Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #100 - 76

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's behind the Joke Wall from 100 to 76...

100. The Monkees- "Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?" (1968), in which Peter Tork feels it's necessary to state the obvious.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #125 - 101

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's following the White Rabbit from 125 to 101...

124. The Turtles- "You Showed Me" (1968), in which The Turtles take an old folk-rock tune The Byrds couldn't be bothered to release and turn it into something sinister and majestic.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #200 - 176

 Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's 2000 light years from home from 200 to 176...

200. The Beatles- "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" (1967), in which John Lennon takes full advantage of all the grey areas in circus-poster copyright law.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #225 - 201

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's bogarting that joint from 225 to 201...

225. The Pretty Things- "Private Sorrow" (1968), in which S.F. Sorrow is drafted into the army and kicks off an adulthood of non-stop trauma.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #250 - 226

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's seeing sounds and smelling colors from 250 to 226...

250. Jefferson Airplane- "She Has Funny Cars" (1967), in which Jefferson Airplane express the belief that owning several cars with pop-up chassis is really what makes a lady attractive. 

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #325 - 301

 Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's smoking a number from 325 to 301...

325. Os Mutantes- "Adeus Maria Fulô" (1968), in which Os Mutantes give the clearest possible response to the question, "Wait...so what exactly is Tropicália?"

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #400 - 376

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's piping at the gates of dawn from 400 to 376...

400. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band- "Abba Zabba" (1967), in which it's probably best not to think too much about Captain Beefheart's apparent interpretation of traditional Native American music and just enjoy how damn freaky it is. 

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #450 - 426

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's being beautiful from 450 to 426...

450. The Byrds- "Old John Robinson" (1968). in which The Byrds take a sort of old-fashioned folk tune and bring it up to date with a baroque string interlude and mega-phasing.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #500 - #476

Here at Psychobabble, we love many genres, from punk to soul to new wave to jazz to alt rock to prog to goth. But no genre is dearer to your host's heart than psychedelia. The fanciful lyrics! The cacophonous yet dreamy music! The sitars! The Mellotrons! The unfettered Lewis Carroll references!

And so today begins a new series intended to be the mind-melting equivalent of licking a sheet of acid the size of the Sgt Pepper's gatefold. You will be counting along with me downward toward my personal choice for the single greatest psychedelic song of all time. Along the way, you will drift pass my 500th favorite psychedelic song, my 499th favorite, my 498th, my...well you get the picture. 

Each new installment will go live every Monday from now until it all wraps up in September or whenever (whoa, man, I'm way too high to do calendar math!).

I have limited my selections to the original wave of psychedelia, which means there will be nothing by very worthy later-day trip makers, such as Dukes of Stratosphear and The Flaming Lips, and much by those who did their doings between the years of 1965 and 1971. 

Although the years are limited, the artists will not be, though some are more favored than others because, to reiterate, these are my personal fave raves. So while you will encounter artists from NYC to LA, from Shepherd's Bush to Liverpool, from Brazil to Lebanon, you will not encounter The Grateful Dead. They're bullshit.

So slip into your cleanest Nehru jacket, flick on that lava lamp, fire up a joss stick, repeat "Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō" until you reach nirvana, turn to page 100 of The Wind in the Willows, and we will begin with our first batch of 25 lysergic anthems...

#500. Status Quo- "Pictures of Matchstick Men" (1968), in which a bunch of future pub rockers jump the psychedelic bandwagon with warped wah-wah guitars, a piercing yet infectious riff, and some nonsense about men made out of the sticks you use to light up smokes, though the average Status Quo fan is probably more inclined to light a Chesterfield than an herbal jazz cigarette.

Review: The Eyes' 'My Degeneration'

The Eyes are often lumped in with the freaky British mod groups like The Who, The Creation, and Small Faces, and their best-known tracks do sort of crib the riff from "I Can't Explain" and Townshend's pickup-flicking from "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere". But with their sneering R&B vibe, The Eyes owe as much to the The Pretty Things. Tracks like the "I Can't Explain"-cribbing "I'm Rowed Out", the "Anyway, Anyhow"-cribbing "When the Night Falls", the "My Generation"-cribbing "My Degeneration", and "The Immediate Pleasure", which just might not crib anything at all, have the echoey, mysteriously seedy vibe of the Pretties during their "Can't Stand the Pain"/"£.S.D." heyday. The Eyes certainly sounded much tougher than their uniforms of stripey shirts affixed with pics of their own faces in eye-shaped fields might have suggested. I guess they would have to.

Review: 'Strange House' by The Attack

London's The Attack had gone through quite a few personel changes by the time they started work on what was to be their first album, the subtly titled Roman God of War. By this point they'd lost Davy O'List to The Nice and the insufferable camp of "Created by Clive" and buckled down to power out psychedelic heavy rock in the vein of The Yardbirds and Pretty Things. 

Farewell, Phil May

Phil May was the face and voice of one of the most raucous British R&B bands. He then led The Pretty Things down a far more creative path when his short story about the life and death of a WWI vet became the basis of the first full-length--and as far as I'm concerned, best--rock opera: S.F. Sorrow. 

The Pretty Things never achieved the fame of The Rolling Stones or The Who, but they were arguably as fierce as the former and as creative as the latter. With his unusually long hair, sinister whisper-to-a-scream voice, and rule-redefining creativity, Phil May was a huge part of what made The Pretty Things distinctive and great. 

Sadly, I just learned that May died nearly a week ago on May 15 of complications resulting from a bicycling accident. He was 75.

Review: 'Gathered from Coincidence: The British Folk Pop Sound of 1965-1966'

In 1963, The Beatles revolutionized pop with a distinctly English ear for melody and harmony and an uncompromised big beat yanked from the yanks. That same year Dylan rearranged the face of folk with a ragged edge that brought the sanitized harmonies of The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul, & Mary to Earth and a surreal ways with words that kicked it back into the cosmos. As dissimilar as their styles were at the time, there was already some cross-pollination between folk and pop happening. As early as 1962, Dylan rocked up his hootenanny with the obscure “Mixed-Up Confusion”, and The Beatles’ debut single, “Love Me Do” was more folk than pop with its turgid beat, absence of electric six-strings, and wheezy harmonica. Once Dylan and The Beatles became aware of each other, such heavy petting was over and the marriage was officially consummated as Dylan’s influence loomed all over “I’ll Be Back” and much of Beatles for Sale and The Beatles’ beat inspired Dylan to plug in… though his stripped down, thumping sound was always more Stones than Beatles. It took The Byrds to pointedly fuse Dylan’s far-out poetry and The Beatles’ clean jingle-jangle, officially putting a face on the new folk-rock genre.

Between Mersey Beat-dominated ’64 and psychedelic ’67, folk-rock was the dominant pop style for young, white artists. Even such hardened souls as the Stones, Kinks, and Pretty Things got sucked into it. Appropriately, Grapefruit Records’ new triple-disc collection Gathered from Coincidence: The British Folk Pop Sound of 1965-1966 limits its scope to those two years, and while it’s reasonable to wonder if its location and period limitations result in a limited listening experience, they don’t.

Instead of just spotlighting songs that reflect The Byrds’ 12-string shimmer, Gathered from Coincidence presents a variety of sounds that fall within its narrow premise. There is electric jangle (Peter and Gordon’s “Morning’s Calling”, The Silkie’s “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”, The Hollies’ “Very Last Day”) but also solo acoustic pieces (Donovan’s “Catch the Wind”), full-band acoustic rambles (The Kinks’ “Wait Til the Summer Comes Along”), heavy-beat rock (The Pretty Things’ “London Town”, Manfred Mann’s “If You Gotta Go, Go Now”), shades of distinctly British baroque pop (Marianne Faithfull’s “Come and Stay with Me”), bubblegum folk (Twinkle’s “Golden Lights”, Heinz’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”), elaborate productions that fly in the face of folk’s dogged simplicity (Murray Head’s “The Bells of Rhymney”, Justin Hayward’s “Day Must Come”), and some of the turgid, old-fashioned stuff that Rock & Roll mostly swept away (Ian Campbell Folk Group’s “The Times They Are-A Changin’”, First Gear’s “Gotta Make the Future Bright”).

As you probably sussed from the artist and song names, Gathered from Coincidence contains some big groups and a lot of Dylan covers. It also has some varying perspectives, as parodies such as Alan Klein’s “Age of Corruption” and Micha’s “Protest Singer” protest the protest singers, though neither are particularly listenable (however, John Cassidie’s “Talkin’ Denmark Street” is the uncanniest Dylan send up I’ve ever heard). Fortunately, such bum tracks are pretty rare and Gathered from Coincidence ends up a mostly consistent and varied collection of songs from the beginning of pop’s most fruitful period.

Review: 'Psychedelia: 101 Iconic Underground Rock Albums 1966-1970'

LSD has a tendency to confuse the senses, so it’s no coincidence that pop’s most acid-soaked years birthed its most visual music. The late sixties’ psychedelic discs often came housed in fluorescent, marvelously garish sleeves, but nothing more than the sounds in the grooves was necessary to paint multicolor images in listener’s minds. Sgt. Pepper’s, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Disraeli Gears, Axis: Bold As Love, and The Doors are among the most celebrated of these trippy masterworks, but as Richard Morton Jack hips us with his new book Psychedelia: 101 Iconic Underground Rock Albums 1966-1970, there was a lot more happening in the acid era.

Frankly, I am ashamed to admit how puny a percentage of Morton Jack’s picks I’ve heard, but I will admit that’s a good thing. Any book of this sort is useless without recommending unfamiliar music, and the hunt was on after reading the write ups on obscurities such as The David’s majestic Another Day, Another Lifetime, The Millennium’s sunny and wonderful  Begin, and The Fallen Angels’ haunting (though not exceptionally psychedelic)  It’s a Long Way Down. Yes, I missed inclusion of personal favorites such as The Monkees’ Head, The Rascals’ Once Upon a Dream, Shine on Brightly by Procol Harum, and The Who Sell Out (which received similar short shrift in another recent Sterling Publishing publication), but of course, I’ve already heard those albums. Still, Morton Jack’s details are intriguing enough that I may have learned a thing or two about these old favorites had he decided to include them.

Each entry follows a similar format beginning with a bit of background history, details about and critique of the given album (no, the author does not love every album he selects), quotes from participants, and excerpts from period reviews. I wasn’t aware that The Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow and Love’s Forever Changes—two widely acclaimed classics now—were so poorly received in their days. We also get a slew of large-scale, full-color images of the genre’s vibrant album covers, which may explain why such pics were missing from that other recent Sterling book to which I referred earlier. Illuminating and suitably visual, Psychedelia: 101 Iconic Underground Rock Albums is a coffee table book that may inspire you to substitute that cup of coffee with something “a bit more potent.”*

*I’m talking about acid. You might want to take some acid while reading this book.

Review: 'Let’s Go Down and Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967'

The psychedelic scene of the sixties has been well covered over innumerable compilations. Most deal in fairly broad strokes, perhaps covering a particular region (usually the UK or U.S.) or strain (maybe the garage rock of Nuggets or twee pop of Ripples Vol. III) in the general zone of 1966 through 1969. As its title blares, Cherry Red’s Let’s Go Down and Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967 gets more specific.

Review: 'Bouquets From A Cloudy Sky: The Complete Pretty Things Deluxe Boxset Collection'

Could The Pretty Things have achieved more than cult success in America if their manager didn’t have the lack of vision to book them on a New Zealand tour instead of taking them to the U.S. in the early days of their career? Did this possibly fatal decision allow The Rolling Stones to swoop in and swipe the title of Rock’s dirtiest, nastiest band in the world’s biggest pop market, leaving The Pretty Things doomed to cult act status? I kind of doubt it. Just hold up photos of the two bands circa 1965 side by side. See how relatively short the Stones’ hair is. See how nattily they dressed, even if they weren’t wearing matching suits like those fit-for-grandma Beatles did. See how long and unkempt The Pretty Things’ hair is, and I don’t just mean singer Phil May’s celebrated mane. Dick Taylor’s facial scruff looks like it reeks of beat clubs and pot stench and stage sweat. Had this mob appeared on American shores in 1965, they probably would have been tossed in the nearest zoo.

But could they have made it here if radio played their records more aggressively? I doubt that too. Unlike the Stones, who had good noses for pop hits, the Pretties were too uncompromising in their devotion to the hardest blues. They were so unwilling to bend to the strictures of radio that they not only recorded an obscure R&B song called “Come See Me” as aggressively as possible, they left in the line about laying a girl, and had the sheer madness to put it out as a single. Naturally, U.S. stations refused to play it. By the time The Pretty Things went psychedelic with “Defecting Grey”, a “song” that sounds like it was pieced together from bits of tape during some sort of arts and crafts class at the local mental institution, the possibility that they’d ever hit it big in America had long since gone AWOL. Hell, we didn’t even give them credit for putting out the first LP-length rock opera!

Normally, bands who don’t come within a mile of taking America as assuredly as the Stones did don’t get the kind of treatment The Pretty Things do with their new box set Bouquets From A Cloudy Sky: The Complete Pretty Things Deluxe Boxset Collection. Once again, they have little interest in such rules. This heavy duty set audaciously expects cultists to plunk down some serious coin for all eleven of the band’s studio albums, two extra discs of rarities, a replica acetate disc, two DVDs, and sundry books and posters and artwork. Actually, Bouquets isn’t terrible value if you don’t have all this stuff already. Compare it to another fairly recent box from Snapper records: Small Faces’ Here Come the Nice. That 2013 set only had four CDs and no DVDs and went for about £95.00 on Burning Shed.com compared to the £125.00 they’re asking for Bouquets as of this writing. Granted, that deal is less enticing for anyone who already owns all the Pretties CDs that have been available for years, because they are apparently identical to the ones in this new set. I only received a fifteen-song sampler, but listening to its tracks against the discs already in my collection, I detect no mastering differences. There is no indication otherwise in the pdf of the hardback book I also received (it’s a well-illustrated, critically balanced mini-biography of the band’s fifty years of bad behavior, though it does contain a few minor errors and really just whetted my appetite for the full-blown biography the band really deserves). Snapper’s decision to go with the stereo mix of S.F. Sorrow instead of the far superior mono one is a questionable decision, and the true completist will want to purchase it elsewhere.

Nevertheless, you still have three discs of material unavailable anywhere else. I am unqualified to assess those two CDs of rarities (which do not contain any of the fabulous recordings the band made under the name The Electric Banana, probably because of rights issues) since I didn’t receive it, but I did get to stream Midnight to Six 1965 – 1970, Reelin’ in the Years Productions’ documentary that was supposed to see release back in 2011 but was derailed by clearance and distribution issues. Like other entries in Reelin’ in the Years’ British Invasion series, Midnight to Six features new interviews with band members intercut with vintage song performances in their entireties. The interviews are interesting, though there’s a lot of informational overlap with the book included in this set. Still it’s cool to hear these wild stories right from the guys’ mouths, just as it’s cool to see them perform even when they’re only lip-syncing to recordings. The totally live performance footage, however, is spellbinding. It’s one thing to listen to these albums. It’s another to see 21-year old Phil May flipping his outrageous-for-1965-length hair while dropping to his knees as Viv Prince drums on his spine and an army of Dutch teens go to war with the cops in the audience. You wanna know why Rock & Roll used to scare the shit out of parents? This is why, motherfucker. Even seeing an awful, awful mime mugging while the band lip-syncs to “Private Sorrow” isn’t enough to make this early footage less potent.

The most well known footage of the Pretties from this era is the 14-minute short film “Pretty Things on Film” (sort of a grungier A Hard Day’s Night without all the plot and dialogue bits), which received wide release as a video bonus on Snapper’s Get the Picture CD in 1998. Midnight to Six doesn’t cheat by including this relatively familiar film within its two hours, but “Pretty Things on Film” is conscientiously included as a bonus. Hopefully the whole highly anticipated DVD will receive a stand alone release for the many Pretty Things diehards who already have every other disc in this box set.

Bouquets also throws in the band’s 1998 performance of S.F. Sorrow at Abbey Road, This is another readily available video, but it is an excellent one with the band performing their greatest work impeccably with bonus narration by Arthur Brown and occasional guitar support by Dave Gilmour. The name of this box set’s game is completeness, and it would not be complete without S.F. Sorrow Live at Abbey Road.

Despite having a pretty limited concept of what’s in Bouquets from a Cloudy Sky, I can say that anyone whose Pretty Things collection is currently pretty skimpy and wants to get everything in one swoop—and really, if you have any interest in sixties R&B and psychedelia, why wouldn’t you?—Bouquets From A Cloudy Sky: The Complete Pretty Things Deluxe Boxset Collection would probably be a wise purchase. Hopefully if enough of this limited edition set’s 2,000 pieces sell in the U.S., the Pretties will be a little less underrated here. 

Get Bouquets from a Cloudy Sky on Burning Shed. com here.

20 Things You May Not Have Known About The Pretty Things!

Aficionados of R&B freak-outs and totally freaky psychedelia already know The Pretty Things were the nastiest, longest-haired mob of hooligans Swinging London ever belched up. They know the band was a (sort of) outgrowth of the Rolling Stones, an early form of which counted Pretty Dick Taylor as a member, and that they beat The Who to the shops with the first LP-length rock opera, and that the Pretties will soon be the focus of their very own luxurious career-spanning box set. But even the die-est hardest Pretty-o-phile may learn something new among these 20 Things You May Not Have Known About The Pretty Things!

1. Singer Phil May was raised by his aunt and uncle, and believed them to be his biological parents. Phil was devastated when sent to live with his biological mother and her new husband at the age of nine. Although this meant he became Phil Kattner for a while, he ultimately decided to permanently keep his aunt and uncle’s surname May for himself.

2. Phil May told journalist Richie Unterberger that he learned many of the lyrics to the blues and early R&R the Pretties played from the songbook Mick Jagger personally compiled in a notepad.

3. Brian Jones and Andrew Oldham’s shaky relationship probably didn’t get any better when Jones moved into the same Georgian house as Phil May, Viv Prince, Brian Pendelton, and Jones’s former bandmate, Dick Taylor, in 1964. Rolling Stones manager Oldham supposedly hated the Pretties because he considered them his clients’ direct competition.

20 Things You May Not Have Known About 'Dawn of the Dead'

A decade after dropping the first, full-blown zombie apocalypse on our heads with Night of the Living Dead, George Romero got around to showing us what happened next. This time the thrills were more graphic, thanks to makeup legend Tom Savini and a full-color presentation, and the satire was sharper. But you already knew that. In celebration of the 35^th anniversary of its U.S. release, here are 20 Things You May Not Have Known About Dawn of the Dead!

1. A tour of the Monroeville Mall by his friend Mark Mason, who managed the establishment, was most inspirational to George Romero. When Mason mentioned that his mall would be a good place to hole up during a disaster, Romero started formulating the plot of his second Living Dead picture. He also ended up filming Dawn of the Dead in the Monroeville Mall. Other movies with scenes shot there include Flashdance and Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

2. The mall scenes in Dawn of the Dead had to be shot between 2 and 5 AM. 2 AM is when the mall’s final establishment, a tavern, closed for the night. 5 AM is when cardiac patients were admitted to exercise.

3. The Monroeville Mall would once again serve as a horrific setting in Stephen King’s Christine in 1983. A year before that novel was published, Romero and King collaborated on the portmanteau Creepshow with Romero directing and King writing and acting. The two horror icons would also meld minds on Romero’s big screen adaptation of King’s The Dark Half, though the original plan for Romero to direct King’s It for the small-screen as a seven-hour miniseries fell apart because of scheduling problems (Tommy Lee Wallace directed the half-as-long version in 1990 instead). From a Buick 6 was another Romero/King union that withered on the vine, though Romero adaptations of The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon and Gerald’s Game might still happen. Romero has already completed scripts for both possible films.

4. While the political implications of Night of the Living Dead were essentially an unintended factor caused by the casting of a black actor, Duane Jones, in the lead, Romero was fully conscious of the anti-consumerism message of Dawn of the Dead and continued to infuse all subsequent Living Dead movies with political themes.

Psychobabble Hall of Fame to Open in Cleveland!

Breaking news! After an as-yet unidentified Cleveland museum was accidentally demolished by a slightly moist fart, city officials agreed it would be idiotic to rebuild it, instead deciding to replace that as-yet unidentified museum with a new one called the Psychobabble Hall of Fame! 

All artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. At least one non-shitty contribution to Rock & Roll history is the sole criteria for induction. The ability to apply clown makeup will not be a consideration for induction.

Proposed Museum Design.

Breaking update! The list of inductees has just been announced! It is as follows:

Paul Revere and the Raiders

Outstanding Contribution: Can play brutal bubblegum garage rock while doing choreographed dance moves in American Revolutionary War costumes.
Most Outstanding Work:  The Spirit of '67 (1966)

The Zombies

Outstanding Contribution: Crafted ethereally jazzy pop and masterful, Mellotrony psychedelia. Responsible for the current zombie craze.
Most Outstanding  Work: Odessey and Oracle (1968)

The Pretty Things

Outstanding Contribution: Recorded and released the very first LP length-rock opera. Wore the very first 1970s-length long hair. Rocked terribly hard.
Most Outstanding  Work: S.F. Sorrow (1968)

The Turtles

Outstanding Contribution: Racked up hits by recording consistently wonderful bubblegum folk rock with an emphasis on beautifully stoned harmonies and wise-ass humor.
Most Outstanding  Work: Turtle Soup (1969)

Nico

Outstanding Contribution: Metamorphosed from gorgeous, icy voiced pop chanteuse into ghoulish, icy voiced goth princess. Was the scariest thing about The Velvet Underground, which is saying a hell of a lot.
Most Outstanding  Work: The Marble Index (1968)

Love

Outstanding Contribution: One of the few integrated rock groups of the sixties made a totally new sound with each album, and each one was fabulous. Were LA's coolest underground band, and Arthur Lee could shout as well as he could coo.
Most Outstanding  Work: Forever Changes (1967)
 
The Monkees

Outstanding Contribution: Started as a totally manufactured sitcom pop band, said "Fuck that!" and threatened their record company until they were allowed to be one of the greatest real bands of the sixties. Were pretty awesome even before that. Hated by Jann Wenner, which is practically instant credibility.
Most Outstanding  Work: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, Ltd. (1967)

The Left Banke 

Outstanding Contribution: Single-handedly invented mopey British pop. Were from New York City.
Most Outstanding  Work: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina (1967)

The Creation 

Outstanding Contribution: Parodied art by setting canvasses on fire on stage. Taught Jimmy Page how to bow a guitar. "Making Time"? Holy shit!
Most Outstanding  Work: We Are Paintermen (1967)

The Move

Outstanding Contribution: Ripped out hilarious power pop, power bubble gum, and power prog rock, often while smashing used cars with sledgehammers. Kept Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne out of trouble.
Most Outstanding  Work: Move (1968)

Procol Harum 

Outstanding Contribution: Invented goth rock even though everyone insists on primarily categorizing them as prog rockers. When they did play prog, Gary Brooker's voice made it soulful prog. Revolutionized the double-keyboard approach. Made their non-singing, non-instrument playing lyricist an official member of the band, which is very considerate. Occasionally wore Merlin costumes.
Most Outstanding  Work: A Salty Dog (1969)

Nazz

Outstanding Contribution: American rockers who kept the concise spirit of '65/'66 British pop alive during the long-winded, jammy late sixties. Were the first thing on Todd Rundgren's resumé.
Most Outstanding  Work: Nazz (1968)


Nick Drake

Outstanding Contribution: Was the king of morbid, introverted singer-songwriters. Made three perfect yet distinct albums.
Most Outstanding  Work: Bryter Layter (1970)

Yes

Outstanding Contribution: Fused Beatlesque pop with prog pretensions. Jon Anderson sang lyrics that didn't even make sense when you were tripping your butthole off. Pissed off your super dogmatic punk buddies.
Most Outstanding  Work: Fragile (1971)

King Crimson

Outstanding Contribution: Are the only prog band you're not embarrassed to keep in your record collection. Robert Fripp did incredibly beautiful things with heavily distorted electric guitar and  incredibly heavy things with the beautiful Mellotron.
Most Outstanding  Work: In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)

Big Star

Outstanding Contribution: For those with no space in their hearts for prog, Big Star were the early-seventies saviors of power pop. But only critics knew that.
Most Outstanding  Work: #1 Record (1972)

Pete Townshend

Outstanding Contribution: Already inducted in old museum as member of The Who, deserves to be inducted in new one for making better solo albums than any other member of a major band and better demo recordings than God.
Most Outstanding  Work: Empty Glass (1980)

The Damned 

Outstanding Contribution: Punk, pop, psych, goth, garage rock, prog. They mastered it all without losing their sense of humor. Made the first punk single and the first punk album and toured the states before any of their British brethren. Outlasted about a million break ups and all the asshole critics who said they'd never last.
Most Outstanding  Work: Machine Gun Etiquette (1979)

The Jam

Outstanding Contribution: Introduced sharp mod style and twelve-string Rickenbackers to seventies punk rock. Made eighties new wave honest and organic even if no one else did.
Most Outstanding  Work: All Mod Cons (1978)

Cheap Trick 

Outstanding Contribution: Were the only traditional Rock & Roll band that mattered during the late seventies punk revolution. Their lyrics were as funny as their two heartthrobs/two slobs image.
Most Outstanding  Work: Cheap Trick (1977)

The Cure

Outstanding Contribution: Made the most thrillingly bi-polar music in rock history. Reinvented the dirge. Reinvented grooming.
Most Outstanding  Work: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987)

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Outstanding Contribution: Transformed punk rock into avant garde art, transformed the Gothic into the delectably poppy, transformed millions of perfectly nice high school girls into wild-haired, wild-makeupped mini-Siouxsie Siouxs (note: just to confirm, Siouxsie's outstanding ability to apply clown makeup was not a consideration in her induction).
Most Outstanding  Work: A Kiss in the Dream House (1982)

XTC

Outstanding Contribution: Made the best hurky-jerky new wave since Talking Heads and the best Beatles and Beach Boys albums since The Beatles and The Beach Boys.
Most Outstanding  Work: Black Sea (1980)

The Replacements

Outstanding Contribution: Were too crazy to contain, too beautiful to ignore, too drunk to keep it together, and too cool for that other hall of fame.
Most Outstanding  Work: Let It Be (1984)

The Smiths

Outstanding Contribution: Made gloriously shimmering pop for mopey kids who didn't quite understand that Morrissey is really, really, really funny.
Most Outstanding  Work: The Smiths (1984)

Suzanne Vega

Outstanding Contribution: Most often stereotyped as a folk singer, the New York singer-songwriter actually reinvented herself as regularly and audaciously as David Bowie. Possibly the only pop artist to dabble in industrial music without making a fool of herself.
Most Outstanding  Work: 99.9F° (1992) 

Throwing Muses 

Outstanding Contribution: Were the scariest thing ever to come out of Rhode Island. Had the most stellar rhythm section in college rock history and a front woman with a voice that could melt your face faster than the Ark of the Covenant.
Most Outstanding  Work: The Real Ramona (1991)

Guided by Voices

Outstanding Contribution: Made it OK to be a lo-fi, middle-aged, self-made Rock & Roll superstar. Literally released 6,000 albums, including a slick, hi-fi one produced by Rik Ocasek that is amazingly awesome despite what everyone says.
Most Outstanding  Work: Bee Thousand (1994)

The Pixies

Outstanding Contribution: Have you ever heard nineties rock? They're responsible for that.
Most Outstanding  Work: Doolittle (1989)

Nirvana

Outstanding Contribution: Revitalized Rock & Roll after the "hair metal" years. Were the last truly culture-crossing, globally important band of the Rock & Roll era. Only band of previous museum's recent inductees deemed worthy of inclusion in the Psychobabble Hall of Fame.
Most Outstanding  Work: In Utero (1994)

Sundazed reissues The Pretty Things' 'S.F. Sorrow' on clear green vinyl

Getting in on the recent upsurge in Pretty Things product, Sundazed Records is issuing their landmark 1968 rock opera S.F. Sorrow on clear green vinyl. This limited edition will also feature the original U.K. sleeve art.



Visit Sundazed.com to order the L.P., view a neat slide-show of the record-pressing process, and stream samples of the marvelous music contained on Psychobabble's bid for the '60s' greatest album by a band that never caught on in the states.