Was psychedelia alive and well in the early 1970s?

I know that psychedelic and acid rock has its peak years from 1966-1969. However it looked like it was on its way out, or completely gone by 1970-1973. By then, The Summer of Love, Monterey Pop, Woodstock etc were distant memories. Many of the famous ballrooms and venues of the 60s (Fillmore East and West, Avalon, Family Dog) shuttered forever.

The 1960s era was over, but was psychedelic music alive and well by 1971-73? Probably not. However what music examples demonstrate that there were elements of the psychedelic era still around?

 

Sort of kinda, but it wasn’t called psych. It had its place in the US hard rock of the time: Blue Oyster Cult’s first two, Bubble Puppy turning into Demian, Josefus, Cold Sun, Dust, Funkadelic first three, Neil Merryweather, etc.,

This haunted acid soaked wiry snakiness was the hallmark of US hard rock for ‘69-‘72 then mostly disappeared.

Exactly what this thread is about:

Knucklehead, Plexihead, US Hard Rock '69 -'72

 

The Doors - L.A. Woman, from 1971 still has psychedelic elements, but otherwise, yes, it was on its way out in rock music. It was still very much alive in Jazz Fusion (Mahavishnu Orchestra - Inner Mounting Flame) and it started influencing the sound of Salsa music in the early 1970s (for example the salsa dura by the likes of Eddie Palmieri etc.)

 

Todd says "hey".

 

I dunno about alive and well, but, you know, there was this:

 

Damo says hi too. Well, he says Ooooommmmmmm..

 

Psychedelia kind of became progressive rock in the early 70s.

 

A lot of the bands and artists associated with the Canterbury Scene mixed psychedelia with prog, folk and jazz fusion well into the 1970s

 

If you count the lyrics to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" as psychedelic, well . . .

 

Little Feat - "Kiss It Off" (1973)

 

Sort of, particularly when psychedelia was called progressive before 70s prog, as it was played on free form progressive FM late 67 through ‘69.

 

Beatles' publicist Derek Taylor was right when he said in late 1967, ‘the only people that will be using the word "psychedelic" in 1968 are TV comedians and brain-dead disk jockeys.’

 

It was certainly alive in the audience...

 

Some early Hawkwind albums were pretty out there.......

 

There are still some psychedelic textures in some of today's music.

 

It was in Germany

 

In the 70's we called it "head music" and its main exponents were Pink Floyd. Also the Alan Parsons Project, Steve Hillage, Tangerine Dream, stuff like that. Basically anything that sounded like it would enhance the experience of smoking dope.

 

The psychedelic soul album Cosmic Truth by the Undisputed Truth came out in 1975, pretty late for the first wave of psychedelia. And as stated already, it lived on with bands like Can, Gong, Hawkwind...

 

To my mind, true psychedelia ended with 12 Dreams of Dr Sardonicus. Everything afterward was neo psych or psych influenced. But there’s loads of counter arguments that could be made.

 

Lenny White's Adventures Of Astral Pirates seemed to be another callback to psychedelia, but in a jazz/fusion idiom.

 

‘00s psych was quite interesting.

 

It was alive and well in my small town in Ohio, out in the cemetery at midnight under a full moon.

 

Psychedelia will never die.

 

Indeed.

 

Psychedelia was splitting into progressive rock and metal in the early '70s, and fading fast, you could get a lot of psych albums cheap in the bargain bins then. What was the new trend? Mellow. James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, soft rock like Bread, etc.