Speaking of the Basement Tapes, here we have Mr. Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan) and the band known as The Band (circa 1967) trading verses, talking about what seems to be the overall problem inherent in the downside of prolonged psychedelic (and other) amplification and expansion of one’s mind, body and soul. What do you do with all that nothing you’re feeling? In the end, maybe just sing the blues.
“The rumour I heard when I was maybe fifteen was that Jimi Hendrix was assassinated because of the movie Rainbow Bridge, the song Hey Baby in particular. Because it revealed that he was in fact an alien intelligence connecting with humanity via invisible currents of feedback, black magic and music, attempting to steer us all in the direction of the New Rising Sun. So Richard Nixon (no friend of outer space) issued an executive order to the CIA. Stop this entity, and with extreme prejudice. Use your best agents. Make it look like a typical rock star overdose. And while you’re at it, get Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison as well.” (Philip Random)
“Rising was Rainbow‘s second album, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the cover that grabbed me: God’s (or perhaps Lucifer’s) own hand thrusting from the waves of a boiling storm, grabbing a rainbow straight out of the sky. And the music’s mostly up to it (even if, like me, you were never that much of a metal fan), particularly something like A Light in the Black that storms so fiercely for your heart and soul, you tend to forget your biases. All hail the dark and mysterious power of Ritchie Blackmore‘s guitar, and the rest of the band for that matter.” (Philip Random)
“True, the cover of Captain Beyond‘s self-titled first (and most necessary) album is at least a little silly (featuring as it does some mystical rock GOD entity standing on asteroid out in space), but everything else is pretty much rock solid, with an emphasis on the rawk (which makes sense given the Iron Butterfly and Deep Purple blood deep in the band’s veins) even as the songs have the audacity to shift tempo and time signature, and lyrically wax poetic upon the speaking of the moon. You really must listen when the moon speaks. What was it about 1972?” (Philip Random)
The Bonzo Dog Band (aka the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) were never normal. They started out terrorizing jazz and Music Hall stylings, but as the 1960s hit their psychedelic peak, they were crossing over into rock and pop as well, showing up in the midst of the Beatles TV special Magical Mystery Tour and otherwise serving as resident court jesters of the British pop scene. Although sometimes the songs were so damned good, you almost forget they were supposed to be funny. We Are Normal solved this problem by being mostly just weird. And it rocked.
In which Julie Driscoll + Brian Auger + The Trinity score a big deal UK hit with a then unknown Bob Dylan song concerning a burning wheel about to explode and other suitably apocalyptic stuff. The time was 1968 and it turns out the song was one of very many to emanate from what would come to be known as the Basement Tapes, the fruit of Mr. Dylan’s previous year spent hanging out in the basement of a big pink house with the band known as The Band, just messing around, drinking wine, having loose, sloppy, sometimes brilliant fun. And then, inevitably, tapes started to proliferate, such that some decades later, Absolutely Fabulous (the TV show) would have itself a suitable theme song.
Randophonic 
