Late in 1963, Byrd returned to the West Coast with Moskowitz. He enrolled in the
musicology doctoral program at
UCLA and studied music history, acoustics, psychology of music, and Indian music. He developed
radical political views, and joined the
Communist Party. At UCLA he formed the New Music Workshop with jazz trumpeter
Don Ellis and others, where the first West Coast experiments in what would come to be called "
performance art" and "concept art" would develop. On one occasion in 1965, as the concluding part of a series of concerts and events called "Steamed Spring Vegetable Pie" (a title taken at random from
The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook), Byrd organized a
blues band fronted by his friend
Linda Ronstadt, to play during a "
happening". Byrd said that "the realization that rock was an access to a larger public came out of that concert, and the idea of forming a band began taking shape." When Moskowitz returned to California, she and Byrd started
the United States of America, with another politically radical composer, Michael Agnello. Earlier collaborations had introduced Byrd to
Tom Oberheim, who built
ring modulators and other devices for them. Recruiting bassist Rand Forbes, electric violinist Gordon Marron, keyboardist
Ed Bogas, and drummer Craig Woodson (another member of the New Music Workshop), the band undertook their first live performances in late 1967, at the
Ash Grove in Los Angeles. Byrd was influenced by groups like
The Red Crayola,
Country Joe and the Fish, and
Blue Cheer, and by the music of maverick American composer
Charles Ives, particularly the melody "
Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" often referenced by Ives. Electronic devices were used live as well as on the band's recordings, to process other instruments and Moskowitz's voice as well as providing their own musical textures, and the lyrics written by Byrd for some of the songs were markedly political. The
United States of America LP was released in early 1968, but failed to find much commercial success on its original release. The band toured the U.S. East Coast, followed by a number of performances in the Southwest U.S., with mixed success, including shows with
The Troggs,
The Velvet Underground and at
Bill Graham's
Fillmore East. However, the group rapidly fell apart over creative and other differences as well as what Byrd saw as a lack of record company support. "a tour de force (though not without its flaws) of experimental rock that blended surprisingly melodic sensibilities with unnerving blasts of primitive synthesizers and lyrics that could range from misty romanticism to hard-edged irony. For the relatively few who heard it, the record was a signpost to the future with its collision of rock and classical elements, although the material crackled with a tension that reflected the United States of America itself in the late '60s." Though the album had limited success in the US, it was more highly regarded in the UK and Europe, where it has been cited in recent years as a groundbreaking and influential recording, and has seen at least three re-releases since 1992.
The American Metaphysical Circus Byrd then received the support of
John McClure, head of
Columbia's Masterworks classical music division, to record a second album. He recorded
The American Metaphysical Circus, credited to Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, later in 1968. The album again made use of synthesizers and
vocoder, along with an extended group of West Coast studio musicians including
Tom Scott, guitarist
Ted Greene, and uncredited bassist
Harvey Newmark. According to Byrd, the whole album was written and recorded within a few weeks, apart from one song, "You Can't Ever Come Down", originally written for the United States of America. He said: "It was a real chaotic time... frantic.... The songs had to be churned out, and ultimately there was not enough material.... Columbia decided that no rock musician could be called Joseph, and told me they were going to call it Joe Byrd and…. The musicians had been close during the traumatic sessions, and Ted Greene, pointing out that we were really not city hippies, called us The Field Hippies, so I used that name. By then I was exhausted fighting for stuff." The extensive use of effects, delays, echoes, backwards vocals and other recording tricks and techniques are reminiscent of some of the experiments and work carried out by
George Martin as well as
Pink Floyd. The album is most noted for "The Sub-Sylvian Litanies", a three-part suite which has been described as "an entire acid trip in 11 minutes." Other album highlights include the equally psychedelic "The Elephant at the Door", and the politically charged "Invisible Man", written for and aimed at President
Lyndon B. Johnson. Two of the more unusual tracks on the record are "Mister Fourth of July"—a ragtime tune complete with scratchy 78 RPM-style effects—and
"Leisure World", featuring narration from long-time
ABC voice-over and "
Ghoulardi" originator
Ernie Anderson in an ode to California's first retirement mega-community. Released in 1969, the record achieved a cult following in the US, and remained in the Columbia Masterworks catalog for some twenty years. Byrd estimated in 2002, in conjunction with a filing in the
Napster music copyright case, that likely over 100,000 copies of
The American Metaphysical Circus had been sold, yet he had never received a penny of royalties from Columbia/CBS/Sony. ==Other work in the 1960s and 1970s==