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Smokestack Lightnin' Home Page' -- The Blues Profile Page
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or
influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and
enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It
often used new recording techniques and effects and drew on
non-Western sources such the ragas and drones of Indian music.
It was pioneered by acts including the Beatles, The Byrds and
The Yardbirds, emerging as a genre during the mid 1960s among
folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United
Kingdom. It reached a peak in between 1967 and 1969 with the
Summer of Love and Woodstock rock festival, becoming an
international musical movement and associated with a widespread
counter-culture, before beginning a decline as changing
attitudes, the loss of some key individuals and a back-to-basics
movement, led surviving performers to move into new musical
areas.
Psychedelic rock bridged the transition from early blues- and
folk music-based rock to progressive rock, glam rock, hard rock
and as a result influenced the development of sub-genres such as
heavy metal. Since the late 1970s it has been revived in various
forms of neo-psychedelia.
It is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by
psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the
mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It often used
new recording techniques and effects and drew on non-Western
sources such the ragas and drones of Indian music.
It was pioneered by acts including the Beatles, The Byrds and
The Yardbirds, emerging as a genre during the mid 1960s among
folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United
Kingdom. It reached a peak in between 1967 and 1969 with the
Summer of Love and Woodstock rock festival, becoming an
international musical movement and associated with a widespread
counter-culture, before beginning a decline as changing
attitudes, the loss of some key individuals and a back-to-basics
movement, led surviving performers to move into new musical
areas.
Psychedelic rock bridged the transition from early blues- and
folk music-based rock to progressive rock, glam rock, hard rock
and as a result influenced the development of sub-genres such as
heavy metal. Since the late 1970s it has been revived in various
forms of neo-psychedelia.
Characteristics
A sitar, much used on early records of the genre.
As a musical style psychedelic rock attempted to replicate the
effects and enhance the mind-altering experiences of
hallucinogenic drugs, incorporating new electronic and record
effects, extended solo's and improvisation and was particularly
influenced by eastern mysticism, reflected in use of exotic
instrumentation, particularly from Indian music or the
incorporation of elements of eastern music.
often contains some of the following features:
electric guitars, often used with feedback, wah wah and
fuzzboxes;
elaborate studio effects, such as backwards tapes, panning,
phasing, long delay loops, and extreme reverb;
exotic instrumentation, with a particular fondness for the sitar
and tabla;
a strong keyboard presence, especially organs, harpsichords, or
the Mellotron (an early tape-driven 'sampler');
extended instrumental solos or jams;
complex song structures, key and time signature changes, modal
melodies and drones;
primitive electronic instruments such as synthesizers and the
theremin;
lyrics that made direct or indirect reference to drugs, as in
Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit' or Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple
Haze'.
surreal, whimsical, esoterically or literary-inspired, lyrics;
History
Origins
In the 1960s, in the tradition of jazz and blues, many folk and
rock musicians began to take drugs and included drug references
in their songs. Beat Generation writers like William Burroughs,
Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and especially the new proponents
of consciousness expansion such as Timothy Leary, Alan Watts,
Aldous Huxley and Arthur Koestler, profoundly influenced the
thinking of the new generation, helping to popularise the use of
LSD.
Psychedelic music's LSD-inspired vibe began in the folk scene,
with the New York-based Holy Modal Rounders using the term in
their 1964 recording of 'Hesitation Blues'. The first group to
advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor
Elevators from Texas, at the end of 1965. The term was first
used in print in the Austin American Statesman in an article
about the band titled 'Unique Elevators shine with psychedelic
rock', dated 10 February 1966, and theirs was the first album to
use the term as part of its title, in The Psychedelic Sounds of
the 13th Floor Elevators, released in August that year.
After being introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan, members of The
Beatles began experimenting with LSD from 1965 and the group
introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound
to audiences in this period, with 'I Feel Fine' (1964) using
guitar feedback; 'Norwegian Wood' from their 1965 Rubber Soul
album using a sitar, and the employment of backwards spooling on
their 1966 single B-side 'Rain'. Drug references began to appear
in their songs from 'Day Tripper' (1965) and more explicitly
from 'Tomorrow Never Knows' (1966) from their album Revolver.
The Byrds, emerging from the Californian folk scene, and the
Yardbirds from the British blues scene, have been seen as
particularly influential on the development of the genre. The
psychedelic life style had already developed in California,
particularly in San Francisco, by the mid-60s, where there was
also an emerging music scene. This moved out of acoustic
folk-based music towards rock soon after The Byrds 'plugged in'
to produce a chart topping version of Bob Dylan's 'Tambourine
Man' in 1965. As a number of Californian-based folk acts
followed them into folk-rock they brought their psychedelic
influences with them to produce the 'San Francisco Sound'.
Particularly prominent products of the scene were The Grateful
Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, The Great Society, Big Brother
and the Holding Company, The Charlatans, Moby Grape, Quicksilver
Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. The Byrds rapidly
progressed from purely folk rock in 1966 with their single
'Eight Miles High', which made use of free jazz and Indian ragas
and the lyrics of which were widely taken to refer to drug use.
In Britain The Yardbirds, with Jeff Beck as their guitarist,
increasingly moved into psychedelic territory, adding up-tempo
improvised 'rave ups', Gregorian chant and world music in
particular Indian influences to songs including 'Still I'm Sad'
(1965) and 'Over Under Sideways Down' (1966) and singles: 'Heart
Full of Soul' (1965), 'Shapes of Things' (1966) and 'Happenings
Ten Years Time Ago' (1966). They were soon followed into this
territory by bands such as Procol Harum, The Moody Blues and The
Nice.
Development in the USA
Typical psychedelic style poster. Iron Butterfly at the Carousel
Ballroom.
The San Francisco music scene continued to develop as the
Fillmore, the Avalon Ballroom, and The Matrix began booking
local rock bands on a nightly basis. The first Trips Festival,
held at the Longshoremen's Hall in January 1966, saw The
Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company play to an
audience of 10,000, giving many their first encounter with both
acid rock, with its long instrumentals and unstructured jams,
and LSD. Also from San Francisco, Blue Cheer played
psychedelic-influenced rock in a blues-rock style.
Although San Francisco was the centre of American psychedelic
music scene, many other American cities contributed
significantly to the new genre. The first psychedelic single to
reach the US top 10 was 'Psychotic Reaction' by San Jose garage
band Count Five in July 1966. Los Angeles boasted dozens of
important psychedelic bands, besides The Byrds, these included
Iron Butterfly, Love, Spirit, Captain Beefheart and his Magic
Band, The United States of America, The West Coast Pop Art
Experimental Band, and the Electric Prunes; perhaps the most
commercially successful were The Doors. Frank Zappa and his
group The Mothers of Invention began to incorporate psychedelic
influences in their first two albums Freak Out! (1966) and
Absolutely Free (1967). The Beach Boys concept album Pet Sounds
helped herald the psychedelia movement in America, with its
artful experiments, psychedelic lyrics based on emotional
longings and self-doubts, elaborate sound effects and new sounds
on both conventional and unconventional instruments. New York
City produced its share of psychedelic bands, such as folk
pioneers The Fugs, The Godz, and Pearls Before Swine, besides
the Blues Magoos, the Blues Project, Lothar and the Hand People
and the blues influenced Vanilla Fudge. The Detroit area gave
rise to psychedelic bands the Amboy Dukes, and the SRC, and
Chicago produced H. P. Lovecraft. Texas (particularly Austin) is
often cited for its contributions to psychedelic music: besides
the 13th Floor Elevators it produced acts including Bubble
Puppy, Lost and Found, The Golden Dawn, The Zakary Thaks, and
Red Crayola.
Development in the UK
In the UK before 1967 media outlets for psychedelic culture were
limited to stations like Radio Luxembourg and pirate radio like
Radio London, particularly the programmes hosted by DJ John
Peel. The growth of underground culture was facilitated by the
emergence of alternative weekly publications like IT
(International Times) and OZ magazine which featured psychedelic
and progressive music together with the counter culture
lifestyle, which involved long hair, and the wearing of wild
shirts from shops like Mr Fish, Granny Takes a Trip and old
military uniforms from Carnaby Street (Soho) and Kings Road
(Chelsea) boutiques, Britain's hippies comported themselves in
stark contrast to the slick, tailored Teddyboys or the drab,
conventional dress of most teenagers prior to that. Soon
psychedelic rock clubs like the UFO Club in Tottenham Court
Road, Middle Earth Club in Covent Garden, The Roundhouse in
Chalk Farm, the Country Club (Swiss Cottage) and the Art Lab
(also in Covent Garden) were drawing capacity audiences with
psychedelic rock and ground-breaking liquid light shows.
British psychedelic rock, like its American counterpart, had
roots in the folk scene. Blues, drugs, jazz and eastern
influences had featured since 1964 in the work of Davy Graham
and Bert Jansch. However, the largest strand was a series of
bands that emerged from 1966 from the British blues scene, but
influenced by folk, jazz and psychedelia, including Pink Floyd,
Traffic, Soft Machine, Cream, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience
(led by an American, but initially produced and managed in
Britain by Chas Chandler of The Animals). The Crazy World of
Arthur Brown added surreal theatrical touches to its dark
psychedelic sounds, such as the singer's flaming headdress.
Existing British Invasion acts now joined the psychedelic
revolution, including Eric Burdon (previously of The Animals),
and The Small Faces and The Who whose The Who Sell Out (1967)
included psychedelic influenced tracks 'I Can See for Miles' and
'Armenia City in the Sky'. The Rolling Stones had drug
references and psychedelic hints in their 1966 singles '19th
Nervous Breakdown' and 'Paint It, Black', the latter featuring
drones and sitar.
Peak years
Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the
decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release the double A-side
'Strawberry Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane', opening a strain
of British 'pastoral' or 'nostalgic' psychedelia, followed by
the release of what is often seen as their definitive
psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
including the controversial track 'Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds'. They continued the psychedelic theme later in the
year with the double EP Magical Mystery Tour and the number one
single 'Hello, Goodbye' with its B-side 'I Am The Walrus'. Also
enigmatic and surreal was one of the most influential records of
1967, 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' by Procol Harum, which reached
number one in the UK Singles Chart on 8 June 1967, and stayed
there for six weeks. The Rolling Stones responded to Sgt Pepper
later in the year with Their Satanic Majesties Request, and Pink
Floyd produced what is usually seen as their best psychedelic
work The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. In 1967 the Incredible
String Band's The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion
developed their folk music into full blown psychedelia. From
1967 Fairport Convention became a mainstay of the London
Underground scene, producing their eponymous first album of
American-inspired folk rock the following year.
In America the Summer of Love of 1967 saw huge number of young
people from across American and the world travel to the
Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, boosting the
population from 15,000 to around 100,000. It was prefaced by the
Human Be-In event in March and reached its peak at the Monterey
Pop Festival in June, the latter helping to make major American
stars of Janis Joplin, lead singer of Big Brother and the
Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix and The Who. Key recordings
included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow, the first
album to come out of San Francisco during this era, which sold
well enough to bring the city's music scene to the attention of
the record industry: from it they took two of the earliest
psychedelic hit singles: 'White Rabbit' (1967) and 'Somebody to
Love' (1967). The Doors' first hit single 'Light My Fire'
(1967), clocking in at over 7 minutes, became one of the
defining records of the genre, although their follow up album
Strange Days only enjoyed moderate success. These trends
climaxed in the 1969 Woodstock festival, which saw performances
by most of the major psychedelic acts, including Jimi Hendrix,
Janis Joplin, and Santana. Psychedelic rock was glamorized on
screen in Easy Rider (1969), which used songs including
Steppenwolf's 'Born to be Wild' as part of its soundtrack.
International expansion
The Bee Gees, one of the most commercially successful survivors
of the psychedelic era, performing on Dutch television in 1968
The US and UK were the major centres of psychedelic music, but
in the late 1960s scenes began to develop across the world,
including continental Europe, Australasia, Asia and south and
central America.
In the later 1960s psychedelic scenes developed in a large
number of countries in continental Europe, including the
Netherlands with bands like The Outsiders, Denmark where it was
pioneered by Steppeulvene, and Germany, where musicians began to
fuse music of psychedelia and the electronic avant-garde. 1968
saw the first major German rock festival in Essen, and the
foundation of the Zodiak Free Arts Lab in Berlin by Hans-Joachim
Roedelius, and Conrad Schnitzler, which helped bands like
Tangerine Dream and Amon Düül achieve cult status.
The fledgling Australian and New Zealand rock scenes that formed
in wake of Beatlemania were most influenced by British
psychedelia, often with bands of first generation immigrants,
who returned to further their musical careers. Among the most
successful were The Easybeats, formed in Sydney but who recorded
their international hit 'Friday on My Mind' (1966) in London and
remained there for their forays into psychedelic-tinged pop
until they disbanded in 1970. A similar path was pursued by the
Bee Gees, formed in Brisbane, but whose first album Bee Gees'
1st (1967), recorded in London, gave them three major hit
singles and contained folk, rock and psychedelic elements,
heavily influenced by the Beatles. The Twilights, formed in
Adelaide, also made to trip to London, recording a series of
minor hits, absorbing the psychedelic scene, to return home to
produce covers of Beatles' songs, complete with sitar, and the
concept album Once upon a Twilight (1968). The most successful
New Zealand band, The La De Das, produced the psychedelic pop
concept album The Happy Prince (1968), based on the Oscar Wilde
children's classic, but failed to break through in Britain and
the wider world. A thriving psychedelic music scene in Cambodia
was pioneered by Sinn Sisamouth, Pan Ron and Ros Sereysothea. In
Turkey Anatolian rock artist Erkin Koray, released his first
psychedelic rock track 'Anma Arkadaş' in 1967 and helped found a
Turkish psychedelic scene.
Latin America proved a particularly fertile ground for
psychedelic rock. The Brazilian psychedelic rock group Os
Mutantes formed in 1966, and although little known outside
Brazil at the time, their recordings have since accrued a
substantial international cult following. In the late 1960s, a
wave of Mexican rock heavily influenced by psychedelia and funk
emerged, especially in several northern border Mexican states,
in particular, Tijuana, Baja California. Among the most
recognized bands from this 'Chicano Wave' (Onda Chicana in
Spanish) were Three Souls in my Mind, Love Army and El Ritual.
In Chile, from 1967 to 1973, between the ending of the
government of President Frei Montalva and the government of
President Allende, a cultural movement was born from a few
Chilean bands that emerged playing a unique fusion of folkloric
music with heavy psychedelic influences. The 1967 release of Los
Mac's album Kaleidoscope Men (1967) inspired bands such as Los
Jaivas and Los Blops, the latter going on to collaborate with
the iconic Chilean singer-songwriter Victor Jara on his 1971
album El derecho de vivir en paz. Meanwhile in the Argentinian
capital Buenos Aires, a burgeoning psychedelic scene gave birth
to three of the most important bands in Argentine rock: Los
Gatos, Manal and Almendra.
Decline
By the end of the decade psychedelic rock was in retreat. LSD
had been made illegal in the US and UK in 1966. The murders of
Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by Charles Manson and
his 'family' of followers, claiming to have been inspired by
Beatles' songs such as 'Helter Skelter', has been seen as
contributing to an anti-hippie backlash. At the end of the year,
the Altamont Free Concert in California, headlined by The
Rolling Stones, became notorious for the fatal stabbing of black
teenager Meredith Hunter by Hells Angel security guards. Brian
Wilson of the Beach Boys (whose much anticipated Smile project
would not emerge until 2004), Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones,
Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd were
early 'acid casualties', helping to shift the focus of the
respective bands of which they had been leading figures. Some
bands like the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream broke up. Jimi
Hendrix died in London in September 1970, shortly after
recording Band of Gypsies (1970), Janis Joplin died of a heroin
overdose in October 1970 and they were closely followed by Jim
Morrison of the Doors, who died in Paris in July 1971. Many
surviving acts moved away from psychedelia into either more
back-to-basics 'roots rock', traditional-based, pastoral or
whimsical folk, the wider experimentation of progressive rock,
or riff-laden heavy rock.
In 1966, even while psychedelic rock was becoming dominant, Bob
Dylan spearheaded the back-to-basics roots revival when he went
to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde. This, and the
subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, John Wesley
Harding (1967) and Nashville Skyline (1969), have been seen as
creating the genre of country folk. Dylan's lead was also
followed by The Byrds, joined by Gram Parsons to record
Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968), helping to define the genre of
country rock, which became a particularly popular style in the
California music scene of the late 1960s, and was adopted by
former folk rock artists including Hearts and Flowers, Poco and
New Riders of the Purple Sage. Other acts that followed the back
to basics trend in different ways were the Canadian group The
Band and the Californian-based Creedence Clearwater Revival. The
Grateful Dead also had major successes with the more reflective
and stripped back Workingman's Dead and American Beauty in 1970.
The super-group Crosby, Stills and Nash, formed in 1968 from
members of The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Hollies, were
joined by Neil Young for Deja Vu in 1970, which moved away from
many of what had become the 'clichés' of psychedelic rock and
placed an emphasis on political commentary and vocal harmonies.
After the death of Brian Epstein and the unpopular surreal
television film, Magical Mystery Tour, the Beatles returned to a
more raw style with The Beatles (1968), Abbey Road (1969) and
Let It Be (1970), before their eventual break up. The back to
basics trend was also evident in The Rolling Stones' albums
starting from Beggar's Banquet (1968) to Exile on Main St.
(1972). Fairport Convention released Liege and Lief in 1969,
turning away from American-influenced folk rock toward a sound
based on traditional British music and founding the sub-genre of
electric folk, to be followed by bands like Steeleye Span and
Fotheringay. The psychedelic-influenced and whimsical strand of
British folk continued into the 1970s with acts including Comus,
Mellow Candle, Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band, Forest
and Trees and with Syd Barrett's two solo albums.
Influence
Many of the British musicians and bands that had embraced
psychedelia went on to create progressive rock in the 1970s,
including Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and members of Yes. King
Crimson's album In the Court of the Crimson King (1969) has been
seen as an important link between psychedelia and progressive
rock. While bands such as Hawkwind maintained an explicitly
psychedelic course into the 1970s, most dropped the psychedelic
elements in favour of wider experimentation. The incorporation
of jazz into the music of bands like Soft Machine and Can also
contributed to the development of the jazz rock of bands like
Colosseum. As they moved away from their psychedelic roots and
placed increasing emphasis on electronic experimentation German
bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can and Faust developed a
distinctive brand of electronic rock, known as kosmische musik,
or in the British press as 'Kraut rock'. The adoption of
electronic synthesisers, pioneered by Popol Vuh from 1970,
together with the work of figures like Brian Eno (for a time the
keyboard player with Roxy Music), would be a major influence on
subsequent synth rock. In Japan, Osamu Kitajima's 1974
psychadelic rock album Benzaiten utilized electronic equipment
such as a synthesizer and drum machine, and one of the record's
contributors was Haruomi Hosono, who later started the
electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (as 'Yellow Magic
Band') in 1977.
Psychedelic rock, with its distorted guitar sound, extended
solos and adventurous compositions, has been seen as an
important bridge between blues-oriented rock and later heavy
metal. American bands whose loud,, repetitive psychedelic rock
emerged as early heavy metal included Ted Nugent's Amboy Dukes
and Steppenwolf. From England, two former guitarists with the
Yardbirds, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, moved on to form key acts
in the genre, The Jeff Beck Group and Led Zeppelin respectively.
Other major pioneers of the genre had begun as blues-based
psychedelic bands, including Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Judas
Priest and UFO. Psychedelic music also contributed to the
origins of glam rock, with Marc Bolan changing his psychedelic
folk duo into rock band T. Rex and becoming the first glam rock
star from 1970. From 1971 David Bowie moved on from his early
psychedelic work to develop his Ziggy Stardust persona,
incorporating elements of professional make up, mime and
performance into his act.
Neo-psychedelia
Psychedelic rock began to be revived in the late 1970s/early
1980s by bands of the post-punk scene, including The Teardrop
Explodes, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Church, and the Soft Boys.
New wave band XTC published records under the pseudonym, The
Dukes of Stratosphear. In the US in the early 1980s these bands
were joined by the Paisley Underground movement, based in Los
Angeles, with acts like Dream Syndicate, The Bangles and Rain
Parade. There were occasional mainstream acts that dabbled in
neo-psychedelia, including Prince's mid-'80s work and some of
Lenny Kravitz's 1990s output, but it has mainly been an
influence on alternative and indie-rock bands.
In the 1990s the Elephant 6 collective, including acts like The
Apples in Stereo, The Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel,
Elf Power and Of Montreal, produced eclectic psychedelic rock
and folk. Other alternative rock acts that delved into
psychedelic territory included Nick Saloman's Bevis Frond, the
space rock of Spacemen 3 and diverse acts like Mercury Rev, The
Flaming Lips, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Porno For Pyros and
Super Furry Animals. In the UK The Stone Roses debut single in
1988 set out a catchy neo-psychedelic guitar pop, helping to
create the Madchester scene, and influencing the early sound of
1990s Britpop bands like Blur, and Oasis who drew on 1960s
psychedelic pop and rock, particularly on the album Standing on
the Shoulder of Giants. In the immediate post-Britpop era Kula
Shaker incorporated swirling, guitar-heavy sounds of late-'60s
psychedelia and with Indian mysticism and spirituality. In the
new millennium neo-psychedelia was continued by bands directly
emulating the sounds of the 60s like Tame Impala, MGMT and The
Essex Green.
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