The 1960s and 1970s: Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll! . . . True Chronicles of Life and Living during the Historic Cultural Revolution that Altered Society Forever! Setting history straight for those interested parties of any near or far distant future curious of life in that mystical land of the '60s and '70s.. . . Magick was afoot! . . . Let’s Go Trippin’! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “The Psychedelic Shack is where’s it’s at; it’s always day and night, It’s a portal to other dimensions – it’s outtasight. Here you’ll experience other states of consciousness, and tons of fun, Just remember once your consciousness is raised, it can never be undone.” . . . . . . . . . . . . “00INDIVIDUAL’S PSYCHEDELIC SHACK” copyright 2016 00individual TLL
Among the many benefits 00individual experienced during the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s and beyond was to grow up with Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, and Snoopy, and all of the Peanuts Gang of endearing characters created by Charles M. Schulz’ in his globally-loved phenomenally-successful “Peanuts” comic strip.
At the height of Peanuts’ popularity in the ’60s, as a then aspiring artist / cartoonist, 00individual’s appreciation of the strip transcended from the public’s universal appreciation of Snoopy’s adventures and the spirit that he represented, Charlie Brown’s attempts at fighting the good fight only to see that “no good deed goes unpunished”, Linus’ introspection of the world and life, and Lucy’s independent fussbudget personality. 00individual’s transcendent appreciation took on an almost reverence toward the Peanuts Gang. He saw that while speaking about the times Schulz never was political or outspoken, however, he got many a point across through the simplest words and images that rang true to the hearts and minds of millions. These simple words and images are actually at the Jackson Pollack level in that every ink line and word is purposeful, in Schulz’ case, it was the exquisite art of economy.
Take a look at Linus in the first quarter panel below – he is perfect, every casual inked line is perfect, he is effortlessly walking, his exaggerated proportions are of a child, but an aware child, a child beyond his years. In the fourth quarter panel his head tilts down just enough to indicate thought of what was said.
Even though the Peanuts Gang are perpetually in Elementary School, their thoughts and ideas and adventures evoke the wisdom of the ages portrayed in the magical world of childhood.
“That Point When One Has Had Enough Of The Lies”
00individal collected all of the ’50’s and ’60’s paperback books of collected strips as they were released and read them over and over, and there was one six panel series that always stuck with him. It depicts the breaking point when the lies are just too much too ignore – lies that eventually make one sick – lies that eventually reveal the truth.
That breaking point was so clever and humorous in the way that it revealed and showed the propaganda used by so many people, groups, beliefs, parties, institutions, and governments that one deals with throughout one’s life that 00individual felt compelled to share this timely, and timeless, wit, wisdom, and talent of Charles M. Schulz.
It shouldn’t take long to connect the dots – unfortunately there are so many dots to connect that it can become overwhelming. So before letting the insanity get to you remember that good ol’ saying:
“Life is a Comedy to those who Think, a Tragedy to those who Feel.”
. . . and an entertaining intelligent emotional Trip to those who do both.
PAUL REVERE & the RAIDERS – Greatest Hits – Columbia KCS 9462 – May 1967
Important Note: Written with H.I. (Human Intelligence) No A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) used. Not even spell check.
1965 and 1966 – back when music was fun. Sigh.
Here’s a band that were destined to represent the best of PopRock when innocence was ripening. Paul Revere and the Raiders were a highly entertaining energetic and solid rockin’ band with members Paul Revere (real name) – keyboards, Mark Lindsey – vocals, Phil “Fang” Volk – bass, Mike “Smitty” Smith – drums, Drake “Kid” Levin – guitar, and Jim “Harpo” Valley – guitar (replacing Levin while in the Nat’l. Guard); that delivered a steady punch of U.S./Brit Pop Punk Rock.
Like their time-stamp ’66 hit Kicks that warned of drug abuse, the following year 1967 would begin an exciting but sobering clarity of childhood’s end, not just for 00individual but for society, and eventually civilization. With the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Francis Kennedy, everyone grew up to face the realizations around them – it was LSD for the masses.
But for a very special time, from ’62 and ’63 with the Surf ‘n’ Car Culture; ’64, ’65 and ’66 with the British Invasion; then up through the beginnings of Psychedelic Rock in ’67 music was FUN, that’s right, with a capital F-U-N!
Columbia Record’s producer Terry Melcher, the son of iconic singer/actress Doris Day (Que Sera, Sera), produced many top bands like The Byrds and The Mamas and the Papas with highly successful results, especially with The Raiders during their peak.
Stream of Consciousness Trip #1: Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys, a friend of Melcher, met and was impressed with Charles Manson’s music through two female Manson Family members he picked up hitch-hiking. Wilson introduced Manson to Melcher, and The Beach Boys recorded a couple Manson songs produced by Melcher. On the verge of signing Manson and filming a documentary about the Family, both Wilson and Melcher came to their senses after witnessing an intense encounter Manson had with another on the Ranch. Melcher and Wilson immediately distanced themselves from Manson. Melcher declined to sign him – Manson got angry.
Melcher and his girlfriend, the epitome of the hot ’60s/’70’s girl-next-door actress Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown), and Raider vocalist Mark Lindsey had just moved out of the 10050 Cielo Drive Beverly Hills house that they shared and where all of the Raiders would often gather to discuss new songs with Melcher. Roman Polanski moved in, and some surmised that Manson did not know this and that Sharon Tate and the rest were murdered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This theory has later been disputed, but not disproved – as anyone who has even casually investigated this case will know that there were machinations going on far beyond what the media even knew, let alone the public. In any case, it’s safe to say that Melcher, Bergen, Lindsey, as well as possibly the other members of the band lived to tell the tale by a karmic throw of the dice.
Stream of Consciousness Trip #2: While co-managing the DisConnection (Grammy and Granny’s) Record Store in Westwood Village in the mid ’70s, and after negotiating a box of trade-in LPs, 00individual pulled out the ultimate vinyl bootleg entitled “LIE” (spoof cover of LIFE magazine) – it was an album of songs by Charles Manson – a couple thousand were pressed and distributed on the West Coast by Trademark of Quality. He listened to it once, wasn’t impressed by the Folksy blandness, and put it on display in the collectors rack behind the counter – and sold it almost immediately for $50.00! That was an outrageous price for any album back then and was priced as more of a novelty never thinking anyone would actually buy it!
Stream of Consciousness Trip #3:The Rolling Stones OPENED for them back in the early -to-mid ’60s.
Steppin’ Outwas 00individual’s first introduction to Paul Revere and the Raiders – he really liked that song and it stuck with him throughout his life as an iconic cocky rocker with Lindsey’s snarling laughs and a proto-punk attitude – and with a Hell of a lot of Fun – these guys were great! Check theSteppin’ Outvideo for rockin’ infectious innocent ’66 fun.
Paul Revere and the Raiders Rock History Landmarks: The Raiders’ first major national hit, “Just Like Me” was one of the first rock records to feature a distinctive, double-tracked guitar solo, performed by guitarist Drake Levin. They were reported to be the first major band in history to tour with all members amplified, including sidemen. They appeared regularly in the U.S. on national television on Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is; a trippy after-school show filmed live and usually on location in various Southern California locations with major groups performing/lip-syncing their hits. Revere and Lindsay co-hosted later incarnations of Action with Happening ’68, and It’s Happening. In mid-1967, with three gold albums to their credit, the Raiders were Columbia’s top-selling rock group; their Greatest Hits was one of two releases selected by President of Columbia Records Clive Davis to test a higher list price for albums expected to be particularly popular (along with Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits).
And while the Raiders are seen lip-syncing many of their live performances, it was the preferred “standard operating procedure” for filming convenience of bands and singers for TV shows. In reality the Raiders were one of the hardest-working bands of talented musicians that rocked live with the best! See them perform live over a decade later: Paul Revere and the Raiders – Dick Clark Reunion 1979 – Medley of Hits!
00individual really dug PR and the Raiders – the songs in bold were 45 RPM singles he purchased separately before the release of their greatest hits album.
PAUL REVERE & the RAIDERS Greatest Hits 1. Louie, Louie – Richard Berry – 2:47 2. Louie, Go Home – 3:00 Mark Lindsay / Paul Revere & the Raiders – 2:39 3. Steppin’ Out – Mark Lindsay / Paul Revere & the Raiders – 2:12 Jan. 3, 1966 4.Just Like Me– Rick Dey / Roger Hart – 2:23 Jan.3, 1966 (Billboard Pop Chart No. 11, 1965) 5 . Melody for an Unknown Girl – Mark Lindsay / Paul Revere & the Raiders – 2:04 6.Kicks– Barry Mann / Cynthia Weil – 2:26 May 6, 1966 (Billboard Pop Chart No. 4) 7. Hungry – Barry Mann / Cynthia Weil – 2:57 November 28, 1966 (Billboard Pop Chart No. 6) 8. Great Airplane Strike – Mark Lindsay / Terry Melcher / Paul Revere & the Raiders – 2:53 9. Good Thing– Mark Lindsay / Terry Melcher Paul Revere & the Raiders 3:01 November 28, 1966 (Billboard Pop Chart No. 4) 10. Ups and Downs– Mark Lindsay / Terry Melcher Paul Revere & the Raiders 2:51 (Fun video from the Smothers Brothers Show) 11. Legend of Paul Revere – Mark Lindsay / Terry Melcher Paul Revere & the Raiders 3:06
While the American Revolutionary uniform theme, name and costumes worked very well for them, serious socially-conscious rock bands were replacing the fun gimmick bands like Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs in turbans; Gary Puckett and the Union Gap in Union Army uniforms of the American Civil War, and even The Association pulled off a coup with a name that played on the synonymous term for Organized Crime, Mafioso, and other ‘Businessmen” by just wearing suits, which in the Counter-Culture’s eye was a uniform.
Valley, Volk, and Smith left the band at the height of the Raiders’ popularity and formed what they considered a more relevant rock band, Brotherhood.
Paul Revere and the Raiders accumulated 24 hit singles, and over 750 television performances within the decade of the 1960’s.
Unlike the forced clowning around of The Monkees and The Beatles, The Raiders were clever improvisers inspired by their own sense of humor – and it was contagious – and it connected with the fans. Example: Core Raider Phil “Fang” Volk had a quirky concept of flashing the back of his his trademark electric-tape(d) “FANG” bass guitar while performing live. He had so much fun doing it that it became a “looked-forward-to” moment by fans as a nonsensical exhibition of free speech and self-promotion – that worked.
Important Note: Written with H.I. (Human Intelligence) No A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) used. Not even spell check.
Shown above is Neil Diamond’s “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show” original soulful psychedelic album cover before his smash hit “Sweet Caroline” was added to the pressings and thus changed the cover to a dour Neil Diamond portrait with text highlighting the single, that, many years later ,he admitted was about Caroline Kennedy who was an early adolescent at the time.
Remember, God gave Rock n’ Roll to you – and He can take it away from you! Just listen to the radio today.
and finally, One of 00individual’s personal top favorites; the righteous, rousing, soul stirring, goose-bump raising, Bible-thumping epitome of good old time religion:
Hot August night, and the leaves hanging down, and the grass on the ground smelling sweet. Move up the road, to the outside of town and the sound of that good gospel beat Sits a ragged tent, where there ain’t no trees and that gospel group, telling you and me It’s love, Brother Love say Brother Love’s Travellng Salvation Show Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone goes ‘Cause everyone knows Brother Love’s show Room gets suddenly still and when you’d almost bet you could hear yourself sweat, he walks in Eyes black as coal and when he lifts his face every ear in the place is on him Starting soft and slow like a small earthquake and when he lets go half the valley shakes It’s love, Brother Love say Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone goes ‘Cause everyone knows ‘Bout Brother Love’s show Hallelujah, brothers, Halle-hallelujah I said brothers (Hallelujah) Now you got yourself two good hands (Halle-hallelujah) And when your brother is troubled, You gotta reach out your one hand for him (Hallelujah) ‘Cause that’s what it’s there for (Halle-hallelujah) And when your heart is troubled, You gotta reach out your other hand (Hallelujah) Reach it out to the man up there (Halle-hallelujah) ‘Cause that’s what he’s there for Take my hand in yours walk with me this day In my heart I know I will never stray Halle, halle, halle, halle, halle, halle, halle, halle Love, Brother Love say Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone goes I say love, Brother Love say Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show (Halle, halle) Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone goes Love, Brother Love say Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show
AMEN!
The original back cover: take turns spinning the “spinner” and answer the question and play the “Do You Want To Be Saved?” Salvation Game. Well, do ya, Sinner?”
Back in 1963, just before the historic birth of the British Invasion, there was this little song that entranced the world. Sukiyaki was a Japanese song sung by Kyu Sakamoto – here’s the version of SUKIYAKI without translated lyrics, as heard by everyone, followed by the same song only with translated lyrics. It ells the story of a sad man who looks up and whistles while he is walking so that his tears will not fall.
This international hit sold over 13 million copies and was written by lyricist Rokusuke Ei and composer Hachidai Nakamura. “Sukiyaki” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963, one of the few non-English songs to have done so, and the first in a non-European language. It was the only single by an Asian artist to top the Hot 100 until 2020 .
Unfortunately, Sakamoto died on August 12,1985 at age 43 in the crash of Japan Air Lines Flight 123, along with 519 others on board the flight, making him a casualty of the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history.
00individual has had a melancholic spiritual fondness for this song for sixty years – a true unique classic that touches the soul. That touched millions of souls.
A Past Life In Paradise Revealed! For over a decade now 00individual has written weekly posts about tlife in the 1960s and the 1970s. With his life-long assist of a personal case of hyperthymesia, he has beeen able to hopefully paint mental images, pass on historical knowledge, and relate the ambience of those magical days in what can now be considered Paradise.
Let 00 explain; just the other day his head gave him no choice than to garner an epiphany, a lingering for sometime now, epiphany. He was off somewhere in the ’60s and ’70s when the flood of ALL of the insanity of the current worldwide madness so eclipsed the reality of the ’60s and ’70s era that it altered his reality. The difference was so dramatic and severely surreal that his past no longer seemed like the past – it seemed like a past life!
00 just turned 73 last month, which only verifies the epiphany. The past life he led existed in a world where there were no school shootings, men, women and children knew their gender, there were no beheadings, people were for the most part polite and respectful, there were no known rapists, no known child-molesters, no known serial killers, the closest thing to porn was Playboy magazine, TV and movies didn’t preach, they entertained, Disney was a trusted and loved family brand not an evil child-grooming syndicate, sexual deviants kept to themselves, hard work, dedication and pride got the job, not ethnicity/minority quotas, there were no “plannedemics” , only honest attempts at curing diseases/virus’, corruption has been a part of history since time began, but now blatent corruption is everywhere, at all levels, the US Presidencies in Paradise were not out-right stolen, the French lived in France, the Italians lived in Italy, the Germans lived in Germany, the English lived in England, the Canadians lived in Canada, and homelessness and mental illness were never a front page issue – and – there was no internet to consume one’s life.
And best of all was that the big issue that caused a historic uproar in Paradise was individualism – men with long hair and women with no bras – yes, those were the innocent, but seemingly trying issues of the day in Paradise. How far have humans devolved into this now sad, sick world indeed.
So, 00individual can honestly state that he has a clear recollection of a past life – and is sincerely thankful to have been allowed the opportunity to experience that past life and to remember it so vividly – and to share the Paradise experience with anyone who is interested.
While 00 realizes that all past generations can sometimes feel like their past is so removed from the present that it could seem like a past life, but currently, never in world history has madness, insanity, and evil reigned as it does now, at every level, around the world, on this planet, and is compounded daily. These are very bizarre times, unlike any experienced before. The question is, how far, just how far can this current sick reality be stretched before madness is the norm and humanity is lost?
Tick, tick, tick, . . . .
On Racism Why is it so hard for anyone to not understand nature’s example that “birds of a feather flock together” and for that matter why do all species tend to gather and live with their own kind? No one is racist if they choose to associate with their own ethnic human-kind – to force diversity and integration is un-natural – no one wants that, neither the birds, nor the bees, nor the flowers, nor the species of trees that group together.- schools of fish even! Nature is the perfect example and guide for peaceful co-existence – live and let live – That’s right, in Paradise it was like Heaven – just like David Lynch’s Eraserhead song, “In Heaven Everything Is Fine, you’ve got your good things and I’ve got mine.” Now what could possibly be wrong with that? 00 guesses that common-sense is definitely not common at all.
schizophrenia – Human-kind’s Next Evolution? Terrence McKenna made the prescient observation in the ’70s about human’s evolution, he said that humans will only be able to survive if they become schizophrenic, to be able to cope/survive in an insane society, civilization, and world.
To 00, that seems like what is happening right now. How else can a sane person live with, and bend their minds, to attempt to understand sick, twisted, evil events and people, governments, leaders, and ideologies? Only by adapting to it in an altered state and with an altered personality. Will anyone ever really know themselves? Truly know? Or just exist in a life somewhere in the last vestiges of sanity of a schizophrenic Paradise in their own mind. Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad, considering the alternatives, says 00 Schizo.
00’s Pendulum Theory: But wait, 00 does have a theory, a sensible one at that – it is the Pendulum Theory: the madness can only begin to reverse once the historic Pendulum reaches its highest point of insanity/madness/evil before it can begin to swing back ever so slowly – and apparently it has not reached that point yet – only then can the world begin to regain some sanity before moving back to a relatively sane existence. What this means is that there is still a ways to go. So hold on tight – white-knuckle tight – for the Hellacious ride is not over yet.
The official release date is March 8, for Alice Cooper’s 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition 3 vinyl set of Billion Dollar Babies! BUT 00 got his several days ago in the mail courtesy of his righteous buddy Steve Woolard, an A&R honcho at Rhino; proud of you, Man – from heir early ’70’s days when they worked together at the local record store G’nG, at the Triangle in Westchester, home of LAX, he shared the advanced 3 record set with embossed snakeskin “wallet” album cover and in the “wallet” is an actual huuge BILLION DOLLAR BILL! Thanks Man, much appreciated.
00 was managing Crane’s Records in Palos Verdes in ’72 when Alice Cooper’s smash album “School’s Out” was selling-out, and this was during the timespan of other classic releases T-Rex Electric Warrior, Neil Young’s Harvest, Hendrix In The West, America, and more. AC folowed-up in ’73 with “Billion Dollar Babies'” another monster hit becoming AC’s best-selling Alice Cooper album at the time, hitting number one on the album charts in the United States and the United Kingdom, and was certified platinum by the RIAA .
00 was a big Alice Cooper fan and in 1971 he was just twenty but could still relate to “I’m Eighteen” from he new “Love It To Death” LP, with the original “thumb” cover with “I’m 18” “Ballad of Dwight Frye” and even “Sun Arise” . 00 pllayed it to death, really loved that album. Alice Cooper caused quite a scene back then; the guys cross-dressed, had scary make-up, performed rock ‘n’ roll drenched in the macabre.and of course, there was the python!
That was then, and in a couple years in 1975, 00 was headed to the Fabulous Forum to see Alice Cooper Superstar perform what was sure to be a historic phantasmagorical concert that would be forever imprinted in the mind of any fan who witnessed the “Welcome To My Nightmare” concert/tour!
ALICE COOPER – Suzi Quatro – 6-17-1975 Great Western Forum, Inglewood, CA (Capacity: 17,000)
00 was fortunate once again to have a great seat, especially for this highly visual concert; up off the floor left of stage but close in with a clear, slightly angled-down view of the stage at all times. It wasn’t just great it was almost perfect! 0He was hyped and geared for what he knew would be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Horror Hoot!
The whole set had a huge screen with a haunted graveyard projection / movie from behind that turned the whole stage into a spooky psycho graveyard with low mist everywhere – really cool! Just after Alice got guillotined, (and it was indeed very convincing), they put his body (and head) in a coffin, and when some pall-bearer ghouls start to head for the projected screen./graveyard on a hill. Now here’s where it got really cool, there were slits in the screen so when the coffin and ghouls passed through to the other side they had filmed them continuing on through on the real set so eventually they were all off the stage and onto the projected film carrying the coffin off to the graveyard! Very cool effect; really, it was slick with perfect timing! Oh, yeah if I 00 remembers correctly we see Alice with his head back on running from the graveyard and through the slit in the screen disappearing from the screen onto the stage. I00 gets a full-blown charge outta stuff like that! One look at the setlist and it’s an Alice Cooper Fan’s Wet Dream! Righteous!
A definite Rock History Event – Alice Cooper was ever more popular than the build-up to this concert. Proud of his violent and scary rock songs and persona, Alice (Vincent Furnier) has said, affectionately, that, “We were the group that drove a stake through the heart of the Love Generation.” But how is that possible when he exudes such joy and happiness? Does he know that? Alice, are you aware that we love you? We do.
Lineup: Alice Cooper (vocals), Steve Hunter (guitar), Dick Wagner (guitar), Josef Chirowski (keyboards), Penti Glan (drums), Prakash John (bass) Tony Levin (bass), Allan Schwartzberg (drums).
Setlist: Welcome To My Nightmare, Years Ago (partial vocal), No More Mr. Nice Guy, Years Ago (partial vocal), Billion Dollar Babies, Years Ago (instrumental), I’m Eighteen, Years Ago (vocal), Instrumental intro – Some Folks, Cold Ethyl, Only Women Bleed, Devils Food (w/backing vocals only), Band Instrumental, The Black Widow, Steven, Welcome To My Nightmare reprise/(Graveyard Scene)/Escape/Escape. Instrumental reprise to start Encore: School’s Out/Department Of Youth.
Billion Dollar Babies 50th Anniversary Edition 3-LP Vinyl Tracklist:
LP One Side One 1. “Hello Hooray” 2. “Raped And Freezin’” 3. “Elected” 4. “Billion Dollar Babies” 5. “Unfinished Sweet”
Side Two 1. “No More Mr. Nice Guy” 2. “Generation Landslide” 3. “Sick Things” 4. “Mary Ann” 5. “I Love The Dead”
LP Two Side One 1. “Hello Hooray” – Live, 1973 2. “Billion Dollar Babies” – Live, 1973 3. “Elected” – Live, 1973 4. “I’m Eighteen” – Live, 1973 5. “Raped And Freezin’” – Live, 1973 6. “No More Mr. Nice Guy” – Live, 1973
Side Two 1. “My Stars” – Live, 1973 2. “Unfinished Sweet” – Live, 1973 3. “Sick Things” – Live, 1973 4. “Dead Babies” – Live, 1973 5. “I Love The Dead” – Live, 1973
LP Three Side One 1. “School’s Out” – Live, 1973 2. “Under My Wheels” – Live, 1973 3. “Coal Black Model T” – Outtake 4. “Son Of Billion Dollar Babies (Generation Landslide)” – Outtake
Side Two 1. “Hello Hooray” – Single Version 2. “Billion Dollar Babies” – Single Version 3. “Elected” – Single Version 4. “Mary Ann” – Single Version 5. “Slick Black Limousine”
Alice Cooper – an American Treasure!
ALICE COOPER FOR PRESIDENT – let’s get him ELECTED!
Opening tracks matter, which is why most bands were wise to choose an opening track that either hooked the listener in, or set the stage for what was to come – or both.
And then there’s The Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand”; probably the single most influential opening track in Pop/Rock History – see: 30 Seconds That Transformed A Generation.
While there are asuredly many more, this list is a good representation of why opening tracks matter: “I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND” – The Beatles – Meet The Beatles – 1/20/`964
The Outsiders – Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Maccio, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon
THAT’S RIGHT, THE RUMBLE IS ON!
Here are 13 Historic Rock “Boss” Instrumental Sounds.
There was a dark but alluring primarily instrumental sound that rose from the depths of late ’50’s Rock ‘n’ Roll up into the mid-’60s. This sound had an ominous but pleasing vibe that seemed to connect on a gritty yet sublime level. It was Boss.
While “Boss” has a totally different meaning now, back in the ’60s it was a ubiquitous word like “Cool” only it was reserved for things that were distinguished as above Cool; more of an acknowledgement of a higher stature within the subject at hand. Out here in L.A. the top radio station took on the moniker of “Boss” radio 93 KHJ; the other top radio station in L.A. was KFWB Channel 98, but KHJ was “Boss”.
Some of these tracks are hard core, some have a mysterious edge, some are dreamy, some wail sax, some twang guitar, some express noir nightlife, some are adventurous, some are spacey, some are dangerous, some are up, some are down, one even has the best lyrics ever recorded on the unique track, “Scratchy”.
So, Sleepwalk thru a Raunchy Boss Fiberglass Jungle with The Lonely Surfer to the Haunted Castle of Emotions to join in the Apache Rumble against The Band with No Name featuring Scratchy Mihalis – then bathe in these moody instrumental classics filled with heavy guitar, raunchy sax, throbbing drums, and serious moonlight.
Scratchy Travis Whammack – 1964 00 bought this the second he heard it – Whammack recorded it at 15 years old and is still scratchin’ as of 2024!
AND
if these tracks stimulate your bad ass soul then here’s a totally righteous album from 1964 (The) Ventures In Space whereby every track represents all of the excellence of the above thirteen and is the recipiant of an ERA:
00 wants to start off the 2024 year with a psychedelic post of entertainment for inquiring minds and psychonauts who want to re-visit the experience of the sound and glory of a time when music was fun, stimulating, and free of restrictions on creativity.
This list is not based on popularity or chart positions it is based on rhe psychedelic experience.
Not all “psychedelic” songs were. Many were just mimicked, but aceptable. However, there were a few that hit that disctinctive level where they truly reached a psychedelic vibe, a cosmic attitude that connected to the sights and sounds of a psychedelic experience.
Recently a Rocker / Audiophile / former Record Store Co-Worker brought up the distinction between Psychedelic Garage Rock and Psychedelic Rock. Granted, it can be a thin line that 00 can help define with these 13 Psychedelic Rock Songs.
Click links for full review and or song for each of the Top 13 Historic and Classic 1960s Psychedelic Songs!
“Tell you what I’ll do (what will you do?) I’d like to go there now with you You can miss out school (won’t that be cool) Why go to learn the words of fools? What will we do there? We’ll get high What will we touch there? We’ll touch the sky But why the tears then? I’ll tell you why It’s all too beautiful It’s all too beautiful It’s all too beautiful It’s all too beautiful”
00individual feels inclined to blow his mind and celebrate this really great song that expressed a state of bliss that we were all experiencing through the high of smoking nature’s herb and appreciating nature; which is what this song’s all about. And it was the first hit song to feature the spacey tunnel-effect of manual “flanging”.
Flanging is the term for the manual drag of a tape recorder reel during the recording of two simultaneous source sounds (tape loops) into a third tape recorder to create a delayed harmonious frequency scale that can go up and down or just continuous – or something like that, I’ll toss you over to wiki on this one: Flanging. When Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane found out about this technique from Glyn Johns who got it from George Chkiantz they ingeniously used the effect to forever stamp Itchycoo Park with a sound we were all getting very familiar with; the stoned psychedelic side-effect of spacey echoey swooshes of our audible environment. Groovy!
Many artists have used it since and a very few before, but the Small Faces’ use of flanging created an iconic sound during an iconic age for an iconic psychedelic song: Itchycoo Park!
Here are two Small Faces videos of Itchycoo Park: I like the energy of the 1967 version but they cut the very ending – so check out this1968 versionwith Steve Marriott’s classic, “HA!”.
The greatness of this song is that it is blatantly anti-traditional institutionalized education and pro-drug yet the song is so infectious and “high” that those possibly objectionable lyrics are absolved by the pure happiness that the song promotes and delivers.
It’s all too beautiful! And it was, … for a while, really.
January 1967 marked 00individual’s initiation into Marijuana and Hashish and those amazing months continued throughout the year, so by ’68 he was poised for psychedelic greatness with the experiences of mind-bending Mescaline trips. And to assist in the transition, the psychedelic rock band Traffic – Stevie Winwood with writing partner Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason released an album that became a sign of the times – and once again timing was everything and magic was afoot.
A moment to reflect on Winwood; 00individual ranked The Spencer Davis Group’s hits, the soulful hard rockin’ “Keep On Running”, the driving tribal hard rockin’ “Gimme Some Lovin’ ” and the epic hard rockin’ “I’m A Man” right up there with The Yardbirds early hard rockers and all were sung by Stevie Winwood who joined the group at fourteen and at fifteen had million seller singles to his credit. After success with Traffic he went on to become part of one of the top supergroups, Blind Faith, who by the way did it right; one album, one tour, boom, done. Unique and classic. Winwood actually sort of repeated that uniqueness with the international supergroup GO, before embarking on an even more successful solo career in the ’80s.
Traffic, influenced by the Band’s “Big Pink” album (an inspiration to Elton John, Eric Clapton and many others including Roger Waters of Pink Floyd) later released the impressive and infectious “John Barleycorn Must Die” album and achieved musical excellence that culminated with the 1971 release, “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys”, a true masterpiece.
But back to the album that started it all, the album entitled, “Heaven Is In Your Mind” for US release and “Mr. Fantasy” for UK release, contained a special magic of innocence, wonder and psychedelic imagery with a sound that really fit and amplified the feelings that the Counter-Culture were experiencing – that everyday thrill and anticipation of a time when just being alive was enough to insure yet another day of exciting potential.
Please know that it is easy to appreciate those days in retrospect, but since the feeling was real there was an undeniable realization of excitement in the air all of the time, good friends, music and drugs only assisted the already mysteriously undefinable vibe that prevailed, one that this album signified.
Good timing all around. 00individual again thanks all those involved in his current incarnation at what seems – with every passing day’s revelation of comparative experiences – just how insanely good the ’60s and ’70s were – the absolute best time to have spent a lifetime in history.
00individual gets transported back to those innocent psychedelic times when just the toke of a joint would open doors to the fact that Heaven Is In Your Mind:
There was this innocently-hot Irish Catholic girl of nineteen with blonde hair and green eyes that I dated for a time when I was twenty. She would have a way of quote-singing the intro-outro part of “Giving To You”, the part when the jazzed lyrics say, “. . .but I mean jahzz” that was so sexy yet playful, it just knocked me out. The eroticism and simplicity of youth. 00individual remembers those days fondly of intertwined Sex, Drugs an Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Special Girlfriends – forever.
Well, Psychedelic Trippers, here’s a fun one, especially with headphones on OR just nice and loud. Break out the timecapsuled Blotter Acid and take a ten minute acid trip at your favorite portal.
But, before you do we need to stop and take a quick look at the word “psychedelic”; from the Greek psyche (mind) and dēlōsē/delia (manifest); a mind manifest which can be hallucinations of any kind OR a true mind manifestation of an object or concept, which is of course per the individual’s perspective.
Psychedelic music was born from artists who experienced the effects of mind (psyche) altering and consciousness expanding drugs and used those experiences to express (manifest) their feelings in their art. Since many shared the ultra vivid, brightly colored detailed visions and the fantasy distortion and crystalline aspects of sound; those elements became part of expressions in clothing/fashion, art, music, writing and attitude.
Psychedelic music in its pure state, has no axe to grind, it’s apolitical. Mainly because when you’re high on acid the last thing on your mind is reality, you are experiencing a fantastic world outside of your head and inside as well – both worlds you never knew existed that were there all the time – and still are – and psychedelic music expresses the many and varied feelings and sensations that are part of that trip.
A major factor that makes a psychedelic song a classic was the time in history that Psychedelia became a cultural force – and here is where a zeitgeist of feeling really matters. Since no one had a handle on what was “psychedelic”, (because much if not most was personal) the simple symbols of things like flowers, butterflies, rainbows, mandalas, paisleys and even the Peace sign were used to represent and reflect the fun, colorful, free, psychedelic experience. Our minds were so open that perched on the verge of mind-manifesting on a daily basis meant that your world now had no limits. Your imagination was free to think and feel and do whatever it wanted. When you have a massive amount of people feeling the same way, the “psychedelic” floodgates opened and produced amazing visual art as well as the music on this list.
With all of that in mind, the architect of this perfect slice of ’60s Psychedelia, Joe Byrd, left after creating the band, “The United States of America” and created the album “The American Metaphysical Circus” with a group of top west coast session musicians he dubbed “the Field Hippies”. The album has a sardonic and satiric sense of humor in its music and lyrics – but with the Sub-Sylvian Litanies only someone who has experienced and embraced LSD or any fine psychotropics, could have produced such a loving “trip” as this:
KALYANI: Birth and rebirth with a strong dose of metaphysical metamorphosis and some truly amazing and ground-breaking “too real” effects. You can literally hear your consciousness expanding. YOU CAN’T EVER COME DOWN: The female vocals capture the essence of that which borders reality and fantasy and is so coolly representative of the free-form spirit of the Psychedelic ‘60s that it’s eerie – and it Rocks! MOONSONG: PELOG: A very “pre-David Lynch/Julie Cruise/Angelo Badalamenti/Twin Peaks” hauntingly twisted psychedelic ending to a sonic trilogy of just about every element that makes up a classic psychedelic song. This ten minute trilogy song, the Sub-Sylvian Litanies, is so Lysergic that it has the ability to create a music video in your mind!
The Doors’ sound is unique in Rock History. The musical landscape back then was rippling with new bands with new sounds – but the Doors – they were a genre unto themselves.
To this day 00 finds their music timeless and as always from somewhere deep in the past, somewhere when magic was a known talent and technology was a servant and not a master. A time and place where the Doors music originated and was channeled through Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore. This sound of deep occult antiquity manifested in dramatic Rock ‘n’ Roll, at the same time seemed to literally come from the future or another universe. Morrison’s lyrics, delivered by one of the Top Ten Rock Voices of all time, and his quintessential Rock Star persona only made the music that much more mysterious.
On January 4th, 1967 the Doors’ first single “Break On Through” and their self-titled debut album were released. After immediately purchasing the LP and upon repeated listening 00 was over-whelmed by the sophisticated sound of these songs. he had never heard anything like it! Each track submerged me into a very cool, mysterious world. I put the LP on display in his room like the others in hismodest collection at the time because he considered these twelve inch square images worthy of seeing on a daily basis. And that iconic first Doors LP became a part of his daily environment – along with repeated playings of an album that he would never ever grow tired of hearing – the Doors’ classic canon of songs will reverberate down the halls of history for as long as man listens to and appreciates recorded music.
The Doors and the #1 song on this list share a higher quality of “what is” psychedelic. Psychedelic songs obviously need to reach benchmarks of certain qualities and some go beyond. Those exceptional songs are acknowledged by their alien qualities; a feeling that you just heard and experienced a different level of consciousness or reality, an exposure to an art form that almost seems like part of an experiment to introduce into civilization for a reaction OR maybe just a “hide in plain sight” peek behind the curtain of music from other realms or planes of existence. When you’re on psychedelics and you hear music created by musicians who are, or were, on psychedelics when they performed or recorded the music; a shared experience happens. What they created is psychically understood and mutually enjoyed for you have both shared and understood the “experience”. When a band can tap into that higher psychedelic state of music; the Doors open.
And if the whole LP was not enough, the Doors totally blow minds with; “The End“, an epic masterpiece of psychedelia that is literally an acid trip in sound and lyric. The Doors’ mystique can be captured in any two minute run in this song; just drop the needle anywhere and you will hear the unheard of.
. To prove that there is no advantage to the length of a song for a band to express their psychedelic qualities – the #1 Psychedelic Song is the shortest one on this list!
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#9 THIRD STONE FROM THE SUN – THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE May 12, 1967 – 6:52 AND for Hard Core Psychedelic Rockers THIRD STONE FROM THE SUN – in REVERSE! .
This is not a cheat or a tie; this is a necessity. Both of these songs dove-tailed chronologically because of their release date on the “Magical Mystery Tour” album. I could not bring myself to choose one or the other, for it would be criminal to leave either off the list. So I will make an exception and include them as one entry for efficiency’s sake. Consider them a fantasy A and B sided single.
This was a truly Magical time to live in; I was sixteen, almost seventeen and my world had opened-up – I had a ’51 Buick that I bought for $33.00 and cost $66.00 to reseal the automatic transmission as this was one of the first automatics with a straight 8-cylinder engine and was always leaking “grape juice” – but it was very cool transportation. I had been “introduced” to marijuana early in the year which really opened up my world view and the Beatles had just released their “Magical Mystery Tour” LP – ’nuff said.
I remember sitting on top of a two-story apartment roof in Venice on the canal helping the owner, a friend’s dad, paint the building and I had the radio on next to me and “Strawberry Fields Forever” was playing. As I grooved to the song I looked out across the few buildings between me and the sea and let this psychedelic classic bathe over me like the sun that was breaking through the clouds – an indelible stamp on a Day in the Life.
Which brings up a nice segue: “Sgt. Pepper’s” was an iconic LP and everyone everywhere immediately freaked, 00individual included – but “Magical Mystery Tour” had a much more psychedelic and rock vibe that I enjoyed more. Other than “I’m Down”, the Beatles were a Pop/”Rock” group – so to have semi-rockers like “Hello Goodbye”, “Baby You’re A Rich Man” and “All You Need Is Love” and the title track was a real complement to “Fool On The Hill”, “Penny Lane”, “Flying”, etc. AND “Strawberry Fields Forever” AND “I Am The Walrus” made for an almost perfect album.
And it was a hit with all of us as we’d play “I Am The Walrus” while smoking a joint and chime-in with the ending, “Smoke pot, smoke pot, everybody smoke pot”, and have a great time. This scene was assuredly repeated within Rockin’ Tribes around the world. In those early days of marijuana use it was like taking LSD later on; we were really enjoying the psychedelic effects of the weed on our newly “turned on” minds – we wuz trippin’!
So take a nice hit off your bowl of excellent herb and take eight minutes and forty-five seconds of your life to enjoy two songs from the “Magical Mystery Tour” Era and relive the days when music and life were truly “Magical”: STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER I AM THE WALRUS
I disagree with just about everyone, including the Stones – “Their Satanic Majesties Request” was and is a totally far out album. I loved it all, and here’s why; we as a Tribe were open and accepting and THANKFUL for all we were given. We were so gifted to be experiencing all that the ‘60s offered that to criticize or judge music was not even an issue. Sure, later on the jaded of us would become so informed that debates would take place while herb was inhaled, but no one criticized this LP, we thought that it was a very cool entry into the full-blown psychedelic album era and treated it as such.
So upon hearing “2000 Light Years From Home” the Stones had transcended even their own level of one-of-a-kind Rock. This was a psychedelic excursion with a stoned driving beat that really emulated the feeling of space cruisin’. Even though we like our Stones just the way they are, it was total fun and a cool groove to hear their venture into Psychedelic Space Rock.
This song begged for an extended version and when the first Teac 2340 reel to reel 4 channel simul-sync tape recorder was released (I believe the Beatles used two four tracks for most of “Sgt Pepper”- bouncing between two machines) I got one, (still have it), and went nutty and one of the fun things I did was record this song in one second delays to each channel and then repeated the song with a fade in at the end. Then I’d turn out the lights, turn up the volume and with several candles lit 2000 Light Years from Home would swirl around the room in seemingly never-ending Rockin’ Psychedelic Quadraphonic sound. Groovy!
With all of these Top 13 Psychedelic Songs of the 1960s it is imperative to comprehend the importance and newness that these songs had upon first hearing them and then upon hearing them in the historic time they were released. The fact that these songs are still desired by music lovers world-wide forty to forty five years later is a true testament to their classic stature and continued place in ongoing cultural evolution.
That said, here is thee sonic tribute to Psychedelic Sex through the Orgasmic Hard Rock epic of “Whole Lotta Love”. Having taken psychedelic trips and experienced sex on psychedelics, this song was the closest musical interpretation to the over-the-top heightened sexual urges on psychedelics that held nothing back. There are moments when the aural pleasures performed (that’s aural, not oral – but representative of both) by vocals and instrumentals that are psychedelically sexually explicit with sound, lyric, emotion and sensory manifestation.
When I first heard Led Zeppelin II it was a perfect evolution from their debut LP but with Whole Lotta Love it was as if they were able to take every element of their style and ejaculate it into LSD-inspired extremes with beyond belief masterful effect.
At various times on psychedelics your libido takes over and it is almost mandatory to have sexual release, which is why having several girlfriends at the time was highly beneficial and this song really expressed what that part of the Trip was like – truly orgasmic.
At five and a half minutes Page, Plant, Bonham and Jones took us on a journey of carnal delight through a hard rock psychedelic trip like nothing before – Hendrix surely mastered and delivered – but this was the most intense hard acid rock to date that went over the top, back down and up past the last peak with the grinding psychological and physiological effects that you get when you’re peaking on acid and the sublime release of sensational sex.
This was no romantic song; this was a song of sex, savage sex, true Rock ‘n’ Roll that was unrelenting and psychedelic to the max. If you’ve been experienced then you know, if not, it still has the power to take anyone near that place of sexual psychedelic extremes.
A true essential Rock ‘n’ Roll Psychedelic masterpiece: WHOLE LOTTA LOVE!
And my soul’s been psychedelicized. No shit! This song is epic! Man, did the Chambers Brothers nail this one; lyrics, music, attitude – everything! It took a group of soul singers to step in and show everyone how it’s done! This is a monster among psychedelic songs, unrelenting in its power and driven by an insane koo koo clock-ticking beat, wailing guitar that slides into “the Little Drummer Boy” and then psychedelic howls that evolve into madness and the coolest cacophony of fuzz guitar, manic drums and throbbing bass that builds into one of the best hard-rockin’ “reprise and finish” to a song ever. Whew!
I was fortunate to grow up in a household that had the radio on all the time so I got into R ‘n’ B in the ’50s when I was a just a little single digit Rocker – and those songs stuck. And I’m amazed at how much poetry I have memorized in song. So I love Soul and Rhythm ‘n’ Blues as they thankfully dominated the Top 40 by the mid-to-late ’50s and early ’60s as that’s what I was raised on. So to hear a unique sound that combined rock ‘n’ soul and psychedelic jazz-fusion was a thrill!
The Chambers Brothers: Joe: guitar/vocals, Willie: guitar/vocals, Lester: harp/vocals and George: bass/vocals and Brian Keenan: drums; created a song that became an instant classic in Rock History and an emblematic iconic song of the Psychedelic ’60s!
This song is truly historic and classic; as it presents Pink Floyd’s creative unity as a foursome without Syd Barrett, and serves as the prototype for what would come. With “A Saucerful of Secrets” we get the first true insight into the depth and scope of classic Pink Floyd. This is “new” psychedelic music.
Those who made the list did so in true Rock ‘n’ Roll spirit and with the newly found psychedelic power of expanded consciousness on full display. But with this song, Pink Floyd has taken the whole psychedelic music genre to a higher level of evolved music – a level that they own.
I, like many others, am a Space (Rock) Music Freak and have searched the known universe for space sounds for decades; a mania that began and really took off with early ’70s Tangerine Dream imports. This effort paid off with hearing spectacular space music throughout the decades by many excellent bands; a terrific source was from Pat Murphy’s truly great Alien Air Music radio station. Another source came with the experience as a manager of record stores and as a record and tape rack jobber, both certainly helped to broaden my horizons and expand access to excellent Space Rock Music. So I can say as a professional and a fan; there have been many excellent and worthy Space Rock contenders – but there is only one Pink Floyd.
While I certainly honor Syd Barrett’s vision that got Floyd in gear; it was the evolution of Pink Floyd into the world-class creators of phenomenally excellent “head” music that is previewed with, and within, this song.
Like Hendrix, Pink Floyd could have easily filled the Top 13; so to be fair they are represented with this classic song to cure all your ills; in the words of Dr. Floyd; “World got ya down? Take “A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS” twice daily.”
By October 1966, we had all been experiencing the early British Invasion and its influence which was predominately Pop and Pop-Rock. Then for those of us who dug deeper the emerging British Blues bands provided the sound that we could sink our teeth and minds into. Before Cream, the Who, the Stones or Hendrix, the Yardbirds were interpreting the classic blues into a new form of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
As new as all this music was, we adapted immediately, it was if it was a predestined-from-birth event that our generation would experience this musical and cultural revolution. But that said, this song by the Yardbirds stood out – it was a mind-blower.
I was only fifteen and a half when this was released on the airwaves and was amazed at what I was hearing. In such a short span of my life on this planet music went from the ’50’s Song Stylists to Elvis to the Beach Boys to the Beatles and then the whole Brit-Pop Invasion, and then to this; “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago”, a Seminal Psychedelic Gem.
The Yardbirds, have always seriously been one of my all time top favorite bands – more than the Beatles and equal to the Stones – and while most Yardbirds fans acknowledge the fun of having Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck together or in the band separately, it was the way they could take standards and make them their own as well as all of their very original songs. The volume of unbelievable primo Rock ‘n’ Roll that has been recorded by the Yardbirds since day one is legendary, amazing and righteous and a core example of Rock ‘n’ Roll at its finest.
Keith Relf owns the spookiest, coolest, unique voice in Rock and Eric, Jeff and Jimmy, well we know what happened to those clowns; Jim McCarty, drums; Chris Dreja, rhythm guitar; and future Led Zep John Paul Jones, bass; were a dream band that consistently produced Rock Gems: “I’m A Man”, “Shapes of Things”, “Little Games”, “Over Under Sideways Down”, “Mister You’re A Better Man Than I”, Train Kept A Rollin”, “Heart Full Of Soul”, “Smokestack Lightnin’”, “For Your Love” and my personal fave threesome I call the “Yardbird Chants” “Still I’m Sad“, “Turn Into Earth” and “Only the Black Rose“- I could go on, but you get the idea – unique, hard core, beautiful, original Psychedelic Rock ‘n’ Roll!
The Yardbirds had a hold of the pulse of Rock with a pull toward the future (Led Zeppelin were the “New Yardbirds” originally) and with Happenings Ten Years Time Ago they indelibly etched-in-stone the beginning of the Psychedelic Rock Era.
Once again, I wasn’t sure what I heard in this song that I connected with but the cool cacophony of the middle section, the words, the insane guitar, the door that opened to another realm of music, the whole song – it was all too familiar, but it couldn’t have been, … or could it?
Since all of this music was new to everyone we all had personal and universal reactions to these songs and for me Happenings Ten Years Time Ago was a song my soul had been waiting to hear – and I gained full appreciation of this song a year or so later with my initiations into the World of Psychedelics.
The Yardbirds: take a look at the single cover above, what a group of Bad-Asses! Check the sneer on Beck, the stern glare on Page, Relf’s ready to burn holes through you with his eyes and Dreja’s about to pull out a gat! McCarty just seems bemused.
Dig these three: the Original, Live and Something Else:
1983 …” is beyond belief – Jimi is beyond belief – I wouldn’t want to live in a world where Hendrix’ music wasn’t a huge influence – I thank the Rock Gods for bestowing the soulful pleasure of Jimi’s music in my lifetime.
Jimi’s sound is invigorating and powerful; it gives me strength in hard times and super-strength in easier times. This track literally lifts my soul every time I hear it – it is magical.
When this double album of pure pleasure was released I was seventeen and being a Pisces, a water sign, this selected gem with its sweeping majesty and immersion in psychedelic undersea otherworldly vibes is not only the perfect track to represent Jimi in full-psychedelic mode, but it pleases my cosmic aquatic desires.
After listening to “Electric Ladyland” several times I could feel the difference from his first two LPs – these songs had a strange sophistication – I felt like my appreciation for music was raised with Electric Ladyland. For one thing, I was dying for Hendrix to do an entire album side song, or at least a long extended track – and he did with “1983 …” and “Voodoo Chile”.
Jimi’s obsession with the mysteries of the unknown is a recurring theme. Whether in the realms of the sea, altered states of consciousness, the outer limits of space or with the exotic and elusive muse, (which is a recurring theme unto itself) Jimi had the ability to take us with him – to fantastic places we had never been.
I believe that IF Jimi had continued to live on in this plane of existence that the jazz exploration would have been inevitable – but also as evident anywhere on this track, his abilities would also eventually include some super-amazing soundtracks and film scores – and from there, …?
In any case, I plan on seeing and hearing Hendrix again – and I won’t be late.
“1983 …” cannot help but bring back great memories of nights and days getting high to the super-groove of the double-LP playing as the ambient and dominant sound of life.
No, the many LSD trips that I have taken have not deteriorated or otherwise warped my mental state; if anything psychedelics allowed me crystal clarity about many highly important, spiritual, metaphysical as well as trivial aspects that impact life and this choice for #1 is a perfect example of the understanding of the depth and height and cosmic realization of the term psychedelic.
First off, the Man behind this international monster hit is remarkable beyond words, known as the “Father of Woodstock”; Artie Kornfeld, the co-writer and producer of this song, is truly a Superman among us mere mortals. A talent truly beyond belief; absolutely amazing! Check out his link – he’s a man you need to know.
Now about the song; as far as any true aficionado of pure psychedelia is concerned this song transcended psychedelia to a place where no other song can even come close. Its relevance and cosmic iconic spell of the power and grace that it projected was never lost on me.
I loved the psychedelic realms and treated each trip reverently; whether at concerts, parties, get-togethers or stoned alone; I always felt a special kinship with the experience as it took me to places where the sounds of this song were the environment of the epitome of what altered consciousness was all about.
No truer words were spoken than “the Angelic Psychedelia of the Cowsills” – they were pre-destined to manifest this iconic gem.
Other experienced trippers tapped-into the cerebral subtext of what the masses saw and heard as a nice bubble-gum pop song – but it was much more complex than that – much more. “The Rain the Park and Other Things” was transcendent, otherworldly – it touched on the surreal and the real, on psychedelic imagery and sound that was akin to the sound heard from the forests and the trees, the flowers and all the other living things that we do not hear unless under the exquisite power of psychotropics where communication with alien worlds and the ambient sounds normally never heard, ring crystal clear – angelic in nature with the spirit to uplift the soul.
From the opening gurgling of water to the Psychedelic Angelic voices, with the insane and sublime choruses of “Happy, Happy, Happy” and the glorious harpsichord strains we enter a psychedelic world that even Hendrix or Pink Floyd could not enter – really.
This song is a doorway to the World of Psychedelia; it is beyond any Land of Oz, it gives us a peek at a place in our psyche where imagination is born, where DMT machine-replicating elves control the universal order, where angels and demons play together, where we are all timeless and live in ecstasy. I cannot listen to this song and not be transported, soul and mind, to those places, all at once.
Released during the “Summer of Love” this song is Love – manifested in Music and Voice, simply and complexly sublime – a once in a lifetime experience that touched many world-wide, but assuredly to only a few to the extent that I relate here. This goes way beyond a world-wide hit single, this was an Occult song that only a small percentage were gifted to realize it’s true power and meaning. If I sound like a crazy right now, then I’m proud, thankful and privileged to take on that mantle as it means that I was able, willing, fortunate and blessed to connect with Psychedelic Perfection.
“The Rain, the Park and Other Things” is beyond #1; it is in a category all by itself, a gift to any Psychedelic Soul of pure pleasure in song, imagery, lyric, voice and design that touches the mind and the soul.
THE TOP 13 HISTORIC, CLASSIC and OBSCURE 1960s PSYCHEDELIC SONGS PART TWO
A Psychedelic song, like an LSD trip, is experienced by people differently. However, many Psychedelic songs share classic common sounds that everyone experiences; distorted electric guitars, image-rich and/or deep meaningful lyrics, long spacey jams, feedback, reverb, wah-wah, echoes, sitars, and improvisational experimentation. These are some of the easily recognized sounds of Psychedelic Music.
But that is just the sound, and not the feeling behind it. The one difference that typifies a Psychedelic Song from others is that in its original state it was music made mostly by Heads for Heads . . . and that’s probably the easiest and best definition of an original Psychedelic Song. It’s the reason that musicians were exploring these types of sounds was to musically express the mind-expanding feelings of the Psychedelic Hallucinogenic LSD Mescaline Psilocybin Opium, Hashish, Marijuana Trip experience.
That doesn’t mean that anyone else couldn’t appreciate the song, but what it does mean is that once “experienced”, expanded consciousness reveals important life concepts about art, people, nature, life and love – and in this case it opens you up to a whole new level of appreciation and understanding of many categories and genres of music.
A good example is that before psychedelics, 00individual just couldn’t get into jazz that much, tried, but didn’t have the ability to understand and relate – it was too unstructured. After psychedelics, 00individual became unstructured himself, and eagerly embraced nearly all forms of Jazz throughout the decades. Herbie Mann’s“I’m Comin’ Home” Live from The Village Gate 1961 was a staple late night groove back at the Beach Pad in ’69 and a perfect LSD end-trip mellower.
There are three on this list that actually have the power to achieve a Psychedelic level that transcends the rest – not better, but deeper – they reach a Psychedelic emotional level where the words and music become one sound that allow you an emotional peek behind the curtain to experience that sound’s environment in its dimension. Far Out!
Here ’tis: THE TOP 13 HISTORIC, CLASSIC and OBSCURE 1960s PSYCHEDELIC SONGS Part Two! Presented in chronological order – ‘cept the last.
Before the spacey sounds of Pink Floyd there were The Ventures, who along with Dick Dale, were the seminal innovators of guitar-driven Rock. The Ventures in Space album reigns as the very first instrumental Space Rock album with its mesmerizing otherworldly Rock tracks, beats, rhythms and spacey guitars from the future. What makes this album truly amazing is that the slip cover states “that all the unique, unworldly sounds featured in the album’s tracks were made with musical instruments, rather than with electronic devices.” An All Time Favorite – this album is Solid Space-Guitar Drum-tastic Rock evidenced by entering The Fourth Dimension.
This painfully obvious and excruciatingly wonderful Psychedelic song is the Historical linchpin of Psychedelic Rock and the zenith of The Beach Boys Legacy. Almost too good to be relegated to any list, this was the perfect blend of Pop / Rock / Psychedelia and it came at the height of the British Invasion to pretty much show the world that although the UK dominated the airwaves, the US had The Beach Boys who embodied all that was good coming out of the UK and the U.S., and at the same time Good Vibrations was the seminal song to lead the Psychedelic era and the Summer of Love and truly rivaled anything on Sgt. Peppers.
The term, Freak Out, became part of the Hippie Lexicon along with Far Out, Groovy, Right On and hold-overs; Cool, Wicked and Bitchen.
At fifteen and a half 00individual was at that age where he could taste the future – a license and a car were still at least another six months away. A car would provide unlimited freedom to make things happen; like a private place to spend some quality time with his girlfriend(s) and also the freedom to motivate around town and flex his freaky muscles. But at the same time he was still a kid and enjoyed senseless kid stuff. One such outlet was Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention; like all of the heroes of the day they thumbed their noses at rules and restrictions and gave us a sense of power and plenty of smiles. At this juncture the Freak Out album was like our theme to stay young, for just a while longer. Now this isn’t to say that Zappa’s music was childish and immature, far from it, and we knew it; the biting sardonic wit and general satiric attitude fit perfectly with our adolescent/young adult Heads.
Back in the mid-to-late sixties those of us with licenses and cars would cruise Sunset Strip and Hollywood Boulevard and then make a stop at Wallich’s Music City because they had record listening booths. We’d grab the Mothers’ Freak Out Double LP and play it over and over having a great time ‘til we could eventually sing along and about then we would be asked to leave.
Psychedelic? Well,while writing this post 00individual had a goofy psychedelic grin-on while listening and singing along with this song for the first time in a long time. This was a Trip! The avante garde wit and musical “rap” choreography was quite psychedelic in that your head goes away for a while, if you pay close attention, which 00individual did, and his mind manifested, so yeah, definitely psychedelic.
The Yardbirds were way ahead of everyone else with their Having a Rave Up album in regard to embracing the Psychedelic Sound. With I’m A Man they created and introduced Beck’s tight manic Psychedelic strum – a sound that climaxed with those acid rush peak feelings when your brain squirts out of the top of your head, momentarily.
Shapes of Things was a quasi anti-war zeitgeist Hard Rockin’ Psychedelic track of deep meaning and questions of the future, the present and the past – and with a guitar break featuring Beck introducing “Truth”.
00individual can’t say enough about The Yardbirds (but will have to, due to self-limitations) as they were and still are one of his Top Favorite Bands of All Time and that’s even before he knew of the fact that the band had three of Rock’s Top Guitarists of All Time. Wicked tracks!
This song is a perfect example of a highly Psychedelic song coming in under the radar.
Some sources say that “Sunshine Superman” was one of the first Psychedelic songs, and depending where your head is at, this could be true. Donovan infused his unique Folk Rock into a Mystical Cosmic Rock all of his own and became a leading Counter Culture figure of the Psychedelic Sound. Where Your Love Like Heaven, The Trip, Hurdy Gurdy and many others oozed with iconic Psychedelic goodness.
But for 00individual, the Psychedelic Shadow cast by Season of the Witch was far more reaching. Whereas all the others literally took you to another place, SOTW took you to an inner place.
Preceding The Doors by a year, the tone of this Gem is a place where pleasure and paranoia mix with lyric and vocals that are so musical that the aura is really that of LSD and Heroin; a world of heightened psychedelic mellowness with a groovy underlying heavy vibe. Great Jimmy Page guitar throughout.
A very stoned psychedelic classic that fell right in the groove, then, and now.
Some Psychedelic songs are so emblematic of the period that dropping the needle at any point within the track will emit a strange but true time machine element that encapsulates the entire Psychedelic era of Head Shops, Record Stores, Patchouli incense, Concerts, hangin’ out gettin’ high, cruisin’ gettin’ high and living the Counter Culture Vibe. Section #43 is that.
With “Through With You” the Lemon Pipers showed a much deeper feel for the psychedelic fun of their big hit “Green Tambourine” . After the short beginning vocals this nine minute plus excursion into creative psychedelic exploration really takes off. This track exemplifies the free-form music that represents the Counter Culture’s appreciation for extended jams to enjoy while tripping out – whether stoned, or not.
This song was a fun zeitgeist combination of trippy lyrics, a Hard Rockin’ beat, a great vocal by Kenny Rogers, psychedelic demonic/angelic choruses and some nice back-trackin’ guitar. The Overt mind-bending lyrics filled with psychedelic imagery, which now to some will seem silly, were appreciated and welcomed fun for us Hippies as we weren’t cynical and negative – we heard these lyrics as a close approximation of verbal and aural interpretations of what we had felt or seen while on hallucinogenics. Whether this song was meant as a warning about LSD or its endorsement didn’t matter, it Rocked.
This track is stone-connected to 00individual’s early serious drug exploration days and was a perfect mystical album imprint for psychedelic experiences. The occult power behind this infectious Cajun Voodou Rocker was mesmerizing, mystical, groovy –Psychedelic! It created a mood of twilight in the Bayou; of people seen and heard through the silhouetted trees as they danced around a fire, of clandestine meetings where spirits were contacted, of psychotropic ingestion, of skulduggery afoot, of romance and lust, of spells cast under the full moon, of thrills and intrigue, of an inviting ivy-covered archway entrance at the edge of the woods that compels you to enter and step off into the cosmos, for you must be able to say, “I Walk On Guilded Splinters” with the King of the Zulu.”
Pictured is the original Island Records vinyl album cover of this electronic tripped-out album. We were busy Psychedelic Kidz and only late at night or on a time-out from an LSD trip did we engage in this electronic ambient soundscape as it could get intense. Tangerine Dream’s Electronic Meditation album, only available as Import vinyl, was the closest to this experimental music – both were thee visionary leaders of electronica with TD eventually reaching astonishing heights in Rock Music Electronica,Ambient Soundtrack History. Both bands are the karmic direct descendants of Edgard Varese; the Father of Electronic Music. The whole An Electric Storm album is great; side two contains this psychedelic track and the super spooky Visitation.
Before there was Chicago, there was CTA; Chicago Transit Authority. And before they became the brilliant but middle-of-the-road hit factory band Chicago, they were a unique extremely talented influential Jazz/Big Band Rock Group.
It took a bit for 00individual to warm up to these tracks as the horn and jazz arrangements took some getting used to, BUT underlying it all was a sold base of exuberant Rock. And while Chicago in any form could never be labeled a Psychedelic Band, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t the desire or ability. Terry Kath, vocalist and guitarist, cuts loose with this Psychedelic Masterpiece, Free Form Guitar, on their debut ’69 double album.
00individual is not a guitarist and can’t read one note of music, but hearing this solo he knows that to some ears this is just noise, but to the Psychedelic Ear it is an Opera, a Full Length Action Movie, a Sonic Spectacle, and a soulful Epic Tour De Force with Kath giving a Jackson Pollack delivery of intuitive and deliberate evocation.
Like Dr. John the Night Tripper’s entry, and Donovan’s, some songs delivered Psychedelic moods and feelings that were mystical, elusive, but connected to that Psychedelic part of the brain that altered the mental environment.
Here is a nearly Occult song with a very mysterious psychedelic aura. This feeling was not quite understood by 00individual’s 12 year old ears and mind in 1963. There was something eerily enchanting and otherworldly about this song and it still haunts 00individual to this day. He is not alone, many musicians and artists agree. This is an example of the direct feelings one gets when on psychedelics; a shift in consciousness that is noticeable even if not explainable.
There were a few pre-Psychedelic-era songs that touched off LSD feelings way before 00individual actually took his first trip. This song was one of the first Trips 00individual took without drugs – unless of course, that this track was actually, by design or accident, a sonic drug with a perfect combination of aural sounds to trigger one’s neurotransmitters and cause a psychedelic euphoric mood and feeling.
00individual strongly believes through experience, that this is true and that certain sounds and whole songs or albums even, have the power to not only exhilarate but to deliver a psychedelic dose equal to that of any aspect of a low-level LSD trip and/or a euphoric state of mind.
Sally Go ‘Round The Roses has that Psychedelic ability. Dig It.
00 is a proud member of the “Love Generation” born in 1951 and teleported with perfect and blessed timing into the ’50s as a kid, the ’60s as a teen, and in the ’70s as a twenties cosmic adventurer, enabled him to fully enjoy the height oft he ’60s and ’70s Love Generation era.
Truth is, the way the world has escalated into unheard of insanity, as trite as it may seem to many, love is what is needed now.
00 experienced unconditional love among his brothers and sisters and dogs, cats, and birds, so it is real, just hard to find these days.
00INDIVIDUAL 
