psych eye candy - flashback (1 of ??)

 

acid before acid

supposedly the very first recording done under the influence of LSD - made in LA in 1966, sold only by mail order, so the story goes

i'm suspecting a spoof, prank or con job executed long after the historical fact - but if it's a fakesimile then it's a rather convincing and entertaining one, with the excessive echo redolent of the long version of "Time Has Come Today" by the Chamber Brothers

fantastic visuals (and sonics)

fabulous electronic blips in this intro sequence

one Leonard Rosemann responsible for the score and electrono-sonix



the graphic look of the credits is great too

overall, it's a surprisingly still-cool-looking film, with moments of real beauty and wonderment



psychedelic - like a journey through a lava lamp

happenings 50 years time ago

(via History's Dumpster)

electronic Cowboy / synthedelia (slight return)

Rewatched Midnight Cowboy for the umpteenth time last night and noticed that in - favoritest scene of many favorite scenes - the psychedelic Plastic Inevitable-modeled party / happening - it isn't just "Old Man Willow" by Elephant's Memory that's playing but some pretty cool electronic music.



And pretty cool electronic music pops up in a few other places.

But it's not on the soundtrack, which is all John Barry - plus that Fred Neil written / Nilssen sung tune "Everybody's Talkin'".

Seems those bleeps and bloops were built by Sear Electronic Music Production.

Founded by this guy Walter Sear

And here's an in-depth piece at Tape Op (but you'd have to pay to read the whole thing)

This is a whole album created by SEMP



Very much in the generic mold of the Moog-sluiced novelty albums of that time - groovy, Muzak-y toons lightly laced with a electronic tint.

The obit says Sear did a lot of electronic bits for movies - but BFI lists only Puzzle of a Downfall Child (never heard of it before - starred Faye Dunaway, apparently tells the tale of a top model's mental and emotional breakdown "in intricate flashback style" - all sounds very late Sixties!).




Anyone know of any other films containing Seartronica?

Another question for the massive: is "Old Man Willow" literally the only good thing Elephant's Memory ever did, ever? I grabbed the album on which it appears in a used record store in NYC back in the early Nineties only to be most disappointed to find that nothing else on the LP resembled "Willow" in the slightest.  It was much more raw 'n' groovy psychedelic-backlash era rock. And then Elephant's were John & Yoko's backing band on one or other of the albums.



"Willow" is very much proto-Broadcast / Trish K in vibe - a sister-source to United States of America and White Noise.

Perhaps I should have included E's Memory, just for that one song, in this piece on synthedelia.

This record, newly Creeled, also fits the bill - Steve Dunstan's Magnetic Fields.



 The Creel blurb also alerted me to another synthedelia candidate I missed - The Spoils of War



Here's an interview with Spoils of War main man James Cuomo

Symbolisme Psychedelique

the Sixties (2 of ???) - Acid Rock versus Psychedelia

There's a distinction, isn't there?

Psychedelia = godlike (even when a bit mimsy-wimsy and instantly-dated)

Acid rock =  arduous to the ear, for the most part







Psychedelia = the groups look good - lysergic dandies!

Acid rock = the groups look so shit  - shaggy 'n' split-endsy, earthenware tones, white Afros, mustaches, beards






I thought for a moment there might be a UK psych / US acid rock divide but that doesn't really
hold



From the Byrds's most studio-shapely record, that is coming from the same blissed-blessed place as e.g. Tintern Abbey's "Vacuum Cleaner" b/w "Beeside"

There is a smidgeon of truth to the UK  versus US thing, though - nicely illustrated by the Battle of the Kaleidoscopes



versus




The UK bands take their bearings from the Beatles; the US bands from the Beats.


Psych = studio-shaped  versus acidrock = livejamfreakout ?

That works a lot of the time but it's not watertight - the US acid rock outfits had their dabbles in studio-weirdness







One band I'll never ever get into






I'm sure the subject has come up before, of San Francisco's relatively poor showing in terms of mythic epochal immensity at the time versus records you'd actually want to listen now 

Folkies going electric without an intervening period of R&B = the problem

Mind you a lot of that SF lot started as essentially dance bands

I like the glassy guitar sound on this album - in the same vein as the best Airplane stuff



Sort of, "crystallized blues". (But the track actually called "Crystal Blues" is bluesy crud).

Apparently Country Joe + Fish were an influence on Tom Verlaine, which figures.

Now this lot I've never managed to get into though highly touted by cognoscenti



Nor have I ever succumbed to this one - America's own Syd




Love the cover of this record, the contents though...



This one I quite like



This lot rated by psych-scholar Jon Savage





A lot of acid rock is just feeble, as songwriting and singing






Psych always has a bit more POP! to it



First heard that on a tape I bought at my very first record fair (Oxford, early 80s - I had no idea such things existed - meaning, records fairs)

Everything else on it - except for Hombres "It's A Gas" - was absolutely shite though.

Things like this lot



And this bunch again




Somewhere I must still have it, with the Avalon Ballroom-poster style woogly graphics on the cassette inlay