Tag Archives: swinging London

120. interstellar overdrive

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“I can’t remember who said it, but it’s stuck. Jimi Hendrix (all gods bless him to the nine known edges of the universe) gets maybe too much credit for defining what one could do, psychedelically, with an electric guitar, in 1967. Because it’s not as if The Pink Floyd‘s Syd Barrett wasn’t also unleashing gobsmackingly apocalyptic electrical storms. Maybe he didn’t have the licks, the elemental voodoo blues bubbling from his soul straight through his fingers … but he did have the angles, the great sheets of discord and noise that it was going to take to get this souped up, superlative noise clear of the earth’s orbit, off into the vastness of beyond, even if it was ultimately within (which in Syd’s case, would sadly prove a bottomless void). The rest of the band† weren’t half bad either.” (Philip Random)

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191. we did it again

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“Soft Machine released a pile of albums in their time, but for whatever reason, I never really got past the early ones, the first in particular. 1968 was the year and if you like your psychedelia wild, weird, noisy and more or less free of recognized form, well, let’s just say the revolution starts here (and possibly dissolves as well). Though in the case of We Did It Again, you get a nifty sort of drone driven garage pop that sounds as relevant (in a noisy sort of way) as pretty much anything new I’m currently hearing . All hail the eternal underground.” (Philip Random)

SoftMachine-1968

 

229. Barabajagal

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“Barabajagal (the album) is not Donovan‘s strongest effort. Call it inconsistent, I guess, a hodge podge of hippie-dippy mucking around that may have nailed the zeitgeist had it been released two years earlier, but come 1969, well let’s just say, something harder, more fierce was required. Like Barabajagal (the song). Truth is molten indeed. It helped that Jeff Beck and band were on hand, not so much backing things up as kicking them forward. Also Madeline Bell, Lesley Duncan and Suzi Quatro! As for who or what a barabajagal is, apparently it’s just a made up word, but it’s a good one.” (Philip Random)

Donovan-1969-VictorAtkins

(Art: Victor Atkins)

 

255. King Midas in Reverse

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In which The Hollies get more serious than usual with an almost-hit about a man who, everything golden thing he touches, he destroys, which rather confuses the original myth about the king with the golden touch who ended up starving to death, because who can digest golden bread, or stew, or porridge for that matter? But it’s still a hell of a strong song. Welcome to psychedelic England, 1967, where there was at least as much confusion as colour in the magical breeze. As it was, Graham Nash (who wrote King Midas) would soon be splitting from the band, taking off to America and all manner of future glory as a serious rock artist, while the rest stayed home and mostly stayed pop, with a few golden moments to come, but nothing like what they’d once known.

hollies-1967-psyche

274. Have you see your mother, baby, standing in the shadow?

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In which the Rolling Stones make it clear. They’ve been messing with the ole lysergic and listening to their Bob Dylan, and most important, figuring a way to make it all their own, dirty, noisy and true. It’s 1966 and the summer of love may be pending, but beware those shadows, long and deep. And your mother. Not just a little Freudian.

RollingStones-1966-drag

348. buzz the jerk

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In which the Pretty Things take us back to the dawn of this so-called pop apocalypse. It’s 1965 and whatever’s going down in London, whatever mix of drugs, fashion, overall youth discontent — it’s good, it’s swinging, it’s f***ing immortal … for two minutes anyway in the case of Buzz The Jerk.

PrettyThings-1965-TVstudio

 

395. See Emily play

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“See Emily Play is one of those tracks that was a big hit in the UK, but missed pretty much completely in the Americas, the upside being, I never got overexposed. In fact, I never even heard it until at least 1980 when I stumbled across a cassette copy of Relics (a 1971 compilation). And fine it was. Because what better time and place than a bleak Canadian midwinter, almost thirteen years after the fact, to finally catch the peak of London’s psychedelic spring via Emily and the free games she dared play? It still feels like sunshine, every time I hear it. Shine on, Mr. Barrett.” (Philip Random)

418. Pow R toc H

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It’s 1967 and The Pink Floyd have followed their increasingly deranged leader Syd Barrett to the very Gates of Dawn where some genuinely weird shit is going down. But don’t ask him exactly what. He’s too deep into the psychedelics to communicate on a rational verbal level, and he just keeps going deeper and deeper. Yet this particular message speaks volumes anyway. It calls itself Pow R Toc H and, in spite of the genuinely tragic madness that informs it, it’s really quite fun in a harrowing way.

SydBarrett-1967

698. death of a clown

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“Dave Davies being an original Kink, Death of a Clown being a darned fine single that featured big in the British version of the Summer Of Love. But I wouldn’t really notice it until at least the mid 1990s, working through my personal grunge aftermath where I’d listen to pretty much anything that wasn’t heavy, angry and in need of a clean shirt. Clown first showed up on a mixtape care of former roommate Dale, who stuck it right next to some John Coltrane, as I recall. The mid-90s were like that.” (Philip Random)

DaveDavies-1967