Magic Trip is a 2011 documentary made from the over 100 hours of 16 mm color film that was shot by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters as they drove a bespoke 1939 Harvester school bus across the United States in 1964. Aboard the bus was a collection of bohemians, drop outs, poets, musicians, a dancer, a philosopher and the famous Neil Cassady, inspiration for Jack Kerouac's 1950s beatnik novel On the Road. Kesey also took a generous supply of the then-legal psychedelic drug LSD, and they reportedly also took 500 Benzedrine pills (speed), and a shoebox full of already-rolled marijuana joints. The bus was wired up with audio recording and broadcasting equipment, and was capable of recording surrounding sounds as well as broadcasting loud music to passersby.
This is the story of this journey, aboard a bus called Futher, and into the collective cultural consciousness of a generation and the world.
Ken Kesey was an early subject for US government sponsored LSD testing. He was actually given it by the US government, and paid to do it. Here are some of the recordings he made while at Palo Alto Veteran's Hospital under the influence of LSD:
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