Best psychedelic band ever?

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Just curious as to what band you guys think is the best psychedelic band in history..

I think that I'm personally going to have to go with... Pink Floyd.

Their first album, 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn' is the number one psychedelic album of the Sixties, in my opinion. I mean, you guys listen to 'Interstellar Overdrive' and tell me that it wouldn't trip you out more than anything else you've ever heard. Better than 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' even.

And who can deny that their later albums (Syd Barrett, the band's original guitarist/singer/songwriter had to be replaced after their first album due mental conflicts because of an extensive use of LSD) weren't incredible? 'Dark Side of the Moon,' 'Wish You Were Here,' 'The Wall.' All of these albums were incredibly successful - 'Dark Side of the Moon' stayed on the Billboard Charts for 741 weeks straight!

So, what do you guys think?

[This message has been edited by Xirev (edited June 07, 2002).]

 

I must go for the old work of the Butthole surfers and a few White zombie songs...

Crazy shit...

 

I totally agree with Xirev - 'Piper At The Gates Of Dawn' is one of my favourite albums. Personally, my favourite track is 'Astronomy Domine' - it's a total spinout. I'm not too keen on their later stuff, after Syd left though... they kind of lost their edge, in my opinion.

 

Again, Pink Floyd. When I saw the title of your post, I immediately thought of them.

All in all, it's just another brick in the wall..

 

Sure, Floyd's a great band. But when you start talking 'greatest in history', I think you need to look at the truly ground-breaking bands that came before Floyd. It's really difficult to compare 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' to anything by Floyd, simply because the Beatles (and others) were true innovators, allowing bands like Pink Floyd to follow in their own way. Other bands like The Doors, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and the Yardbirds (and later on, Cream), along with artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan broke the rules, and wrote new ones, as well as essentially inventing a whole new type of music.

Bob Dylan seems to stick out there (as we're talking about psychedelic bands), but there's an intersting bit of history between Dylan and the Beatles' (arguably) greatest album. Apparently, John Lennon and Bob Dylan were both huge fans of each other's music. When they met for the first time, Lennon expressed a great admiration for Dylan's music and, especially, his lyrics. Dylan said that he had always been a fan of the Beatles, and really liked their music - but he wondered why Lennon didn't *say* much with his lyrics! After that meeting, the Beatles next album was Sgt. Pepper...

And of course, there are hundreds of annecdotes about the on and off-stage guitar wars between Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Pete Townsend...but that's another story

Oh, yeah, my vote...for Jimi Hendrix and the Experience. He broke all the rules, and invented a whole new way of making and listening to music.

[This message has been edited by Gnolyn Lochbreaker (edited June 07, 2002).]

 

Pink Floyd really took after no one. Their first album is like nothing the Beatles ever did.. Musically, I think it probably is better. No one can deny that the members of Pink Floyd (at the time), Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright weren't great musicians. Then later with bringing in David Gilmour, who is an incredible guitar player, they only became better.

However, this isn't to say that the Beatles weren't innovators, of course. John Lennon and Paul McCartney are (were, in John's case) incredible songwriters. But I like Pink Floyd better because they started out SO different. In fact, Syd Barrett once decided not to go to a band rehearsal because he felt he didn't have to since John Lennon was off doing something fun - skiing I think.

Of course, no one can argue witht he success of the Beatles. Twenty-one (I think) number one singles and no telling how many number one albums. Definitely incredible.

But their music doesn't fall under the 'psychedelic' category to me. More under the area of 'British pop.' At least in their early years.

Yeah, 'Astronomy Domine' is a great song.

'Lime and limpid green, a second scene, a fight between the blue you once knew...'

BTW, Jimi Hendrix was incredible. Too bad we only have three years of his music. Think of what he could have become in terms of guitar playing. Also, who was the English drummer guy for The Jimi Hendrix Experience? He's awesome!

[This message has been edited by Xirev (edited June 07, 2002).]

 

Pink Floyd is great, I agree, and is probably the greatest psychedelic band -- but my favorite psychedlic *album* is not one of theirs, but "Wheels of Fire" by Cream. So beautiful.

Mitch Mitchell was the Experience drummer. I never think about Hendrix as psychedelic rock -- though he was arguably its originator -- because Hendrix is dance music, for me, not sit-around-being-high music. For that latter group, how about early Yes? the Fugs? the Velvet Underground? And absolutely the Butthole Surfers.

I saw the Surfers in Los Angeles in 1988 -- they opened with "Sweat Loaf" -- a tropical fish video is projected over them and there is a naked girl covered with glow-in-the-dark paint dancing around as the the guitarist and bassist light their hands on fire and play the song that way, and later smash their flaming instruments. That was the first song. It was enough to induce a pychedelic experience, if I had not already been there.

 

Theres always this argument that you get into when you say something like "simply because the Beatles (and others) were true innovators". Most of their early stuff was ripped straight from The Faces, and their later stuff was influenced heavily by Dylan (who introduced them to dope.)

Gnolyn - you're right that Lennon and Dylan impressed each other. All the Beatles were mightily overawed with DYlan to start with, though he only had time for Lennon. Famously, McCartney once came into a room and put on a tape of (genuinely groundbreaking) material, which latter formed part of Sgt Peppers... Dylan stood up and walked out of the room, apparently McCartney's face was a picture...

I'm big into Dr John atm. If you can get hold of a copy of his first ever album - Gris Gris, it is quite unlike anything else you will have ever heard. I belive that, having heard it, Hendrix and Jagger chased Dr John and played on a subsequent album. Heavily surreal stuff...