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Psychedelic rock is a thriving music genre in Australia and New Zealand.
Although only a few singles gained recognition outside the region, music from the thriving Australian and New Zealand rock scenes formed in the wake of Beatlemania produced a large quantity of original psychedelic pop and rock music. Much of this was strongly influenced by British psychedelia, since many bands included first-generation British and European immigrants, such as The Twilights, whose members were British immigrants.
These immigrants were able to keep up to date on current musical developments, thanks to regular "care packages" of the latest singles and albums, tapes and cassettes of radio broadcasts, and even the latest Mod fashions, sent to them by family and friends back in the UK. [1] After gaining local success, a number of these groups returned to the UK to further their musical careers. [2]
The most internationally successful Australian pop-rock band of this period were The Easybeats, formed in Sydney in 1964 by a group of English, Scottish and Dutch immigrants, who scored a string of local hits in Australia and became hugely popular there before travelling to the UK. They recorded their international hit "Friday on My Mind" (1966) in London and remained there until they disbanded in 1970. [3] A similar path was pursued by the Bee Gees, formed in Brisbane, but whose first album Bee Gees' 1st (1967), was recorded in London, and gave them three major hit singles and contained folk, rock and psychedelic elements heavily influenced by the Beatles. [4]
The Masters Apprentices started out as an R&B band in the style of the early Rolling Stones and the Pretty Things, but they also absorbed changes in music spearheaded by The Beatles. In 1967 they released several acclaimed psychedelic singles. "Wars or Hands of Time" (the B-side of their 1966 debut single "Undecided" is generally regarded as the first Australian pop single to address the Vietnam War. Their second single "Buried and Dead" (1967), was influenced by the nascent "Raga rock" genre. Their third single, the psych-pop classic "Living In A Child's Dream", became a major national hit and was voted "Single of the Year" by the readers of the Australian pop magazine Go-Set . The group also performed at one of the first psychedelic "happenings" in Australia, the "Living In A Child's Dream Ball", staged on 14 October 1967 at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. The show featured a full psychedelic light-show with liquid slide projections, smoke machines and mirror balls, and the band was wheeled onto the stage inside a specially-constructed giant die. [5] All the groups' early singles tracks were penned by rhythm guitarist Mick Bower, who quit the music scene for health reasons soon after "Living In A Child's Dream" was released. After a period of upheaval, the band was able to continue with new members, scoring another Australian psych-pop hit in late 1967 with the classic Brian Cadd song "Elevator Driver". [6]
The Twilights, also formed in Adelaide, became nationwide pop stars in the mid-1960s before making the trip to London. In London they recorded a series of minor hits and participated in the psychedelic scene before returning home in mid-1967, where they performed the entire Sgt Pepper's album live on stage some weeks before its official release in Australia. This performance was followed by the release of their psychedelic 1968 concept album Once upon a Twilight. [7]
Although The Easybeats were the only Australian band working in the psychedelic style to score a major international hit, many other Australian bands scored local or national hits with singles that were strongly influenced by psychedelic trends. This included the cult Brisbane-based group The Wild Cherries, led by guitarist Lobby Loyde, whose 1967 single "Krome Plated Yabby"/That's Life" combined influences from R&B, soul and psychedelia, and the single's driving B-side, "That's Life" is believed to be the first Australian pop single to employ phasing in its production. [8] The most successful New Zealand band of the period, The La De Das, produced the psychedelic pop concept album The Happy Prince (1968), based on the Oscar Wilde children's classic, but failed to break through in Britain and the wider world. [9]
Although British influences were predominant in Australian and New Zealand bands, a number of progressive Sydney-based groups such as Tamam Shud and Tully produced music that combined influences from Eastern mystical philosophy, avant-garde jazz and American psychedelic groups such as the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Both bands also regularly collaborated with the experimental Sydney film and light-show collective Ubu, and Tully were also notable for being the first Australian group to buy and use a Moog synthesiser, as well as performing as the house band in the original Australian stage production of Hair , which premiered in Sydney in 1969. [10] Australian psychedelic music in the late 1960s peaked in popularity with the two singles by Melbourne singer Russell Morris. His 1969 solo debut "The Real Thing", penned by mid-Sixties pop star Johnny Young, broke new ground in Australian popular music for its lavish production by Ian Meldrum and John L Sayers and for its running time of almost seven minutes, unprecedented for an Australian pop single. It was reputedly the most expensive Australian single ever produced up to that time. It became a number one hit in Australia, where it charted for 23 weeks, and also went to number one on local charts in New York, Houston and Chicago. It was followed by "Part Three Into Paper Walls," co-written by Young and Morris, which was deliberately crafted as a virtual sequel to "The Real Thing." It also featured dazzling production, was just over seven minutes long, and gave Morris his second consecutive number one hit in Australia. [11]
Other Australian classic rock bands later had moderate success within the realm. The Little River Band's 1979 hit "Cool Change" combined psychedelia with elements of pop, jazz, soft rock, and progressive rock. Midnight Oil began their career in the forays of new wave and post-punk, utilizing a style akin to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Diamond Dogs to create a droning final note on their 1981 record 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Hoodoo Gurus incorporated science-fiction into their college rock concept albums and, to an extent, the droning distorted guitars utilized by AC/DC to incorporate and develop upon psychedelic themes. Through to the 1990s, Australian acts such as The Vines presented a new era of music, a fusion between the psychedelic pop of the 1960s and the more modern rock stylings of 1990s-era bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
The neo-psychedelic rock scene has been heavily pioneered by Australian psychedelic and garage rock acts. One-man act Tame Impala, whose real name is Kevin Parker, led the charge with the 2012 breakthrough hit "Elephant", which reached no. 8 on Billboard's Alternative and received widespread radio play. This led to large demand of the act as a music festival headliner. Hiatus Kaiyote, led by singer Nai Palm, emerged around the same time, as did Perth native psych-rock Pond, with each offering a psychedelic sound influenced by R&B and hip-hop, creating music laced with reverb and complicated by bizarre rhythmic syncopation.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard has also been notable on the Melbourne psychedelic scene, releasing 25 studio albums and creating Flightless Records. Their sound draws from diverse genres such as garage rock, hard rock and heavy metal, thrash metal (on Infest the Rats' Nest), Indian classical music, acoustic music, microtonal music (Flying Microtonal Banana, K.G. (album), L.W. (album)), boogie rock (demonstrated on Fishing for Fishies), dream pop (Butterfly 3000), indie rock, raga rock, blues rock, surf rock, jazz fusion, progressive rock, art rock and punk rock. The success of King Gizzard, and the appeal of their high-energy live concerts, helped launch the careers of other Flightless recording acts including The Murlocs, Stonefield, and Tropical Fuck Storm. Other important and emerging acts in the scene include Courtney Barnett, who developed a record label and a significant following, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Bananagun, GUM, and Wolfmother.
Psychedelic rock is a rock music genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound effects and recording techniques, extended instrumental solos, and improvisation. Many psychedelic groups differ in style, and the label is often applied spuriously.
Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard rock music was produced by the Kinks, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In the late 1960s, bands such as Blue Cheer, the Jeff Beck Group, Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, Golden Earring, Steppenwolf, and Deep Purple also produced hard rock.
Electric blues is blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, which differed from earlier, predominantly acoustic-style blues. By the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a little longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became widely used in electric blues.
British blues is a form of music derived from American blues that originated in the late 1950s, and reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s. In Britain, blues developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by electric guitar, and made international stars of several proponents of the genre, including the Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin.
Small Faces is the second studio album by Small Faces, released through Immediate Records on 23 June 1967. Although this was their first album for new manager Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label, recording actually commenced during their tenure with Decca Records, whom they left in January 1967 after severing professional ties with original manager Don Arden. As a result of the switch of label and management, Decca and Arden released an outtakes compilation album, From the Beginning in early June 1967 in order to sabotage the chart success of the Immediate Small Faces release - something that it managed to do to some extent when From the Beginning reached number 17 in the UK charts. The Immediate album shares its name with their 1966 Decca debut album, which has led to some confusion regarding the titles. As a result of this, it has been unofficially dubbed The First Immediate Album by several fans.
Roots rock is a genre of rock music that looks back to rock's origins in folk, blues and country music. It is seen as responses to the perceived excesses of the dominant psychedelic and the developing progressive rock. Because roots music (Americana) is often used to mean folk and world musical forms, roots rock is sometimes used in a broad sense to describe any rock music that incorporates elements of this music. In the 1980s, roots rock enjoyed a revival in response to trends in punk rock, new wave, and heavy metal music.
American rock has its roots from 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and country music, and also draws from folk music, jazz, blues, and classical music. American rock music was further influenced by the British Invasion of the American pop charts from 1964 and resulted in the development of psychedelic rock.
The Psychedelic era was the time of social, musical and artistic change influenced by psychedelic drugs, occurring from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s. The era was defined by the proliferation of LSD and its following influence in the development of psychedelic music and psychedelic film in the Western world.
Psychedelic soul is a music genre that emerged in the late 1960s and saw Black soul musicians embrace elements of psychedelic rock, including its production techniques, instrumentation, effects units and drug influences. It came to prominence in the late 1960s and continued into the 1970s, playing a major role in the development of funk and disco.
Spanky and Our Gang was an American 1960s sunshine pop band led by Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane. The band derives its name from Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies of the 1930s, because of the similarity of McFarlane's surname with that of George McFarland (Spanky). The group was known for its vocal harmonies and had major hits in the US and Canada in 1967–1968 with "Sunday Will Never Be the Same," "Lazy Day," "Sunday Mornin'," and "Like to Get to Know You."
Psychedelic pop is pop music that contains musical characteristics associated with psychedelic music. Developing in the mid-to-late 1960s, elements included "trippy" features such as fuzz guitars, tape manipulation, backwards recording, sitars, and Beach Boys-style harmonies, wedded to melodic songs with tight song structures. The style lasted into the early 1970s. It has seen revivals in subsequent decades by neo-psychedelic artists.
New Orleans blues is a subgenre of blues that developed in and around the city of New Orleans, influenced by jazz and Caribbean music. It is dominated by piano and saxophone, but also produced guitar bluesmen.
"Don’t Make Promises" was the first track on Tim Hardin's debut album Tim Hardin 1, released in 1966. The song, along with "Reason to Believe," was one of the two major songwriting hits from the album, with more than a dozen cover versions having been recorded following its release. British radio presenter and writer Charlie Gillett noted the song's ability to achieve "the elusive balance between personal miseries and universal sufferings," while author Mark Brend praised the song's "fragile pop sensibilities" and how it contrasted with the "swaggering" R&B of album track "Ain't Gonna Do Without."
This article includes an overview of the events and trends in popular music in the 1960s.
Post-Britpop is an alternative rock subgenre and is the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, following Britpop, when the media were identifying a "new generation" or "second wave" of guitar bands influenced by acts like Oasis and Blur, but with less overt British concerns in their lyrics and making more use of American rock and indie influences, as well as experimental music. Bands in the post-Britpop era that had been established acts, but gained greater prominence after the decline of Britpop, such as Radiohead and the Verve, and new acts such as Travis, Keane, Snow Patrol, Stereophonics, Feeder, and particularly Coldplay, achieved much wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Music of the United Kingdom developed in the 1960s into one of the leading forms of popular music in the modern world. By the early 1960s the British had developed a viable national music industry and began to produce adapted forms of American music in Beat music and British blues which would be re-exported to America by bands such as The Beatles, The Animals and the Rolling Stones. This helped to make the dominant forms of popular music something of a shared Anglo-American creation, and led to the growing distinction between pop and rock music, which began to develop into diverse and creative subgenres that would characterise the form throughout the rest of the twentieth century.
"Other Arms" is a rock song performed by English rock singer Robert Plant, the first track from his 1983 album The Principle of Moments. It was Plant's first number-one hit on the Billboard Top Tracks chart.
Popular music of the United States in the 1960s became innately tied up into causes, opposing certain ideas, influenced by the sexual revolution, feminism, Black Power and environmentalism. This trend took place in a tumultuous period of massive public, unrest in the United States which consisted of the Cold War, Vietnam War, and Civil Rights Movement.
"A Song for Jeffrey" is a song recorded by the English progressive rock band Jethro Tull, released as their second single in the U.K. However, in the U.S., it was the B-side to "Love Story". It is written in honour of Ian Anderson's friend and future Jethro Tull bassist Jeffrey Hammond. Another version of the song was recorded for play on BBC radio.
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