in a couple days. The last verse is actually composed of Kerouac book titles for those in the know. Our keyboardist and I wrote the music and out came the song. It is a tribute to the Beats and those that came right after.— Marc Spilka