1965 to 1970
Psychedelic Rock Bands
and Their Names
Psychedelic Rock Bands
and Their Names
Doors 1968
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Psychedelic Rock and Acid Rock:
The development of Psychedelic Rock had it's roots in the mid 1960s in an effort to recreate the feeling from the use of LSD and other Hallucinogens. The music was trying to make the listener feel like they were detached from reality. Many times a music concert in the 60's included a light show to give the visual affect of a drug experience. In Britain they had the Pop-psychedelia, which is a whimsical treatment in nature and the American interpretation was the harder "Acid Rock".
The "Beatles" "Revolver" album and the "Beach Boys" "Pet Sounds" album were considered the first trippy sounding recordings. About that time, many young counterculture folks were gathering in the San Francisco area where the legends of Psychedelia set up it's central location. The "Grateful Dead" had a following of hard core fans called the "Dead Heads". Other first Psychedelic bands included Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, and Pink Floyd.
The Hard Rock relies on guitar power chords and riffs to hit the listener straight in the stomach. Some other groups were the Kinks, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin with simple three-chord songs with distortions and studio effects. Led Zeppelin's first two albums in 1969, show a large jump in sophistication of songwriting and studio's technology.
The term "psychedelic" was coined in 1956 by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond in a letter to LSD exponent Aldous Huxley and used as an alternative descriptor for hallucinogenic drugs in the context of psychedelic psychotherapy. As the countercultural scene developed in San Francisco, the terms acid rock and psychedelic rock were used in 1966 to describe the new drug-influenced music and were being widely used by 1967.
Buffalo Springfield was a rock band formed in Los Angeles by Canadian musicians Neil Young, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin and American musicians Stephen Stills and Richie Furay. The group, widely known for the song "For What It's Worth", released three albums and several singles from 1966 to 1968. Their music combined elements of folk music and country music with influences from the British Invasion and psychedelic rock. Like contemporary band the Byrds, they were key to the early development of folk rock and country rock.
The Name: Originally the band was called the Herd, the band changed their name after spotting the words Buffalo Springfield on a steamroller. Dewey Martin recalled " I lugged my drums over to this old house on Fountain Avenue. They were paving the streets, I remember. And there was this steamroller out front with a big sign on the side that read "Buffalo-Springfield." When I walked into the house, the guys were already talking about taking that as a group name, and I thought, "Yeah, what a great name-Buffalo Springfield."
"For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)" is a song written by Stephen Stills. Performed by Buffalo Springfield, it was recorded on December 5, 1966, released as a single on Atco Records in December 1966 and peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the spring of 1967. Their music combined elements of folk music and country music with influences from the British Invasion and psychedelic rock.
The Byrds were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1964. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (known as Jim McGuinn until mid-1967) remaining the sole consistent member. Although their time as one of the most popular groups in the world only lasted for a short period in the mid-1960s, the Byrds are considered by critics to be among the most influential rock acts of their era. Their signature blend of clear harmony singing and McGuinn's jangly 12-string Rickenbacker guitar was "absorbed into the vocabulary of rock" and has continued to be influential.
Initially, the Byrds pioneered the musical genre of folk rock as a popular format in 1965, by melding the influence of the Beatles and other British Invasion bands with contemporary and traditional folk music on their first and second albums and the hit singles "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and "Mr. Tambourine Man". As the 1960s progressed, the band was influential in originating psychedelic rock.
The Name: The Byrds were called the Jet Set when they first got together in 1964, named by group leader Roger McGuinn, who was fascinated by airplanes and flight. When they signed to Columbia Records later that year, the band - all hard-core anglophiles*- had become the Beefeaters, after the royal guard in England, in an effort to pass themselves off as British. They renamed themselves the Byrds on Thanksgiving Day that year, misspelling their name like the Beatle, where they would soon be compared to. Drummer Michael Clarke recalled: "It was over Thanksgiving dinner, and everything was happening at the moment with the letter B - the Beach Boys, the Beatles. We decided on Birds and then changed the "I" to a "y". It gave it a bit of flair, I think."
*An Anglophile is a person who admires or loves England, its people, its culture, its language, and/or its various accents. Wikipedia
The song was subject to a U.S. radio ban shortly after its release, following allegations published in the broadcasting trade journal the Gavin Report regarding perceived drug connotations in its lyrics. The band strenuously denied these allegations at the time, but in later years both Clark and Crosby admitted that the song was at least partly inspired by their drug use. The failure of "Eight Miles High" to reach the Billboard Top 10 is usually attributed to the broadcasting ban, but some commentators have suggested the song's complexity and uncommercial nature were greater factors.
An album of live recordings from the 50th Anniversary concerts was released for Record Store Day 2024.
The Yardbirds are an English rock band, formed in London in 1963. The band started the careers of three of rock's most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton (1963–1965), Jeff Beck (1965–1966) and Jimmy Page (1966–1968), all of whom ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 greatest guitarists.
The band had a string of hits throughout the mid-1960s, including "For Your Love", "Heart Full of Soul", "Shapes of Things", and "Over Under Sideways Down".
Originally a blues-based band noted for instrumental breaks, the Yardbirds broadened their range into pop, pioneered psychedelic rock and early hard rock, and contributed to many electric guitar innovations of the mid-1960s. Some rock critics and historians also cite their influence on the later punk rock, progressive rock, and heavy metal trends. Following the band's split in 1968, Relf and McCarty formed Renaissance and Page formed Led Zeppelin. The Yardbirds re-formed in the 1990s, featuring McCarty and Dreja as the only original members. Dreja left the band in 2012, leaving McCarty as the sole original member of the band.
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
The Name: The Yardbirds was originally called the Metropolis Blues Quartet. It was vocalist Keth Relf who, despite his initial reluctance to change the name, found the term "yardbird" in the liner notes for a Jack Kerouac record. A yardbird was a person, a hobo, who made his home around rail yards. It's worth noting that the group had its origins in two bands that played at the Railway Tavern in London. For a time, the band was billed as the Most Blueswailing Yardbirds. They did not name themselves after jazz great Charlie "Bird" Parker, as has been reported.
"Shapes of Things" is a song by the English rock group the Yardbirds. With its Eastern-sounding, feedback-laden guitar solo and environmentalist, anti-war lyrics, several music writers have identified it as the first popular psychedelic rock song.
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most influential and controversial rock acts of the 1960s, primarily due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona and legal issues. The group is widely regarded as an important figure of the era's counterculture.
After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison recorded and released six studio albums in five years, some of which are generally considered among the greatest of all time, including their debut The Doors (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). Dubbed the "Kings of Acid Rock", they were one of the most successful bands of their time and by 1972, the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
The Name: The name the Doors grew out of conversatiions singer Jim Morrison had with his roommate at UCLA. Discussing names for an imaginary rock band, they agreed that a good choice would be the Doors, which came from a poem by William Blake. "There are things that are known and things that are unknown, in between the doors. If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." Aldous Huxley used the line for the title of his book on mescaline experimentation, The Doors of Perception.
*Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin. Wikipedia definition
Recognized as one of the earliest examples of psychedelic rock, it was recorded in August 1966 and released in January 1967 on their eponymous debut album. Due to its erotic lyrics and innovative structure, the track has come to be regarded as synonymous with the '60s psychedelic and sexual revolutions.
Pink Floyd were founded in 1965 by Syd Barrett (guitar, lead vocals), Nick Mason (drums), Roger Waters (bass guitar, vocals) and Richard Wright (keyboards, vocals). Under Barrett's leadership, they released two hit singles, "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play", and the successful debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (all 1967). David Gilmour (guitar, vocals) joined in December 1967, while Barrett left in April 1968 due to deteriorating mental health. Waters became the primary lyricist and thematic leader, devising the concepts behind Pink Floyd's most successful albums, The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979). The musical film based on The Wall, Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982), won two BAFTA Awards. Pink Floyd also composed several film scores.
The Name: Pink floyd - The band formed in London in 1965 to play a mix of R&B and blues. They were named the Pink Floyd Sound by singer ad guitarist Syd Barrett, after two Georgia bluesmen, Pink anderson and Floyd Council. as the band's sound changed, so did its name, first shortened to The Pink Floyd, and finally just Pink Floyd.
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experiments, philosophical lyrics, and elaborate live shows. They became a leading band of the progressive rock genre, cited by some as the greatest progressive rock band of all time.
Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The Grateful Dead is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, and world music with psychedelia. The band is famous for their improvisation during their live performances, and have attracted a devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye, the music of the Grateful Dead "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." For the range of their influences and the structure of their live performances, Grateful Dead are considered "the pioneering godfathers of the jam band world".
Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area during the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The band's founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar and vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar and vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, and vocals), Phil Lesh (bass guitar and vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums).
After Garcia's death in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as The Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and as The Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band's 50th anniversary in a series of concerts that were billed as their last performances together.[17] There have also been several spin-offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids.
The Name:The Grateful Dead were called the Warlocks, and in November 1965 they were sitting around Phil Lesh's apartment, in Palo Alto, California, considering the fact that there was apporently some other band called the Warlocks and they'd have to come up with a new name. They came up with various ideas all of which got sillier and sillier, and in the end, literally, God's truth, they picked up the dictionary that was lying there, which was a Funk & Wagnalls dictionary, opened it up, and Jerry Garcia stabbed a finger in and it landed, honest to God, on "Grateful Dead." The entry was a reference to a motif in folklore specifically explored by Francis Child, a turn-of-the-century British ethnomusicologist who classified ballads. You know, those sort of English folk ballads. In the grateful dead motif, a traveler is going along the, finds a body that's not being given a proper burial, resolves the debts of the body, and puts its spirit to rest, as it wereUsually he then encounters a rpresentation of that spirit which helps him in his own quest.They found it, and they looked at each other, from all accounts, and at least three band members said, "No, tat's too intense, that's too heavy, I don't like it." But it's also one of these things that once you get it, how can you not go with it? And obviously served them will.
Country Joe and the Fish was an American psychedelic rock band formed in Berkeley, California, in 1965. The band was among the influential groups in the San Francisco music scene during the mid- to late 1960s. Much of the band's music was written by founding members Country Joe McDonald and Barry "The Fish" Melton, with lyrics pointedly addressing issues of importance to the counterculture, such as anti-war protests, free love, and recreational drug use. Through a combination of psychedelia and electronic music, the band's sound was marked by innovative guitar melodies and distorted organ-driven instrumentals which were significant to the development of acid rock.
The band self-produced two EPs that drew attention on the underground circuit before signing to Vanguard Records in 1966. Their debut album, Electric Music for the Mind and Body, followed in 1967. It contained their only nationally charting single, "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine", and their most experimental arrangements. Their second album, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die, was released in late 1967; its title track, with its dark humor and satire, became their signature tune and is among the era's most recognizable protest songs. Further success followed, including McDonald's appearance at Woodstock, but the group's lineup underwent changes until its disbandment in 1970. Members of the band continue in the music industry as solo recording artists and sporadically reconvene.
The Name: Country Joe and the Fish were one of the most political of the Bay Area psychedelic bands. Gutarist Joe McDonald explains 'In 1965 I was working on a magazine called Rag Baby with a guy named Ed Denson, who owned Takoma Records. We recorded "Fixing to Die Rag- skiffle band, kind of washboard, and washtub bass and stuff....Afterwards, Ed realized that we had to have some label copy and decided that, because he was into folk music and politics, he would call the group that we had assembled and recorded that day Country Mao and the fish. I asked him why, and he said, "Because Mao Zedong had said that the revolutionaries move through the people like the fish through the sea." And I said, "Hmm, wow, that's a little bit....dumb." And he said, "Well Ok, we'll call it Country Joe and the Fish after Joseph Stalin. "I said, "OK, well, country Joe and the Fish sounds at least not as dumb as Country Mao and Fish." Then it was released, and that was really the beginning of Country Joe and the Fish.
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960, comprising John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and the recognition of popular music as an art form. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock 'n' roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways. The band also explored music styles ranging from folk and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. As pioneers in recording, songwriting and artistic presentation, the Beatles revolutionized many aspects of the music industry and were often publicized as leaders of the era's youth and sociocultural movements.
The Name: The Beatles began as the Quarrymen, a band John Lennon formed when he was a fifteen-year-old student at the Quarry Bank High School in 1956. Paul Mc Carney joined the band the following year, and after a brief stint as Johnny & the Moondogs, they became the Silver Beatles in 1959. The band members were fans of Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and Lennon, a lover of wordplay, appreciated the fact that the name the Crickets could refer to the British sport, which of course was not intended. Lennon recalled, "I was sitting at home one day, just thinking about what a good name the Crickets would be for an English group. The idea of beetles came into my head. I decided to spell it Beatles to make it look like beat music, just as a joke." Beat music was a genre that developed in the UK in the early 1960s, and was also known as Mersdybeat, which was named for bands from Liverpool and nearby areas close to the River Mersey. Beat music was a fusion of early rock and roll influenced by Chuck Berry and buddy Holly mixed with doo-wop, rhythm & Blues, and skiffle, a blend of folk, blues, and jazz that was popular in the 1950s. Many of the bands that were part of the British Invasion had their roots in the beat music scene.
A friend suggested Long John and the Silver Beatles. They didn't love the name but decided to use the Silver Beatles for a brief time before shortening it. It is worth noting that the Beetles was the name of motorcycle gang led by Lee Marvin in the 1954 biker movie "The Wild One" whose leather-clad look John Lennon, paul McCartney, and George Harrison affected early on.
Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released on 13 February 1967 as a double A-side single with "Penny Lane". It represented a departure from the group's previous singles and a novel listening experience for the contemporary pop audience. While the song initially divided and confused music critics and the group's fans, it proved highly influential on the emerging psychedelic genre. Its accompanying promotional film is similarly recognised as a pioneering work in the medium of music video.
Playing backwards. Interesting but.....
Here, There and Everywhere" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. A love ballad, it was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. McCartney includes it among his personal favorites of the songs he has written. In 2000, Mojo ranked it 4th in the magazine's list of the greatest songs of all time.
McCartney began writing "Here, There and Everywhere" at Lennon's house in Weybridge, in early June, while waiting for Lennon to wake up. McCartney recalled: "I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E. And soon [I] had a few chords, and I think by the time he'd woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up."
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to achieve international commercial success. They headlined the Monterey Pop Festival (1967), Woodstock (1969), Altamont Free Concert (1969), and the first Isle of Wight Festival (1968) in England. Their 1967 breakout album Surrealistic Pillow was one of the most significant recordings of the Summer of Love. Two songs from that album, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit", are among Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
The Name: Jefferson Airplane was formed in San Francisco in 1965 by singer Marty Balin, whose first recruit was guitarist Paul Kantner, Kantner recalled, "We just had a lot of boring names swirling about. Jorma guitarist brought the name to us, actually. He was hanging out with a lot of blues players, college kids who learned blues licks, some of them real good. One of the blues players had this dog that was called Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane. So the name was suggested the Jefferson airplane. So we took that name as sort of our temporary name-just a name we could until we chose a real name, a respectable name that looked like it could be on the charts or something. All my friends, they kind of like that Jefferson Airplane." "Yeah, let's call ourselves that, because that's the reaction that we were trying to get from people. In 1974, Jefferson Airplane officially became jefferson starship. Kantner explained the name change: "Jefferson Starship - that's when the band went their separate directions. Jorma and Jack went off into Hot Tuna, and I being a science-fiction freak, took that particular bent of just going one step up the evoltionary ladder from airplane to starship".
Hot Tuna is an American blues rock band formed in 1969 by former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen (guitarist/vocals) and Jack Casady (bassist). Although it has always been a fluid aggregation, with musicians coming and going over the years, the band's center has always been Kaukonen and Casady's ongoing collaboration.
The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by their vocal harmonies, adolescent-oriented lyrics, and musical ingenuity, they are one of the most influential acts of the rock era. They drew on the music of older pop vocal groups, 1950s rock and roll, and black R&B to create their unique sound. Under Brian's direction, they often incorporated classical or jazz elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways.
The Name: The band members called themselves the Pendletones - a reference to the plaid Pendleton-brand shirts popular with the West Coast surfer - when they cut their first single, "Surfin", in 1961. The single was released by the regional label Candix Records, which wanted to call the band the Surfers, despite the boys' wish to remain the Pendletones. When it was discovered that there already was a band called the Surfers, Candix called them the Beach boys, which was coined by Candix executive Russ Regan. The band wasn't aware of the name change until they opened up a box of the singles and saw it on the label. Brian Wilson remembers that when his father called to complain, he was told it was too late to change the name back to the Pendletones. "The records had already been pressed, the labels printed, and the whole kit and caboodle shipped. It was a small-time operation. Low budget Reprinting the labels was too costly, my dad was informed. There was nothing we could do except shrug it off."
Decline of Psychedelic Rock
By the end of the 1960s, psychedelic rock was in retreat. Psychedelic trends climaxed in the 1969 Woodstock festival, which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead. LSD had been made illegal in the UK in September 1966 and in California in October; by 1967, it was outlawed throughout the United States. In 1969, the murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by Charles Manson and his cult of followers, claiming to have been inspired by Beatles' songs such as "Helter Skelter", has been seen as contributing to an anti-hippie backlash. At the end of the same year, the Altamont Free Concert in California, headlined by the Rolling Stones, became notorious for the fatal stabbing of black teenager Meredith Hunter by Hells Angel security guards.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Peter Green and Danny Kirwan of Fleetwood Mac and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd were early "acid casualties", helping to shift the focus of the respective bands of which they had been leading figures. Some groups, such as the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, broke up. Hendrix died in London in September 1970, shortly after recording Band of Gypsys (1970), Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in October 1970 and they were closely followed by Jim Morrison of the Doors, who died in Paris in July 1971. By this point, many surviving acts had moved away from psychedelia into either more back-to-basics "roots rock", traditional-based, pastoral or whimsical folk, the wider experimentation of progressive rock, or riff-based heavy rock.
Sources:
The Big Book of Rock & Roll Names, Adam Dolgins, Abrams Image publications
YouTube
Wikipedia
The Great Book of Rock, Bill O'Neill, 2018