let us now talk about psychedelia

13th Floor Elevators - the first two ("The Psychedelic Sounds of..." and "Easter Everywhere") are garage-psych taken to an extreme. And how many bands have an electric jug player on EVERY song?!?

Zombies - Odyssey and Oracle. A little too fey for me, but some beautiful arrangements, and the "hits" ("Cell 44", "Time of the Season") are quite impressive.

Muddy Waters - Electric Mud. Everybody hates this album, his "acid rock" answer to Hendrix, but I think it's fucking amazing. Blistering even.

The Hollies - their psych albums ('66-'68 or so) albums are uneven, but every one has at least a couple gems on them, and their singles collections are great. Search: "King Midas in Reverse", "Carry-Anne", "Look Through Any Window", "You Need Love". Very Beatle-esque.

Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett era) - it doesn't get anymore psychedelic than this. "See Emily Play", "Apples and Oranges", "Arnold Layne", "Interstellar Overdrive", "Astronomy Domine", "Scream Thy Last Scream" all great. I am especially fond of the non-Syd nugget "Point Me at the Sky" as well.

The Beach Boys - from Pet Sounds through Surf's Up, it's all pretty trippy. But you probably know this.

The Small Faces - "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" (and various singles from the same period). Hilariously twee cockney interludes on the second side, first side has almost Zeppelin-esque stomp at points ("Afterglow", "Song of a Baker"). Best song is without question "The Universal" - lo-fi psych original for sure. You can hear Mariott's dogs barking and cars going by in the background.

... and the so many more obvious choices from the Who, the Beatles, the Kinks, the Creation, etc. There's loads of this stuff.

And then there are the bands who jumped on the trend and actually made some pretty entertaining records: The Temptations "Psychedelic Shack" and the Rolling Stones "Her Satanic Majesty's Request" are fine examples.

chocolate watch band

west coast pop art experimetnal band

"Notorious Byrd Brothers" by the Byrds is one I'd recommend. I understand some people don't like Graham Parsons or 12-string guitars, that said, this album sounds a lot more like "Tomorrow Never Knows" than Mr. Tambourine Man or their country stuff. Maybe an obvious answer but I avoided the Byrds for years in favor of obscure bullshit like Harvester and was very pleasantly surprised that they didn't completely suck.

The Electric Prunes' albums are worth investigating for what's beyond their classic Nuggets tracks.

Recently uncovered by Sundazed, J.K. & Co.'s Suddenly Last Summer is sort of a lost classic, although more for its sound than the songs. You'll swear it was recorded this year.

Brazilian Tropicalismo, especially Os Mutantes' and Gilberto Gil's first two albums, is as amazing as any US/UK psych of the era.

These suggestions are all wacked out but listenable -
if you're just getting into psych I suggest
you go for the easier to digest stuff,
someone mentioned Zombies and the Small Faces,
those are good too. But I suggest you avoid
stuff like early Pink Floyd or early Grateful
Dead, they are such far out racket that you
might be turned off the genre, go for
the accessible stuff first.

a few favorites:
love _forever changes_
pretty things _s.f. sorrow_
hawkwind _in search of space_
silver apples s/t & _contact_
13th floor elevators _easter everywhere_
michael yonkers band _microminiature love_
early pink floyd
the deep (and the related 'psychedelic moods' comp series)
sam gopal _escalator_ (lemmy...hippie?)
simon finn _pass the distance_
blue cheer _vincebus eruptum_ (not really psych, but essential)

kaleidoscope and july are nice UK popsike.

some of the akarma reissues are killer (twink's _think pink_, le stelle di mario schifano, bodkin), some are spotty (bobby callender _rainbow_, circus 2000) and i'm told some are outright crap.

the nuggets comps are a good place to start - my personal favorite psych comp overall is _beyond the calico wall_.

Defining psych as 1967 onwards post-beat/post-freakbeat (UK) and post-garage (US), I much prefer UK stuff to US. The whole West-coast thing is pretty much a turn off for me.

Avoiding UK freakbeat, although I actually prefer 1965-67 beat/freak (Creation/Koobas/Wimple Winch/Mindbenders/Poets/Dakotas/Chances Are et al)to most UK psych here are some great UK psych records :

Tintern Abbey - Vaccuum Cleaner (67)
The Syn - 14 Hour Technicolour Dream (67)
The Ice - Anniversary Of Love (68)
Pretty Things - Walking Through My Dreams (67)
Virgin Sleep - Secret (68)
Marmalade - Kaliedoscope (70)
The Moving Finger - Pain of mY Misfortune (67)
The Bunch - Looking Glass Alice (67)
Turquoise - Tales Of Flossie Fillet (68)
The End - Shades Of Orange (68)
Aquarian Age - 10,000 Words in A Cardboard Box (68)
JAson Crest - Black Mass (67)
The Living Daylights - Let's Live for Today (68)
Kinsmen - Glasshouse Green Splinter Red (68)
Fairytale - Lovely People (67)

Most of these are from Rubble comps - the absolute best of whiuch is Rubble 6 The Clouds Have Groovy Faces - THE BEST psyche/freakbeat comp ever. Also Rubble 1/2 and 3 are massive.

Of course the Nuggets boxes are essential too. Also looking good is a new series of mainly Pye acts - Psychedelic Pstones - they're up to #2 Haunted now.

Past and Present are doing a decent job of making The Rubble series available, but they need to be on CD. Their CD re-issues are Patchy - That Driving Beat (freakbeat) are good, We Can Fly 1 and 2 are good, but Hen's Teeth (prolly a different company, but distr. by P+P) are shoddy - bad mastering and crap sleevenotes. Avoid Journey Thru Thyme and The Chocolate Soup reissues - get original vinyl.

1) Brit-psych was POP. These bands were not doing what Cream, Led Zep, The Yardbirds, Hendrix were doing. In a way there was a concious opposition to the rock - psych was more playful and *not to be taken too seriously*.

In the US - psych was ROCK - serious, big ideas, a political agenda.

2) It was this way because the UK had a strong Mod and Beat tradition that anchored UK psych with stronger melodies and rhythms.

3) UK psych was seen as a STYLE rather than an integrated movement. Many bands switched to psych overnight in late 67/early 68, and several bands switched in and out. Further than that - bands would throw in one or two psych tracks on an album just to show that they were current. This sense of distance keeps the music fresh, fun and of the moment.

What does anyone think?

I'd go for

West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - Vol I
West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - Part II
West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - A Child's Guide to Good and Evil
Love - Forever Changes
Love - Da Capo
13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere
The Factory - Path Through the Forest

But there are lots of funny, gonzo and inspirational moments on comps like The British Psychedelic Trip 1-3, Nuggets UK/World Box Set. My favorite comp is Acid Dreams I, which is fucking intense, with stuff like Stereo Shoestrings, The Minds Eye and Beautiful Daze, garage punk with brain damaged psych overtones.

I, however, prefer the US stuff:

Search a few I haven't seen dropped yet:

Spirit: 'The Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus'
Bow Street Runners: 'self titled'
Fugs: 'First Album'
Group 1850: 'Agemo's Trip To Mother Earth' (Dutch Loons)
Kaleidoscope (US): Side Trips
Sagittarius: 'Present Tense'
Blues Magoos: 'Psychedelic Lollipop' 'Electric Comic Book'
Peanut Butter Conspiracy: 'The Peanut Butter Conspiracy Is Spreading' 'The Great Conspiracy'
Joe Byrd & Field Hippies: 'The American Metaphysical Circus'

I also can't praise highly enough UK folk/psyche - Fairport and The Pentangle.

"In the US - psych was ROCK - serious, big ideas, a political agenda" -I'm, not sure I buy into that I'm afraid (see The Deviants in the UK). Anyway, US psych had ideas sure, but serious political agendas? More like serious mushroom intake. And most US psych outfits arguably, equally "were not doing what Cream, Led Zep, The Yardbirds, Hendrix were doing". I think I can see where you're going though, and there does seem to be, um, a softer, more... marshmallow, sometimes whimsy, perhaps more comic slant to some of the UK stuff. I dunno man, I geuss I should search out more UK stuff in order to articulate why I prefer the US stuff.

also In japan, it seems only rallizes did something with that form of rock (but i haven't heard everything that japanese bands were coming up with so i might be wrong).

I have to admit that I'm a little shaky on US psych post-66. I'm up to speed on 64-67 garage rock, but I couldn't say that I've ever heard a Jefferson Airplane or Peanut Butter Conspiracy album all the way thru. I like US fop-psyche like Sagitarius/Boettcher and all that lot.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying that nothing got changed cos everyone was loaded, I was rather musing that getting loaded was maybe more important and appreciated by certain of these acts than planting a flag. But the two are intertwined anyway, I mean you can't preach the virtues of experimentation without incurring some sort of political stamp I geuss. Attempting to exist outside a system doesn't mean that you escape the defintion that system applies to you.

re: The Airplane - never kicked it with me either man, not sure why. But the PBC - now they are a great psyche band - search tracks 'It's A Happening Thing', 'The Most Up Till Now', and 'Ecstacy' to convert. Who are your boys/girls on the UK scene?

(I am avoiding this thread, I really am.)

As noted above, just about everything has been mentioned one way or another -- dig up some of the Turkish garage/psych comps, they're great. Both Nuggets boxes very worth owning. And a recent find I'd recommend -- Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, which I'd been wondering about for years because of its mention in Stairway to Hell and found at Terrastock V. That one orange/black coloured album of theirs from 1967 is pretty damn great and among other things invents Amon Duul (I, not II).

Has anyone mentioned Blossom Toes yet? Their first album (whose name escapes me now) is great pop-sike and should be reissued. All the early Rubbles LPs are fine too, that Mojo boxed set looks interesting, if I didn't have most of it already.

British psych is far better than US psych in my opinion - in the US it was too serious and part of a generational movement of protest against 'Nam and dropping out and a whole counter-culture of rebellion, whereas in the UK it was just mod bands dropping acid and making slightly stranger records than normal, utilising all the advances in recording technology as they went along. There's an inbuilt sense of whimsy, but also melancholy, in a lot of the best UK psych and that rarely gets a mention.

I also find myself really liking The Smoke - even though they can be a little less psychedelic at times, they nevertheless make up for this with brilliant Kinks/Who-esque English pop. Plus one of the people in the band looks so much like Beck it's scary....

Curt - I've got 90% of the stuff on the Mojo box on other albums, although I reckon it's a good selection. Best tracks ? Hell I don't know - The End's Shade's Of Orange is genius, also The Koobas, The Attack ..... I love this stuff.

That album by The End sounds like one to look for. I'd like to check out more Tintern Abbey, Attack, Kaleidoscope (UK), etc., too. Sorry to ramble on, except I think this stuff would be right up Electric Sound of Jim's alley, too.

I still haven't got Nuggets yet.. must get onto that ASAP.

First two records were outstanding, with "Up All Night" from Milestones probably my favorite cut of theirs. Traveller's Tale kind of sucked unfortunately as Quackenbush had left. There was some good stuff on that Lost Masters cd that One Way put out in the 90's. Not blasted like the 60's stuff at all, but pretty nice post-hippie rock moves, and Quackenbush back in the fold.

Who or what is "Graham" Parsons? Did someone actually recommed The Hollies? "'Destroy' the Love, Peace and Poetry comps?"

yall must be oucho friggin' minds.

My favorite psych comps are the U.S. Love, Peace, and Poetry volume, Pebbles Volume 3, Erik Lindgren's Beyond the Calico Wall comp, and Chocolate Soup for Diabetics Volume 2.

I also think that there's a tendency for people to overrate obscure psych albums that are not actually that great all the way through. So, in this sense, I really love the Love, Peace, and Poetry series anthologizing the really good cuts from a lot of obscure albums.

And me, well, I've got some unfinished business to attend to:

And me, well, I've got some unfinished business to attend to:

1001 Interstellar Psychedelic Recordings Of The 1960's

I like comps ok, but, Scott, think about your favorite psych records. Could you reduce Ill Wind, The Index, Aguaturbia, Emtidi or Lazy Smoke to one song to sum it all up? No way. Comps are cliff's notes. They allow people to namedrop bands they hardly know anything about.

Then again, maybe I'm just a big nerd.

Thinking of that volume, will I ever buy the Darius album? The Hunger album? The Patron Saints album? Would I be disappointed if I did? (I WOULD, however, immediately buy a new reissue of the Michaelangelo album--the Void Michaelangelo album of tracks from the same period is EXCELLENT--probably the Zerfas album and quite possibly the Victoria album.)

Same thing with the British volume. How many of those albums are really excellent on the whole? (Actually, I do have the Bobak, Jons and Malone album and it is pretty good.)

Kak
Moving Gelatine Plates
High Tide (Sea Shanties!!!!!!!!)
Cold Sun (just get Dark Shadows! wow!)
Plastic People of the Universe
Rain Parade ('80s sike gem)
Plan 9 (especially 'Dealing w/ the Dead')
Plasticland
Yatha Sidra
Dreamies
Alan Watts-This Is It!
Christine 23 Onna
Flower Travellin' Band
Euphoria
Freeborne
Intersystems (WAY out)
Kalacakra
Lula Cotres & ze Ramalho (Brazil)
Music Machine
The Speakers

Hell - there's tons!

Have fun digging!!!!!! :-)

1001 Interstellar Psychedelic Recordings Of The 1960's

Cuz we are too stoned to finish it right now, so we need help.

Inspirational verse ("Wishful Thinking" from Ham and Sam Jammin' LP, 1989):

I had this whole other life
I planned it out I pulled it off
Nothing every went wrong
No one I knew ever died
I used rolling wheat fields for money
All the state prisons were closed
People named Larry were not bad guys

I'll have YOU know, that I can't live without my Starstruck soundtrack!

actually speaking of psychedelia, what are the Fading Yellow compilations like? anyone?

MICHAELANGELO - ST Mega rare psych monster
originally released on the tiny Guinn label in
1977, this lp has fetched 4 figures in the
collectors circuit. The Void reissue will be
exact to the original, color glossy cover, lyrics
and back of jacket, 600 pressing from Michael's
masters, 100 on marble green 500 black. Insert
will be included also. This is the release that
everyone has been asking for.Musically dreamy
psychedelic folk , the stuff of legend by now.

sez you.

a lot of it has to do with availability. the internet + cheap (and bountiful!) reissues, tons of info (the internet again, but also mags like mojo, etc) that was previously hard to come by. years ago, people acted like they were doing you a favor by selling you 30 dollar psych bootlegs that sounded like shit. now there is SO MUCH high quality (as well as plenty of dodgy shit of course) product to consume. and whenever there is that much arcane shit to be sampled, musicnerdz will flock cuz they iz curious motherfuckers.

I've been idly wondering - is there anything in the UK that is commonly cited as the "first" (or maybe first significant) psychedelic single...? In the US the Elevators I know the Elevators usually get the credit for first using the term, but I'm curious where people sort of mark the beginning of the UK's psych period in pop. Revolver?

Shapes of Things? Although earlier Yardbirds songs were already pretty psychedelic too.

Arnold Layne?

Paint It Black predates Revolver too.

nah, "Strawberry Fields Forever" gets commonly cited, but mainly thru Beatles-centricity i guess

in terms of huge significant single rather than first experiment with the style

While this thread is bumped, another plug for Psychedelicized Radio, which rose from the ashes of Technicolor Web of Sound. They've upgraded to a 128kbs stream and have put a lot of work into expanding the playlist beyond the standard psych canon -- but deeper into more obscure artists, not expanding into watered down not-really-psych. Any station that plays "The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine" by The Joyride is alright by me.

http://psychedelicized.com/

"See My Friends"?

seems like you could draw a clear line from See My Friends->Norwegian Wood->Paint it Black but yeah does sitar alone make it psych? I dunno

nah, "Strawberry Fields Forever" gets commonly cited, but mainly thru Beatles-centricity i guess

I would think that Tomorrow Never Knows is the hinge point in the Beatles catalog

you said single

fair enough

Yeah I mean the Elevators are easy because they were one of the first to use the word psychedelic and to openly sing about psychedelic drugs (let me take you to DMT place). See My Friends is more just Indian influenced without necessarily coming from a psychedelic point of view. Plus the Yardbirds recorded Heart Full of Soul with an actual sitar before See My Friends came out, although that version wasn't released.

What was the first UK song to lyrically reference drugs?

Technically, the first American song to use the word "psychedelic" (er, 'psychOdelic') is "Hesitation Blues" by the Holy Modal Rounders.
Which is definitely not a psych rock single. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

Dylan thought it was "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"

xp

what year did LSD-25 by the Gamblers come out (obviously not musically psychedelic).

8 Miles High seems like the obvious first overtly psychdelic single.

oh I guess 1960 http://www.united-mutations.com/g/gamblers_moondawg.htm

let's keep the US out of this tho ... UK psych was such a different beast in many ways

The Pretty Things had a song called "LSD" in 1966.
It was about Pounds, Shillings, and...whatever D stands for, i dunno. But I think it was kind of a wink/nudge affair?

£sd (sometimes pronounced, and occasionally written, L.s.d.) is the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies (sterling) used in the Kingdom of England

the D was pence, something like denarii in latin

by 1966 the LSD/LSD gag was circulating amongst the hip tho

I think that the Soft Machine might have been the first British band taking psychedelic drugs, but they weren't the first to record about it.

pretties also did 'trippin ' in 67..

Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane is February '67 so I think what we need is some kind of chronology of stuff released prior

Donovan's Sunshine Superman/The Trip is July '66, but oddly it's UK release was delayed until December

Cream's "I Feel Free" also December '66

Heart Full of Soul - June '65
See My Friends - July '65
Shapes of Things - March '66
Paint It Black - May '66

yeah was gonna say. i'd argue most of those are pointing towards psych rather than the full thing tho

Yeah, those are all sonically psychedelic but not lyrically imo.

Pretty Things - LSD is kind of the opposite. Like the Gamblers song, it mentions LSD but isn't particularly psychedelic.

So are there any UK records where the sound and lyrics came together prior to Tomorrow Never Knows?

Sunshine Superman and the Trip are both pretty lyrically psychedelic (and the latter mentions methedrine)

pretty things' sf sorrow is wayyyyy more psych than their other stuff

def not the first instance tho

Defecting Grey is pretty weird!

Sunshine Superman and the Trip are both pretty lyrically psychedelic (and the latter mentions methedrine)

Oh yeah, and predates Tomorrow Never Knows. Recorded 3 months earlier, released 1 month earlier than TNK. I think The Trip is kind of musically unpsychedelic like the Pretty Things songs, but Sunshine Superman definitely should count.

The Yardbirds had a song called LSD too but I don't know when it was recorded or if it was released at the time.

on the weirdo-surf tip of proto-psych, I think these guys are from the UK -- Ahab and the Wailers from 1963.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6hyGVZail8

first u.s. psych album is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4oOWbWLRzk

unless you count this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ODnK2822E

thanking u, scott

i love Alan Watts

but, pace scott, some of Charles Ives' stuff is pretty psych imo

Oh Yardbirds LSD was recorded December '66 but never released until the '90s.

I think The Trip is kind of musically unpsychedelic like the Pretty Things songs, but Sunshine Superman definitely should count.

yeah the Trip is pretty pedestrian musically. but Sunshine Superman has the odd time signature, the harpsichord and that weird Page guitar part

in the u.k. i think this came out right around when "see my friends" came out. 65.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2UNkb-8OjA

does Sunshine Superman predate the various "sunshine" batches of LSD?

that Yardbirds tune sounds somewhere between Gene Pitney and "Ghost Riders in the Sky"

First acid reference is in "19th nervous breakdown" - "On our first trip I tried so hard to rearrange your mind"

does Sunshine Superman predate the various "sunshine" batches of LSD?

pretty sure it was still legal at that point and therefore all sandoz, right?

in the u.k. i think this came out right around when "see my friends" came out. 65.

and they did the fake sitar thing even earlier on Heart Full of Soul.

I digress, but holy crap that Ahab and the Wailers cut is exactly the kind of crazy early 60s exotica/instro music I've been loving the most lately!

pretty sure it was still legal at that point and therefore all sandoz, right?

I dunno when it was declared illegal in the UK but it looks like Owsley wasn't making sunshine until '67...?

harder to find u.k. examples prior to '66. by '66 of course the examples are endless.

I digress, but holy crap that Ahab and the Wailers cut is exactly the kind of crazy early 60s exotica/instro music I've been loving the most lately!

yeah, that song is amazing! a thread of that sort of thing would be great.

when did the fugs start making psychedelic music?

not an answer but Bond definitely influenced psych in the UK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoQG9wN0mAk

when did the fugs start making psychedelic music?

fugs were more about the coke/heroin/speed references, no?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Akc_Gn0RwU

sorry i'm just youtubing stuff i like now

fugs were more about the coke/heroin/speed references, no?

i guess i couldn't get high etc was but things like virgin forest sound like psychedelia to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKdZIb522fE&feature=related

Fugs = American

also irritating

oh man searching UK Psych on youtube pulls up some awesome shit

Fugs = American

ya don't say

Happening Ten Years Time Ago = the UK Eight Miles High

it was released in oct 1966, two months after Revolver so it doesnt predate Tomorrow Never Knows (tho Roger the Engineer does), but as far as singles go, that's probably the one I'd pick

I remember a couple years ago I wanted to create some sort of fake zine that took place in 1966-7 that was kind of like SPIN magazine, trying to recreate the far-out lingo while taking sort of an ex post facto view towards the music scene--talking not just about beat music heroes like the Byrds and Yardbirds and the Elevators and Love, but also primitive folk stuff like John Fahey and Robbie Basho, and a bunch of stuff no one was listening to back then ("...we've been hearing wild things about this combo in Germany called the Monks!")

It was fun to think about, but I easily accepted that particular project as doomed to never be fulfilled.

Why would you accept "happenings" but not Shapes of Things from 8 months earlier?

inclined to pin the winning badge on Donovan if it wasn't for the UK delay of that single... when did Page join the Yardbirds? interesting that he's connected to these original UK psych stirrings

trips and sugar cubes in hey gyp lyrics. 1965.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RwE7M9IrWg

b-side to a 1965 single. to be exact.

Most of the best psychedelic yardbirds stuff is pre-Page. Happenings is the first song he played on.

haha, this page talks about almost everything we've gone over in this thread http://www.lysergia.com/LamaWorkshop/lamaEarlyPsychedelia.htm

ooh nice find Scott! I didn't know that one. I do love me some Donovan. not very psych-sounding tho

Whoops my bad on Shapes. I thought that might have been later for some reason. Also: I can't believe I forgot about 'Rain' (even though 'Shapes' still might be earlier). I don't even know who I am anymore.*

*title of an Electric Prunes outtake

Yeah to me, the lyrics of "Shapes" seem to be pretty obviously acid inspired, even if they don't explicitly namecheck sugar cubes or something. And "Rain" doesn't seem any more psychedelic than a song like Heart Full of Soul that came out a full year earlier.

I disagre: "When it rains or shines/it's just a state of mind" nails the subjective nature of reality theme that is def the result of LSD experimentation. Plus the innovative backwards coda.

Anyone have an opinion about this? "Love Poetry And Revolution", a new 3CD UK psych comp from Cherry Red: http://www.cherryred.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=4460

Haha not only do I have an opinion...

http://thequietus.com/articles/14072-love-poetry-and-revolution-review

some v cool stuff on there but i would have preferred they leave off the previously (and in some cases quite heavily) comped stuff and make it a disc shorter

has anyone into this stuff not heard magic potion by now?

nice to see complex on there, images blue in my top 10 tracks of the 70s

Aw Ned, I set that self-promotion up for you! Well done.

I'm on the fence about these sorts of things. I dig Nuggets II and Mojo's Acid Drops box sets but I'm not sure I need another. Having said that, any compiler smart enough to include Bill Nelson has my attention.