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Posted: February 15 2015 at 15:29
SteveG wrote:
^War is cool. But George Clinton is on record that he mixed Free Your Mind while blitzed on acid! War is cool, but not that cool!
But hey, when Junior Wells died, he was buried with a tray of Lee Oskar harmonicas. Beat that. Blues harps with replaceable reeds and non-warping mylar bodies trump just about everything for us players.
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Posted: February 16 2015 at 09:52
SteveG wrote:
^Harps that will never decompose in the grave? I can't top that. Junior is set for life.
Well, from a musical standpoint the Lee Oskar's were quite revolutionary. You see, like many players, I used to keep my harps in a tall glass of water on stage (to keep the reeds wet and free of gunk). With the old school Hohner blues harps (Marine Band, originally), soaking them in water would eventually warp the wood and you had to throw the damn things out, which got very expensive (because you had to have harps in every diatonic key). With the Lee Oskar's, you'd never get warpage and the reeds could be replaced.
Fortunately, the sound quality was not different, particularly since I used a Sure Green Bullet mic and a Fender Vibro-Champ tube amp (the first amp I ever bought when I was learning guitar) which was then mic'ed through the PA system. Wonderfully fuzzy distortion!
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Posted: February 16 2015 at 15:02
Here's an obscure one -- Black Merda (I know, funny, but it's pronounced "Murder") a psych-funk rock band from Detroit with a definite Hendrixian influence (in fact, they do a cover of Foxy Lady on this album, released 1970 on the Chess label):
And speaking of Detroit, before he started cutting heads off dolls and writhing around with boa constrictors, Alice Cooper did some interesting psychedelia/acid rock on the albums Pretties for You...
And on Easy Action...
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Posted: February 16 2015 at 15:07
Thanks for posting those two Alice Cooper tracks...used to have both of those on vinyl....need to check my vinyl in the basement to see if I still own them.
One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin
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Posted: February 16 2015 at 15:13
The Dark Elf wrote:
Here's an obscure one -- Black Merda (I know, funny, but it's pronounced "Murder") a psych-funk rock band from Detroit with a definite Hendrixian influence (in fact, they do a cover of Foxy Lady on this album, released 1970 on the Chess label):
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Posted: February 17 2015 at 14:11
Lear'sFool wrote:
[QUOTE=The Dark Elf]
Here's an obscure one -- Black Merda (I know, funny, but it's pronounced "Murder") a psych-funk rock band from Detroit with a definite Hendrixian influence (in fact, they do a cover of Foxy Lady on this album, released 1970 on the Chess label):
Love that album.
Agreed. Black Merda is a Soul Psych classic!
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Posted: February 17 2015 at 14:14
dr wu23 wrote:
Thanks for posting those two Alice Cooper tracks...used to have both of those on vinyl....need to check my vinyl in the basement to see if I still own them.
It seems that many 60's/70's acts had one or two psych albums in their past like Steve Miller's first two albums, and even Thin Lizzy's first album which was a combo of rock songs and some folky psych songs.
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Posted: February 17 2015 at 16:14
SteveG wrote:
dr wu23 wrote:
Thanks for posting those two Alice Cooper tracks...used to have both of those on vinyl....need to check my vinyl in the basement to see if I still own them.
It seems that many 60's/70's acts had one or two psych albums in their past like Steve Miller's first two albums, and even Thin Lizzy's first album which was a combo of rock songs and some folky psych songs.
So true.....and I still pull out those old albums like the Steve Miller ones and play them now and then.
What I really enjoy the most though are the old melody infused psych pop things from England and the US ...especially the one or two hit wonders.
One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin
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Posted: February 18 2015 at 03:28
I'm getting confused exactly what is the difference between "acid rock" and "psychedelic rock", because apparently they're listed as different genres on RateYourMusic. As far as I can tell, "acid rock" refers to the heavier end of the spectrum like Blue Cheer, Jimi Hendrix Experience etc whereas "psychedelic rock" can also encompass more mellow stuff like Jefferson Airplane or Love. To use modern examples, Earthless would be acid rock and Dungen would be psychedelic rock.
Adding to the confusion is that the heavier variety seems to have been renamed "stoner rock" by younger generations. Then there is the fact that one of the black metal guys who are among my regular music conversation partners, when asked about the subject, answered: The only people I'd ever heard use the term "acid rock" were yuppies who had lost interest in rock music several decades ago.
(his exact words)
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Posted: February 18 2015 at 09:08
^The confusion over these terms is not new and dates back to when they were first used as the music media simply picked up terms from the counter culture that they didn't understand and applied these terms to artists that really did not fit the description.
To me, "acid rock" refers to the guitar driven "talk about drugs and getting high" bands like TheJimi HendrixExperience (Purple Haze) and The Jefferson Airplane (White Rabbit) and of course The 13th Floor Elevators, who kick started the genre.
"Pyschdelic Rock" belongs more properly to artist's not only trippy lyrics, but by those who altered the music itself by making it appear trippy by the use of unusual instruments like the sitar and relying on heavy studio manipulation of the sounds such recording guitars and cymbals and playing the tapes backwards, as well as applying heavy echo and phasing along with slowing down or speeding up recorded vocals or music (varispeed tape manipulation). The Beatles' psychedelic output (Lucy In The Sky)would be an obvious example.
I'm sure some will take exception to my opinion, but c'est la vie!
And thanks for the question, TM. It gave me an idea for my next post.
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Posted: February 18 2015 at 09:26
"Acid Rock", where I came from at least (Detroit), was the late offspring of psychedelia. Basically, and again this might be just a regional variation, it was psych that was morphing into hard rock/metal. The harder, the better. In Detroit, you had Frijid Pink, SRC and early Alice Cooper. This would be a typical acid rock composition:
God, I love that tune.
Anyway, to us, Jefferson Airplane was psych, Steppenwolf was acid rock. Pink Floyd was psychedelic, Iron Butterfly was acid rock. Country Joe and the Fish were psych, Blue Cheer was acid rock. Looking back, it all seems very convoluted. Probably because everyone was stoned.
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Posted: February 18 2015 at 10:37
Established Liverpool band discovers LSD and makes Psychedelic cultural classic album:
The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967.
Unknown amateur Texas band discovers LSD and makes Psychedelic "cult" classic album:
The Red Crayola: The Parable Of Arable Land 1967.
And that's the main difference between the Texas garage bands that sprung up in the mid sixties around The University of Texas in Austin where LSD was legally made and sold. These band's were not successfully established musical trendsetters. They played in garages and kid's clubs because many were to young to play in bars. Some were old enough to be drafted into the armed forces though. And this is basically how Texas became the Psych rock capital of the U.S. for a short time as both coasts were too caught up in the early sixties Folk revival.
While bands like The 13th Floor Elevators struggled to merge the acid experience into their garage rock sound, one Texas band, label mates and friends of The Elevators, were the eccentric art rockers known as The Red Crayola. Where The Elevators focused on their second album as an esoteric lyrical instruction to spiritual enlightenment, The Crayola were into audience participation, avant-garde sound collages, Anti rock noise, free form free out jams and minimalist compositions with some social relevance thrown in.
The resultant album was the The Red Crayola's debut from 1967 titled The Parable of Arable Land.
Made up of six composed songs bridged be free form freak out jams that included up to fifty people being recording at one time.
The album starts off with Free Form Freak Out No. 1 which is a brief avant-garde sound collage using standard musical instruments combined with non standard studio sounds of clanging bells, police whistles, gongs, chimes, what sounds like someone beating on pots and pans and other oddities before dissolving into the first song proper titled Hurricane Fighter Plane, which is allegorical for an LSD trip because "you will never be the same after you land."
Free Form freak Out Jam no. 2 follows with the strange foreign sounds being amped up to include guitar feedback, heavy echo and the like before the second song proper appears Transparent Radiation. This song
features ominous harmonica played by Roky Erickson himself (Roky also played Vov organ on the proceeding Hurricane Fighter Plane).
Lead vocalist and guitarist Mayo Thompson's neurotic vocals now morph into a paranoid feel with a song that references the effects of post nuclear fall out and/or explosion. The meaning is not clear, and frankly, doesn't need to be. Another free form freak out jam follows before Thompson's tirade against the Vietnam war with the song titled War Sucks in which he declares that he doesn't even have to explain why as it's something everyone really knows. Even the war mongers. The song concludes with a noisy rave up and is terminated with what sounds like a cartridge needle being abruptly lifted off a record.
More free form madness follows with Free Form Freak Out No. 4 which commences with studio altered warped guitar notes and vague vocal musings for the first time which sets up another catchy though simple song titled Pink Stainless Tail which is defined by it's driving reverbed six chord guitar phrase. Something that would make both early Roxy Music and Talking Heads feel embarrassed for not thinking of it first.
Another denser free form jam quickly signals the entrance of the album's title track. The Parable of Arable Land is a more sparse Stockhausen type sound collage that utilizes sounds that are still difficult to recognize today. There are obvious bells and chimes to go along with all manor of pitch shifted sounds in a song that starts off with something resembling echoed dripping water that you might encounter in a cave.
The magnum opus Free Form Freak Out No.6 includes everything including the kitchen sink as a revving Harley Davidson chopper can be heard amidst a noise fest that includes warped sounding player piano, a Rudy Valley type vocal recording, pull string talking children's dolls and god knows what else as you try forever to figure out the origin of all the sounds. Good luck.
The album ends with the chilling paranoid song titled Former Reflections Enduring Doubt. This song features just three piece band of guitar, bass and drums with Roky Erickson again supplying some eerie harmonica as Thompson laments that "he did to me". What ever "he" seems to have done is beside the point and Thompson knows it. He's doomed as the song builds to a crescendo and completes the album.
Strangely, The Red Krayola (now so called to avoid a lawsuit with the crayon maker) rejected the whole acid rock music scene with it's political and socially driven lyrics. The band's follow up album God Bles The Red Krayola and All Who Sail with Her was an extreme minimalist music adventure that was comprised of simpler than simple non political and non psychedelic songs that the band hoped would make an artistic statement similar to how the Velvet Underground was received. The album failed out right on that level but it is an amazing and shocking contrast to The Parable of Arable Land.
God Bless The Red krayola and all who Sail with Her 1968.
Strangely, The Elevators' last album was being recorded at the same time as The Krayola's God Bless album and even though the bands were friends, their musical approaches at that point could not be further apart. The Elevators, now under the direction of Stacy Sutherland, was fast becoming a blistering Blues rock band devoid of much psychedelia, like The Krayola, but were committed to improve themselves musically.
And this sums up the great divide of American Psych rock in the late sixties with everyone going out on their own separate tangent. Where British Psych rock was homogenous with bands having similar identifying sounds, the same could not be said for the disparate forms of American Psych that included The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Vanilla Fudge, Frank Zappa, The Count Five, The Byrds, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Red krayola, along with many copycat bands like the Moving Sidewalks,The Golden Dawn aswell as unsigned early Texas bands that made an impression in the California Bay area like Winter and Cangeroo.
If a band like The Doors had survived and would have went into Progressive Rock is always an academic question to me. There was simply too much diversity in the late sixties American Psych scene to predict such an answer.
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Posted: February 18 2015 at 10:59
TeleStrat wrote:
Where I'm from "acid rock" originally referred to music that was supposedly good to listen to on an acid trip.
People I knew at the time considered acid rock and psychedelic rock to mean the same thing. Most agreed
that it began in San Francisco with bands like The Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, Big Brother, Jefferson
Airplane, etc.
Sometimes these bands were actually on acid during shows but I guess that didn't matter because most of the audience was probably on acid themselves.
Again, for many us this explanation is a no brainer. But as I stated, the music media's take on this explanation morphed into different things over different time frames, especially in the U.K. and Europe.
Hence, the confusion experienced by Toaster Mantis.
Leave it to the media to always get the facts wrong!
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Posted: February 18 2015 at 12:25
On the acid rock divide, what history I've gathered about it starts with calling the psych-leaning proto-metal bands "acid rock", including Sabbath, but is often given now to really long, and ridiculously psych drenched, works of psych rock, and in either case almost always owes a debt going back to the Texas bands.
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Posted: February 18 2015 at 14:28
^I was waiting for someone to mention the two trippy songs on the Are You Experienced? album, but no has yet. That makes things a little confusing too.
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SteveG wrote:
