Old Psychedelic monsters

For anyone who is interested in dipping a toe into the dangerous waters of Psychedelic proto-hard rock, here are a few places to start. As much as I love music of that era, I have to admit that a very large percentage of it is pretty interchangable blues based hard rock. Most of it is pretty good, with the best being well known (Zeppelin, Mountain, Blue Cheer, etc.) However the bands I've listed below are all off the beaten path. I want to emphasise that I'm not talking about gratuitiously "weird" bands like The Deviants or Can or Beefheart. The following are bands that are pretty listenable, it's just that they had unusual influences or were experimenting with styles that never really caught on. But it's all good, heavy guitar oriented rock.

Freedom's Children- Astra
White South African hippies. I'm pretty sure they were anti-aparthied politically. The music is a very unusual mix of power, tribal rhytyms, and general creepiness. Unpredictable and indescribalble, but very good.

Flower Travelin' Band- Satori
A minor legend, from Japan. They don't really sound like they are from anywhere if I had to guess. Long songs without much vocal, and a lot of powerful and unique guitar work.

High Tide-Sea Shanties
A mix of the Doors and Hendrix. Tony Hill plays a lot of killer riffs on this, but if I had to guess I'd say he was stoned on pot and playing free form, because he almost never plays any riff through twice; which makes this somewhat maddeningly complex. It's not mindless din by any means, but it's extremely progressive.

Writing on the Wall- Power of the Picts
A cross between Bloodrock and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Kinda apocalyptic with some spiritual themes, but ideosyncratic like Brown or Trouble in that regard. Scottish band. A sort of stoner doom that never really caught on, nothing like Sabbath at all. From 1969.

other very good but sorta unique albums...

T.2.- It'll All Work Out in Boomland
Dark- Round the Edges
Master's Apprentices- s/t & A toast to Panama Red
Steel Mill- Green Eyed God

all heavy, unique, and good!

Sounds cool, but i'm not into the whole psychedelia thing. I'll check some of it out though!

Freedom's children has the most dominating heavy oppressive grinding organ sound i've ever heard! And in general Astra is one haunting and creepy heavy acid rock record. Shows what happens with bands from far flung isolated territories like South Africa. Alot of those heavy South American bands from the early 70's are like that too, in that their isolation leads to crazy mutations in their take on UK and US music.

Yeah, that Freedoms Children Astra CD I really shouldn't call Psych or Acid or anything. It's not fair to the album. I've really never heard anything else like it (even more so than the other bands listed above). These are more just cul-de-sacs in the evolution of metal than psych or anything.

Hey Rattpoison, think about trying to find the Dark "Round the Edges" CD. I have seen very little written about that album, and it was available in an original vinyl pressing of only 200. But it's really high quality progressive hardrock, pretty heavy, ahead of it's time IMO...and there are CD's out there now. A real sleeper!

I found an album called "Gunsight" by a group called Gun from 1969, that could fall under this category. I never heard of them until I saw this disc used for like $1 and was pleasantly surprised by how cool it was, if you can find that disc I suggest checking it out(if it's cheap).

Where are these cheap bins full of like $1-$5 cds? I've never seen one around where i live!

I just found it sitting at a used cd store, granted it had been there for awhile. I finally gave it a chance and the rest they say is all she wrote.

Coincidentally, a former member of Gun (Peter Dunton) was also in the great band T2 (see above), in which he was the drummer & vocalist!
The most famous members of Gun were the Gurvitz brothers, who went on to morph into the Three Man Army, and then add Ginger Baker (Cream, Hawkwind, etc.) to form the Baker-Gurvitz Army.
As much as I loved the Baker-Gurvitz Army (a lot!), the heaviest and best album by a Gun connected band was by T2 IMO.
I think Gun was most famous for "Race With the Devil", later covered by Black Oak Arkansas, among others.

SAHB Healer wrote:

Hey Rattpoison, think about trying to find the Dark "Round the Edges" CD. I have seen very little written about that album, and it was available in an original vinyl pressing of only 200. But it's really high quality progressive hardrock, pretty heavy, ahead of it's time IMO...and there are CD's out there now. A real sleeper!

Found it on a blogspot and downloaded it. And your right its a monster! Hows the guitar in the song Darkside. I can't believe i've never heard this one, you think you've got a lot of this stuff covered and then something like this comes along. If i find it for a reasonable price i'll get, put even the reissues are going for quite a bit of money. This is how i get most of this music, so much this rare expensive out of print stuff is available for download on all these blogspots's which is great. Although the collector in me cringes, but their's no way a uni student that works part time like me can compete with some of the crazy prices alot of these obscurities go for.

I don't think many people know Dark. I think they just gave their 200 copies to friends and sold a few at shows.
To be honest, when i first heard this I convinced myself that it was some sort of counterfeit or fake classic, since the production is so good and the guitars so ballsy for an indy of that vintage it sounded too good to be true. But no, it's legit. I think I got mine for under $30 american.

A not-so-rare-but-awesome psychadelic (?) record I heard awhile back is Coven - Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls. Quite a weird album for the time, but it has an eerie feel to it. The chick makes me feel like I'm am going to hell.

http://www.geocities.com/occult_library/coven.html

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=150624552

Yeah a great one, kinda like if Black Widow actually had some musical muscle. Creepy stuff really. They had a guy called Oz Osbourne on bass and the first song is called Black Sabbath, and all this was in 1969.

Thanks for all the info SAHB. The Internet is not very kind to these guys, there is not a whole lot on them even on the fact-based Wikipedia.

Coven - Witchcraft Destroys.....
(I'm sure the band won't mind)

http://rapidshare.com/files/74377566/Coven-Witchcraft_Destroys_Minds___Reaps_Souls.zip.html

pass: Ilikeeatingshoepolish

rattpoison wrote:

Yeah a great one, kinda like if Black Widow actually had some musical muscle. Creepy stuff really. They had a guy called Oz Osbourne on bass and the first song is called Black Sabbath, and all this was in 1969.

Uh, oh. I don't have that one. I think you guys just spent some of my money. Another one I don't have is the J.T.P. Scare Band. It's out there, but I can't find a reliable source.