Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock

by Jim DeRogatis

Turn On Your Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock is a history and critical examination of rock's most inventive genre. Whether or not psychedelic drugs played a role (and as many musicians say they've used them as not), psychedelic rock has consistently charted brave new worlds that exist only in the space between the headphones. The history books tell us the music's high point was the Haight-Ashbury scene of 1967, but the genre didn't start in San Francisco, and its evolution didn't end with the Summer of Love. A line can be drawn from the hypnotic drones of the Velvet Underground to the disorienting swirl of My Bloody Valentine; from the artful experiments of the Beatles' Revolver to the flowing, otherworldly samples of rappers P.M. Dawn; from the dementia of the 13th Floor Elevators to the grungy lunacy of the Flaming Lips; and from the sounds and sights at Ken Kesey's '60s Acid Tests to those at present-day raves. Turn On Your Mind is an attempt to connect the dots from the very first groups who turned on, tuned in, and dropped out, to such new-millennial practitioners as Wilco, the Elephant 6 bands, Moby, the Super Furry Animals, and the so-called “stoner-rock” and “ork-pop” scenes.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Drugs

658 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

About the author

Jim DeRogatis is an associate professor of instruction at Columbia College Chicago and the host, with Greg Kot, of the nationally syndicated public radio show Sound Opinions. The author of Let it Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs and other books, he spent 15 years as the pop music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. He lives in Chicago.

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an expanded version of the author's previous book "Kaleidoscope Eyes". Many of the chapters are repeated in basically the same form, but more than half of the content is completely new. The result is for the most part an improved reading experience, since Derogatis has more time for covering the many different music scenes described in depth and going into detail about why they flamed out. Other chapters are greatly expanded, like the one about psychedelic folk pointing out how many Incredible String Band members became Scientologists later on, or the chapter about the 13th Floor Elevators containing more information about Roky Erickson's career afterwards. There is also more information about how exactly the progressive rock scene evolved out of psychedelic rock in late-1960's Britain than in "Kaleidoscope Eyes", since the author has developed a greater appreciation for that style in the meantime.

After all, for all its shortcomings "Kaleidoscope Eyes" was one of the most formative books in how I think about music by pointing out how psychedelic music could be seen as more of an ethos and philosophy behind making music than one specific music style and scene, which has led me to focus on similar patterns in other music scenes. "Turn On Your Mind" expands on that insight by pointing out that the same ideas are at work in not just the psychedelic and progressive rock scenes of the 1960's and 1970's, but also the shoegaze and noise rock scenes of the 1980's, as well as 1990's sludge metal and a myriad of experimental electronic music sub-styles. Despite all those different genres being worlds apart in sound as well as imagery and lyrics, Derogatis traces back the philosophy behind how most of the artists in them make music to 1960's/1970's psychedelia in some way or another which I found highly fascinating. This is a good example of expert nonfiction writing that connects the dots between subject matter that at first appears to be unrelated, by providing a new context to place them in.

Of course, it's not a Jim Derogatis book without some eccentric opinions that are the result of him "reading music history backwards" by filtering 1960's/1970's music through the lens of someone who came of age in the 1980's. For instance, he repeats his famous argument from "Kaleidoscope Eyes" that The Doors do not belong in a book about psychedelic music because he considers them more forerunners to the gothic rock scene than anything else. This is actually something I agree with Derogatis about, as I also view Morrison and Manczarek's merry men as having more in common with The Cult or Echo and the Bunnymen than with the hippie culture they are usually lumped in with. At the same time , Derogatis does include the Velvet Underground whom I frankly find an even bigger departure from standard 1960's psychedelic rock than The Doors were, as well as many of the spacier post-punk outfits for example The Teardrop Explodes who are not so far removed from Echo and the Bunnymen at all.

That said: As I get older, I care less and less about the personal opinions of non-fiction book authors as long as they can point me to interesting information. A task Derogatis does a sterling job at in "Turn On Your Mind", pointing to a huge amount of interesting musicians and records in different styles that most people do not associate with each other. For most readers this will be an invaluable resource for new music recommendations, in particular in genres they would otherwise not have taken an interest in.

[Wray F · Rating 4 out of 5]

My poor Spotify account. I stuffed my playlists with dozens and dozens of new albums as I was reading this book. It will take weeks to listen to all this new music. This collection reviews and recommends a large gamut of artists, songs, and albums, so be prepared to read it for that purpose. I realized how much I have always been attracted to stranger sounds in music as I progressed from one decade to the next, reading about all the different forms of psychedelia. As the chapters started to focus on the my formative music-buying decades, I could point to an album on nearly every page I had bought or downloaded at one point or the other. Clearly, trippy music has been in my wheelhouse for a long time. This book is a great way to get introduced (and re-introduced) to a genre of music that has worked its way into rock, prog, jazz-fusion, hip-hop, and metal to name a few, and created some memorable and downright weird creations. Good stuff!

[Danny Volt · Rating 4 out of 5]

For all intents, this is a 5-star. It's a must-read.

In the into, he claims it isn't all-encompassing genre-wise, but in reality, it's about as exhaustive as anyone could expect.

I hate to drop it from 5 to 4-star — actually more like 4.5, with some nitpicks:
* He mostly dismisses Camper Van Beethoven. He does mention Cracker's "Low" as off-the-radar psychedelia, but mentions CVB only in terms of its covers (Interstellar Overdrive & Pictures of Matchstick Men), even though Camper's third album (which contains the Pink Floyd cover) is wall-to-wall psychedelia (celebratory and send-up combination — but it still fits this genre as much as anything included in the book).
* Since it's such an expansive volume, Jim needs to listen to "This One's For the Ladies" by Young Fresh Fellows. It's more garage than psych in style, but its Form is psychedlia.
* Excellent section about Paisley Underground, but as much as I love The Long Ryders, that almost doesn't fit the category (Other than 10-5-60).
* Only passing reference to Guided By Voices, compared to semi-extensive mention of Plasticland.

[Pachyderm Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second volume (think of it as an "extended update" to the first.) of listening recommendations and aural excursions into the good, the bad, the ugly, and perhaps the merely "just plain unlistenable" trips into the wonderfully whacked out world of psychedelic rock record recordings all the way from here back to the fields of yesteryear.

While not meaning to be the most definitive or exhaustive volume on this subject, (even according to its author) this book does in fact serve as a cultural signpost in terms of musical developments with where this genre in American and world popular culture has been, as well as discussing trends and future forays into what the continuously changing and developing atmosphere of psychedelic rock music with all its attendant pop-cultural leanings could be.

[Paulus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much liked the fact that DeRogatis didn't stick with the traditional sense of what psychedelic rock is in this book. Instead he places it in a much broader context and draws lines tot other genres and bands that would never have been labelled psychedelic rock otherwise (even U2!).
You could say that the lists of bands, albums and songs are very much Jim DeRogatis own favorites ('this is my version of psychedelic rock', he writes in the preface), instead of an 'objective' overview, but that didn't bother me at all. On the contrary: I discovered some great music because of this book, and you will too, no doubt about that!

[Jonathan Kranz]

A mixed bag. For me, the most rewarding aspect of the book was its list of listening recommendations. Thanks to Derogatis, I've opened my ears to bands/albums I had previously neglected, such as The Dream Syndicate, My Bloody Valentine, Spacemen 3, Stereolab, Olivia Tremor Control, and many others.

But the actual narrative portion of the book, the story of psychedelic rock, failed to cover ground I hadn't tread before. I wish the author had dug deeper: show us some surprising inspirations for psychedelia; connect the music to other parts of our culture or to other cultures; reveal aspects of the artists we wouldn't have expected.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A kind of pot pouri of psychedic rock and to some stent prog, It's a book that is unflinching in it's definition of this genre and given the multitude of books of this nature espousing Punk a Psychedelic is kind of overdue.
I enjoyed it for what it is a guide and a pointer for other sounds, some of the authors recomendations for contempary psychedelic sounds are maybe a little too far away from the original ethic to hold much wait but he makes a decent argument nevertheless

[George Poulos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall DeRogatis is a good writer of music. "13th Floor Elevators", never listened to them until I read about them here. Could do better with German psychedelia and space rock. Could be more detailed but good overview nonetheless. Got too bored to continue... too many brief sketches and lack of detail the Flaming Lips book was much better.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a bit of a niche genre in music, it was good to see this book. It covers psychedelic music from its beginnings up to the turn of the century.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The amount of music talked about here is overwhelming. I could spend years mining the albums here.

[Chris Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really I guess 3.5 stars. I learned about a lot of bands I have heard of and of course some I have never heard of. It created a massive list of bands/artists to listen to. The book started off on fire, mainly because it was the 60's , which I love and think of when I think of "Psychedelic". The middle was tough for me as it went into music that I never considered the be psychedelic, may they are, maybe they aren't, I guess its up to the individual listener. Some of the bands I have never heard of are legit Psych, others, I would not think so. However, it does provide lots of rabbit holes to dig into. I was disappointed to not even see mentions of bands that created some killer Psych, IE. Gandalf, H.P. Lovecraft, etc.. But I guess when you fill the book with 80's, and 90's psych something gets left out.

[John Van Walsum · Rating 4 out of 5]

good read, a bit slow at times.