VENETIC

Great Psychedelic Albums:

A Personal Collection

by W.S. McCallum

(W.S. McCallum)

So here you are, having found your way to this Web page – you’ll be wondering what’s it all about. First let’s start by saying what this listing isn’t:

It’s not a review of CD compilations or retrospectives. All of the original vinyl albums examined here will feature a suite of songs, possibly based on a concept, which hold together and present some sort of thematic or musical unity.

It isn’t a downloads page. If you want this stuff for your collection, you’ll have to go to one of those Web sites and get it from them. If you want some of my music however, go and have a listen on my home page or my MySpace site (see below).

It isn’t one of those lists of “great albums you must hear before you die”. Objectively speaking, you could probably live out the rest of your days quite happily without hearing any of the titles to be examined on this page. In some cases, it may even be better if those of you with a nervous disposition, or those prone to mental instability or bouts of insanity DID NOT hear various of these records. I am not striving for universal appeal here, or offering up music for the delectation of the general public. Instead, you’ll be getting some strange stuff that would make most people run a mile.

It isn’t a ranking. We are not going to start at 99 or even 9,999 and then work through the top psychedelic albums of all time until I reach Number One With A Bullet which, like some spastic adolescent trainspotter, I will then defy all-comers to prove ISN’T the pinnacle of recorded excellence. This isn’t Mojo magazine or one of those tedious music periodicals that fill up empty space by printing top 100s lists. I really don’t care which is supposedly the greatest psychedelic album of all time, or about arguing with some vinylhead about why album X should be ranked 56th rather than 78th, because that’s where he would put it (and they’re always “he’s” aren’t they?).

It isn’t inclusive or exclusive. The presence of given albums here does not place them on some pedestal which rules out their ever being joined by other recordings. You are going to be exposed to as many (or as few) albums as I happen to end up choosing to write about for whatever reasons.

So based on what criteria am I inflicting my tastes on you, the unsuspecting Internaut? Well, I want to get away from the Who/Hendrix/Doors end of the genre. The world does not need yet another review of Tommy, Electric Ladyland, or Strange Days: the predictable stuff that has been radio fodder for decades now and has been hammered together into a canon of rock gods we supposedly cannot dispense with. What I want to do is look at albums recorded by various groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s that most people have never heard of, in an attempt to show just how far-reaching psychedelic music could be. I will also be looking at albums which, for one reason for another, have, over the years, stuck in my mind and made an impression (for better or worse).

So, here we go, in no particular order:

Markley: A Group by Bob Markley

House of Leather by the Blackwood Apology

"I'm Gonna Take You Home" by Yahowha 13