PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Talk about any music other than Pink Floyd/Solo Stuff

are them Floyd boys a psychedelic rock band

yes they are
9
43%
no they are not
9
43%
oh woww bad trip man
3
14%
 
Total votes: 21

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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by mandraxhair »

They aren't a band?
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by J Ed »

I once heard a some critic saying he thought the Beatles did better psychedelic albums than Jefferson Airplane because the Beatles made painstaking audio replications of the supposed psychedelic experience, whereas the Airplane were recording themselves playing while dosed (the critics viewpoint, not mine)
specifically his metaphor was that listening to the Airplane was like looking at a photo of somebody on acid, whereas the Beatles managed to convey to an un-dosed audience what they were seeing while on acid
(from that I always got a Dali vs Pollock sort of thing, both painters are supposedly painting directly from their subconcious but one is all about the action of raw unintellectualised creation while the other is using traditional Old Master techniques to capture what he drempt the night before)

thus I see two only slightly overlapping meanings for the same word - psychedelic, which is why there is some confusion
is it music made while tripping? youd have to be pretty experienced at both music and tripping to record anything even remotely listenable
or is music designed to replicate the experience of tripping? and if so does the musician need to be experienced at all in hallucinogens to make a psychedelic album? sure the Beatles themselves were, but was George Martin an acidhead? Ive always assumed not yet its his input that makes those albums work more like Dali paintings than Pollocks
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by rememberaday »

Quite an interesting topic.

Here's my definition of what qualifies to be an element of psychedelic music, though there might need to be further analysis whether the music is really psychedelic or not:

1) Elaborate Studio Effects - flanging, phasing, reverb, distortion and backward tape all qualify easily.

2) Exotic instruments - like sitar, tabla, dulcimer and so on, but this is really quite a cliche.

3) Surreal lyrics and themes - lyrics with surreal imagery, literary themes, and dreamy monotones are a definitve highlight in psychedelia. Need not necessarily always be about drugs or even suggest drugs at all, and yet be influenced by psychedelics. (Syd proved that to us).

4) Changes in the mood of the song - I know that this can be present in any genre, but what I mean is a song which is calm suddenly becomes a heavy and angry one and then turns sad and then.......

5) Sonic Textures - when a piece of music feels like a painting rather thn just a song, you certainly gotta start worrying about the sonic and tonic measures involved in it :D

6) Emotions in the song - psychedelic songs need not only have all the above elements (which are a bit of a cliche,really). They could as easily qualify for being psychedelic if the song is about ego death, has emotions of the psych experience. Hence bands like Moby Grape and the 1966-1969 Beach Boys qualify as psychedelic to me.

Of course, one needs to differentiate psychedelic from hippie music. Hippies always sing psychedelic music, but prefer the "sunshine psychedelia" and ideals of love and peace. However, plenty of psychedelic music is dark too. I would generally classify the music from January to July of 1967 as hippie psychedelia (The Doors being a notable exception) and August-December 1967 as darker and moodier psych. For me, psych from 1968 was more of a retrospective on 1966 and 1967 than an actual experience.
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by J Ed »

thanks for the list, though its again one of those lists that could describe anything unless you start saying "must meet 75% of the above criteria" maybe

could you expand on this part?
rememberday wrote:...could as easily qualify for being psychedelic if the song is about ego death, has emotions of the psych experience
its been ages since I read Leary or Castanada or any of that, so I actually cant remember what the "psychedelic experience" was meant to be about beyond seeing sounds and hearing colours and forgetting what words are .. there was a lot of trendy rhetoric about what these drugs were supposed to do for the individual and society beyond increasing the risk of brain damage
didnt those guys see the hallucinogens as somehow a shortcut to religious revelation?
ie shamans would see visions after eating peyote or amanita muscara and tribes would make decisions based on these visions, therefor if westerners should similarly use these experimental drugs liberated from some psychiatrists office we could all be as enlightened as a primitive tribe?

and is the music aiming to achieve the same end? if I listen to a certain record I'll "see God"?
hmmm, remembering the childrens book Wind in the Willows, thats sort of what the original "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" was, I guess, some sort of mythical deity experienced by Mr Toad and his riverside companions after theyd stayed up all night

EDIT: actually Wikipedia answers that: it was specifically Pan, and Toad wasnt there for that experience
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by rememberaday »

I'll answer the first question afterwards as I'm short of time..... ](*,)

But I have read The Wind in The Willows (great book, you know) while listening to Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.... while it did not synch together (DSOTR, anyone?) it did provide some magical sounds. I could especially connect to Syd's "fairier songs", although the more spacier Astronomy Domine and IO were a bit alien-ish.
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by rememberaday »

Plus, during the Piper sessions, Syd began convinced that he had met Pan in a mystical vision and hence the title. So, is Syd the Water Rat over here, and his band the Mole, who tries to join in with the Rat, but cannot connect and experience the happiness that Syd did with psychedelics?

As for you first question, I did quite some research. According to Erowid :

" By the time we get to be adults, most people have a pretty clear sense of self, of ego. Our sense of who we are evolves over time and eventually goes well beyond the boundaries of our physical bodies – ego also includes more-or-less abstract concepts like “human”, “male”, “joyful”, and “sane”.

However, LSD and other entheogens, by altering our neurochemistry in the way they do, can change all that. For example, under the influence of LSD, a person might experience “blanket” as “me”, or “hand” as “not-me”. It’s not at all uncommon for explorers under the influence of LSD and other entheogens to find their strongly-held, long-standing beliefs about where the self leaves off and where the not-self begins deeply challenged. Sometimes, a person’s sense of self can disintegrate entirely – this can be very disorienting and scary, or it can be a profoundly joyous experience. "

So psychedelics challenge conformity and cause us to wander away on our footsteps. I think music like Strawberry Fields Forever has part of this philosophy. A brilliant example is Syd's Scarecrow, where the scarecrow is resigned to his fate, no matter how bad it is. (This can cause quite a problem as it goes against conformed rules- I think this is what happened to Syd, it was more a case of those around him being annoyed by his erratic state than Syd himself).

And liberation is a part of psychedelic music. Basically what I was saying was that some bands tried to exactly recreate the "elements" of the trip they had, whereas others used straight rock or folk elements but incorporated psychedelic "learnings" and the ideologies they picked up during their trip. Both qualify as psychedelic music.

Looking forward to your reply! :smt002
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by Enish »

I say it's both yes and no.

The band's music back during the age of Piper was quintessentially psychedelic. It featured all the common tropes of psychedelic music at the time, making people all the more reason to label it as such. Several, the band's Meddle and Dark Side may not have had all those qualities in their music, but the drawn-out, reverberated sounds on the album gave them a psychedelic sound, though it was easier for people to call it "space rock" at that point due to how different it was from something like Piper. The age of psychedelia was pretty much dead (or starting to die) by the time Dark Side came out.
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by rememberaday »

I think psychedelic music was pretty frowned upon by 1970 itself- mainly due to darling Nixon and Norman Semolina Pilchard.
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by rememberaday »

On-topic:

By 1968, Floyd had lost Syd and were a radically different band. Actually, Saucerful was as almost as good as Piper, and it could easily have been made better if they added Scream, Vegetable Man or another song like Reaction in G. More was also nice, listenable and considering that they had lost their frontman, they were doing pretty well. However their singles were aimless and Ummagumma was a mess- their most popular single from that period was Eugene, which was the second single, and was very un-Sydish. I think they took that into account and went straight into progressive. Also, King Crimson's success in prog was a factor which encouraged more prog less psych Floyd.
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by rememberaday »

Another simple, beautiful definition of psychedelic music (SOURCE: http://www.forgottenhits.com/top_20_fav ... elic_songs)

(It's in the form of a letter to a young girl, so ignore any names or personal references)


"Greetings to a nine-year old!Psychedelic music is pretty easy to explain. Remember when you used to go on a merry-go-round, and the faster it went, you could shut your eyes, then open, and the world was spinning? Or, when you twirl around as fast as you can, then stop suddenly, and your head is spinning? Well, imagine youre listening to music and the musicians are all spinning like a top!! The sound that comes out is psychedelic music!! There are two really good examples, my friend: 1) the Strawberry Alarm Clock song, Incense and Peppermint, and 2) the Small Faces song, Itchycoo Park. Both are from late 1967, I believe, and they are my favorite examples of the spinning top feeling you get from a musical merry-go-round! Two other psychedelic songs that your Dad will also know are 3) the Whos I Can See For Miles and 4) Tommy James & the Shondells Crimson and Clover, but nothing beats those first two songs! Sometime the words dont make sense, but neither does your head feel right after you finish a merry-go-round ride, so thats OK for psychedelic music!My 14-year old is also enjoying oldies music, so I hope you will continue to listen to it! Give your Dad a hug, and keep on listening to those great songs!!
Sincerely yours,
Byron Stewart
(PS: Im a New Colony Six fan, but they didnt really sing psychedelic music, but if your Dad has the Attacking a Straw Man record album, take a look at the cover of it, and thats what psychedelic pictures look like!)"
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by J Ed »

going by that merry-go-round definition, that makes She's a Rainbow the perfect psychedelic song, and I'm OK with that

kind of funny defining the psychedelic effect to a 9yr old though, basically defining what it feels like to be on drugs without mentioning the word drugs ... but kids are like that, I remember spinning round in circles til I couldnt stand up straight just to get that rush to the head ... ie as kids we were predisposed to seeking that mindaltering experience well before we had access to the mindaltering substances our parents kept warning us about

going by the ego-loss as subject matter definition I might name Tomorrow Never Knows or Amazing Journey as perfect examples
Roger Waters lyrics on the other hand seem to be about the very ugly symptoms of ego-issues in the western world ... I guess ego-loss would be the implied solution if you thought about it, though there may be others, but what we actually hear is "you gotta be trusted by the people that you lie to so when they turn their backs on you youll get the chance to slip the knife in!" and so on ... not about ego-loss at all but how disturbing big western egos can be
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by danielcaux »

So what are the trademarks of the psychedelic sound for you? For me the "psychedelic" style conjures images (sound images? groovy man!) of guitars running through wah-wah pedals, sinous organ solos (Hammond or Farfisa?) playing eastern-like melodies and vocals with heavy reverb delivering either esoteric or surrealistic lyrics. Throw in some tape manipulation, sound effects, exotic instruments (sitar, tabla, whatever, something indian!) and presto! You have a shaggadelic song in your hands!

That's why after Piper Pink Floyd really don't sound psychedelic anymore to me. It's strange 'cause Set The Controls has many of those trademarks, but somehow sounds like something else, perhaps it's the down tempo and primal drumming?

I know this 1962 song is not psychedelic strictly speaking, but the organ and sfx pretty much puts it in that territory for me, you almost feel like you are riding the merry go round there. Avant garde piece of trash!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnLCvpgPD_s

Do you concur?
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by rememberaday »

No, that's not psychedelic rock. It's the common image of psychedelic rock. And I love psychedelic rock because I can see the sounds made more clearly than other music.
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by MariahZ »

great psychedelic music opens up spooky places in my head, and PF has done that to me many many times.l
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Re: PINK FLOYD ARE/AREN'T A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND!

Post by Fingals Cave »

Their best stuff always takes you on a journey, so absolutely ARE for me.
Later on was very unpsychedelic. I could imagine The Wall and The Final Cut inducing monumental bummer trips.