Eddie Hazel - Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs (1977)

Eddie left Funkadelic in 1971 but played on a few more Parliament records- Chocolate City would be the last studio record featuring his otherworldly axe slanging. He contributed some vocals to 1976 release The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein and is featured heavily on the Live P-Funk Earth Tour record from 1977 but this record marks his first foray into solo land.

George Clinton's production and songwriting help are all over this record, as well as utilizing a line up that's basically 1978 era P-Funk.

It's probably the only Parliament/Funkadelic-related release outside of their own oeuvre considered essential.
Eddie Hazel - Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs (1977; Warner Bros. Records)

Gene Clark - No Other (1974)

SoCal folk legend Gene Clark, late of The New Christy Minstrels and The Byrds nails it here on one of the finest yet weirdly obscure country rock gems this side of Bakersfield. 
Gene Clark - No Other (1974; Asylum Records)

Ancestors - Neptune With Fire (2008)

If you like your sludgy metal with generous helpings of prog rock, this is the record for you. Los Angeles-based Ancestors blend stony psychedelia with doom metal riffs to create one of the most satisfying listens of the last few years within the genre; this two-song, 38-minute monolithic magnum opus from '08 called Neptune With Fire.

It's a huge album, an immense and crushing sonic journey to the center of the cosmos and back; although it predates Mastodon's Crack the Skye by a good year, it's cleaved from the same esoteric stone.

Metal heads, psych rockers, stoners, sludge aficionados; listen to this record right now!

Ancestors - Neptune With Fire (2008; Tee Pee Records)

Buddy Miles Express - Expressway to Your Skull (1968)

I've always held fast to my opinion that Jimi Hendrix's work with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox was far superior to that he did with the Experience; it's a funkier, more soulful incarnation of Jimi's music and it came along at a time when people were more or less doubting (or challenging) Hendrix's "blackness".

So Buddy's drumming gave everything a funkier, dancier swing (fresh off his work with blues rock band The Electric Flag) and Jimi's Band of Gypsys was born. In between being a sideman for Mike Bloomfield's project and Jimi's new thing, he had his own thing, the Buddy Miles Express, with Jim McCarty on guitar and Billy Rich on bass. This is a pretty cool album as far as being a period piece; not every song is a knock-out (the cover of Sam & Dave's Wrap it Up is actually kind of flat) but it's interesting to see on record how one of the first albums to attempt to blend hard rock with funk & soul works out- this basically presaged the whole Funkadelic movement; helping to spawn funk rock.

Anyway, give it a go; you shan't be disappointed (too much)...

Buddy Miles Express - Expressway to Your Skull (1968; Mercury Records)

Flower Travellin' Band - Satori (1971)

Heavy psych from Japanese stoners; think Sabbath and Zeppelin channeled through extensive LSD trips, Eastern philosophy and Asian technical superiority- this is the essence of Flower Travellin' Band's 1971 classic Satori (the Japanese Buddhist term for "understanding"). Yeah, I understand that this fucking rocks- it acts as both an homage and an encouragement to American-slash-British hard rock, pushing the envelope a little further than Grand Funk, Deep Purple or Blue Cheer could've hoped to.

Lead guitarist Hideki Ishima may also be one of the most under-rated axe men of all-time; he shreds. Balancing the precarious tightrope between psychedelia, prog and metal; he weaves lines in and out of Joe Yamanaka's harmonica runs, all over Jun Kozuki's outstanding, plodding bass lines and George Wada's tight drumming.

I can't believe I didn't discover this record earlier in life; it's filled a void I didn't even know existed. Do yourself a huge favor; Oh, musical adventurer!- listen to this shit right now!!!

Flower Travellin' Band - Satori (1971; Atlantic Records)

Boris - Flood (2000)

I only have a few Boris albums, but this is the one for me; it starts out with this repeated arpeggio riff that lasts a good six-and-a-half minutes before any other instrument appears, then slowly drums creep in, then...

...I'm not giving any more away. 

Listen.

I do recommend that you listen to this on really good headphones...

Boris - Flood (2000; Noble Label)
-link opens to YouTube-

Red Krayola - The Parable of Arable Land (1967)

I rank this landmark record by Red Krayola right up there with the other classic psychedelic standout albums from that era; it might be one of the first "rock" records that was made up of purely free noise experiments. It sits directly in the middle ground between the free jazz of Albert Ayler and baroque folk of Love. More than half of the record is various versions of a Free Form Freak-Out, main Krayola Mayo Thompson basically invited about 50 people back to the studio where they were recording and told them to bang on things, wail like banshees, etc. to achieve the desired effect.

Changing their name from The Red Crayola (for obvious copyright infringements), guitarist/visual artist Thompson, drummer Frederick Barthelme and Steve Cunningham crafted an intense and sometimes scary psychedelic wonderland (they were once paid $10 to stop playing a show in Berkeley, of all places!) that was as much a visual trip as an auditory one, mixing music with art and blurring the line between audience and performer.

If you're looking to get into this awesome band from the psychedelic era; look no further than this- if you like it I'll probably be posting their follow-up records Coconut Hotel and God Bless The Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It. Enjoy!

Red Krayola - The Parable of Arable Land (1967; International Artists)

The United States of America - The United States of America (1968)

A psych rock album with no guitar? Upon first listen I didn't believe this record was made in '68; outside of the production quality there's really nothing that ties it to the decade (except the spirit of the times, maybe). With its arty pretension, courtesy of Joseph Byrd's musical expertise and virtuosity (by 1967 he already had a vast knowledge of both electronic instruments and musique concrète) and singer Dorothy Moskowitz's icy cold vocal delivery, it literally sounds like it belongs in the early oeuvre of Stereolab.

So how'd they get away with creating a rock record with no guitar? Easy- heavy use of the violin (courtesy Gordon Marron), sublime bass lines from Rand Forbes and Byrd's work with the organ, calliope and electric harpsichord. Throw in Craig Woodson's electronic drums and here's an excellent psychedelic-meets-art pop/rock record that for some reason has been lost to the sands of time.

This is the 2004 version from Sundazed; re-mastered and with bonus tracks...

The United States of America - The United States of America (1968; Columbia Records)

Butthole Surfers - Rembrandt Pussyhorse (1986)

This record feels like an accident. I mean that in the nicest way possible- it's a fractured, dissonant, psychotic blend of experimentation and noisy post-punk; going from odd piano-driven tracks about creeps to insane babbling mayhem to quiet, almost funereal organ dirges to funky-ass, down-home psychedelic dirt blues soul rock.

This is the missing link between all that late-'60s acid-damaged stuff like Beefheart, Syd Barrett-era Floyd and '70s satirists/experimenters The Residents and today's bands like Liars and Black Dice. You can file the Surfers somewhere midway in that lineage; at least their first three records. If you have any of that radio-friendly alternacrap stuff from the nineties (especially Electriclarryland) please smack yourself in the face.

I'd recommend listening to this album at full volume in a dark room.

Butthole Surfers - Rembrandt Pussyhorse (1986; Touch and Go Records)

Love - Forever Changes (1967)

This is probably the greatest record you've never heard. For some reason this gem remains largely under appreciated, I can't figure out exactly why- it might be my favorite record from the psychedelic '60s. For those of us already in the know, please disregard my shock that unfortunately not every one has the 180-gram remastered heavy vinyl re-issued copy, we'll invite you over to listen in our living rooms.

Barring that; here's a digital copy to get you acquainted with one of the ten best records ever recorded in the history of modern music.

You never even have to say thanks, I'll know that you feel the same about the music on this album when you're hunting down a copy of the original record and your rancid breath and bloodshot eyes from neglecting your hygiene and countless hours of sleep lost while chasing down this Holy Grail of under-rated psych folk rock memorabilia will be thanks enough.

Love - Forever Changes (1967; Elektra Records)
2015 Remaster

13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere (1967)

It's been said that the 13th Floor Elevators invented psychedelic rock; I don't know if that's an accurate statement, but one thing I can tell you- they definitely introduced schizophrenia to the masses. This is their second album, Easter Everywhere. While not as popular or groundbreaking as the first, in my opinion it's just as trippy, dark and weird as its predecessor.

Started by University of Texas student (and jug player) Tommy Hall and guitarist Stacy Sutherland, the Elevators' most recognizable figure would be singer/guitarist Roky Erickson; his well-documented struggles with severe mental illness over the years add to the band's mystique but eventually caused its downfall (Erickson spent 3 years in an institution and was never the same man after).

So sit back and enjoy a psych rock classic that's equal parts period piece and a study in unraveling madness...

13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere (1967; International Artists)

Can - The Classic Years

Can is the most under-rated band of all-time.

Probably for several reasons; one (the biggest) was that they weren't American (or even British), so they didn't have the luxury of over-exposure (they called Cologne, Germany their home-base). Had they been an American (or British) band, they'd have been as big as The Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd; as improvisers they were just as talented, and as far as locking into a groove; they were un-matched (stickman Jaki Leibezeit was like a human drum machine). They could be as funky as George Clinton's bands or as free as Sun Ra's Arkestra.

Before you shoot flames at me for not acknowledging original lead singer Malcolm Mooney's contributions (ironically he is from the United States), I'm choosing to focus on their three best albums, the ones with Japanese-born Damo Suzuki as their lead singer. He was a street poet that basically scat-sang, usually an unintelligible mix of English, Japanese and screaming.

Another reason they were so under-rated; they were so ahead of their time. Light years ahead. Just like their influences, The Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention, electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen; they were more or less misunderstood, another fact that hinders their recognition because again (god-dammit!) even those bands aren't as appreciated as they should be.

In terms of who they influenced, let's start with the entire Krautrock scene; Brian Eno's forays into ambient dream-scapes; all those post-punk bands (especially Mark E. Smith, penning the homage I Am Damo Suzuki on The Fall's This Nation's Saving Grace), P.I.L. (who collaborated with bassist Jah Wobble in the '80s), even Joy Division and Siouxsie Sioux have named Can as a primary influence. Other groundbreaking artists that kneel at the altar: Radiohead, David Bowie and Talking Heads.

If any of the aforementioned artists are on your list of favorites, and you've still never listened to Can, skip the rest of the reading and start listening to these records! 

Here's some neatly arranged bullet points to further assert my position in this essay:

• They were incorporating rock instrumentation into "World Music" before the term even existed, experimenting with tribal drum patterns, dub basslines and primal screaming.

• They spent hours in the studio recording then later going back and editing said sessions into "songs", the track Yoo Doo Right from the album Monster Movie was edited down from a 24-hour jam into a 20-minute song. This was all done by hand, called micro-editing; meticulously done with razor blades and splicing tape- I can only imagine the frustration (and the time involved) to cut down 24 hours of reel-to-reel to a twenty-minute edit.

• Bass player/engineer Holger Czukay studied under Stockhausen for three years, as well as keyboardist Irmin Schmidt- who was a well-established concert pianist/composer with the Vienna Symphony.

• Guitarist Michael Karoli was a classically trained cellist and violinist before picking up the six-string, even playing violin on a few albums (although uncredited).

• They more or less anticipated and influenced entire movements of music (see above).

I'm just going to say listen to the whole lot of these records, find them on vinyl, get the CDs, the re-issues, the remasters; three of the greatest albums of all-time...

Tago Mago (1971; United Artists)


Ege Bamyasi (1972; United Artists)


Future Days (1973; United Artists)

The Legendary Pink Dots - The Maria Dimension (1991)

The Legendary Pink Dots are an experimental psychedelic freak-out band; this album is what you wanna listen to right after you paste a ten-strip to your forehead under your bandanna in 95-degree heat at some god-forsaken hippie festival in upstate New York in late August and you want things to get really weird.

These guys moved from London to Amsterdam in the mid-'80s, way before it was the cool thing to do. I'm just saying...

The Legendary Pink Dots - The Maria Dimension (1991; Play It Again Sam)

Pink Floyd - Ummagumma (1969)

I always thought this early version of Pink Floyd (right after Syd left) was the impetus for the whole Krautrock movement; listen to Can's Monster Movie or Faust's Faust or Amon Düül II's first two records and you'll hear what I mean.

This is as concept-driven as the idea of a "concept album" would allow; the first disc is four tracks from two live performances in late April and early May of '69, and the second disc has four "solo" albums that were recorded the following week. These solo records are interesting in that each member of the Floyd took on the role of band-leader (after Syd's departure, there was no clear "leader" of the Floyd camp, hence the following decade would be a bit of a creative push-and-shove between band members, tensions were instigated by Roger Waters and David Gilmour's insistence on being their leader) so it's interesting to see exactly where Pink Floyd was as a band here, and where they'd be going. Experimentally-inclined as always, it's a nice primer to the casual fan to see and hear what they were doing in the years leading up to Dark Side of the Moon.

This album was requested by my friend Martin, so here's Ummagumma in all of its glory, folks...

Pink Floyd - Ummagumma (1969; Harvest Records)

Dungen - Ta Det Lugnt (2004)

Swedish-born Gustav Ejstes is the one man band behind Dungen (pronounced doon-yen) and I gotta say that when I first heard this album a few years ago, I remember thinking "there's no way this isn't from 1973..."

Well, I was wrong; Ta Det Lugnt ("take it easy") was recorded in 2003 on vintage instruments; almost entirely by Ejstes himself, (ironically using computer software like Cubase for the recording and mastering).

It's a psych-pop-rock masterpiece of the early millennium.

Dungen - Ta Det Lugnt (2004; Subliminal Sounds)

Gong - You (1974)

Aussie Daevid Allen was one of the original members of Soft Machine but was more or less replaced when his work visa expired and he wasn't allowed entrance back into England, instead seeking refuge in France. He basically lived on a commune and started Gong out of necessity- he needed to make music. And what he made was some of the finest space-prog of the 1970s, incorporating elements of psychedelia and jazz fusion along the way.

They also constructed a whole mythology of Gong; a fantasy world of their own universe. Apparently stemming from a vision Allen had during a full moon trip in 1966- he claims to have seen the future. This is where the "Radio Gnome Trilogy" was born, and out of that the third album of the trilogy was 1974's You. Sadly, this would be the last album featuring the classic line-up until reuniting in 1994, but (as you can probably guess) the magic was gone by then.

This is some seriously tripped-out shit. If you're an acid casualty there's a strong chance that you may get stuck somewhere in this record. Please don't stare at the cover too long...

Gong - You (1974; Virgin Records)

Grateful Dead - Anthem Of The Sun (1971)

It's strange how many people (especially "psych" fans) tell me they "don't get the Dead". There's nothing to get, man. It's psychedelia pure & simple- in fact it's closer to the heart of real psychedelia than almost anything else. I'd say that along with The 13th Floor Elevators, no other band integrated the LSD experience into their work as openly and persistently as the Grateful Dead.

I'm not a Dead-head, and I'll probably never get into their post-Warner Bros. stuff (I can stomach Terrapin Station, but everything after that is pretty much crapola- Go To Heaven is a cruel joke, right?), but I find myself enjoying the late 1960s (Tom Constanten-era) Dead more and more, both studio and live.

It's as close to a live record as you can make in the studio; that's what happens when you give a bunch of lysergically-induced, stoned-out happy freaks unlimited studio time. The Dead actually ended up owing Warner a ton of money from this record; they didn't recoup it until the money started rolling in as their unstoppable tour machine gathered steam in the late '70s.

Grateful Dead - Anthem Of The Sun (1968; Warner Bros. Records)

Gila - Gila (1971)

"Often referred by the title Free Electric Sound, Gila's debut is an amazing work, full of acid guitar freakouts, spacy organ and mellotron, exotic rhythm structures, and loads of electronic effects to fully realize the psychedelic visions. From the Floyd-ian space rock of the first two tracks the record moves into even stranger realms on the four segued pieces that make up the second side of the original vinyl. "Kollaps" starts off with ritualistic drumming, a creepy organ riff, a crying baby, and guitar licks that threaten to explode at any moment. After some electronic effects "Kontakt" goes in an entirely different direction with airy acoustic guitar and keyboards and no rhythm section, like suddenly emerging into sunlight after the darkness of "Kollaps." As the track progresses seamlessly into "Kollektivivtat" and then "Individualitat" it again picks up momentum, adding electric guitar riffs and an interesting mixture of bongos and snares as the organ cuts loose, until finally everything dies except the thundering percussions on some quasi-ethnic workout with some electronic sounds thrown in."

- by Rolf Semprebon; Allmusic.com

Gila - Gila (1971; BASF)