6. Electric Prunes: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)

The Electric Prunes are something of a missing link between garage band and acid rock. They made the top-40 twice, "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)" was their first, and biggest hit, reaching #11 in 1967. They were largely a studio creation; the band was controlled by a production and songwriting team that fired and replaced members at will. Their third album, Mass in F Minor, recorded with different musicians than this recording, is an acid rock legend; a psychedelic church mass sung mostly in Latin. The single from that album, "Kyrie Eleison", was featured during the acid freak-out scene in the movie Easy Rider. That one would be a purer example of the genre to include here, although "I Had Too Much To Dream" is a better illustration of the garage band roots of many acid rock bands. Yet another version of this band recorded a fourth album in 1969 before their label dropped them.

7. The Frost: Sweet Jenny Lee

The Frost were a Detroit band led by singer/guitarist Dick Wagner, who had previously played in a band called the Bossmen, featuring bassist Mark Farner, who would go on to form Grand Funk Railroad. The Frost were another power-trio-with-organ band, and their leadoff cut from their debut "Sweet Jenny Lee" sounds like a cross between The Zombies and the Amboy Dukes. The album from which it comes features a somewhat poppier psychedelic sound, borrowing some ideas from English psychedelia, but also carries a dose of Detroit hard rock grit that keeps this in acid rock territory. Wagner would later help Farner set up Grand Funk Railroad, and would himself back both Lou Reed and Alice Cooper.

8. Attila: California Flash

Attila was a particularly unusual duo from Long Island that released a single LP in 1970. Formed by two members of the Hassles, Jon Small and Billy Joel, the LP featured massively heavy and distorted Hammond B-3 playing from Joel while Small flailed at the drumkit. Joel's organ gets treatment from anything and everything, especially promiscuous use of a wah-wah, everything is amplified to the point of white noise; the vocals rarely vary beyond shouts. Joel himself disowns the album, but it is interesting to see what the Piano Man was up to at the end of the psychedelic 60's. The album failed to sell, and the duo's fate was sealed when Joel seduced Small's wife, whom he eventually married.

9. Ultimate Spinach: Ego Trip

In 1967, when San Francisco briefly became the countercultural capitol of America, record labels went on a signing frenzy, signing any band they could find within miles of the city. In late 1967, arranger Alan Lorber hatched the idea to hype the Boston music scene as the next big thing, calling the bands active there by the moniker, "The Bosstown Sound". MGM records, who had largely missed the boat in San Francisco, attempted to get in at the ground floor with the Bosstown sound; their flagship signing was Ultimate Spinach. Their very name was an acid rock ridiculousism; hipsters smirked at Lorber's pipe dream and skipped the albums. Ultimate Spinach were doomed by the hype, but their debut isn't bad as far as acid rock goes; Ian Bruce-Douglas was the primary creative force as singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, and he specialized in darker, more frightening psychedelic imagry than most of the West Coast bands. Unrelenting promotion pushed this album to #34 in 1968; the band's follow-up would stall at #198, and they broke up after a third album failed to chart at all.