Sunday Morning Playlist: Acid Rock
Published May 29, 2005
![Blue Cheer [Concert Poster] (1967)](http://img288.echo.cx/img288/3545/bluecheerposter1ck.jpg)
![Iron Butterfly/Spirit [Concert Poster] (1969)](http://img288.echo.cx/img288/6352/ironbuuerflyposter9xz.jpg)
Acid Rock is a designation given to a very short-lived style of rock that remains important today chiefly for providing the missing link between psychedelic rock of the 1960's and heavy metal.
In 1967, the hyper amplified improvisations of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience took the music into new realms of trippiness; distorted, fuzzy, feedback-drenched, improvisational, heavy, and loud. The success of these bands inspired a new heavy music by acidheads for acidheads, and it was a distictly different sound. Perhaps the quintessential acid-rock recording was the 17-minute long "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", a song so self consciously heavy it has become the punchline of many jokes; still, the hugeness of the riffs and the neverending drum, guitar, and organ solos sandwiched between two ends of a primitive riff-based song tapped into something; the album became Atlantic Records' best seller ever in 1968, a record Led Zeppelin would eclipse the following year.
![Big Brother & The Holding Co. [Concert Poster] (1967)](http://img288.echo.cx/img288/7900/bigbrotherwhiskey2cd.jpg)
![Steppenwolf [Concert Poster] (1969)](http://img288.echo.cx/img288/8867/steppenwolfposter7ro.jpg)
There were generally two types of acid rock bands; those who were mutant forms of blues-rock, and those derived from 60's garage band styles. Blue Cheer and Steppenwolf represent the garage band side; Blue Cheer had evolved from a punky garage band, The Other Half; the genesis of Steppenwolf was The Sparrow. In most cases, including Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, and Vanilla Fudge, an organ played a prominant role in deepening the riffs on overall sound; others, like Blue Cheer, stuck with a pure power-trio approach, relying on sheer volume for heaviness.
Where these bands differed from the psychedelic music appearing both in America and England at the time was in its attitude, which was of a more jaded variety than the hippie optimisms of psychedelia, and also in the primitive approach to the music; psychedelia's tendency was to get intricate; acid-rock reduced things to their basic element, and relied on virtuoso solos to provide the thrills more than clever arrangement.
As a rule, these bands drew a tougher element to their shows; Steppenwolf, Big Brother and the Holding Co., Blue Cheer were biker favorites; Hell's Angels even endorsed Big Brother & The Holding Co.'s 1968 album Cheap Thrills right on the R. Crumb designed cover. While there was some audience crossover with the gentler hippie element via many shared venues, there wasn't a lot of intermingling. The bikers thought hippies were saps, and the hippies were afraid of the bikers.
![SRC [Promotional Poster] (1969)](http://img288.echo.cx/img288/7347/srcmilestones4nk.jpg)
Acid rock accomodated this tough attitude; the trips it laid were ultra-psychedelic in a rudimentary way. It was music specifically for drug consumption. However, as the 1960's neared the end, following countless burnouts, psychedelia was on its way out; the bikers reverted to speed, downers, and booze, while the hippies either got religion or drifted towards the back-to-the-earth rusticism of country-rock. Acid-rock evolved to suit this new era, losing the psychedlia, cranking up the volume even higher, accenting the bass, keeping the organ (Deep Purple, Uriah Heep) or losing it (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath) and turned into the longest lived and most subgenre spawning rock style of them all: heavy metal.
- Sunday Morning Playlist: Acid Rock
- Published: May 29, 2005
- Type: Review
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Classic Rock and Oldies, Music: Rock
- Part of a feature: Sunday Morning Playlist
- Writer: uao
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Great list. Yeah, I had too much to dream last night. But it wasn't drug induced.
Then there are your bands that are of the acid rock circles that were a bit more direct in their message, therefore removing the acid from the style a bit. Like Jefferson Airplane. The 'Crown of Creation' album is stellar. Songs like 'Lather' (hhhmmm...that one is acidic) or 'Greasy Heart' will stick with me forever. Huh, I guess that is all acid rock. But I like the selections you made. Ultimate Spinach? I remember that one!
Anyway, just a theory...
peaceloveguidance
Oh god, so if it becomes a radio hit, does that make it ACID POP? Acid pop, I think I drank some of that stuff in the later 60s. It was like Tang.
yu can add early flaming lips to that list i think..
Thanks guys. Vern, I'm with you on Steppenwolf, they're a lot better than given credit for.
sydney, I didn't include Flaming Lips because they're from a different generation, but they are fairly psychedelic in their own way. I classified them as noise pop.
Douglas-
Jefferson Airplane will be included when I do a Haight-Ashbury playlist (so much music, so little time). They're a lifelong obsession of mine, I also plan a stand-alone artist overview on them someday.
Ever since I read this column, The Stawberry Alarm Clock's hit "Incense and Peppermints" has been dominating my brain.
Trivia - Ed King, original guitarist with Lynyrd Skynyrd (he's on their first two albums, which means he's playing on the meir monster hit Sweet Home Alabama), was also guitarist for....the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Go fig.
Even more trivial:
I happened to wander into Amoeba records, a giant emporium of new/used rock stuff in the middle of Hollywood.
They have live shows in there, it's so big; one night, while waiting for a bus, I caught Los Lobos.
On this night, I wnett in there, and who was playing bu Strawberry Alarm Clock (or a band who claimed to be them, most of the members looked a little too young, but there was one grizzled guy, too). Fronting the band was Lynn Carey, former lead singer of the blues-hard-rock Mama Lion, an early 70's outfit that had their cover banned for featuring Carey breast-feeding a lion cub. Their music is long forgotten, but she had good pipes.
This is akin to hearing the Grass Roots fronted by Danny Partridge; it was kinda surreal.
All I was after was a cheap DVD of a flick or two.
super uao, fascinating stuff, didn't know that about Billy Joel! Interesting that you see acid rock and psychedelia split, with acid rock emphasizing the "heavy" and mutating into metal. Thanks!
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As is often the case, your tastes intersect mine. One point - I would disagree that Steppenwolf is an acid rock band - I think they had other elements that were more prominent. However, you make the point that their music holds up just fine; I wish the rest of the world would catch on to this and give John Kay & Co. the critical respect they deserve and not just regard them as a footnote to the 60's.
Iron Butterfly - if you get past In A Gadda Da Vida, they had some wonderful cuts. Their current best of CD is a must have.
Electric Prunes - second album is good too - a companion piece to the first.