Psychedelisch

When we think of Germans, we think of highly organized, efficient, crew cut people who follow orders and obey authority.  Since WWII, however, such ideas have fallen into disfavor, especially in Germany.  The Nazi Party and the swastika are banned.  Even the Swiss chemist himself, Albert Hoffman, invented LSD.  In the 1960s, the world peace, aka hippie, movement found as much fertile soil in West Germany as anywhere else; the West Germans even produced their own left wing extremist groups, the Red Army Faction and the Baader-Meinhof gang. 

 Recently I came across a pair of newer German psychedelic bands, Electric Moon and Vibravoid.  Both go off into the ozone with 20-30 minute songs with no lyrics (similar to Sleep’s Dopesmoker album, a single 60 minute instrumental track).  For each band I have a studio album and a live album, Lunatics and Live at Epplehaus (Electric Moon; the latter is two discs each with only one humungous song on it), and Minddrugs and Herzberg Festival for Vibravoid.  I’ve yet to see either band tour outside Germany, though – just as Hawkwind never seems to leave the UK anymore.

 But Germans have been doing this for some time:  Can and Amon Düül II were at it in the late 60s and early 70s, and are as crazy and off the wall as the Grateful Dead, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, or Gong.  There’s not much more I can say about any of these bands besides recommending them to anyone who loves the tried and true psychedelic bands we’ve known about for years. 

 Piper Angle.  Pink Floyd is rightfully labeled a psychedelic band, and its first album, with Syd Barrett, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, is Exhibit A for that case.  But I’ve found that Piper has two very different types of songs: the heavy duty, mindf**k psychedelic songs, of which “Astronomy Domine” and “Interstellar Overdrive”  are the most obvious; and the simpler, whimsical, sing-song, nursery rhyme songs, almost children’s songs, of which “Bike”, “The Gnome”, “Scarecrow” and “Chapter 24” are the best examples.  These German bands are all in the first category and have no songs which pay homage to Syd in the second fashion.