Q077: Speaking of the 1960's, one of the more extreme manifestations of hippie communal living and psychedelic dropping out is the Manson clan; how is Manson viewed in Japan?
A077: I'm afraid I don't have much idea about how Manson is perceived generally. He's popular on a cult kind of level, but that's probably the same everywhere, right? It's the same as Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult who gassed the Tokyo subway - some American label released a bootleg of their music.
I don't have any attachment to that sixties hippy scene, nor do I feel much sympathy for their political values. I have no interest in Manson as the leader of a thrill-kill cult, but I do like his songs as one expression of acid folk. Not that I understand his lyrics since they are in English, and anyway personally I am never interested in lyrics.
I see hippies as a kind of social dropout, like what used to be referred to as 'riverbank beggars' centuries ago in Japan. Free sex is now so common that there's no need even for it to continue to exist as a slogan. Neither does communal living have much appeal for me, since it's only a dream that eventually turns into egotism, jealousy and fighting. That's why we refer to AMT as a 'soul collective'.