I'm very impressed with the person I imagine the average Blogcritics participant to be. I've taken no surveys, gotten few hints into your psyche, have very little actually to go by except the thoughtful reviews and comments I've seen here in the last few days.
I'm going to guess that if you've been here twice you are a music listener with fairly broad tastes but a special fondness for rock music. I'll imagine you are a fairly thoughtful individual; intelligent and curious; open-minded towards new things but also a tad traditional, someone who likes a lot of new music they hear, but often obsesses over old favorites.
That's fine; we all do that.
I'll also hazard a guess that most of you range from college age to middle age; that would put you squarely in the 20-50 bracket. So, we're looking at Generation X and the younger half of the Baby Boom.
So, I might even go out on a limb and suggest a few of you -and I'm not saying who- have experimented with drugs.
We're all adults here, so we needn't get into the dangers of drugs here, their health effects, which ones are the most fun, which ones are wacked out, and the like. We'll get to that one day too I suspect.
Let's focus on the music; the soundscape to a lovely trip.
In the old days, drug music was famously provided by bands like Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Pink Floyd, even our friends the Beatles.
Much has been written about that music in the past; I'm assuming most of you are familiar with those guys.
But if you're anything like me, there are days when you like a fresh new soundscape to listen to. Even the squares have to admit that there really is a finite number of listens one can give Atom Heart Mother or Aoxomoxoa.
There's Phish and Widespread Panic and String Cheese Incident and Rusted Root and all those other jam bands that split up the Grateful Dead's market share after Jerry Garcia died. They make good music; nothing wrong with it. But their fans will be the first to tell you (like some Dead fans even will) that the recordings don't ever quite capture the essence of the band. To appreciate them, the conventional wisdom goes, you really had to be there.
Article comments
1 - Eric Berlin
Great post, well written and fun, uao. I hit your target demo fairly accurately, though I'm not (yet) a space rock guy. I'll check out some of the tracks you've listed, however.
2 - HW Saxton
Here's a couple of suggestions for some
cool background music for those parties
when you're lounging around doing a bit
of toad licking or smoking banana peels:
Can- Tago Mago,Ege Bamyasi,Monster Movie
Miles Davis - Dark Magus,Get Up With It
Silver Apples - Contact
The Godz - Contact High With...
Amon Duul- Phallus Dei
Hawkwind - Hall Of The Mountain Grill
Red Crayola - Parable Of Arable Land
Neu - Neu(S/T),Neu 2
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
Pink Floyd - Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Bruce Haack - Electric Lucifer
Faust - So Far
13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere
Tried to keep it in the "Rock Spectrum".
But to be fair,there are many,many Dub
Reggae & Jazz records that are much more
trippy than a lot of Rock records are.
All of the above are quite enjoyable for
when the Coca-Cola & Aspirin or what the
doctor gave you starts to kick in good.
3 - uao
That's a fine list, HW.
I'm nuts about Can, SIlver Apples, "Maggot Brain", Red Krayola, Amon Duul II, and a fan of the others.
Haven't heard faust, Neu, or Bruce haack yet; I've put them on my to-do list.
And I'll second the dub sentiments, too. King Tubby taught me a whole new way to appreciate my toad skins.
4 - Eric Olsen
love the space-rock, neo space-rock, trippy dub, psychedelia, neo-psychedelia, etc, etc
Great calls uao and HW!!
Dub: Lee Perry, Mad Professor, the Bill Laswell dub projects (especially a duo with Jah Wobble), Adrian Sherwood, etc etc
Space and Neo-Space Rock (no order, off the top of my head, avoiding all-electronic): first Primal Scream, Pink Fairies' Kings of Oblivion, Gong-Steve Hillage, Mogwai, Low Spark-period Traffic, Mercury Rev
5 - Will Cate
Glad to see you gave The Verve (or simply "Verve" as they were originally known) their props. I really miss those guys. I'm a longtime Deadhead (age 44) but also dig 70's Cantebury-type psych (Gong, Soft Machine and anything related).
6 - Will Cate
Oops... Canterbury, that is... sorry for the misspelling.
7 - Mark Saleski
UFO- Flying: One Hour Space Rock
8 - Mark Saleski
Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene
9 - Mark Saleski
Ozric Tentacles - Jurrasic Shift
10 - Eric Olsen
I also love some real "space" space music as in Hearts of Space label
11 - cichsjr
Don't forget about Loop. They were a great band from the Spacemen 3 days.