Always looking for new and old psych bands to check out. Love heavy acid drenched garage. Who are some of your favs?

THERE'S SO MANY, BUT , FOR STARTERS -

Cold Sun , Lithium XMas , Peyote Cowboys , Third Bardo , Plan 9 , United States of America / Joe Byrd and The Field Hippies ,  13TH Floor Elevators , Bubble Puppy , Moving Sidewalks , Blue Cheer , ORPHAN EGG , Lollipop Shoppe , Electric Prunes (Especially today !) , MobyGrape / Skip Spence solo , lots of others......

If you haven't heard a compilation "Acid Dreams Testament", I'd recommend!

http://tyme-machine.blogspot.jp/2009/09/va-acid-dreams-testament-75-minutes-of.html

Dead Boy , "Defecting Grey" and"On The Road South" are two of the best freakouts recorded. It does'nt hurt that they sound so much alike.

I was'nt able to get sound on these videos , but , I'll try again , later....No , I'm not familiar with that series. I did , recently , pick up the Japanese version of "Love , Flowers and Poetry" . Great stuff. 

Well, I read somewhere on the You Tube that "On The Road South" is a cover version of "Defecting Grey"...

I never heard On The Road South before. Ya, it's definitely an extended version of the heavy middle section of Defecting Grey, "night star hangs in blackness...". Very cool. 

Now it's Capt. Beyond:):)

Captain Beyond is the ever - lovin' SHIT ! Possibly the last bastion of true Psych ( Before the Psych revival , that is.). So much talent , and at least two of 'em now dead , and Rod Evans basically barred from performing , or too bitter to have another go at it , after his phony Deep Purple stunt in 1980 (There's a great website about the Fake Purple US  tour.). There was a revamped version , with Bobby Caldwell, Rhino , and , sometimes , Lee Dorman (When he had time off from Iron Buterfly). I SAW SOME VIDEO ON YOU TUBE. wAS'NT CRAZY ABOUT THe SINGER. Sounded correct , otherwise. I  THINK THEY ONLY PLAYED IN EUROPE AND JAPAN.  I think ALL of their albums were good , tho' most people would disagree.

The Pygmies ,    It's funny , everyone I talk to about Status Quo says they don't like the Psychedelic Pop era , only the Boogie stuff. I started out just listening to the earlier material , and , then , I was lucky enough to see QUO DOING AN EXTREMELY RARE US appearance to just several hundred people.

THEY WERE ON FIRE !!!!! After that , I started checking out their later stuff , which I'd heard in passing , but never owned.  People asked me if they did "Matchstick Men", I TOLD 'EM , "nO , BUT THE RINGING IN MY EARS AFTER THE SHOW SOUNDED EXACTLY LIKE "PICTURES OF MATCHSTICK MEN" !

Pink Farries/ Hawkwind camp have tons of good psych/ stoner rock stuff that are both great and seem to be in a different mood than the flower power stuff, which is also obviously great. A bit closer to Captain Beyond, I’d say.

I've been listening to Syd Barrett solo stuff this past week, which I guess is a bit of an obvious one in the psych world. I just happen to have been revisiting the albums the past little while.

Presidents of the United States is one of my all time favourite psych albums. There is no guitar in that album, which I don’t think I even noticed upon first hearing this band. Sometimes I feel this record is trying too hard to be trippy, but not so much that it comes off as corny. Overall it’s pretty amazing.

Kim Fowley has a spattering of cool psych songs throughout his catalog.

I don’t know if Black Sabbath can be considered psych, but in my days of eating lots of acid and other psychedelics, they probably got more time on the turntable than any other group I can think of.

Outside of stuff already mentioned, another big hitter is the first Chocolate Watchband album, No Way Out. This has been on my record want list forever. I think I should just buy a reissue to hold me over.

Yeah , Pink Fairies and Hawkwind are both considered the next wave of Psych , in the early 70's. Tho' both bands had a Hard Rock bent , too.....So , in that regard , they ARE comparable to Captain Beyond.

Armageddon , with Keith Relf and Bobby Caldwell from Captain Beyond had similar starnge changes in their songs , that are like Captain Beyong , because of Caldwell's drumming. Still , they were even more on the Hard Rock tip....Apparently , they only did one gig , or a string of gigs , in LA.

Cold Sun (Bill Miller , later with Roky Erickson and The ALIENS) , sIMPLY sAUCER , The Ya Ho Wa 13 recordings , and others epitomized early to mid - 70's Psych. Even Blue Oyster Cult's first Lp.

I don't think most people consider The Sabs Psychedelic , but , there's songs like "Planet Caravan" that definitely are.

Hit songs like "Jump Into The Fire" by Nilsson , "Go Back" by Crabby Appleton , "Draggin' The Line" by Tommy James , fit the bill.

I'm no KISS fan , but , "Goin' Blind" , yep. Their version of The Stones' "2000 Man sounds more Glam than Psych to me."

Then there's Johnny Hallyday's early 70's ''Angry Psych ' period. Sounds like a precursor to The Stranglers , with Mick Jones (Yes , later in Foreigner.) on somevery MC5ish leads.

The Groundhogs , too , sound plenty Psychedelic to me.

So many things , at that time , were neither fish nor fowl. Now , it's so cut and dried.

I'd only recently (like a few years ago) gotten into the Groundhogs. Split was my first introduction and remains my favourite album, though it's their fourth album. Thank Christ For the Bomb is a close tie. But these kinds of bands (in my opinion) Pink Ferries, Hawkwind, Ground Hogs, Capt Beyond, Blue Cheer...etc are almost more rock than psych, albeit heavy stoner rock with some fuzzed out psych drenched sounds. It's a perfect storm for me. Elements of 60s garage and psych, forbearers of metal, punk attitudes...stepping stones to Motorhead.

Think I may be trailing a bit off topic...sorry. 

Never thought of Going Blind as a psych song, though my dad was playing it for me when I was 5, long before I had any concept of psych....besides these crazy records they played while smoking their funny smelling cigarettes. Interesting to think of the song in that light. Melvins did an amazing cover of Going Blind. 

What about some bubblegum psych? A lot of those groups (or the few people writing songs for a lot of those groups) had some psych songs - Professor Lollipop single Angela, flip it over and the B side is the song backward, pretty groovy! Lemon Pipers - Jelly Jungle of Orange Marmalade is a pretty tripped out song. Of course Tommy James hit Crimson and Clover was a pretty heavy psych song.

I think most bands in that era all tried their hand in psych for a bit. Standells - Medication, the Who - Amenia City In the Sky, Hollies, Paul Revere, of course the Stones and Beatles, Beach Boys...etc. A lot of these garage bands weren't full on psych bands, but produced some killer psych tunes. 

John Battles said:

The Pygmies ,    It's funny , everyone I talk to about Status Quo says they don't like the Psychedelic Pop era , only the Boogie stuff. I started out just listening to the earlier material , and , then , I was lucky enough to see QUO DOING AN EXTREMELY RARE US appearance to just several hundred people.

THEY WERE ON FIRE !!!!! After that , I started checking out their later stuff , which I'd heard in passing , but never owned.  People asked me if they did "Matchstick Men", I TOLD 'EM , "nO , BUT THE RINGING IN MY EARS AFTER THE SHOW SOUNDED EXACTLY LIKE "PICTURES OF MATCHSTICK MEN" !

I'm probably the only one on the entire planet who digs Quo's psychedelic beginnings:):):). In hot pub nite discussions on music esp with the young 'uns, they just don't get and accept that Quo used to be a psych band back in the day....like most UK rock bands including Black Sabbath....yes, the fathers of metal themselves (RJD too in the Elves:):)!!). I can't stand disco crap songs like Whatever you want or the crappier no-rock tunes of the late 80s and early 90s by Quo. Even Rossi has sold out to crappy dance music....go figure :):)

John Battles said:

Yeah , Pink Fairies and Hawkwind are both considered the next wave of Psych , in the early 70's. Tho' both bands had a Hard Rock bent , too.....So , in that regard , they ARE comparable to Captain Beyond.

Armageddon , with Keith Relf and Bobby Caldwell from Captain Beyond had similar starnge changes in their songs , that are like Captain Beyong , because of Caldwell's drumming. Still , they were even more on the Hard Rock tip....Apparently , they only did one gig , or a string of gigs , in LA.

Cold Sun (Bill Miller , later with Roky Erickson and The ALIENS) , sIMPLY sAUCER , The Ya Ho Wa 13 recordings , and others epitomized early to mid - 70's Psych. Even Blue Oyster Cult's first Lp.

I don't think most people consider The Sabs Psychedelic , but , there's songs like "Planet Caravan" that definitely are.

Hit songs like "Jump Into The Fire" by Nilsson , "Go Back" by Crabby Appleton , "Draggin' The Line" by Tommy James , fit the bill.

I'm no KISS fan , but , "Goin' Blind" , yep. Their version of The Stones' "2000 Man sounds more Glam than Psych to me."

Then there's Johnny Hallyday's early 70's ''Angry Psych ' period. Sounds like a precursor to The Stranglers , with Mick Jones (Yes , later in Foreigner.) on somevery MC5ish leads.

The Groundhogs , too , sound plenty Psychedelic to me.

So many things , at that time , were neither fish nor fowl. Now , it's so cut and dried.

The Hawks have maintained their psychy touch along the years:):)!!!

John Battles said:

Captain Beyond is the ever - lovin' SHIT ! Possibly the last bastion of true Psych ( Before the Psych revival , that is.). So much talent , and at least two of 'em now dead , and Rod Evans basically barred from performing , or too bitter to have another go at it , after his phony Deep Purple stunt in 1980 (There's a great website about the Fake Purple US  tour.). There was a revamped version , with Bobby Caldwell, Rhino , and , sometimes , Lee Dorman (When he had time off from Iron Buterfly). I SAW SOME VIDEO ON YOU TUBE. wAS'NT CRAZY ABOUT THe SINGER. Sounded correct , otherwise. I  THINK THEY ONLY PLAYED IN EUROPE AND JAPAN.  I think ALL of their albums were good , tho' most people would disagree.

Glad to see CB fans here:):)

THE HAPPY HOLLOWS:)