Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions

by Michael Hicks

Unlike their rock 'n' roll predecessors, many rock musicians of the mid-sixties came to consider themselves as artists--self-consciously presenting themselves as creators of a new sonic medium.

Sixties Rock offers a provocative look at these artists and their innovations in two pivotal rock garage rock and psychedelic music. Delving into everything from harmony to hardware, Michael Hicks shows what makes this music tick and what made it unique in its time. Looking at bands like the Doors, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and Love, Hicks puts legends and flashes in the pan alike through a rigorous analysis that places their music within rock history while exploring its place in the oft-swirling contexts of the time.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Rock N Roll

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

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Reviews

[Trace Reddell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've danced around with this book for a bit, having started it at least three times and never getting past the first chapter. This time I made it through all but the chapters devoted to close readings, one of "Hey Joe" and the other of the Doors' "Light My Fire." I really value the chapters on the "voice" of singers in garage rock and the role of fuzz distortion. I'd hoped for more out of the chapter on psych rock and the closing chapter on modified endings to psych songs. I also find it off-putting when advanced musicological terms -- "mixolydian moving to phrygian" -- are used to discuss garage rock. It's just a hard vocabulary to reconcile with the barbarian impulse of the garage punk and feels like an awkward attempt to fit it into the academy. But maybe I favor more cultural/technology/media studies of sound and music than musicological treatments per se, so I'm acknowledging that a kind of bias might be involved here on my part.

The chapter on psych rock was especially disappointing, as Hicks didn't seem as familiar with the music, much less with psychedelics and their relationship to music. Hicks borrowed three enticing-sounding terms from Leary to describe the psychedelic state, but never really puts them to good use, and relies too much on anonymous testimonies of psychedelic effects that are then shoehorned into descriptions of the music. Ultimately, the chapter felt vague and second-hand. Moreover, some of the information there (and there wasn't a whole lot) was just weird, like referring to Austin's 13th Floor Elevators as a San Francisco band that epitomized the "San Francisco Sound." Likewise, I was disappointed to read that one of the traits attributed to psych rock was a slowness of tempo in the songs, epitomized by the Vanilla Fudge's "You Keep Me Hangin' On" of all things or the Doors more ponderous tracks. A fair number of songs by the 13th Floor Elevators alone would suggest otherwise but there are countless other examples. And while it seems that Hicks knows his garage rock, I was surprised that he didn't address more of the hybrid psych/garage bands like the Chocolate Watchband or Electric Prunes, both of whom have plenty of accelerated psychedelic rave-ups.

The closing chapter on modified endings provided a useful taxonomy of psychedelic maneuvers, but it didn't reflect on how this served a psychedelic effect or objective. And again, I was hoping that things might tie back around to the garage, particularly through a closing synthesis of garage psych. The book felt brief and could have used its own more creative conclusion.

All in all, despite some "nuggets" of wisdom, this was a bit of a disappointing read.

[Bruce Raterink · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have found that most rock music books fall on a spectrum from one extreme of "fanzine style enthusiastic bombast" to "scholarly dissertation" at the other extreme. The best books fall somewhere in the middle with thorough discussions of the music, the artists, and the cultural context. This one is about 80% toward scholarly dissertation, with way more musical terminology (jargon) than the average fan needs. The writing style is stiff and academic, resembling a white paper on garage rock, without a lot of cultural context. The section on Hey Joe, though heavy on music terminology that I didn't understand, was the best part of the book. I recommend this book to music scholars more than garage or psychedelic rock fans.

[Seth Arnopole · Rating 3 out of 5]

The chapter about the history of the song "Hey Joe" and the one covering the way that The Doors gradually changed "Light My Fire" over time stand out.