# What made it psychedelic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 8, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407 "2009-01-08T18:47:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/21 "2009-01-09T15:22:06Z")
**Bridget Burke** : interesting post, and thanks for the links. I’ve still got some of the - ahem - ‘artwork’ I did while tripping circa '67 and what surprises me is how similar (in style, not quality) it is to what I would sooner or later see by the likes of Wes Wilson et al. I still treasure one I called ‘Calliopely Underlamb’ 🙂 So, yes I wholeheartedly agree that the acid experience informs the style of the artwork. But I’ve never - then or now- got the psychedlia of the likes of the 13th Floor Elevators or the Charlatans or Love’s first album. They seem like fairly pedestrian rock/blues to me. May be their life style was psychedelic, but, to me, not the music. Love’s Forever Changes \*was \*a psychedelic masterpiece, but I’m not sure why. It doesn’t seem very acid-y to me, but it’s indisputably psychedelic. That’s what prompted me to start this thread. Some psychedelic music is clearly acid influenced, but some, like the above, doesn’t seem to me to be. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/22 "2009-01-09T15:43:37Z")
Modern acid is a weak sister compared to what was moving around in the 60s. Back then, acid would send you into other planes of existance and let you see God. Today, all acid lets you do is watch your feet sink through the couch and not care much. To me, psychedelic music would be characterised by such things as unusual instrumentation, expanded jams, expansive rhythms and structure, and a desire to “expand your boundaries.” A lot like free-form jazz, in fact. Only with electric guitars and feedback. A classic touchstone of the genre is “After Bathing At Baxter’s” by the Jefferson Airplane. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/23 "2009-01-09T15:46:11Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > To me, psychedelic music would be characterised by such things as unusual instrumentation, expanded jams, expansive rhythms and structure, and a desire to “expand your boundaries.” A lot like free-form jazz, in fact. Only with electric guitars and feedback. A classic touchstone of the genre is “After Bathing At Baxter’s” by the Jefferson Airplane. And on this side of the pond the Pink Floyd’s The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/24 "2009-01-09T15:57:42Z")
> [@Small\_Clanger](#): > > What I mean is a full blown trip, post 60s acid is pretty weedy stuff just dropping a (single) modern tab just won’t take you there. I suppose an improper trip would be one you spent watching the QVC shopping channel :eek: one way ticket to Sydville. > > Looking at all the day-glow/kaleidoscopic/paisley/art-deco/op-art stuff and strange lyrics. What all of those have in common is that the folk producing the 60s psychedelia are trying to represent what a trip looks/feels like. Even if you have never been _experienced_ 🙂 it is easy to see the common themes. > > Is that better? I think thatyou’ve nailed it. You cant explain the sensation of a certain state of consciousness to someone who hasen’t actually experienced it themselves no matter how many references you make or styles you connect it to. Its like trying to describe colour to someone who can only see in black and white. Agree with your comments about post sixties acid too,I remember even pre micro dot(though they were excellent IME) but I hated the strychnine come up. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/25 "2009-01-09T16:27:07Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > **freekalette** : > I’m not surprised that this hasn’t generated any interest because I tried a thread on psychedelia some time ago, and it too plummeted like a stone. Sadly, it seems that Dopers aren’t overly interested in this part of '60s culture. I’m more into neo-psych, as in stuff made from the punk era onwards. I’ve always been drawn to the “strange and unusual”, be it slightly off tone colors, otherworldly melodies, stream-of-consciousness lyrics, or what have you. Anything beyond the pale will get my attention, hinting at realms, real or imagined, which exist outside the realm of normal human concerns. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/26 "2009-01-09T18:11:18Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > 😕 Has anyone ever listened to Sgt Pepper while not tripping? _raises hand_ I went through a late-to-the-party Beatles appreciation phase in high school (late 80s), and listened to Sgt. Pepper and the White Album numerous times, and never while on any drugs. I’ve been drunk twice in my life, tried marijuana once, and other than that and temporary, short-term prescription drugs and otc pain relievers (and tobacco), have been clean my whole life. I’d still listen to both albums today if I happened to still have them. ---
**Author:** ![gnagtcha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@gnagtcha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnagtcha)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/27 "2009-01-09T19:51:36Z")
> [@Bridget Burke](#): > > American psychedelic music really started in San Francisco I believe it originally started at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nv. > [@](#): > > Berkeley’s two coffee houses, the Cabale Creamery and the Jabberwock, sponsored performances by folk music artists in a beat setting. In April 1963, Chandler A. Laughlin III, co-founder of the Cabale Creamery, established a kind of tribal, family identity among approximately fifty people who attended a traditional, all-night Native American ceremony in a rural settin. This ceremony combined a psychedelic esperience (peyote) with traditional Native American spiritual values > > A psychedelic experience is characterized by the perception of aspects of one’s mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ordinary fetters. > > These people went on to sponsor a unique genre of musical expression and performance at the Red Dog Saloon in the isolated, old-time mining town of Virginia City, Nevada > > In the summer of 1965, Laughlin recruited much of the original talent that led to a unique amalgam of traditional folk music and the developing psychedelic rock scene. He and his cohorts created what became known as “The Red Dog Experience”, featuring previously unknown musical acts—Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, The Charlatans, The Grateful Dead and others—who played in the completely refurbished, intimate setting of Virginia City’s Red Dog Saloon. There was no clear delineation between “performers” and “audience” in “The Red Dog Experience”, during which music, psychedelic experimentation, a unique sense of personal style and Bill Ham’s first primitive light shows combined to create a new sense of community. Laughlin and George Hunter of the Charlatans were true “proto-hippies”, with their long hair, boots and outrageous clothing of distinctly American (and Native American) heritage. > > Owsley Stanley was the first “underground” chemist to mass produce high-quality LSD in the 1960s… > lived in Berkeley during 1965 and provided much of the LSD that became a seminal part of the “Red Dog Experience”, the early evolution of psychedelic rock and budding hippie culture. At the Red Dog Saloon, The Charlatans were the first psychedelic rock band to play live (albeit unintentionally) loaded on LSD. > > When they returned to San Francisco, Red Dog participants Luria Castell, Ellen Harman and Alton Kelley created a collective called “The Family Dog.” Modeled on their Red Dog experiences, on October 16, 1965, the Family Dog hosted “A Tribute to Dr. Strange” at Longshoreman’s Hall. Attended by approximately 1,000 of the Bay Area’s original “hippies”, this was San Francisco’s first psychedelic rock performance found here Chandler Laughlin later changed his name to Travis T. Hipp and is a well known radio personality around N. Ca. and N. Nv. Recently got busted for drugs ( he’s in his 70’s ) and I think he’s still sitting in jail. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/28 "2009-01-09T19:56:25Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > (And what a trip it must have been. 🆒) It was a wild, strange one. ---
**Author:** ![gnagtcha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@gnagtcha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnagtcha)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/29 "2009-01-09T20:13:07Z")
according to some > [@](#): > > Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that attempts to replicate the mind-altering experiences of hallucinogenic drugs > > The musical style typically features electric guitars, 12 strings being preferred for their ‘jangle’; elaborate studio effects - backwards taping, panning (sound placement in the stereo field), phasing, long delay loops and extreme reverb; exotic instrumentation, with a particular fondness for the sitar and tabla; A strong keyboard presence, especially Hammond, Farfisa and Vox Organs, the Rhodes electric piano, Harpsichords and the Mellotron (an early tape-driven ‘sampler’); a strong emphasis on extended instrumental solos; modal melodies and surreal, esoterically inspired or whimsical lyrics. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/30 "2009-01-09T20:24:02Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > It was a wild, strange one. Or even a long strange trip? ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/31 "2009-01-09T21:30:54Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > Or even a long strange trip? Especially. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/32 "2009-01-10T00:28:35Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > Go tell Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse & Alton Kelley, Wes Wilson and Michael English & Nigel Waymouth that. Maybe the intention was to be symmetrical, but after a few tabs ‘logic and proportion have fallen down sloppy dead’ as Grace Slick so memorably said. Wow, you can name exceptions to the majority style? Dude, I can name twice as many exceptions. Doesn’t change the fact that a HUGE amount of psychedelic art is symmetrical. My theory, they’re too high to come up with a whole idea; half of one is good enough, just do it twice. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/33 "2009-01-10T11:19:50Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Wow, you can name exceptions to the majority style? Dude, I can name twice as many exceptions. Doesn’t change the fact that a HUGE amount of psychedelic art is symmetrical. My theory, they’re too high to come up with a whole idea; half of one is good enough, just do it twice. I’m sorry - I’m not trying to pick an argument here, but I really can’t recollect any symmetrical examples. Though, considering the volume produced, there must be some, but I can’t remember any. I’ve cited artists that back up my assertion. Can you cite examples to support yours? I genuinely would like my ignorance fought. Op art (eg Bridget Riley) was often symmetrical, but I’ve always thought that, despite being contempary, it was a different movement. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/34 "2009-01-10T14:18:11Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > That’s still abstract and requires previous knowledge. I’ve done none of those drugs but can still identify–even create–psychedelic imagery. You do have previous knowledge though. You might not have first hand experience, but you have the knowledge. You couldn’t create it if you didn’t know what it was to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/35 "2009-01-10T16:49:44Z")
Eric Burdon’s Winds of Change is an example of an album cover where the artwork isn’t psychedelic but the message is. On the [front cover](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winds_of_Change_(Eric_Burdon_&_The_Animals_album)), in large letters,he says ‘I love you all, and want you to gain something from these new sounds as I gain from listening to my saints in the past years. If you feel alone and confused and unhappy discontented, just know that I (and there are many like me) love you. And maybe you’ll know why I am happy contented and unconfused. The games I play are mostly games of children (not all) happy games, games of love, games of mystery, games of wonder, please excuse my games of fear and jealousy, I’m only human after all and I’m still a student of life. Maybe the next production will be all games of love, but by then I could be in another world…’ Today, that probably sounds gauche and naive. But in 1967 that was just one example of psychedelic mindset. We really meant it then. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/36 "2009-01-10T18:41:57Z")
Weird for the sake of weird. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/37 "2009-01-10T19:18:28Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > I’m sorry - I’m not trying to pick an argument here, but I really can’t recollect any symmetrical examples. Though, considering the volume produced, there must be some, but I can’t remember any. I’ve cited artists that back up my assertion. Can you cite examples to support yours? I genuinely would like my ignorance fought. > > Op art (eg Bridget Riley) was often symmetrical, but I’ve always thought that, despite being contempary, it was a different movement. A tiny sampling. Note that even the pieces that aren’t perfectly symmetrical in every detail, the single clearly defining compositional principle is symmetry, whether bilateral or radial. Again, there is much psychedelic art that is asymmetrical, but no other genre I can think of is so strongly associated with symmetry. 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**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/38 "2009-01-10T19:25:30Z")
**lissener** I bow down in admiration. Your diligence and hard work is very impressive. You have proved your point without a doubt. ETA: Just one thought. How many of those are from the '60s? Most seem fairly recent. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/39 "2009-01-10T19:30:49Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > **lissener** > > I bow down in admiration. Your diligence and hard work is very impressive. You have proved your point without a doubt. > > ETA: Just one thought. How many of those are from the '60s? Most seem fairly recent. Quite a few of them are vintage pieces, and clearly that’s were the more recent work takes its cue from. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407/40 "2009-01-10T19:35:46Z")
Interesting [article](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/arts/dance/10busb.html?_r=1) about one of the many influences on psychedelic design, Busby Berkeley. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-made-it-psychedelic/480407.md?page=3)