Listening To Psychedelic Music & Conversation

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Leonthepro, Mar 1, 2019.

  1. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Speaking of the Canterbury Scene...a must-have

    Caravan...IN THE LAND OF GREY & PINK...my fave



    Caravan are an English band from the Canterbury area, founded by former Wilde Flowers members David Sinclair, Richard Sinclair, Pye Hastings and Richard Coughlan in 1968.[1] The band have never achieved the great commercial success that was widely predicted for them at the beginning of their career, but are nevertheless considered a key part of the Canterbury scene, blending psychedelic rock, jazz and classical influences to create a distinctive progressive rock sound. -wiki

     
  2. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

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  3. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Fat Mattress formed by the Experience's Noel Redding


    Fat Mattress were an English folk rock band that formed in Folkestone in 1968. Founded by guitarist and vocalist Noel Redding, during his time as bassist for The Jimi Hendrix Experience,[1] and vocalist Neil Landon, the band was completed by multi-instrumentalist Jim Leverton and drummer Eric Dillon. The band released two albums – Fat Mattress and Fat Mattress II – before splitting up in 1970. -wiki


    [​IMG]
     
  4. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    though Gene Clark's "No Other" defies classification, it is a mind expanding "psychedelic" experience for me...

    NO OTHER



    Trippy cover art too...

    [​IMG]

    No Other is the fourth solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Gene Clark. Released in late 1974, it was initially a critical success but a commercial failure; the studio time and cost were seen as excessive and indulgent.[5] The record label, Asylum Records, did not promote the album, and by 1976 had deleted it from their catalog. Clark never recovered from the failure of the album.[6]
    Just after Clark's death in 1991,[7] No Other was reissued in its entirety on CD. In 1998, a double disc compilation, Flying High, was released with three songs from No Other.[8] Then in the early 2000s, No Other was reissued a second time in its entirety to positive critical reappraisal.[9] -wiki

     
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  5. Slack Babbath

    Slack Babbath Hit The North...

    Location:
    North Yorkshire
    The Bill Wyman produced 1969 album by The End called Introspection is pretty psyched.

     
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  6. I just bought this recently. I’m liking it, especially ‘Of Dreams’. Matt Cameron and Wellwater Conspiracy did a great cover of this.
     
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  7. I like that album cover!
     
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  8. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Some cool psych from the Pretty Things and Frenchman Philippe DeBarge...

    1969...

    SF SORROW is done and dusted. PARACHUTE is yet to come...

    THE PRETTY THINGS are at their creative peak... with no outlet in sight. Enter PHILIPPE DEBARGE: Frenchman, playboy, and Pretty Things superfan. He commissions the band to write and produce an album for him. Debarge and the five Pretty Things duly enter Nova Studios, one of London's first eight-track facilities.

    With access to this new technology they experiment with multi-tracking and an array of psychedelic effects. Debarge sings lead, and the Pretty Things play and sing everything else on a stunning set of 12 May/Waller originals in the classic late '60s Pretty Things style, many of them never recorded by the band before or since. Acoustic, fuzz and backwards guitars abound, along with Mellotron, harpsichord and the unmistakable heavenly three-part harmonies of Phil May, Wally Waller and Jon Povey.




    Full album play:
     
  9. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    And of course The Pretties new one from 2015...amazing music! Could have been recorded right between SF Sorrow and Parachute...haven't lost a step!

    The Sweet Pretty Things (Are In Bed Now, Of Course)





    The Sweet Pretty Things (are in bed now, of course…)
    byadmin 2nd Dec 2015Comments [400]
    [​IMG]
    By Mike Stax

    In the autumn months of 2014, the future of the Pretty Things hung in the balance. Phil May was in a London hospital having been diagnosed with COPD and emphysema. Doctors warned him that if he didn’t make drastic changes to his lifestyle he’d be dead within a few months.

    That was then. This is now. One year later, in the autumn of 2015, Phil has turned his life around and is in fighting form again. Not only is he back onstage and on the road with the Pretty Things, this summer the band released one of the best albums of their more than half-century career. A huge part of this miraculous turnaround is down to the support of his band mates, friends, family, and you Pretty Things fans, many of whom wrote to Phil personally via UT with words of encouragement and support, and some tough love. When I saw Phil in London earlier this year, he told me how moved he was by all of your letters, how he read and re-read them and found sustenance in them. He appreciated how many of you didn’t pull any punches. He quoted one from memory: “Don’t you dare die on us, you ****er, we need you around.” Yes we do.

    If you needed another reminder why, look no further than The Sweet Pretty Things (are in bed now, of course…), their new album on Repertoire Records. (The title quotes the opening line of Bob Dylan’s “Tombstone Blues,” a song his Royal Bobness wrote and recorded shortly after the famous 1965 UK tour during which he hung out with members of the Pretty Things.)

    The album was recorded quickly and simply, on analogue equipment, using vintage instruments and amps, and with only minimal overdubs. Even some of the lead vocals were cut live along with the basic tracks. The result is a collection of songs that sounds warm, organic, and at times almost effortless. It’s also very much a collaborative effort. All of the band members as well as manager/producer Mark St John contribute to the songwriting, including the two junior members, bass player George Woosey (who co-wrote three songs) and drummer Jack Greenwood, whose skills are showcased on the instrumental jam “Greenwood Tree.”

    “The Same Sun,” written by Dick Taylor and Mark St John, opens the album, and in another, kinder era would’ve also been the hit single that preceded it. Taylor’s winding guitar melody, mirrored by the vocals, soon imprints itself into your cranial hard drive, along with a great chorus hook: “The sun / The sun is in the sky / The same sun / But seen through different eyes.” With its strong SF Sorrowvibe, this one has all the makings of a new Pretty Things classic, and has already become a favorite in their live shows.

    “And I Do”—written by Woosey, May, and St John—is archetypal modern-day Pretties. Phil spits out the lyrics with a vinegary vehemence on the verses, propelled by a wiry blues guitar riff, giving way to a more resigned tone on the melodic, harmonized choruses. A pair of cover versions follows. First they revisit the Byrds’ “Renaissance Fair,” a staple of their live set in 1968-69, highlighted here by some chiming guitar work by Taylor and Frank Holland, then they ambush with a storming version of the late-period Seeds obscurity, “You Took Me By Surprise.” Phil’s lascivious howl elevates the song tremendously, and the band rocks out with a hard rock ferocity reminiscent of the Harvest-era favorite “Cold Stone.” This is followed by a spirited take on “Turn My Head,” a song first written and recorded in 1967, but passed over for release at the time.

    “Dark Days”—written by Phil May and Frankie Holland—is one of the album’s highlights. A tense, foreboding monolith of a song, cloaked in all kinds of doomy atmospherics, it’s underpinned by a dense, menacing riff of the kind Led Zeppelin once specialized in. Phil digs deep, getting right inside the lyrics and conjuring an especially powerful and affecting vocal performance, supported by some strong harmonies, beautiful interweaving guitars and swirling Mellotron.

    It’s followed by “Greenwood Tree,” which I mentioned earlier, a psychedelic instrumental jam that had originally segued out of “Renaissance Fair.” Dick and Frankie lay down some searing lead guitar work before it breaks off into an extended drum solo that manages not to overstay its welcome (the whole track clocks in at 4:16). This clears a path for the excellent “Hell, Here and Nowhere,” written by George Woosey, an acoustic-based piece with some wonderful three- and four-part harmonies, harking back to the some of the more mellow tracks on Parachute and Freeway Madness.

    “In the Soukh” is also superb, an atmospheric, Eastern-flavored instrumental by Dick Taylor with a great, coiling guitar riff, reverberating Bo Diddley beat drums, and monastic chanting. The overall effect is not unlike the Yardbirds “Hot House of Omagarashid.”

    The album closes out with another standout, “Dirty Song,” a dark, sensual, bluesy number with a terrific, insistent guitar riff, and another soulful, immaculately phrased vocal from Phil. Once again the group’s massed, wordless backups add greatly to the overall mood of the number.

    Is there another band working today, more than fifty years into their story, still making music this powerful and relevant? No, there isn’t. Only the sweet Pretty Things. Long may they reign. (MS)


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  10. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Sufjan Stevens--Illinoise (2005)

    Concerning UFO Sightings


    Critics praised the album for its well-written esoteric lyrics and complex unique orchestrations.
    Everything that psych embodies....New-psych to my ears. Jazz based time signatures, classical to pop, baroque, anti-folk, chamber folk, lo-fi....all apply.

    Stevens is a classically trained oboist[1] and his knowledge of classical and baroque music influenced many of his arrangements. Stevens himself has noted the influence of composers Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Edvard Grieg; along with contemporary composers Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass.[1] The music on this album was written to be grandiose, to match the history of the territory.[4] Stevens used time signature changes in the composition of Illinois for dynamic effect—for instance, "Come On! Feel the Illinoise!" begins with a 5/4 time signature and then changes[33] to a standard 4/4 later in the song.[26]-wiki

    Psychedelic, baby.

    :edthumbs:

     
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  11. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Pretty ok and pretty obscure to be sure. Saint Steven.
    The creative force was also the founder if Ultimate Spinach, a highly derivative yet rather catchy stuff. Unfortunately their rip off almost note for note of Country Joe & The Fish turned me off right away. This is better.
     
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2019
  12. DaveinMA

    DaveinMA Some guy

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  13. jamo spingal

    jamo spingal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
  14. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    The Black Hollies
    Nice newer psych...2005-disbanded in 2014.

    Worth checking out. "Casting Shadows LP..."

    Paisley Pattern Ground


    The Autumn Chateau
    The Black Hollies- The Autumn Chateau

    AllMusic Review by Andrew Leahey

    With their feet planted in the '60s and their heads swimming in the clouds, the Black Hollies offer up a second batch of vintage rock & roll with Casting Shadows.

    These ten tracks will sound familiar to anyone who picked up the band's Crimson Reflections debut -- or, for that matter, anyone familiar with the gritty psychedelia of the Seeds, the Standells, or any act that might've played the Electric Circus in 1968. And while fuzzy guitar riffs and vintage tube amps have become customary accessories for many 21st century bands, the Black Hollies sound tighter, grittier, and altogether trippier than most of their retro-minded peers.


    Casting Shadowsdoesn't just borrow from the counterculture era -- it lives it, from the "holy moly, I'm so stoned!" cover art to the smart packaging (which borrows its ideas from old vinyl records) to the songs themselves. Tracks like "Bruised Tangerines," "Hamilton Park Ballerina," and "The Autumn Chateau" are every bit as kaleidoscopic as their titles suggest, with guitar tremolos and Farfisa organs sharing space alongside the occasional sitar and harmonica.

    If Casting Shadows aims to be the musical equivalent of an acid trip, then frontman Justin Angelo Morey is the group's Timothy Leary, leading his three bandmates through blues rave-ups ("That Little Girl"), swampy rock ("Running Through Your Mind," a close relative to Them's "Baby, Please Don't Go"), and all the psychedelic stops in between.

    Of course, not everyone will love the Black Hollies' dedication to an era that is possibly older than the band members themselves, and Casting Shadows could very well be criticized as lacking any sort of forward-thinking, modern sensibility.

    But that's likely the point, and the Black Hollies make a strong case of remaining stuck in the past.

    [​IMG]

     
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  15. Buddybud

    Buddybud Paisley DayGlo Freak!


    THIS!!!.
    I recently found a mint Japanese pressing of this. Bought it on a complete whim cause i loved the cover. One of my favorite purchases of the year. Mind was thoroughly blown. After all "its your main vain!" Can't recommend this enough if you like well sequenced concept pych albums!

    Id like to add this one i picked up the same day. I recognized the drummer, Michael Tegza, from HP Lovecraft so took a chance..

    Bangor Flying Circus




    Proto prog pych with a healthy dose of jazz influences! The vocals took a bit of getting used to but the music is awesome. Concerto For Clouds and In The Woods are my fav tracks.
     
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  16. DaveinMA

    DaveinMA Some guy

    I didn't see this short-lived Boston 60s group already mentioned.

    I think they broke up shortly after releasing this album. The guitarist Bob Margolin moved on to becoming Muddy Waters' guitar player, who dubbed him "Steady Rollin'" Bob Margolin, and if you've ever seen The Last Waltz movie, that's him on guitar.
     
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  17. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    I found a NM lp myself of Aorta years ago. Love it.

    That Bangor Flying Circus is a good one too if you haven't listened yet. Great blues psych.
     
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  18. n.phelge

    n.phelge Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas
    Picked up the stereo vinyl for $5 - EX condition, but no jacket. Really liking it and doesn't sound as dated as some other stuff from this era.
     
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  19. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic Thread Starter

    Location:
    Sweden
    Still looking for their first, not sure if I want the US or UK release since they have different mixes apparently. I do have a UK test press of the second album though.
     
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  20. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic Thread Starter

    Location:
    Sweden
    Lovely classic.
     
  21. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Fields-- prog psych from 1971

    Great pedigree: Rare Bird, King Crimson, Greenslade...Fields



    Damn nice stuff.

    Youtube post:
    I wish there could be some real earthy band out there who could sound like Fields and the other classics of the early 70s era. Graham Field left Rare Bird to put Fields together with Alan Barry and Andrew McCullough who had played in King Crimson and Alan had played on Gordon Haskell's second LP It Is and It Isn't. The vocals, guitar, and organ in fact everything reminds me strongly of Argent. I've loved Fields since 1998. That's a long time.

    Their songs are amazing and I also love the first four Rare Bird records, but Graham I would guess just wanted something different and less dark. Rare Bird if you have not heard yet you should check out their albums. I think "As Your Mind Flies By" captured the Field era at their best. The first is also with him as the main writer and very good, but very dark! They were always dark and then they had a massive change on Epic Forest by which time Fields had come together with Graham, Alan Barry, and Andrew McCullough.
    [COLOR=var(--ytd-comment-text-color)]

    A Great Album pre-Greenslade for Andy.....

    01. A Friend of Mine
    02. While the Sun Still Shines
    03. Not So Good
    04. Three Minstrels
    05. Slow Susan
    06. Over and Over Again
    07. Feeling Free
    08. Fair-Haired Lady
    09. A Place to Lay My Head
    10. The Eagle

    Fields was a progressive rock band formed in 1971 by drummer Andrew McCulloch, keyboardist Graham Field, and bassist-vocalist Alan Barry. McCulloch had previously been a member of King Crimson, appearing on the band's third album "Lizard." Field founded Rare Bird in 1968 and departed in early 1971, and Barry was a former member of The Dowlands (aka The Dowland Brothers, 1962-1963) with the Giles brothers Peter and Michael who would eventually become members of King Crimson.

    Fields released one eponymous album in 1971,[1] and one single from the album, "A Friend of Mine", in 1973. They did record a second album in 1972 with ex-Supertramp bassist-vocalist Frank Farrell replacing the departed Alan Barry, but the record was shelved by CBS and not initially released. The master tapes of this album were re-mastered and released as “Contrasts: Urban Roar to Country Peace” in 2015,[2] with the full involvement of Graham Field.

    According to Field, CBS management changed and "the new faces did not want to know us",[3] so the group disbanded. Field had the rights to the name Rare Bird, and returned to working in that area and in television themes. McCulloch went on to become a founder member of Greenslade. Barry went on to become a founder member of late 70s-era UK rock band King Harry.



    • Graham Field - organ, piano
    • Andrew McCulloch - drums, percussion
    • Alan Barry - bass, guitars, vocals
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2019
  22. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Faine Jade...great stuff
    [​IMG]

    Introspection: A Faine Jade Recital

    AllMusic Review by Richie Unterberger

    It's hard to imagine that a 20-year-old New York guitarist fresh out of garageland would have been infatuated with Syd Barrett in 1968. However, Faine Jade's 1968 album sounds as if he was besotted with Pink Floyd's first LP, which was barely known in the States at the time.


    Jade's vocals and songwriting uncannily evoke an American Syd Barrett with their evocative, cryptic lyrics, thick organs, and psychedelic guitar lines. "On the Inside There's a Middle" and particularly "Cold Winter Sun" never fail to inspire comparisons to Barrett when played for those unfamiliar with Jade. Faine, it's fair to say, is somewhat blunted in comparison to Barrett's madcap edge. More laid-back and grounded, he also deals more explicitly with hippie-era concerns like being hassled for being different and the necessity of being compassionate toward your brother, without being sappy or preachy.

    [Reissues contain remasterings from the first-generation tapes by Faine himself, and also add a few bonus cuts: backing instrumental demo tracks for a few of the songs, the previously unreleased brief instrumental "Piano Interlude," and a 1993 "reunion" performance. The extra tracks are of only minor interest, and it's disappointing that the Introspection-era demos released on It Ain't True were not included as well.]




    :righton:
     
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  23. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    July has been mentioned I am sure, but worth repeating...as psychedelic as it gets. A real pleasure tohear.

    July by July 1968
     
  24. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    And July's "The Second of July" 1967-68
    Demos of their great recorded material

    [​IMG]

    July - The Second Of July (1967-68 uk, glorious technicolor psychedelia) "I sang like a complete prick - a quivery, frightened little jerk," exclaims Tom Newman with a look of despair. "It's totally obvious to me why our LP didn't impress anyone. It's ****ing terrible compared to what we were capable of." Tom can't understand why copies of his JULY album sell for 250 Pounds. Recorded in a panic-stricken weekend early in '68, "July" was a rush-job, thrown together by their low-budget label Major Minor, in the vain hope of cashing in on the success of the BEATLES' "Sgt. Pepper", issued almost exactly a year earlier. Tom's old colleague, Jon Field, agrees: "It's cringingly embarrassing. I'd prefer to forget about it, to be honest! We weren't given enough time."

    Poppycock! "July" is a psychedelic classic, overflowing with inventiveness and imagination. "My Clown" and "Dandelion Seeds", which were coupled on the band's first single, contain all the exotic ingredients of the best in British psychedelia. Newman's dreamy other-worldly melodies drifted alongside some wonderfully eerie keyboards, and fuzz guitar passages that'd make your hair fall out. Aside from a couple of dated pop whimsies, "July" was a corker - a little tentative and strained at times, true, but a glorious Technicolor explosion of an album nevertheless. Despite its obvious qualities, little is known about "July".


    It sold a measly number of copies at the time, and the band imploded almost immediately. Tom's place in rock history was later sealed when he set up the Manor recording studios for Richard Branson, first working on "Tubular Bells" before carving out a solo career. Jon Field, meanwhile, formed JADE WARRIOR with fellow JULY member Tony Duhig. Meanwhile, "The Second Of July" or "The 2nd Of July" presents a collection of home demos recorded by Tom back in 1967, which offer a glimpse of how - to his mind - the band's "Sgt. Pepper" might have sounded.

    The album’s release in June 1968 was promoted by a single coupling its two most commercial sides. Then the second single followed. But it was all to no avail. Major Minor failed to promote the album and none of the band's release sold more than a hand full of copies. Under the cloud of disappointment JULY called it a day. Meanwhile, interest in JULY has blossomed since psych specialists Bam-Caruso reissued their album in 1987.

    And now there’s 'The Second Of July". "I didn't realise how awfully nervous I was on the LP until I heard these demos," admits Tom. "I left the tapes in this trunk of junk in Mike Oldfield’s garage! Not all the tracks were chosen from the final LP. A whole bunch of demos were done over a few months - I tended to record them myself because Pete Cook and I wrote the songs, and then we’d present them to the band”.

    Most of 'The Second Of July sounds radically different and somehow more mature than the Major Minor LP. "Dandelion Seeds" has a far more complex rhythm, for example The stinging guitar work strewn across the resulting LP is lacking, but there's a wonderfully confident atmosphere.

    The exclusive material is fascinating too from the shiny psych pop of ' The Stamping Machine" and the romantic Syd Barrett-like whimsy of "The Girl In The Cafe" to the pleasant acoustic nature of "Look At Her” (File under "Waterloo Sunset” era KINKS) and the singer/songwriter styled "Man Outside", the only track over three minutes Tom's biographical pack notes that he’s produced dozens of records, with accumulated sales of over 5O million world wide. -John Koutromanos, youtube

    The Second Of July, full album



    By this time, anyone with an interest in psychedelia that stretches beyond the Beatles or maybe Strawberry Alarm Clock (at a pinch), knows who July is. Well, at least they know that a band called July put out a super rare album that is considered by many to be one of the pinnacles of the psychedelic era. There’s no way to overstate the excellence of the album, with its eerie sound, Indian-influenced chord sequences, studio trickery (tape loops/phasing), and heavily reverb-laden vocals. But that’s not the story we’re here to tell. Even before that quintessential psychedelic album was made, band leader Tom Newman was experimenting with home recording equipment. In 1967, he installed basic recording facilities in the bedroom of his flat in an old Victorian house in Ealing. There, he and guitarist Peter Cook tried out ideas, coming up with many of the standout songs from the July album. The demos they recorded display the kind of confidence that Newman feels was lacking in the album proper (yes, the ultra- famous psychedelic classic album!) that they recorded in 1968. Let’s go back to the near-beginning of it all, to a flat in a Victorian house in Ealing, and listen in on demos recorded with DIY alacrity by a studio whiz, tracks which will change the face of psychedelia, eventually, after decades of obscurity.
    Listen





      • And this comp:
      • [​

        1. My Clown
        2. Dandelion Seeds
        3. Jolly Mary
        4. Hallo To Me
        5. You Missed It All
        6. The Way
        7. To Be Free
        8. Move On Sweet Flower
        9. Crying Is For Writers
        10. I See
        11. A Friendly Man
        12. A Bird Lived
        13. Hallo Who's There
        14. The Way [single version]
        15. You Missed It All
        16. My Clown
        17. Dandelion Seeds
        18. The Stamping Machine
        19. A Bird Lived
        20. Look At Her
        21. The Way
        22. Friendly Man
        23. I See
        24. The Girl In The Cafe
        25. You See Me, I See You
        26. Man OUtside
        27. Move On Sweet Flower
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2019
  25. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic Thread Starter

    Location:
    Sweden
    I have an early promo press of this. The first song is great.
     
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