"Really awful is more interesting to listen to than pretty good" - Eno ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. welcome to the drivel blog of "music detractor, Simon Reynolds"
it's absolutely mystifying. apparently it was quite a vibe at the actual concerts but as much to do with the audience energy - all those people tripping, moving around the hall, in hippie-dippie clothing - as the music. but just going by the sonix and the sight of the band static onstage, it's very hard to reconstruct.
I think the most powerful mind-altering substance during this era was fear - of being sent to Vietnam. I also think that the exploration of psychedelic drugs was also mostly an attempt to overcome that fear by self-medication, rather than the bold "exploration" that it was talked up as being. Timothy Leary was in many ways more of a reassuring uncle than a shaman-visionary.
I suspect that without Vietnam all this stuff would have remained marginal, like the Beats in the 1950's, and American society in the sixties would have remained pretty conformist. It's notable that the counterculture rose and fell to the rhythm of US involvement in Southeast Asia. Without that accompanying fear, a lot of what happened during the psychedelic era seems a bit bizarre and incomprehensible. These people were actually very severely stressed, and they released that stress in what in hindsight were very bizarre ways.
Also, The Grateful Dead are yet another confirmation of my general theory that the Americans didn't learn how to actually rock until the 1980's.
4 comments:
I find it perplexing, how is it that they became "The Psichedelic Band"?
it's absolutely mystifying. apparently it was quite a vibe at the actual concerts but as much to do with the audience energy - all those people tripping, moving around the hall, in hippie-dippie clothing - as the music. but just going by the sonix and the sight of the band static onstage, it's very hard to reconstruct.
Phil Knight sez:
I think the most powerful mind-altering substance during this era was fear - of being sent to Vietnam. I also think that the exploration of psychedelic drugs was also mostly an attempt to overcome that fear by self-medication, rather than the bold "exploration" that it was talked up as being. Timothy Leary was in many ways more of a reassuring uncle than a shaman-visionary.
I suspect that without Vietnam all this stuff would have remained marginal, like the Beats in the 1950's, and American society in the sixties would have remained pretty conformist. It's notable that the counterculture rose and fell to the rhythm of US involvement in Southeast Asia. Without that accompanying fear, a lot of what happened during the psychedelic era seems a bit bizarre and incomprehensible. These people were actually very severely stressed, and they released that stress in what in hindsight were very bizarre ways.
Also, The Grateful Dead are yet another confirmation of my general theory that the Americans didn't learn how to actually rock until the 1980's.
Fuck the grateful dead and all their braindead fans. worthless shite.
notice how nobody with good taste ever thought they were worth a damn...
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