Awesome psychedelic songs by (generally) non-psych bands

like i know there's this ongoing tension as to whether or not we're having this discussion seriously but to me "psychedelia" isn't this thing that magically appeared on haight street (or, you know, in texas) in 1966, i feel like it's a false dichotomy and that "minimalism" is an authentic part of the psychedelic movement, fuck i'd call the silver apples psychedelic as all hell. i just don't get the hair-splitting, i mean are there people here who want to argue whether or not "flight reaction" by the calico wall or "back seat '38 dodge" by opus i belong more to the worlds of "the avant-garde" or psychedelia? do "the murder mystery" and "what's become of the baby" not belong to the same genre because the bands fucking hated each other and didn't at all go to the same parties? i mean, where are we coming at this from?

There’s a solid connection between minimalism and psychedelia. The minimalists’ repetition and drones create unusual effects such as time dilation for the listener, the same way as do Indian ragas and other Eastern musics associated with psychedelia. Just consider Terry Riley. Lou Reed alludes to Eastern music’s repetition in an essay written in 1966: http://velvetforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=145408

I know that I'm far from alone in finding that music psychedelic.
& that isn't going to change any time soon.

Kinda don't think the thread is about persuading you either way.

Ben Shepherd from Soundgarden seems to bring out the more psychedelic side of that band, Switch Opens and She Likes Surprises especially.

5 million elvis fans can't be wrong, the king is trippy as balls

Interesting thing about Can is that they didn't use echo/delay and 'psychedelic' effects like stereo panning and phasing - apart from on "Tago Mago", which is why parts of that album sound kind of dated? In my opinion!

Not sure I agree with the premise here. While Tago Mago is where Can really went all out with studio effects, tracks like "Future Days," "Bel Air," and "Chain Reaction" variously use tremolo, phasing, hard panning, field recordings, etc and strike me as very psychedelic in a mellow, balmy way.

looool this thread, well done ilm. I came here to post Blondie's "Fade Away and Radiate," and "Shadow" by The Primitives, a trippy little bit of Indian-sounding psych amongst the pop punk nuggets of Lovely and find 200+ posts of harshed mellow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs6RLx8Jujo

Not sure I agree with the premise here. While Tago Mago is where Can really went all out with studio effects, tracks like "Future Days," "Bel Air," and "Chain Reaction" variously use tremolo, phasing, hard panning, field recordings, etc and strike me as very psychedelic in a mellow, balmy way.

In a subtler, less corny way, for sure. By the way, "Chain Reaction" mellow and balmy, are you sure?

i mean, where are we coming at this from?

evidently everywhere and nowhere at the same time

There’s a solid connection between minimalism and psychedelia. The minimalists’ repetition and drones create unusual effects such as time dilation for the listener, the same way as do Indian ragas and other Eastern musics associated with psychedelia. Just consider Terry Riley.

I posted a Steve Reich piece upthread fwiw

I totally take the idea that minimalism was significant to psychedelia from Butterfield Blues Band's "East-West" to Silver Apples, etc. But I don't believe the appeal of minimalism proper, Reich/Glass etc., was altogether to do with its psychedelic aspect. I think there's an element of it that maybe comes more from 20th century moves away from composer-dominated content, starting in music with serialism and into Cage and which you see in other art forms (surrealist techniques, abstract painting, etc.). And if I'm thinking about Reich's Four Organs, my base-level analysis of what kind of music it is would not be to say, "It's psychedelic music" (though it may have some commonality).

Similarly, one wouldn't say that Kurt Schwitters or Andre Breton were psychedelic writers. This colors my view of things like "European Son" and "Father Cannot Yell" in spite of the fact that one could rightly say that they are not dissimilar to "What's Become of the Baby." I definitely believe that there was an element of the Velvet Underground, and maybe Can too, that was intentionally NOT psychedelic. Is that not why the second and third VU albums had black and white covers? Is that not why "every color is bad???"

"That's what Jaki said"

This is precisely what, for me, distinguishes the cover of Monster Movie from, say, a Hawkwind album cover.

We had a thread recently where we were discussing how the Dead & VU were different, despite their similarities (or something).

I think They Might be Giants must fit into this, something like "See the Constellation" or "I'll Be Haunting You" scans as psych-rock to me which they are definitely not as a whole

"Where Do They Make Balloons?"

https://youtu.be/c9zG0mRvmaE

^^ pastoral psychedelia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_FTSVuyej4

When I was a kid I heard this weird psychedelic avant-garde violin piece by McKendree Spring on late night radio. I bought the album, only to discover the rest of it was decidedly UN-psychedelic wimpy folk-rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSbZdd-PF7o

I was pleasantly surprised that the 50s Stars Who Tried to Adapt to the Psychedelic 60s video was sincerely appreciative rather than mocking.