Sometimes some things are so obvious they just past you by, which is almost what I did with 'Syd's Pink Floyd' tracks here. 'Piper At The Gates Of Dawn' was the album that got me into psych music and the possibilities for 'something a little differrent' in sound, lyrics and melody...these are the mono mixes of the tracks and they still have that magic and charm all these years later, shine on indeed...
Absolute classic track from'The Sons Of Adam'. Feathered Fish was written for the band by 'Love' main man Arthur Lee...and it shows with it's punky riffs,obscure time changes and lyrics...not to mention top guitar solo...I've paired this with Saturday's Child...a kind of proto '7th son of a seventh son...
Pretty much everyone knows the monster smash that was 'In The Year 2525' by Zager and Evans but not so many are familiar with the superb album that accompanied it. So here are four tracks from a moog driven future concept pop-psych album of the highest order...it would have made a great film along the lines of Barbarella et all...
Artificial Energy has got to be one of the very best drug song's from one of the USA's very best bands, The Byrds. From early chiming Dylan-rock to spaced out cowboys The Byrds epitomize a lot of that 60's West Coast American dream....as well as turning out some amazing records...
Maybe a little too proggy for this post, but what the hell, we're all friends aren't we and it's a lovely sound and well, I really like the cover and name. Genius. This is perhaps the shortest track on a fairly rare album that's well worth a listen.
The United States Of America were an experimental electronic/psych band from LA. These three tracks are from the self titled classic from 1968. Great fuzz guitar, organ and electronic sounds.Great album.
Three tracks from the superb album 'Introspection' by 'The End. Produced by Bill Wyman of The Stones it's a poppy, trippy record with great songs, strong vocals and a great sound. Shades of Orange is perhaps the best known track due to appearing on various compilations but the whole album is worth hunting down and checking out.
Not quite sure how many 'greatest lost bands' they're are but 'The Misunderstood' claim to be one. I love this track and the first six tracks are great too...the rest is earlier, more basic Yardbirds type stuff and while good, not in the same league as the first few tracks.
'Stonesy' psych from San Jose, California, The Chocolate Watch band here with two tracks. Rhey went through quite a few incarnations and appeared in a couple of films including 'Are you Gonna Be There(At The Love In?), well what else would you do on the West Coast...
Not sure where this cover of Heatwave is from (Germany or France is my guess) or who Ruby Rats were but I love the vocals and reedy organ blasting through it.
Aussie Psych from 'The valentines' with 'Peculiar Hole In The Sky'...pretty good compilation featuring and named after this track, rounding up various Aussie bands of the period.Worth tracking down.
I'll have a brew of what they're having...two tracks from 'The Tea Company'. Hailing from New York in 1968 comes this album which already places Lennon up there in pantheon of Gods (and yeah..even Dylan too) in their own words:
"an assemblage of possessed rock performers; retinue preparing the unusual; alternating with the roots of soul, whose purpose is to cause sensation, due to stimulation of the auditory centres of the brain"
Been thinking we've not had enough acid on this post so here, all the way from San Fransico is Fifty Foot Hose with four tracks from their excellent 'Cauldron' album.
We start off fairly poppy with the first two tracks,pass through my favourite track 'Cauldron' then end on a bad trip...great cover too, quite ahead of it's time,very 80's!
Krokodil were Switzerland's very first supergroup in a psych styling...making use of mellotron, flute, organ,harmonica and acoustic guitar to bring us a slightly prog sound from 1969. The blues base is still there but something other also...great drawings on the cover also...
Three great tracks from The David's 'Another Day Another Lifetime' LP from 1967. Nice orchestration, sounds and song-writing on this... Californian 'summer of love' psych.
Two great tracks from Hampton Grease Bands 'Music To Eat' LP from 1971, apparently the second worse selling LP on Columbia records (apparently the worst was some Yoga record...ommm???)
Often dismissed as daft comedy rock, I think the Lp stands up really well in the 21st century with it's tales of teenage loss of virginity and refuse collectors as featured here...they're are obvious Zappa and Beefheart influences but that's no bad thing so grease on..
Another great psych single, this time from 'The Smoke'. See what they've done there on the cover...clever eh? 'My Friend Jack' alludes to the practice of putting liquid LSD onto sugar lumps, this was before microdots and the like and all those horrible binding agents... ah well...
One of my favourite singles from the 60's is Tomorrow's 'My White Bicycle', it's just about perfect I guess, so there you go...I'll feature some Keith West stuff soon.
Joe Boyd's excellent book, 'White Bicyles' and accompanying cd should be sought also..it's top, though sadly the cd doesn't feature this monster track!
I've read a couple of reviews suggesting this album is bland and a bit average. Well, take no notice cause to these ears it's gloriously wonky and a psych gem. Yep, it's a bit derivative but it's a double album full of soul with sides 3+4 being taken up by one 'experimental' track each.Harumi, a japanese ex-pat who was 'found' by Tom Wilson and put on the Verve label, well worth checking out.
Couple of great tracks from 'The Human Expression'. I think these can be found on the various nuggets compilations which you all should have,pretty essential if you like this kind of stuff.
Particularly love 'Optical Sound', could listen to that all day...
Three great fun tracks from 'Friar Tuck and his Psychedelic Guitar', actually a bunch of session musician's making a freak out record. Which they do very well indeed. Great vocals,guitar and effects...particularly like the drones on 'Fendabenda'.
Krautrockers Brainticket here with 'Egyptian Kings' and 'Rainbow River' from their 1974 album 'Celestial Ocean'. Probably venturing into the land of prog/new age type music, it still does the business.
Possibly best known for the album 'Sunrise' being produced by Jimmy Hendrix, Eire Apparent were a Belfast band(originally called The People) that moved to London and were subsequently renamed and managed by Chas Chandler. The Hendrix and Animals influence permeate what is a great album in it's own right. Well worth tracking down.
Well Bill Plummer was a jazz bassist who featured on around 62 album's, numerous TV show and soundtrack's but this is definately his psych-out trip. Quite like how he keeps it together with nice short hair and sensible suit whilst enjoying the cosmic brotherhood. Superb.
Keeping it West Coast and another 'biggie' with three tracks from Love. According to legend they would have been far better off calling themselves 'Hate' considering the bad vibes and clashes within the band, although if it wasn't for Arthur Lee we may never have had The Doors as he was supposed to have recommended checking them out to Electra records...
Well, what can be said about The Doors that hasn't already been said? Not much other than they seem to get a bit of a bad press these days, a bit over-familiar maybe...maybe the Jim Morrison persona...whatever, the records are still great.
A couple of tracks from the inimitable 60's LA band The Seeds. Fallin' is a classic repetitive hypnotic blast from their album 'Future' whilst 'Can't Seem To Make you Mine' is a classic repetitive hypnotic blast fresh from use in a deodorant commercial. Both full of Seedy goodness.
Much has been said of The Seeds influence on The Doors sounds and I think that comes through here...enjoy!
Psychedelic folk from Mark Fry and his superb 'Dreaming With Alice' album from 1972. Check out Mark's paintings, drawings and new music on the link above...
Sometime a group has so much good material it's hard to whittle it down to one or two tracks so here we have three from the absolutely superb 'Left Bank'. Labelled 'Baroque pop', The Left Bank had top melodies, great vocals and superb arrangements on their super sharp psych-pop songs, the best of which are up there with the Fabs, Beach Boys et all for me.
P.s-You'll probably know 'Walk Away Renée' from the more famous 'Four Tops' version.
From the West Coast to the East and New York with 'Bit 'A Sweet's' 'Speak Softly' and '2086'. I guess New York is now famous for The Velvet Underground and that Greenwich Village stuff, but listening to this we may as well be back in California, rich harmonies and tones, a sunny vibe and a little of 'The Lemon Pipers/Bubblegum' pop-psych thrown in for good measure.
P.s-2086 must be the only song apart 'Snooker Loopy by Chas and Dave' to use snooker balls as percussion instruments...unless you know better?
Legendary West Coast band Spirit here with two tracks. 'Girl In Your Eye' and 'Taurus'.
Girl In Your Eye is a perfect slice of laid back Californian psych, pretty hard to top to these ears. Taurus on the other hand has a more infamous heritage as 'inspiration' for the classic Led Zepplin track 'Stairway To Heaven'...you can decide for yourself if Jimmy Page nicked the guitar figure or not...
A little bit of a lost classic here with a couple of tracks from Skip Bifferty's 1968 self titled album. (though it's been reissued many times, so just how lost I'm not sure) Quality songs all round, great sound and an album well worth tracking down.