Mus 1240 Week 15 Fall 2014 notes

1. Psychedelia
MUS 1240
Fall 2014

3. What was Psychedelia?
• This movement was concerned with exploring new ways of experiencing the world.
• In response to the values of the 1950s, which young people thought of as being too “normal”.
• Support of civil rights; opposition to the Vietnam War
– Suspicious of institutions: government, organized religion, etc.
• The counterculture in the 60s was much more separated from adult culture than the teenage
culture of the 1950s had been from their parents
• Sexual revolution
– Birth Control – early 1960s (Time magazine cover – 1967)
• Unique fashion
– Long hair, bell bottoms, tie-dyed shirts
• Hippie – comes from “Hipster” – term used to describe beatniks that had moved into Greenwich
Village in NYC and San Fransisco Haight-Ashbury
• Explored Eastern religion, radical philosophy, and drug use
• Drugs – LSD and marijuana in particular were central to this new worldview.
– Dr. Timothy Leary – ex-Harvard professor who had led the movement to “Turn on, tune in, and drop out” by
using hallucinogenic drugs as keys to unlock the “doors of perception”
– LSD – was developed accidentally by Albert Hoffman, a Swiss scientist, in 1943 while working on a cure for
migraines.
• Tested by the CIA as a truth serum and as a cure for alcoholism.
• Seen by recreational users as being able to suppress the false teachings of the world and experience it as it actually was.
“Dropping Acid” was seen as a way to see new possibilities and opening the mind.

5. Beatles’ 1967 trip to India to
study with the Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi

6. Psychedelia cont.
• Before 1967, most psychedelic culture was happening in places like
San Fransisco, New York, and London.
• The growth of this movement coincides with the folk revival and
folk rock which happened in the mid 1960s.
– Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” – first public song which began to point to
drug use becoming part of youth culture
• Influence of Eastern religion
– Timothy Leary’s book The Psychedelic Experience based on ancient
Tibetan Book of the Dead gave instructions on how to use LSD
• Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”
– Beatles’ trip to India to study with the Maharishi Hahesh Yogi in 1967
• Most of the “White Album” was recorded based on music written during this
time
– Eastern gurus were trying to find enlightenment through spiritual
practice; hippies were trying to find it by dropping acid.

7. Musical Approaches to Psychedelia
• Using music to enhance a drug trip
– Focus is the drug experience, the music is just a
soundtrack.
– Grateful Dead, early Pink Floyd
• Creating music that is is the trip, and may or may
not be enhanced by drugs
– Artist crafts music that is an aesthetic drug
– Beatles, The Doors
• Musicians become more ambitious in their
writing and experimental; they quickly move
beyond the AM standard 3 minute radio format

8. Beatles and the Beach Boys in
Psychedelia
• Both bands’ music becomes more
complicated, almost impossible to reproduce
live. More serious topics addressed, more
inventive harmonies, throwing away standards
in form.
• In other words, both bands move away from
being master craftsmen to being true artists.

9. Beach Boys, Beatles,
and the Psychedelic Era
• Albums such as Sgt. Pepper, the White Album, as
well as singles such as “Strawberry Fields
Forever” by the Beatles; albums such as Pet
Sounds and singles like “Good Vibrations” helped
to jump-start the Psychedelic Era.
• The success of these albums allowed record
labels to let other groups experiment in a similar
way; rock could be seen as a serious endeavor
instead of a vehicle for superficial music about
teenage love.

10. “Good Vibrations” – Beach Boys
Brian Wilson

11. “Good Vibrations”
• Wilson furthered his experimentation with the
late 1966 single “Good Vibrations,” (US and UK
#1) and has remained probably the Beach Boys’
most famous song.
– Was supposed to be on “Pet Sounds”
• Written and produced by Brian Wilson
– Called it his “pocket symphony”
• Very unconventional form; begins as verse-chorus,
then goes on a trip through 3 sections
of new material
– Song was cut and spliced together

12. “Good Vibrations”
• Virtually every aspect of the record is unusual.
– No name for the form
– Unique yet effective
– Use of unusual instruments – ex: theremin, tack piano,
bass harmonica, Jaw harp
• Wilson uses a rich sound palette to communicate the
sensuous experience that is the essential subject
matter of “Good Vibrations.”
– Memorable melodic hooks and a wide, colorful palette of
chords
• Extremely costly recording to produce
• Milestone in the developing history of rock
production

15. What’s That Sound?:An Introduction to Rock and its History, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2012 W. W. Norton & Company

16. Listening: “Good Vibrations,” 1966
• Verse 1 - “I love the colorful clothes…”
– High solo voice
– Organ accompaniment
– Flutes
– Percussion
– Minor key

17. Listening: “Good Vibrations,” 1966
• Chorus - “I’m picking up good vibrations”
– Bass voice enters
– Accompanied by cello, theremin, percussion
– Group enters with vocals
– Major key

18. Listening: “Good Vibrations,” 1966
• Verse 2 – similar to Verse 1
• Chorus again - structure suggests verse/chorus
• Section 1 of New Material - Soft humming,
then “I don’t know but she sends me there…”
– Steadily builds tension
– No stable key

19. Listening: “Good Vibrations” 1966
• Instrumental transition
– New key established (major)
• Section 2 “Gotta keep those lovin’ good
vibrations happenin’ with her”
– Solo voice, then group
– Organ accompaniment
– Text repeats, fades out

20. Listening: “Good Vibrations,” 1966
• Transition—“Aah!”
• Section 3 - Variations on Chorus, “I’m picking
up good vibrations…”
– Full group texture
– Overlapping vocals
– Major key
– Voices drop out
– Cello and theremin

22. SMiLE
• At the time Wilson was completing “Good Vibrations,”
he was also at work on an album to be called SMiLE.
• Eagerly anticipated for many months, SMiLE was
abandoned in 1967.
• Some historians say this would have been Brian
Wilson’s masterpiece, but others say that his high
intake of drugs left him unable to complete the project.
• The Beach Boys did release Smiley Smile, which was a
much different album than SMiLE was intended to be
• Wilson returned to and completed SMiLE in 2004,
although the energy was different, and the whole
album had a 21st century luster.

24. San Francisco Scene
• Had been developing since 1965
• Human Be-In – Golden Gate Park, Jan 67’
– Drew thousands of “hippies” to the event, got mainstream
media coverage
• Grew out of the “Beat” scene of the 1950’s and early 60’s
– Authors such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg
– Central elements of "Beat" culture included rejection of
received standards, innovations in style, experimentation with
drugs, alternative sexualities, an interest in Eastern religion, a
rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human
condition.
• Biggest difference between Beats and Hippies was music
– Beats – Bebop Jazz ; Hippies – Rock/Folk

25. San Francisco Scene
• Earliest instances of Hippie culture came from psychedelic dances organized in
Nevada as early as 1965.
• Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Fran. Would become the center of the hippie
movement in the US.
• Ken Kesey “Acid Tests”
– Author
– Drove around a brightly colored bus which people would enter for a dollar and experience LSD
with lighting effects, rock music, etc.
– Jan 1966 – 2400 people attend one of his acid tests as Fillmore Auditorium in San Fran. –
house band for the evening’s entertainment was the Grateful Dead.
• The Fillmore (promoter Bill Graham) and other concert spaces such as the Avalon
became the center for music in San Fran. Bands would rent houses in the area
that would double as rehearsal spaces.
– Grateful Dead lived at 710 Ashbury
• Newspapers dedicated to hippie culture, shops dedicated to the needs of the
counterculture all begin to appear.
– Rolling Stone - 1967

26. Birth of FM Rock radio
• Even though the scene was established in San Fran by 1966,
there was hardly any psychedelic music on the radio.
• AM format – short pop songs with chatter in between
– Psych. Rock – longer format
• Tom Donahue, who had been a veteran of AM radio in San
Fran. (was also a member of the hippie culture) grows
frustrated and turns to FM radio.
– FM to this point had been mostly public-service type
programming (lectures, classical music, foreign lang.)
• Donahue becomes the first to try a new format on FM
(KMPX-FM), using more music and less talk. FM becomes
the home of Rock music.

27. San Francisco Psychedelic Rock
• Psychedelic rock encompassed:
– Folk rock, Blues, Hard rock, Latin music, Indian
classical music
• Music is loud, lots of distortion used
– “Acid Rock”
• Reading from PSR

29. Grateful Dead
• Jerry Garcia – guitarist had begun his career in folk and bluegrass music. (even
played the jug!)
• Introduced to electric blues by listening to the Rolling Stones
• By 1965 was playing blues covers as well as folk and originals with a band called
the Warlocks. They change their name to the Grateful Dead.
• House band for the Kesey acid tests; develop a highly improvisational style (songs
could last longer than albums) “Jam Band”
– Simple chord progressions, use of modal scales (popular in jazz late 1950s-60s)
– This style becomes very hard to capture in the recording studio – the more authentic
experience was to see the band live.
• Dead’s second album, Anthem of the Sun (1968), was a direct extension of the
Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” from the Revolver album.
– Elements of chance in the mixing of tape loops – Phil Lesh, bassist of GD, was a former
composition student and was also familiar with the avant-garde classical styles of John Cage
and Karlheinz Stockhausen as Lennon had been.
• Dead really did not capture their live sound in the studio until Live/Dead from
1970.
• Fans developed a system of bootleg recording live shows and then trading the
tapes. Fans also followed the Dead around from show to show (“Deadheads”)
living with the band in a type of commune.

31. Jefferson Airplane
• Become established on the San Fran scene slightly before the Dead.
• Several of their albums become successful and are seen as innovative
– Surrealistic Pillow (1967)
• “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit”
– After Bathing at Baxter’s (1967)
– Crown of Creation (1968)
– Volunteers (1969) – politically inspired
• Singer Grace Slick and rest of band combines musical ambition with the
AM single format.
– “White Rabbit”
• AABA form (very traditional)
• Use of clear references to drug use (“Feed your head”)
• Insipred by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland , as was John Lennon’s “Lucy in the Sky
with Diamonds”
• Influence of Spanish bolero, as well as music of French 20th century classical composer
Maurice Ravel (Bolero)
– Long crescendo built over time
• Borrowing from 20th century orchestral music instead of avant-garde.

33. Janis Joplin
• Began in San Fran. with Big Brother and the Holding Company
– Also experimented with avant-garde and classical
• “In the Hall of the Mountain King” – Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite
• Avant-Garde piece called “Bacon” which would last as long as it took to fry a piece of Bacon on stage.
– Backed up Janis Joplin on electric blues pieces
• Joplin was from Texas, began her career singing in clubs in Austin. She moves to San Fran. By mid
1960s.
• Cheap Thrills (1968) reaches #1 on US album charts
– “Piece of My Heart” #12 on pop charts
• Joplin goes out on a solo career
– I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama! (1969) - #5 US album
– Pearl (1971) - #1 US album
• Released posthumously
• “Me and Bobby McGee” - #1 US pop charts
• Joplin struggled with addictions; found dead on Oct. 4, 1970 from an overdose
• Her style was based on earlier blues singers such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton.
Very raw sound, pushed her voice to the absolute limit.
– Shows connection between psychedelia and African-American music.
• Reading in PSR

36. The London Scene
• Begins with a Beat poetry reading held at the Royal Albert Hall in June 1965
(attended by 5000 people, most under the influence of some psychedelic drug)
• World Psychedelic Center opens in September 1966 – center for the counter
culture in England
• A group of young people dedicated to the same causes as the San Francisco
hippies begins to form.
• 1966 – weekly events called “Spontaneous Underground” were held – similar to
Kesey’s acid tests, but on a smaller scale.
• Countercultural “night school” where people could study things such as mental
health, race relations, law, etc.
– Nothing like this existed in the US scene
• During 1966 and the first ¾ of 1967, most of the psychedelic scene in London was
underground
– UFO Club – moved around from place to place, not like the Fillmore or the Avalon in San Fran.
– By the time Sgt. Pepper comes out in August of 1967, the psychedelic movement is out in the
open in London.

38. Pink Floyd
• As huge as Pink Floyd became in the 1970s, their success during the 60s
was limited to the UK.
• American blues artists Pink Anderson and Floyd Council were the source
of the band’s name.
• Influence lies mostly in avant-garde art music, not blues.
– Exploratory noise, tape-echo devices, little in the way of structure during live
performances.
• Syd Barrett – guitar, Roger Waters – bass, Richard Wright – organ, Nick
Mason – drums (ORIGINAL LINEUP)
– Barrett begins to show signs of mental illness soon after the recording of Piper
at the Gates of Dawn
• Recorded at same time and same place as Sgt. Pepper.
– Barrett eventually replaced by David Gilmour.
• Many successful albums in UK during 60s, did not see success in US until
Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
– Saucerful of Secrets (1968), More (1969), Ummagumma (1969), Atom Heart
Mother (1970)
• One of the most important bands of the London Underground scene

40. Their Satanic Majesties Request
• Rolling Stones album from late 1967
• Response to Sgt. Pepper
• Stones’ only real dip into true psychedelia
– Holographic cover featured the Stones dressed in
wizard outfits
• Seen as a turning point for the Stones; after this
album, the Stones don’t seem as worried about
shat the Beatles were doing and go back to their
R&B roots.
– “Jumpin Jack Flash” – 1968
– Beggars’ Banquet - 1968

43. Cream
• First group to be branded a “supergroup”
– Also a “power trio” –guitar, bass, drums
• Rush, the Police, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Motorhead, ZZ Top, Nirvana, Green Day - other examples
– Eric Clapton – guitar, Jack Bruce – bass, Ginger Baker – drums
– Clapton – guitar “god” – popularized the use of wah-wah and distortion pedals among guitarists
• All three were veterans of British blues scene, and the group was initially going to focus on
traditional blues
– “Crossroads” – cover of Robert Johnson
– “Rollin and Tumblin’” – cover of Muddy Waters
• Also had some pop singles
– “I Feel Free” (1966), “Strange Brew” (1967)
• Short career together; only 4 albums in 3 years: Fresh Cream (1967) , Disraeli Gears (1967), Wheels
of Fire (1968), Goodbye (1969)
• Cream relied on extended improvisational playing, instead of focusing on songwriting and recording
innovations (Beatles/Beach Boys)
– Parallels the San Fran. bands such as Grateful Dead
– Clapton, along with Hendrix, would usher in the era of the “Guitar Hero” unlike the guitarists in the San
Fran. bands.
• Cream would adapt the blues format for many of their most popular songs
– “Sunshine of Your Love” – extends the 12-bar blues to 24 bars by lengthening each section.
– Built around a repeating riff (very common technique in American blues)

46. The Jimi Hendrix Experience
• Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) was part of the London scene, even though he was an American (born in
Seattle)
• Began his career playing for various bands in the US, including with Little Richard and the Isley
Brothers before forming his own band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames.
• Chas Chandler, bassist for the Animals, really likes Hendrix…offers to manage him. Brings him to
London and forms the Jimi Hendrix Experience with Noel Redding (bass) and Mitch Mitchell
(drums)
• Early 1967 – “Hey Joe” (#6 UK) “Purple Haze” (#3 UK)
• Are You Experienced? – huge success in UK in 1967
– #2 behind Sgt. Pepper
• Was able to blend blues with pop as well as use influence of avant-garde.
• Performances at Monterey Pop Festival (1967) and Woodstock (1969) cement his popularity in the
US.
• JHE breaks up in 1969, just weeks before his performance at Woodstock. Hendrix had begun to
experiment with music more rooted in blues
• Sept. 18, 1970 dies of a drug overdose
• Style was very flamboyant, sexually suggestive, destructive
• A pioneer of guitar technique, use of wah wah, tremolo bar, distortion.
• Reading in PSR

48. Frank Zappa and
the Mothers of Invention
• Frank Zappa (1940-1993)
• The complete embodiment of the avant-garde in rock music.
• Influences included: John Cage, Edgard Varese, Igor Stravinsky,
Anton Webern, and R&B…
• Very difficult to put Zappa into a category. His music sounds
like…Zappa. Very unique.
• Freak Out – 1966 – debut album on Verve records (a jazz label)
• We’re Only in it for the Money – 1968
– Satirized the hippie movement
– Uses samples of surf music as well as the tape loops from Beatles’
“Tomorrow Never Knows”
• Reading in PSR

50. L.A. – The Doors
• Created by singer Jim Morrison and keyboardist Ray Manzarek in
1965.
• First hit – “Light My Fire” – (US #1 1967)
• Their version of psychedelia was focused around the dark places
you could go on LSD. The “bad trip”.
• Morrison’s lyrics often focused on these dark topics
• Morrison took the bad-boy image created by Elvis and Mick Jagger
and took it to a deeper level, introducing an alter ego called the
Lizard King.
– David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel, Madonna are ex. of other
artists who adapted alter egos.
• “Hello, I Love You” (US #1 1968), “Love Her Madly” (US #11 1971)
• Morrison dies in 1971

52. Monterey Pop Festival
• The Monterey International Pop Festival was organized in Spring 1967 by John Phillips (Mamas and
the Papas) and record exec Lou Adler
• Based on the Monterey Jazz Festival, which had been one of the jazz world’s most important events
for years.
• Was a joining of the scenes in San Fran/London/LA in one big event.
• Bands which performed on June 16-18, 1967
– Jefferson Airplane
– Grateful Dead
– Big Brother and the Holding Company (Janis Jopin)
– The Byrds
– The Mamas and the Papas
– The Animals
– The Who
– Jimi Hendrix Experience
• This performance was essential in his future success
– Otis Redding w/ Booker T and the MG’s
• Introduced a wider audience to the Stax sound
– The Beach Boys were invited but did NOT play, perhaps hurting their reputation with the counterculture
movement.
• Upwards of 90,000 people attended
• Made the large concert festival a viable option for the rock industry, and influenced the creation of
many other similar events across the country.

54. Woodstock
• The peak of the large scale 1960s music festival
• August 15-17, 1969 on farmland in Bethel, NY
• 400,000 people attended; many of them crashed the event without paying for tickets
• Rain famously turned the entire event into a muddy mess; however, the event was still a major success
• “3 Days of Peace and Music” – slogan
• Performances by:
– Grateful Dead
– Janis Joplin
– Jefferson Airplane
– The Who
– Jimi Hendrix
– Santana
– Joe Cocker
– Crosby, Stills, and Nash
– Sly and the Family Stone
• Bands that didn’t play Woodstock – this is mostly anecdotal evidence, so take with grain of salt
– Beatles
– Rolling Stones
– Eric Clapton
– Led Zeppelin
– Jethro Tull
– The Doors
– Bob Dylan

56. Altamont – the end of an era
• Dec. 6, 1969
• Altamont Speedway in Livermore, CA
• Event organized by the Rolling Stones as a thank you to fans for their support
• Was originally going to be a free surprise concert in Golden Gate Park sponsored
by the Grateful Dead…plans changed when San Fran. Government officials stepped
in.
• Rolling Stones hired the Hell’s Angels, a motorcycle gang, to work security at the
event.
• The Stones waited until nightfall to begin their portion of the show, as they were
filming it for a movie release (Gimme Shelter – 1970)
• Left audience with nothing to do but get drunk and fight.
• Meredith Hunter, an 18 year old black fan, was beaten and stabbed to death by
Hell’s Angels members right in front of the stage during the Rolling Stones’
performance.
• This tragic event is seen as the symbolic end of the psychedelic era.
– The deaths of Joplin, Hendrix, and Morrison in 1970-71, as well as the breakup of the Beatles
in 1970 also greatly contributed to the end of the counterculture era.
• Reading in PSR about festivals