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No. 47: ‘My Crystal Spider’

May 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
sweetwater 1960s band

The crystal spider crawled into Alex Del Zoppo's brain in a waking dream. A "fantasy experience" that yielded a surrealistic web of sound for his band, Sweetwater. While "My Crystal Spider" ranks as the most psychedelic of Sweetwater's songs, the songwriter says his creepy-crawly creation wasn't necessarily the product of an altered state: "Psychedelic substances may have helped to bring this into focus, but it is not about that," keyboardist Del Zoppo says today. "It's about having a runaway pet spider in an unusually whimsical environment." Dr. Demento, noted connoisseur of audio bizarre, dug the 1968 song's "weirdness" and often played it on his radio show. Rock festival audiences of the hippie era were entranced as well, as Sweetwater singer Nancy Nevins' put an … [Read more...]

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No. 82: ‘Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You’

April 9, 2013 by 2 Comments
bee gees 1967 psychedelic

Tired of being referred to as "the Australian Beatles," the brothers Gibb moved back to England and made a record that sounded remarkably like ... the Beatles. The album "Bee Gees' 1st" kept up with the times -- and the Fabs -- by employing a Mellotron, an early tape-loop machine later closely identified with the Moody Blues. The Beatles had experimented with the electronic instrument on "Tomorrow Never Knows" and, more importantly, on "Strawberry Fields Forever," which was released to global acclaim in February 1967. A month later, the relatively unknown Bee Gees entered a London studio. Maurice Gibb quickly learned the instrument, a skill put to use on the brothers' oddly titled "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You." The song starts off in a strange, … [Read more...]

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No. 45: ‘Machine Gun’

December 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment
jimi hendrix cover of band of gypsys

New Year's Day, 1970. Jimi Hendrix plays the Fillmore East with his new group, Band of Gypsys. Mostly silent up to then on the subject of the Vietnam War -- preferring to write about aliens, mermaids and the ladies -- the former soldier finally dives into the fray: Hendrix dedicates a new song to "all the soldiers that are fighting in Chicago and Milwaukee and New York. ... Oh yes, and all the soldiers fighting in Vietnam." And so is unleashed "Machine Gun," 12 minutes and 15 seconds of sonic fury and pain. There are to be found more eloquent denunciations of war in protest rock, but none more emotional. The song's gravitas is inherent in its mass -- Hendrix's Bible black wall of sound -- and in its subject matter: Evil man make you kill me/Evil man made me kill you/ Even through … [Read more...]

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No. 69: ‘Rocket Number Nine’

October 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment
sun-ra

Terrestrial data streams indicate Sun Ra departed this Earth on May 30, 1993. Was Ra a stranded extraterrestrial, left to communicate with his home planet via a raft of curious sonic recordings -- much like the alien Newton in "The Man Who Fell to Earth"? Or was Ra a mere human piano player, a guy named Herman looking for a gag to advance his career in jazz -- and finding it in outer-space kitsch. The final report remains ... unclear. We do know that Ra left behind more than a hundred long-players, many with otherworldly names such as "Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth," "The Nubians of Plutonia," "We Travel the Space Ways" and "The Other Side of the Sun." The albums' cover artwork every bit as strange as the "cosmic jazz" within. In the late 1960s, more than a few hippies tried to … [Read more...]

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No. 34: ‘Mechanical World’

September 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment
spirit psychedelic band from L.A.

Psychedelic rock never was long on drama. There were exceptions, of course -- notably Jim Morrison and the Doors -- but most bands of the acid rock era were content to noodle, protest and freak out. In January 1968, the debuting L.A. band Spirit unleashed "Mechanical World," a long, dark and strange single. Every second of the psychedelic track was played for maximum drama. Jay Ferguson's vocals sounded wrenched from the grave. He begins: "Death falls so heavy on my soul ... " Ed Cassidy's funereal drums came right out of a Hammer Films horror-show. The strings of arranger Marty Paich did a dans macabre with Randy California's guitar. Needless to say, Top 40 radio didn't know what to make of this psychedelic masterpiece. (The single's playing time was given only as "very … [Read more...]

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No. 61: ‘Hypnotized’

August 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment
fleetwood-mac-welch

Two friends are having coffee together. Something flies by the window. Very strange. A UFO? The astral traveler Don Juan? Perhaps it's a meaningless question in the alternate world of Bob Welch's "Hypnotized." Fleetwood Mac, among the most famous bands in the world, remains best known for the beautifully crafted mid-'70s rock that took the world by storm. And, of course, for the early years with Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer in a unit that rolled out British blues with verve and authority. Both great bands, with two different sets of fans. Truth is, Fleetwood Mac has been several distinct bands (with something like 10 lineups), the only link being drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. "Hypnotized" emerged from the somewhat forgotten Mac era of 1971-'74, which stretches … [Read more...]

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No. 100: ‘Just Dropped In’

August 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment
kenny rogers band first edition - Just Dropped In

What do Kenny Rogers, Glen Campbell and Mickey Newberry have in common? None of them have any business being associated with a list of the best psychedelic rock songs. Yet ... here they are. Someone has to be last, and their 1968 collaboration "Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Was In)" slides nicely into the 100th slot on PsychedelicSight's list. The record -- by ex-folkies the First Edition -- got plenty of airplay in 1968, peaking at No. 5 on the singles charts. The unknown Rogers sang the number with authority, but he wasn't the band's lead singer. Rogers played bass and was known as "Hippie Kenny" around that time. If San Francisco hadn't declared the Death of the Hippie a year earlier, the success of this faux freakout would have done the … [Read more...]

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No. 39: ‘Song for a Dreamer’

July 27, 2012 by 1 Comment
Song for a Dreamer creator Robin Trower of Procol Harum

"Song for a Dreamer" wasn't really a Procol Harum song. The lyrics weren't about meeting the recently departed Jimi Hendrix "on the far side of the moon." And while Robin Trower wrote the music in tribute to Hendrix, he wasn't all that familiar with the master's music at the time. Rock myths aside, "Song for a Dreamer" remains one of the best evocations of Hendrix ever recorded. Beautiful and mysterious, elegiac and seemingly profound, it is among the great dark works of psychedelic rock. "I couldn't believe I did that," guitarist Trower said of the 1971 recording, essentially a solo effort on which he sang and played most of the instruments. Thus inspired, the guitarist left Procol Harum for a long and fairly successful solo career -- one, ironically, that drew … [Read more...]

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No. 20: ‘My White Bicycle’

April 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment
the band Tomorrow of My White Bicycle

Tomorrow never arrived. The band had no future. But it left behind one gloriously psychedelic song. Tomorrow was one of the three "underground" acts to play Joe Boyd's UFO Club in London of 1966-67. The best known, then and now, of course, is Pink Floyd. Next is line was the prog-jazz outfit Soft Machine. Both of those bands found their places in rock history. Tomorrow was another matter. Today, those who know of the the band generally do so for one of two reasons: Steve Howe of Yes Fame was the group's brilliant young guitarist; The single "My White Bicycle," beloved by many over the years but bought by few at the time. Despite its head-spinning charms, the song failed to even chart. A few myths did attach themselves to the song over the years. Howe and others have been … [Read more...]

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No. 79: ‘San Francisco Girls’

January 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment
san francisco girls band

Fever Tree was another in the long line of Texas bands that migrated to California in the psychedelic era. Before the Houston group made its move, however, it celebrated the charms of the Bay Area ladies with "San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native)," an intriguing single that (barely) cracked the Billboard singles chart in 1968. "San Francisco Girls," written by manager/producers Scott and Vivian Holtzman, came on the heels of the 1967 hits "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" sung by Scott McKenzie and "San Franciscan Nights" by Eric Burdon. Fever Tree's song certainly holds up its end of that city trilogy. "San Francisco Girls" opens as a ballad with a tasty but improbable dance of harpsichord and cymbal. Vocalist Dennis Keller sets the scene as a flute … [Read more...]

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