A style of rock that grew out of the hippies’ removal to San Francisco in 1965, in connection with the use of the drug LSD or ‘acid’. It featured extended blues-based improvisations, surrealist lyrics with performances often loud and accompanied by lavish light-shows. The effect was intended to evoke or support a drug-induced state. Prominent bands included Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company and Country Joe and the Fish, who established an alliance with the Californian folk scene. The underground hippy movement largely died after 1967 owing to its exploitation by the media and promoters. However it developed in the UK in the late 1960s, particularly through the experiences with LSD of some musicians, where the style was often combined with the use of Indian instruments. Lennon’s early experiments yielded Tomorrow never knows, which contained lyrics from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Hendrix harnessed guitar distortion to counter-cultural sentiments in songs such as If Six Were Nine and Purple Haze, and the Yardbirds produced the graphically titled Over Under Sideways Down, while the Small Faces’ album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake captured the British mods’ exchange of amphetamines for LSD. Other artists, such as Pink Floyd, the Incredible String Band and Donovan, were also important. Visually, psychedelic bands used a laid-back approach and confident collision of contradictory images, particularly military uniforms with Hindu kaftans (in the UK) or Amerindian clothing (in the USA). In the 1980s such British bands as the Stone Roses attempted to recapture Hendrix’s sound, while the Ozric Tentacles and others married the techniques to a resurgent counter-cultural lifestyle which merged with the rave scene. Psychedelia also infused 1980s dance music and styles like hip hop.
S. Hall: The Hippies: an American ‘Moment’ (Birmingham, 1968) [pubn of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, U. of Birmingham]
R. Middleton: ‘“Way-out” Pop’, Pop Music and the Blues (London, 1972), 227–52
G. Sculatti and S. Seay: San Francisco Nights: the Psychedelic Music Trip 1965–1968 (New York, 1985)
S. Whiteley: The Space between the Notes (London, 1992)
V. Joynson: The Tapestry of Delights (London, 1995)
J. DeRogatis: Kaleidoscope Eyes (London, 1996)
ALLAN F. MOORE