Psychedelic Rock

Serving to embrace the floral heavens of British pop, this ceremonious edition combines the first ten prized volumes of the acclaimed Piccadilly Sunshine series. Celebrating the obscured artefacts of illustrious noise that emerged from the Great British psychedelic era and beyond, it is the essential guide to the quintessential sound of candy-coloured pop from a bygone age Pop is NOT a dirty word!

After a few years of outdoing the Rolling Stones at their own game, Messrs. May and Co., clearly affected by their love of swinging London nightlife and all that went with it, injected their primal R&B roots with added spice (as Mike Stax, "numero uno Los Pretty Things fan," points out in his excellent liner notes). "Can't Stand the Pain" (from the 1965 Get The Picture album) has "a remarkably effective mood …

Among hardcore 1960s rock collectors who have an interested in Japanese bands of the period, the Mops are one of the biggest acts in the genre, even if that genre is barely known to English-speaking listeners due to some linguistic barriers, and its general obscurity outside of Japan. Their 1968 album Psychedelic Sounds in Japan is certainly the Mops LP that's gained the widest international exposure, as it's the one with the most garage-psychedelic style and has rewarded the efforts of avid collectors around the world. In fact, the Mops were even marketed as "the first psychedelic band in Japan" in their homeland, though as psychedelia goes, it's pretty raw, verging on garage-punk at times. In truth, it's more attractive for the crazed energy of the performances - and the odd juxtaposition of the earnestness of the singing and playing with the unhinged bent of the arrangements - than for the originality of the music…

The Blues Magoos sound less like psychedelic visionaries than a solid garage band with a taste for the blues on their debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, though the lysergic reference of the title certainly put them ahead of the curve in 1966, when LSD was still obscure enough to be legal in much of the United States. The album leads off with the group's first and only major hit single, "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet," and unlike most albums released by one-hit wonders of the mid-'60s, the single isn't the most exciting song here. That honor goes to the Magoos' cover of J.D. Loudermilk's "Tobacco Road" (which Lenny Kaye selected for his iconic garage rock compilation Nuggets), featuring some gutsy guitar work from Mike Esposito and Emil "Peppy" Thielhelm and impressive organ swells from Ralph Scala as the tune leans into a major rave-up midway through…

Various Artists - A Slight Disturbance in My Mind: The British Proto-Psychedelic Sounds of 1966 (2020) {Grapefruit Records}
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© 1966, 2020 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Red | CRSEGBOX066
Rock / British Invasion / British Psychedelia / Freakbeat / Psychedelic / Mod

Another lovingly curated rock & roll gem from Cherry Red's archival Grapefruit Records imprint, A Slight Disturbance in My Mind is an expansive three-disc set entirely devoted to the opening phases of Britain's budding psychedelic movement. By late 1965, the American underground, particularly San Francisco's LSD-inspired drug culture, had begun to infiltrate popular music. The Byrds and other West Coast groups began to adopt a more experimental attitude while in the U.K. bands like the Yardbirds and, more prominently, the Beatles forged their own new directions away from rock's more easily digestible conventions.

Blues Magoos - Psychedelic Lollipop (1966) {Mercury-Repertoire bonus tracks rel 2005}
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© 1966, 2005 Mercury Records / Repertoire Records | REPUK 1049
Rock / Psychedelic Rock

"(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet" is extraordinary and magical; like the Box Tops' "The Letter," it's one of those little two-minute blasts of pop which brought the transistor radio to life and which is the proverbial breath of fresh air on oldies radio stations daring enough to play psychedelia. Psychedelic Lollipop is the real thing; the Blues Magoos on the LP cover look like Captain Kirk abandoned them on some forgotten Star Trek planet, and the music inside the sleeve is authentic acid rock. They stretch John D. Loudermilk's "Tobacco Road" across four-and-a-half Seeds-style minutes, obliterating the Nashville Teens' 1964 hit recording in the process.