Psychedelia, p.61
Psychedelia, page 61
The Beatles' fruitful relationship with Psychedelia brought out some of the best works from all three songwriters (Harrison's "It's All Too Much" has grown into a massive favorite among modern-day acidheads, as an example), and as late as 1969 Lennon was still making beautifully surreal numbers such as "Across The Universe". The Beatles being the Beatles, their acid phase was as vital to the emergence of a psychedelic pop culture as the prevalence of Owsley LSD and the international PR campaign of Timothy Leary. Their influence on contemporary rock bands were of a different order than all other groups, and from Revolver on they validated genuine psychedelicists, and gave birth to a vast colony of fakedelicists and zeitgeist imitators around the world. There are few better role models than the Beatles, and many of their disciples created fine, memorable music with psychedelic flavoring; Beauregard Ajax' unreleased album from California 1967 is perhaps the best Revolver imitation around, while Forever Is A Dream by Food (1969), the Monkees' Head (from their superbly surreal '68 movie), and Suddenly One Summer by J K & Co (1967) all find debts to Sgt Pepper paid off in a terrific, engaging manner.
Unlike most '60s acts, the Beatles continued to influence rock bands long after their demise, and as late as 1973 the local Indiana group Zerfas created a masterful album that drew heavily on the Beatles' late psych phase. A more unfortunate effect of the Beatles' acid daze was the inclusion of unwarranted music hall or vaudeville tracks on regular rock albums, something which worked fairly well on Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour, but came out awkward indeed on otherwise strong 1967-68 albums by the Common People, H P Lovecraft and Ultimate Spinach, among others. As the music scene shifted its focus from 45s to LPs, many artists had a hard time separating good ideas from bad. Another facet of this was the appearance of blue-eyed soul or heavy blues numbers in the midst of surreal Psychedelia, as heard on albums by the Rainy Daze (1967), 20th Century Zoo (1968), and Paul Parrish (1968). Sometimes this hopeless mosaic came from a lack of original material beyond a hit 45, at other times it was a fumbling attempt to make a genre -crossing 'collage' in the wake of Sgt Pepper. Most of the time, however, it was simply a commercial attempt to cover all bases, in case soul music or blues-rock, or even vaudeville, would emerge as the dominating trend.
This lack of aesthetic integrity (or artistic control) is a contributing factor to the difficulty in finding truly great, consistent albums from the commercial heyday of psychedelic rock in 1967-68. Not only might a vintage 'psych' LP turn out to be shallow fakedelia, but half of it might not be psychedelic in any way. A classic, frustrating case are the West Coast Kaleidoscope, who for their own idiosyncratic reasons inserted unwanted non-rock material into a stunning body of folkrock and Eastern-flavored psych which, if salvaged for a single LP rather than stretched out over two, would have made for one of the great records of the era. A handful of '60s albums that are both consistently psychedelic and consistently good, in addition to those discussed above, are Underground by the Electric Prunes (1967), the elegantly constructed trip metaphor Mind Odyssey by the Aggregation (1969), It's A Long Way Down by the Fallen Angels (1968), all three Reprise LPs by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (1967-68), Creation Of Sunlight (1969) and of course Love's eternal masterpiece Forever Changes (1967). For the most part however, rock groups and their respective labels didn't really understand how to prepare and produce albums as coherent artistic works until 1969-70, and by that time the psychedelic music 'trend' had blown past from the mainstream perspective.
It is therefore not surprising that many uniformly strong psychedelic albums came from artists who held on to the hallucinogenic spirit after its commercial buzz had diminished. Some of these later-day records may be considered psychedelic masterpieces today, but due to the lack of commercial timing they saw very limited success, or even remained unreleased, at the time. From the Bay Area came two masterful albums by bands who weRenét really part of the S F scene, yet managed to capture its essential qualities in a rewarding way: the self-titled albums by Kak (1969) and Tripsichord Music Box (1970) respectively. Although somewhat different in style, their shared combination of upbeat spiritual moods and powerful, guitar-driven music have turned these once forgotten outings into two of the most beloved albums of the era. Also from Northern California, the self-titled double album by Bob Smith (1970) works as a bridge between the late '60s and early '70s Westcoast sound, a quality shared with Spirit's influential 12 Dreams Of Dr Sardonicus (1970). Perhaps most admired of these mature psych albums today is David Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name (1970), a masterpiece of good vibes and mystique which sums up the late '60s West Coast scene in a tantalizing way. Records like these show a maturing progression within Psychedelia which unfortunately was not given the chance to develop further, at least not on the major record label level.
Much of the same positive qualities apply to the Stalk-Forrest Group, a West Coast-influenced New York band who became Blue Oyster Cult shortly after laying down their excellent but long unreleased Elektra album (St Cecilia, first released 2005). In Chicago, post-Them outfit Truth made a number of late '60s recordings in a similar style, drawing on the Notorious Byrds and Aoxomoxoa Grateful Dead to create harmonious, engaging music which fell on deaf music industry ears (Truth Of Them, first released 1996). A third and final example of outstanding unreleased Psychedelia falling victim to the cowardly trendiness of the major labels are Austin's Cold Sun, who in 1970 recorded an album that channeled the 13th Floor Elevators, the Doors and Velvet Underground through alien desert mind-states and came up with a cauldron of peyote Psychedelia which today is considered one of the best albums (Dark Shadows, first released 1990) ever recorded in Texas.
5
While some of their imitators left fine records behind, not many of the Beatles' '60s followers shared the profound understanding of the trip state that helped Lennon and Harrison create psychedelic music loaded with the emotional ambivalence and surreal melancholy that acidheads could instantly recognize and relate to. A rare, successful exception in this regard was the Golden Dawn from Austin. The group, who were close friends with the 13th Floor Elevators, represent an unusual diversion within '60s Psychedelia, and perhaps for that reason their Power Plant (1968) album has in recent decades grown into one of the most beloved vintage psych albums. The band existed mainly to record the LP and played only a few gigs; they were hardly great musicians and they wore their influences – the Beatles and the Elevators – on their sleeve. Yet the resulting album is something of a revelation, a work that is so much better than it 'should' have been to deserve close examination.
What the Golden Dawn achieved, and were almost alone in doing, was to re-balance the fundamental properties of Psychedelia. The emphasis in their recording is strongly oriented towards two psychedelic attributes: atmosphere and emotional ambiguity. The sublime "This Way Please" and the closing "Reaching Out To You" instill a feeling of otherworldly melancholy that is instantly recognizable to any acidhead, and that feeling becomes the immediate and lasting impression of their record; a rarefied emotional spot not far from Lennon's "Strawberry Fields", later approached by the 13th Floor Elevators on "Dust". The ambivalent moods are communicated so clearly that the music seems to arise from deep within the trip. A substantial part of this enigmatic achievement comes from lead singer George Kinney's voice, which uses the surreal closeness of John Lennon's '66 vocals as a springboard into an even more elusive daydream state, and interacts perfectly with the unfailingly psychedelic lyrics and simple but well-written songs. One way to understand Power Plant is to see it as a deeply personal album which thanks to the influence of psychedelic drugs becomes open and inviting, rather than private and introvert like a '70s singer - songwriter.
Except for a derivative track like 'Starvation', the Golden Dawn's debt to their friends in the 13th Floor Elevators has been somewhat overstated. The fact that Power Plant was recorded before Easter Everywhere, but held back by the record company in order to focus on the Elevators' release, even suggests that the Golden Dawn influenced the Elevators, rather than vice versa. In any event, mapping the two Austin bands against a matrix of psychedelic characteristics, it becomes clear that they belong to two different classes of Psychedelia. They shared the immersion in the psychedelic lifestyle and the hallucinogenic inspiration for their song lyrics, but the fundamental artistic objective separates them. The Elevators were LSD in their alpha and omega, their whole purpose was to teach and perpetuate The Psychedelic Experience. The Golden Dawn on the other hand succeeded in creating something the Elevators only rarely did or tried to do, which was the actual feeling of being inside the acid trip, with its otherworldly moods and slightly surreal flow of perceptual data. That is to say; the Elevators created music for acidheads to listen to during the trip, but the Golden Dawn created music which made you feel like you were tripping even if you were not. Some Elevators songs, most notably 'Kingdom Of Heaven' have this quality, but in general this was not the idea behind the Elevators music – they assumed the listener to be tripping, not to feel 'as though' he was tripping.
The class of triplike Psychedelia represented by the Golden Dawn can be traced back to Revolver and 'Strawberry Fields', but has no real precedence prior to the psychedelicized Lennon. As shown above, the vocals play a fundamental part to this style, as do the chord progressions and arrangements. One might surmise that the notion to make the listener feel like being on LSD is common within psychedelic music, but it is in fact surprisingly scarce. It may be that most groups who tried to do this failed so badly that their intention has never been understood by psych music fans. Among major artists, a kinship to the surreal melancholy of Lennon and Golden Dawn can be found on certain recordings by the mid-period Byrds, those with David Crosby holding the reins in particular. Like the Beatles and Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds did not originate as a psychedelic band, but grasped and adopted the new direction so quickly that they became one of its vanguards. 'Eight Miles High' (April 1966) remains one of the most important releases in the evolvement of Psychedelia, and unlike their fellow musical pioneers the Yardbirds, the California band succeeded to stay on the beat with psychedelic rock as it evolved in 1967-68.
For the Younger Than Yesterday and Notorious Byrd Brothers albums, the Byrds expanded their palette to include abstract moods that correspond with the ethereal qualities of triplike Psychedelia. The dreamy, oceanic atmosphere of "Dolphin's Smile" fulfills the ambitions towards musical transcendence initiated by "Renaissance Fair" on the preceding album. Comparable cases of warm, otherworldly trip music include the appropriately titled "Moebius Trip" and "Spin Spin Spin" on H P Lovecraft's second album (1968), a recording that happily fell into the hands of a lysergicized young producer even if the band was disintegrating. Another pioneering freak group from the Midwest were Milwaukee's the Baroques, who after releasing the earliest psych album from the entire region (March 1967) bid farewell with a private released 45 which hits a very special triplike feeling. The Baroques in turn were matched or even surpassed by obscure hometown rivals Picture, whose "Evolution" 45 (from 1969) is one of the most evocative representations of the psychedelic state ever committed to vinyl.
Many years later, Massachusetts cult artist Bobb Trimble released two self-produced albums which turned the idea of triplike Psychedelia into a truly timeless experience, an achievement which places his Iron Curtain Innocence (1980) and Harvest Of Dreams (1982) among the most highly rated of all modern psych albums. Rooted in the same psychedelicized Lennon of '66-67 that the Golden Dawn drew sounds and atmosphere from, Trimble uses a similar but much richer blend of otherworldly vocals and aural effects to elevate what might have been private singer-songwriter affairs into labyrinthine, hallucinatory expressions of a profoundly felt melancholy. The parallel to the Golden Dawn is coincidental and derives from a shared infatuation with recordings like "Strawberry Fields Forever", yet both artists demonstrate the same, intriguing point: by projecting deeply personal thoughts and reflections through a lens of psychedelic aesthetics, these emotions somehow take on a greater universality. This is hardly self-evident, but an indication of how Psychedelia's richly layered and at times contradictory spectrum of emotion is better suited than almost any other form to capture the elusive, sometimes inexpressible, ambiguity of human experience.
The San Francisco area bands, once they developed musical skills to match their creativity and integrity, made vital contributions to the field of triplike Psychedelia. Again, Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe & The Fish stand out with some profoundly lysergic pieces ("Rejoyce", "Grace") that demonstrate the uniqueness of Psychedelia, yet in the particular quest to reflect alien, ambiguous states of mind even they may have been surpassed by Mad River. A second-wave band originally from Ohio, Mad River struck up a friendship with Beat writer and Digger associate Richard Brautigan, whose mentorship contributed to the band's unswerving originality. Already with their 1967 debut EP Mad River sounded like no one else, in particular on "Orange Fire" with its brutal mix of enchanting folk melody, merciless lyrics and violent guitar assaults, the sum of which in three minutes conveyed the inner and outer chaos of a war refugee, or perhaps a shattered LSD casualty. Unburdened by commercial ambitions, breaking new ground 'while the flower children hold their ears', Mad River's debut album (1968) mapped out a remote musical landscape in which (in HP Lovecraft's words) the angles are all wrong. Much of what was created during the psychedelic '60s built on the introduction of alien elements into pop culture forms, but Mad River's music, as heard on the topical 'High All The Time' and the epic 'Eastern Light', seems to consist only of alien elements, forged into spiky aural sculptures put on display in some surreal gallery. Descriptive language falls short of the complex mental images evoked by Mad River's music, and in that sense it represents a sort of end-state for Psychedelia, in a manner similar to how Kubrick's 2001-A Space Odyssey also tends to make analytical descriptions seem meaningless.
'I just didn't know that anything like that existed. This was a real Dionysian Festival. The band members were magicians' in immediate accord with their art. The spirit of the thing, a community; a celebrating community.' 1
XVII
THE MUSIC OF THE AGES
1
Optical sound effects and unearthly vocals serve their psychedelic purpose, but sometimes it doesn't take more than a few inspired phrases to create an otherworldly mood. Sometimes all it takes is eight words:
How sad
The farm lad
Deep in play
The image is stark, evasive; its meaning refuses to stay fixed but keeps changing, like a psychedelic, eyes-open impression. But this image appears internally in the mind's eye, rather than the external hallucination of a carpet pattern or tree canopy. With a sparseness that some might call Japanese (the haiku form in particular), Donovan places a vision inside the listener's head, then makes it psychedelic. With those eight words, at least three different emotions are evoked, pulling in different directions. The surreal ambivalence of the stanza rests upon the final word 'play', which becomes a pivot or point of gravity. Replace 'play' with 'grief' as an example, and the delicate balancing act collapses into sentimentality. Instead the lyric forms an endless riddle, a moebius strip of questions involving the simple words 'sad', 'play', 'deep'.
'Isle Of Islay' first appeared on the second disc of the 1967 double-album A Gift From A Flower To A Garden. Released as a stand-alone LP under the title For Little Ones in the USA, the record was apparently intended as a concept album for children. In spite of such humble aspirations, it turned out to be not only Donovan's masterpiece (admittedly with sharp competition from Sunshine Superman) but the birth of a new genre, which today is usually referred to as folkpsych. Donovan had already experimented with the marriage between acoustic folk music and psychedelic modalities on album tracks like the delightful "Legend Of A Girl Child Linda" and the visually evocative 'Sand And Foam', but with For Little Ones he temporarily surrendered all rock ambitions to concentrate entirely on this wistful, slightly surreal folk with the occasional Eastern touch. Lacking a 45 hit and somewhat lost in the release confusion between his UK and US labels, the album and the style it launched nevertheless went on to become tremendously influential, an influence that lasted well into the 1970s. Donovan himself, with typical energy and productivity, soon moved on to embryonic hardrock on "Hurdy Gurdy Man" but continued to insert trippy folkpsych tracks like "The River Song" on his later albums. In 1972 he repeated the 'childRenés album' concept with HMS Donovan, and the resulting disc is again one of the best of his career.
