In the 1970s, no one knew what to do with the Ya Ho Wha 13, formed by a colourful spiritual figure and his followers, but today they count Thurston Moore and Rick Rubin as fans
Born in Ohio in 1922, James Edward Baker led a colourful life as an adult. He shot down 13 Japanese fighter planes in the second world war. He auditioned as Tarzan for a Hollywood movie. He killed a man using judo in 1955, and then killed another man in 1963 and was convicted of manslaughter. He had his hands legally registered as lethal weapons. He robbed anywhere between two and 11 banks. He became a successful restaurateur and a pioneer of vegetarian dining, with customers including John Lennon, Joni Mitchell and Marlon Brando. And in the early 70s he founded a utopian cult in the Hollywood Hills, reinventing himself as the supreme godhead Father Yod. Almost inevitably, in 1973 he started an extreme psychedelic rock band, Ya Ho Wha 13.
This month, the US label Sacred Bones releases a new compilation of highlights from the band’s archives alongside an intimate book, Family: The Source Family Scrapbook, in part to mark what would have been Father Yod’s 100th birthday. He died in 1975 in a hang-gliding accident after leaping off a 400-metre (1,300ft) cliff in Hawaii, despite having no prior air sports experience.
