Trippiest/Drugged Out album...

The United States of America album came out in 1968 actually(although it was recorded in very late 67). I would also maybe add Music in a doll's House by Family. Heck, just about any late sixties psych album. Although I haven't actually heard it how about "After Bathing at Baxters" by Jefferson Airplane. You could also add the first Pink Floyd album "Piper at the Gates of Dawn." If "Interstellar Overdrive" isn't trippy then nothing is. 

Hi,

I'm not sure that some of these albums were "druggy/trippy" at all. It's hard to imagine the group CAN being totally stoned in the studio pulling off their early albums ... it just seems way too far and weird, and I think this may have been one of the reasons why Damo eventually had to leave ... too many drugs. They were way too intelligent and well versed musically, studying with some very highly well respected teachers, to waste their time getting stoned, and then bring a paper, or a project to school next morning.

The other side of it all, is that the "druggyness" of it all is questionable sometimes, at least later in the production stages of the album. It is not likely that an album would be recorded properly and put together so sensitively, as so many of the things that we mentioned here.

Somewhere along the way ... we got cheated!

I remember watching "Let it Be" ... and finding that it was kinda obvious that some of the 4 folks were already on the drug withdrawal side of things, and when you hear Paul talk about note and chords in explaining a thing or two, it's not exactly high school exercise ... just play an A ... or a C. I am not convinced that one can, usually, play well enough stoned to be able to get the proper results. Even Roger used to complain about the amount of dope in the audience and how it affected them in the live shows. He did not say anything about it a few years earlier, when they were the ultimate "stoned" band! So you know he quit the stuff.

There are many pieces of music, that one could think that it was all a stoned adventure. I might like to add a few:

Grobbschnitt - Solar Music Live (specially since the different versions are also very good!)

Man - Be Good to Yourself album ("C'mon" is one of the nicest things, specially the one recorded on the live double album after it ... with the choir ... totally insane!). Deke Leonard's books have some examples of them being so ripped that they did not remember much about their play. The side bands, like Neutrons and Help Yourself also came off as very stony.

Early Tangerine Dream - Some of the best tripping ever ... and no lyrics to sidestep you!

Egberto Gismonti - No Caipira -- the orchestral pieces here are absolutely amazing, and in some cases, I think scary for most listeners. Not to mention that the album is a mix of so many things that you kinda go ... what kind of music is this? I always thought that parts of this album belonged in a soundtrack for Doris Lessing's Briefing for  a Descent into Hell, but that might just be too weird for some. Read the short book!

Iron Butterfly - In a Gadda da Vida ... sadly a lot of the rest of their catalogue is not trippy at all.

The Doors - The really long cuts are very psychedelic, however, for me, they are a MOVIE ... as a lot of the songs they do are.

Eberhard Schoenner - TranceFormation ... with one funny bit ... he's not a stony at all. But this original mix of Gregorian Chants with electronics and guitar some 20 years before that copy band became well known in the "new age cheap bologna section".

Ralph Lundsted - Norwegian (?) crazy man, and in the early days he had some fantastic things. The Nature Symphony Series is a lot of fun to listen to although it comes off as a bit weird and stony. I'm not sure it is stoney at all!

One last thing .... the trippiest ... if you have the guts for it ... warning ... strong stomach is required and not full of junk!

Tibetan Bells - Wolff and Hemmings

Frank Perry - Deep Peace ... also ... New Atlantis. I dare you to stay with it 3 or 4 minutes!

Peter Michael Hamel - The meditative albums.

Klaus Schulze - Meditations for the adept only. Some really long and totally beautiful things, and sadly some of them are in a private series of CD's that were not released for the public, and his manager says that they will never release that stuff again, and it is some of the prettiest things he has ever done.

Ash Ra Tempel/Cosmic Jokers - Even though some of these things were apparently stolen tapes that should not have been released, there is a side of Ash Ra Tempel (until Join Inn) that was very meditative, and for me very sensual with the soft woman voice. The Cosmic Jokers thing is a bit stranger, but interesting with various bits and pieces of interest, although we tend to ignore them, specially the comments by Tim Leary in one album. This might have been very stoney music, by its members, but in the end, what you hear in the album "Cosmic Jokers" in the two long sides are two very nice, beautifully done pieces, very sensitively moving from note to another ... in a beautiful way that is automatically trippy, and at the same times stoney.

Stephen Micus - Various albums of experimental stuff

Ozric Tentacles - Maybe in the early days, but here in Portland the last time they were here, both Ed and Brandy were turning down joints from anyone, and were only drinking fruit juices it looked like.

I can not quite list the eastern (specially Hindu) list of meditative artists many of which are pure raga masters ... which is a meditation in its own right.

I just hope that we go around thinking that GONG is trippy because they were stoned. Even later, Daevid did a lot of solo albums, and they were way more of a trip than GONG was, which had its intelectual/artistic edge that the other material did not have. The other material was strictly tripping and meditation material. Check out the glissando series and some of the cosmic stuff that he did ... it's really beautiful stuff and it's not about the dope, and hopefully you won't think it is either. Reminds me of something that Gilly said once when we were yapping ... having babies and getting stoned is not a good combination!