A few months ago I was given the album ‘A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind Vol. 1’. Because of my hectic travel/ work schedule, as with most new music that does not directly relate to my djs sets, it did not get the attention that every new remix of the dancefloor hits do. Last week I found some spare time to give this (and a number of other compete albums) the attention that they deserved. I lit some candles am committed an afternoon to music appreciation – my favorite pastime. ‘A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind Vol. 1’ is a 2008 album by the Amorphous Androgynous otherwise know as The Future Sound of London. It took over two years to compile, mix and gain sample clearance. Time Out referred to it as "quite simply the best compilation ever”. Noel Gallagher has said it was his favorite album from last year. "[It is] one of the best things I've ever, ever heard," he said on the Oasis website. "I fell in love with one truly great, great album. Go and find it now, it'll blow your tiny little minds." This compilation features the band's psychedelic influences and really got me thinking about the genre of psychedelic music, and specifically psychedelic rock and it’s sonic children. So I chose to, as Timothy Leary would say, "Turn on, tune in, drop out" and explore the genre.


History
In 1964, several bands in the New York underground music scene began to play what they called psychedelic rock. The term psychedelic was an homage to the hallucinogenic drugs which were only recently entering the public consciousness. Powerful drugs such as LSD, mescaline and peyote mushrooms were being combined with marijuana and alcohol as a means to disconnect from reality.
While under the influence of these substances, musicians and artists felt as if they had entered a higher sphere of awareness. Psychedelic rock musicians felt free to break out of the pop music mode and perform longer pieces based on free-form jazz and blues models. Lyrics were no longer required to make linear sense - they could reflect an altered reality of the drug experience.
Many music historians point to the Bay Area of Southern California as the birthplace of commercial psychedelic rock. The alternative lifestyle offered by the hippie culture encouraged mainstream musicians to experiment with both the chemical and musical possibilities of the psychedelic movement. Groups such as Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and the Doors all found a level of success through psychedelic rock music.


Individual artists like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin also became inextricably linked with the psychedelic culture. In Great Britain, artists such as Donovan and Pink Floyd were also using elements of psychedelia, but it would be the Beatles who once again defined a genre of music. Their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is considered one of the best-crafted psychedelic rock albums of all time.

The psychedelic rock era eventually collapsed under its own excesses. Drug overdoses claimed the lives of many of its icons - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Other psychedelic rock bands either fell out of favor with the public or disbanded their original line-ups.
(Wise Geek.com)

Neo-psychedelia (a.k.a. modern psychedelic rock) is the product of the psychedelic rock explosion of the 1960s. Modern neo-psychedelic bands (MGMT, Flaming Lips) base strong elements on the works of other notable leaders in the 1960s psychedelic rock culture. A form of free melodic music sometimes associated with indie rock, neo-psychedelic musicians use a variety of elements; distorted electronic sounds (including artists from completely different musical backgrounds such as new wave, alternative rock, shoegaze, space rock, and ambient) with strong influences of the popular psychedelia of the '60s.
(Wikipedia)

Little Radio Playlist 6/23/2009
Planet Caravan - Black Sabbath
Riki Tiki Tavi - Donovan
Lazy Flies - Beck
Of Moons, Birds & Monsters - MGMT
This Is The One - The Stone Roses

Tattava - Kula Shaker
The Inner Light - The Beatles
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
Poor Sad Sue - Manfred Mann
In Another Land - The Rolling Stones

Pepper - Butthole Surfers
Eight Miles High - The Byrds
Blue Honey - Pop Levi

Psyché Rock - Les Yper-Sound
Take It From The Man - The Brian Jonestown Massacre
April Skies - The Jesus & Mary Chain
Born On A Day The Sun Didn't Rise - Black Moth Super Rainbow
Comfy In Nautica - Panda Bear
Glacier - Crystal Antlers
Primitive The Groupies
Confusion Is Nothing New - Beachwood Sparks
Time Has Come Today - Chambers Brothers
I Can See For Miles - The Who

Ball Of Confusion (That's What The World Is Today) - The Temptations
The Court of the Crimson King - King Crimson
You Keep Me Hangin' On - Vanilla Fudge
When I Was Young - Eric Burdon and the Animals
Pictures Of Matchstick Men - Status Quo


"Turn on, tune in, drop out" - Timothy Leary
'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. 'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you - externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. Drop out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity'