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Psychedelia

You are currently browsing the archive for the Psychedelia category.

Acid rain (that is)

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“Childrens Stories for a Rainy Day’  Robin Hood Records  Sometimes these kids’ records are super trippy!  Here’s one example that pushes the imagination and borders on the psychedelic.

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I Like Psych

turn on

Christian Yoga Church  Turn On! Music For The Hip At Heart  (Memorare ES-S101)

Record Condition:  M-  /  Sleeve Condition:  M-, in shrink   Exceptional copy of this early cosmic psychedelia from northern California.

FOR SALE NOW

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (20 votes, average: 3.65 out of 5)
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Top of the Poppies

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OUR FIRST AUCTION ENDS TODAY!   BID on Two by THE CALIFORNIA POPPY PICKERS …  “SOUNDS OF ’69” and “TODAY’S CHART BUSTERS”  Alshire Records   Groovy fuzz exploito jams and pop covers.  Wicked hippie babe covers

DON’T MISS THE CHANCE TO TAKE HOME SOME RARE LPS  FROM THE “LP COVER LOVER” COLLECTION!   CHECK OUT MORE ODDBALL, XIAN, GARAGE, EXPLOITO PSYCH, SURF, SOUL, FUNK, CHEESECAKE, BEATNIK, and SOUNDTRACK COLLECTIBLES   HERE!

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (31 votes, average: 3.97 out of 5)
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Left of the dial

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Silhouette  Segments compiles radio spots by John Rydgren, the head of the American Lutheran Church . His radio  show, “Silhouettes”,  was the voice of hippies for God before anyone ever heard the word, “Jesus freak”. His psychedelic Christian Dj patter, in the style of Ken Nordine, is backed by fuzzy guitars and Summer Of Love grooves.  A heady mix of peace, love, sex & Jesus.  This and 100 other rare and unusual records from the LP Cover Lover archives are being put up for auction on eBay beginning on Monday, April 13th!

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (28 votes, average: 3.79 out of 5)
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Psych-out

“With Love – A Pot Of Flowers”  (1967)  To cash-in on the popularity of the San Francisco music scene, Mainstream records collected some singles by Bay Area groups The Other Side, Euphoria, Harbinger Complex and The Wildflower from labels Garage and Psychedelic Folkrock.   An early collection and interesting time capsule from the summer of love that captures the sound of the Bay Area underground.  Recently reissued with additional tracks.

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (43 votes, average: 3.30 out of 5)
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Summertime blues

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July’s self-titled record is easily one of the top UK Psych Lp’s.   Epic Records   (1968) Tony Duhig on guitar, John Field on flute and keyboards, Tom Newman on vocals, Alan James playing bass, and Chris Jackson on drums.   The band lasted barely a year, leaving behind one of the most sought-after LPs of the British psychedelic boom (on the Major Minor label in England, and Epic Records in the U.S. and Canada). Their sound was a mix of trippy, lugubrious psychedelic meanderings, eerie, trippy vignettes (“Dandelion Seeds,” “My Clown”), and strange, bright electric-acoustic textured tracks (“Friendly Man”), with some dazzling guitar workouts (Crying Is for Writers”) for good measure, all spiced with some elements of world music, courtesy of Tony Duhig (who has since come to regard July as an embarrassing element in his resume). Their first single, “My Clown” b/w “Dandelion Seeds,” has come to be considered a classic piece of psychedelia while the album is just plain collectable, despite some shortcomings. The band separated in 1969, with Duhig moving on to Jade Warrior, Newman becoming a well-respected engineer, with Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells to his credit, and bassist Alan James later working with Cat Stevens and Kevin Coyne, among others.

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Ironic Butterfly

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Shin Jung Hyun   “The Psychedelic Sound – In-A-Kadda-Da-Vida” (sic)   From Korea   (Another favorite from Drill Pop!)

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Psyched out

Psychodelic Music   Philips Records.   A strange one from Mexico.   Includes songs by Pierre Henry, the French composer considered a pioneer of the musique concrete genre of electronic music.   Among Henry’s best known works is the experimental 1967 album Messe pour le temps présent, featuring the popular track “Psyché Rock.”     In addition to “Rock Psychodelico” this ep includes “Demasiado Delirio,” “Tonico Juvenil” and “Jerk Jericho”.   FYI, the theme song of the TV series Futurama is inspired by “Psyché Rock.”

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I like psych

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“Paulo Diniz’s eyes from this album — “Quero voltar prà ¡ Bahia” (1970) used to haunt me when I was a kid. I found it on a sidewalk last week and simply had to buy it and scan it’s cover.” From LP cover lover Julio Silveiro

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (25 votes, average: 3.72 out of 5)
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Thru thick and thin

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“War Between Fats and Thins” Harvey Matusow’s Jews Harp Band (1969)

“I’m a French lover of lp covers and I like very much your website. I want to contribute original psychà ©dà ©lic LP cover. Psychà ©dà ©lic music is my great passion of my life. I propose this very strange cover of a psychà ©dà ©lic group : HARVEY MATUSOW’S BAND – Friendly yours,” Henri DEFFONTAINE

Thanks Henri, I have this cover but never knew anything about it. Check out this incredible story (and MP3’s from the album) courtesy of WFMU:

“A psychedelic Jews Harp record! As unusual as this LP is, it pales in comparison to Marshall “Harvey” Matusow’s life, which intersected every major artery of post-war America. Born in the Bronx in 1926, Matusow was a Jewish street hustler who was picking pockets by age ten, and went on to work throughout his life as a Spy, DJ, Thief, Broadway Agent, Gambler, Stand Up Comic, Actor, Author, Musician, Professional Red Baiter, Filmmaker, Impresario, TV Clown and Social Activist. He was married twelve times, and palled around with Billie Holiday, Norman Mailer, Jason Robards, Steve McQueen, Emile de Antonio, Yoko Ono, Art Carney and Genovese mob boss Frank Costello. Ladybird Johnson invited him to the White House, and he invented the myth that smoking banana peels would get you high (as an ill conceived plot to extract geopolitical revenge on the United Fruit Company, aka Chiquita Banana).

In his later days he replaced LSD with LDS, converting to Mormonism and rechristening himself as Job Matusow. In his final years, he worked as a tireless advocate for the homeless, runaway teenagers and prostitutes while he made ends meet by establishing a successful children’s theater / TV show starring himself as Cockyboo the Clown He tried his whole life to live down his reputation as the most hated man in America for his work with Joseph McCarthy and the House Unamerican Affairs Committee (HUAC), fleeing to self-imposed exile in England in the Sixties, where he immersed himself in the worlds of avant garde art, music and film. While in Britain, he produced the largest festival of avant garde music ever, the ICES 72 concert. He invited his pal Yoko Ono and her husband to London for the gallery show where Yoko met John, making him partially responsible for breaking up The Beatles. (He was fully responsible for breaking up The Weavers, accusing Pete Seeger and other band members of being communists.) And of course, while in the UK, he took lots of acid and recorded his Jews Harp record.

Matusow enlisted in the US Army in 1943 in order to secure a high school diploma he never otherwise would’ve received. Back in New York after the war, he worked various jobs (including as an agent for Dean Martin) while he drifted towards Greenwich Village hootenannies, the folk music revival and the American Communist Party. He set a party record (and won a trip to Puerto Rico) for selling subscriptions to their newspaper, The Daily Worker. But by 1950, he either sensed an opportunity for money and fame, or (according to him) needed to protect his own ass, so he contacted the FBI and began his four year long career as a paid informer for anyone in need of an anti-Communist accuser with bona fide red street cred.

He approached this endeavor with the same gusto he had shown months earlier selling subscriptions to The Daily Worker, and ultimately destroyed the lives of hundreds of innocent Americans, communists and non-communists alike. In 1952 he went to work for Senator Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn who put him on their payroll and encouraged his tendency to create lists of communists out of thin air. Among Matusow’s targets during this period of time were The New York Times and The Girl Scouts. He even went so far as to seduce and marry (twice!) McCarthy’s wealthiest backer, Arvilla Peterson Bentley, moving into her Washington DC mansion (now the German Embassy). Matusow, a high school dropout, had been running a floating craps game a few years earlier, and now he was the darling of the national anti-communist community and living in a mansion with butlers and servants at his beck and call.

In 1954, either because he felt remorse over the destruction he caused, or because he sensed another quick buck, he came clean on his years of lying and perjury with his book False Witness. In it, he truthfully accused Cohn and McCarthy of keeping him on the payroll as a paid witness and a professional liar. For once, Matusow was telling the truth, but Roy Cohn didn’t see it that way. Cohn accused him of lying in the book, and in the ensuing trial, Matusow was convicted of perjury and sentenced to five years in prison. As a professional liar, Matusow had been the toast of the town, but for finally telling the truth, he was imprisoned. It was then that he was dubbed “The Most Hated Man in America” by The National Enquirer, The Baltimore Sun and other papers. Billie Holiday threw him a going-to-jail party, and once in the slammer, he had the cell next to Wilhelm Reich, who died with Matusow just a few feet away.

Released from prison in 1960, Matusow dived into the worlds of art and publishing, but found himself unable to live down his years of redbaiting, an invitation to the White House from Ladybird Johnson notwithstanding (she enjoyed his “Art Collector’s Almanac” He helped found the underground newspaper “The East Village Other” met Timothy Leary, tripped a lot, helped runaway hippies in New York, did lots of standup comedy, pulled off phone pranks with Andy Warhol, and helped organize Norman Mailer’s mayoral run, even getting Christine Keeler to auction off her bra for the cause. Yet there were always people around who detested him for his 1950’s resume, and at a 1966 fundraiser (where he apologized to Pete Seeger for having him blacklisted), he was so vilified by the crowd that he decided to quit the US for England. Once in the UK, he married experimetal musician Anna Lockwood and recovered within London’s vibrant counterculture.

Matusow returned to the US in 1973 and spent the last 30 years of his life living on communes, helping the homeless, pursuing Mormonism and making ends meet by bumming money from old friends and working with his Magic Mouse Theater Troupe and TV show. He died in 2002 as he was working on his autobiography, Stringless Yo Yo.”

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (41 votes, average: 3.73 out of 5)
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