We were very conscious that we were plunging into rock without any real knowledge of, or experience in, the medium. We had played Cage and Stockhausen, African and Indian music, and I thought we could simply bring all that to rock. But we knew almost nothing about the roots of rock and roll. We all improvised, of course, but in a "contemporary music" style. In retrospect, creating a rock band with no rock musicians was a bad decision on my part. Still, since I considered myself the most eclectic composer on the planet, I was confident that whatever the others couldn’t do I could write. And I had been listening to a lot of music: Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and the acid power trio Blue Cheer were all useful ingredients. I was certainly aware of the Beatles (probably too much so), and an early fan of the then unknown songwriter Randy Newman. Of course, I was - we all were - conversant with the drug culture, and that played a central role in our music. Things moved fast: I introduced Gordon to the ring modulator, to fatten the violin sound to a Hendrix fuzz; Rand bought an Ampeg fretless bass, and we set about electrifying drums. The aural concept I had in mind was an edgy minimalist one, without the guitar “clutter” I was hearing in many rock bands of the late 60s. I composed about a dozen songs, Dorothy co-writing lyrics. I wrote out parts for everyone, and we rehearsed for a month, made a demo, and sent it to Columbia Records.