really had me til the last quote...

@1, good point. I didn't actually say this, though I recall it getting brought up during the interview. I love the blues and its influence on psych music could not possibly be understated.

I think what Dave (and the guy from the Misunderstood) means by that is that there is an ongoing struggle between pessimism and optimism, and that psychedelic music is (in part) about turning out optimism, celebrating the new growth that comes from destruction. But in order for that to happen, the destruction (and the blues! the dark night of the soul!) are an absolutely necessary part of the equation.

Thanks for the great article.

-Emily

"understated"...I meant overstated. D'oh!

hey-our website is http://www.portableshrines.com/

hey-our website is http://www.portableshrines.com/

The Comet Show Monday was awesome, even tho it was on a Monday night and following 4th of July weekend!

Yeah thanks for clarifying Emily, not meant as a dis on the blues medium at all which has been a massive influence my whole life. Rather I feel that music, however abstractly can point toward a higher vision of reality beyond the triviality and meaninglessness of everyday material existence and perhaps in some way suggest the relevance of the unseen forces and higher order which shape all life, y'know? And why the hell not? I think thats what music has always been about from day one. I realize not everyone is going to "get it" or even give a fuck but what can you do?

Not that it isn't nice that these folks are trying to promote their scene, but it seems disingenuous to claim that psychadelic music is something new for Seattle. Bands like Master Musicians of Bukkake, Earth, Diminished Men and everyone else following in the footsteps of Sun City Girls have been at it for quite a while.

Exactly, cb, exactly.

@8, You're absolutely right. There is a wonderful precedent for psych music in the bands that you mentioned and more. Seattle owes no small part of its soul to Sun City Girls.

No one is claiming that psych music is new to Seattle; only that Portable Shrines exists for the purpose of "giving it a shove." The thriving current psych scene in the Bay Area and other places right now is largely supported by lots of similar DIY organizations. I think the quality of the events PS have pulled off so far are a testament to the power of a little care and promotion.

@10, Don't we wish we had trust funds! Actually, everyone involved has a day job. And as far as that quote, it's got nothing to do with drugs. It's a physical fact that the universe is composed of vibrating waveforms that may be thought of as musical tones.

On its most basic level, enjoying music is the human perceptual apparatus appreciating the kind of math it's made of as beautiful, and I would thus consider all musicians who are interested in playing with the effects of music on consciousness "psychedelic" (from the Greek "soul" or "mind" + "manifesting"), hence the indefinite categorical boundaries.

That said, we are aware that there are problems with the word "psychedelic," notably the one you pointed out: people have all sorts of negative associations involving druggy hippies and half-baked philosophical notions. Another problem is that the word is overused to the point that it is often difficult to discern what is meant by it. And yet, there is a complex of auditory and visual effects that are difficult to describe without it.

If there were a less loaded word for what we mean, we'd use it. Portable Shrines is here to support the music we love, and not everyone loves the same things. But the truth is, all music is psychedelic if you're doing it right.

@8, Seattle has always had psychedelic bands. Back in the 80's we had stellar neo psych/paisley underground bands such as Room Nine, Paisley Sin, and Green Pajamas. Further, many of the early grunge bands (and current-check out Idle Times!) were tinged with psychedelia. And, um, Jimi Hendrix was a native. As Emily said, we are just giving it a shove, creating happenings where psych bands rooting out of varying genres can come together and rock.

@10, I have a day job, 2 freelance jobs and still struggle. Music and art provides me with a creative outlet for my escapism...personally, i prefer to do instead of talk. I only wish I had a trust fund to have the time to "get high, talk about eastern religion and existentialism...and trip out to some spacey jams", wouldn't that be lovely.

@11-"But the truth is, all music is psychedelic if you're doing it right." The utmost truth.

@11 - tho' you have addressed this point, sorta, as it does need a push...the "scene" has never stopped going, it's circular, always in orbit, I'd reckon...the last cycle matured, what...4 years ago?...w/bands like Silver Sunshine, Dungeon, Invisible Eyes (!)...etc. Matured in that those groups raised awareness, not a scene. In Seattle that blip happened in the middle of post-indie rock kids who saw it as something novel, not REVOLUTION and most def not a groovy way out of their jittery snowblindedness to another way of thinking (and most of the old garage crew had a 'no thanks too wanky' policy for sike). But then each pop generation (since '92), especially them 20 something adults, seems to rediscover SOMETHING old as new but tends to confuse the original context. I reckon I oughta blame the ease of MP3s/internet as the "was SO hard to find ten/twenty/thirty years ago" is ready at hand, w/not always correct editorial comment, BTW. So POOFT (pun intended) PSYCHEDELIC '00s style, man...here we go again. In Europe the '60s/sike scene is rote (they have weekenders and allnighters, not so many festivals), like, NUTS has been an ongoing enterprise for years (the Pretty Things played Le Be Bespoke 5 this year)...in SF, Chicago, NYC...small '60s/sike scenes have been thriving since the LA Revival. Really, nothing ever happens in a vacuum.
Um, but the Euro scene is certainly more the (ahem) "corny" vein of the '60s. Sorry, but this sike thing ain't new, even if the Sun City Girls, beat hunting DJs and '80s sike, '90/00s prog are the touchstones for Seattle/the West Coast's current wave (and they sure sound like it). And I get the FOCUS of unifying the vibes @ the events, but Nehring you should mind your attitude regarding your elders and contemporaries - "Nehring observes. "The bands [we like] are psychedelic, but they're not on some retro-revival trip. It's not a corny 'let's pretend it's the '60s' kind of thing." Course, I'm not sure exactly how serious this statement could be, considering PS's posters are "trippy '60s" designed, them fellas have upper Haight beards, long hair, AND that oily projector pic at the top of the page there are ALL "corny" '60s cliche's. But then is the sike groups PS are hosting gonna be "up to date" sike (?) but set in a '60s type happening? Which is all fine and good, but I'd rather go see or listen to a "corny" contemp sike group that sounded like, say, the Action (c.Brain acetate) or Mad River than Spaceman 3 or Jesus & Mary Chain (not that I don't love S3/J&MC)...repetition and noise jams are great to find that far out vibe, but so are songs like REAL '60s sike bands wrote. The BEST show I EVER saw was Arthur Lee & Love @ the Sky Church...the songwriting couldn't be beaten and carried the vibe. Anyways, that quote just sounded like a jack ass thing to say, and most of those us that kept ANY '60s scene alive...or at least HOPES of a scene, did so w/'60s nights and bands in "corny" '60s togs and all the other cliche's...tho' I was never good in cuban heels. That said, any scene in Seattle PSs builds will prolly be built not on "in the know" geezers like me, but folks who have a only a cursory knowledge of '60s...so a more liberal inclusive definition of sike SOUNDS and images...indie kids who like the bright and shiny (and don't know the huge diff between krautrock and freakbeat)?

So...yeah, with all that outta the way, cheers to building a collective to get shit moving...I'm gonna try to make it out for the 18th event.

@10 "Psychedelic" is meant to be vague and INCLUSIVE. The context of a label such as "Psychedelic" and the hazy understanding of it's past can always be tweaked to suit it as a label - "Psychedelic isn't really a kind of music; it's a descriptor that can be applied to all kinds of music..." EXCACTLY, and well stated...it is and can be used as an adjective for lots of shit. It does still need to be strict, otherwise w/o further (ahem) direction we could lump Black Flag into the mix...or Public Enemy. When that happens then things are confused and can get revisionist. Revisionism has no place in history, thoughtfully Segal used (my least fave term tho, Mr. Segal! HA!) "Psych-Rock" to narrow the context for this feature.

@12 SOUL ain't sike, never will be, can't be if you're doing soul right.

PS - The Misunderstood made the jump to sike (on record) as they moved to the UK via John Peel, BTW, by the time they were recording they had and English guitarist, Tony Hill (who'd later be in High Tide). In SD they were a blues band, since there were no blues bands, well, that, and Mr. Campbell's genius steel playing gave em the one up. The first Misunderstood 45 was issued in December '66, the second in Feb of '69 after Campbell got another line up of the band together. They were not ahead of their time, they were dead in the middle of the ascension.

PSS - Segal you forgot to include the Screaming Trees in that list of local sike heads, they were prolly the best local Elevators lovers that wrote around the Elevators w/o rewriting Elevators' songs.

I stumbled onto portable shrines not long ago. Introduced me to a few great bands that I've now seen a couple times. Why is this the first time anyone's ever heard about it?!

@16 hence the "(!)"

another one!

@13, 17...You are obviously very knowledgeable about music history and I really appreciate getting to read your take on the issue. There are a few points I would clarify:

(1) The way you mention "each pop generation...especially them 20 something adults" makes me suspect you think we fit into that category. Although some of the bands PS champions have younger members, there ain't one person in that photo under 30.

(2) The 1960s don't own beards, any more than Rutherford muthafuckin Hayes does. Beards are simply the default way a (white) male human head looks in the absence of body modification. Some ladies might be into dudes who shave, but that's just a little too kinky for me. ;)

(3) You're right. The oily projector is totally a 60s thing. We were trying to do something that captures the flavor of the light shows PS does. (The actual light shows are more involved.)

(4) I've seen Aubrey's music collection and I don't doubt for a moment that he respects his elders. Again, what he noted was a lull in the scene right now, not historically. Quibbling over the use of "scene" is semantic orneriness. Yes, yes, as soon as you make an attempt to define something, the thing-in-itself disappears in favor of the image you've created, but that goes for everything, not just cyclical movements in music and culture.

(5) It's impossible to eliminate references and elements from the 1960s from "psych rock," and we wouldn't want to. The 60s saw the invention of the genre. But the 60s are just one slice of "psychedelic" history if you broaden it to include all music and art that fosters and exhibits an awareness of the power of ritual, altered brain states, and self-transcendence. The drugs and music technology may have caused a renaissance in the 60s, but psychedelic precedents are everywhere and include basically all Buddhist and Hindu art, Tibetan chants, Gamelan, African drumming, Native American vision quests, cave paintings, Heraclitus, alchemical manuscripts, gothic architecture, von Bingen, Bach, William Blake and 19th century Romanticism, Art Noveau, Jung, Surrealism, Minimalism, etc. ad infinitum. In terms of sheer formalism, I've even argued that Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece, (of all buttoned down works of art!) is highly "psychedelic" in that it perfectly conforms to Heinrich Kluver's psychedelically-derived mathematical "form constants."

(6) SOUL can most definitely be psychedelic. (Are you gonna tell me Minnie Riperton wasn't doing it right?!!) Opera can be psychedelic too. If you don't agree, it's probably only because our definitions of psychedelic differ.

@ 19 In regards to the 20 somethings remark I was generalizing the age, not of PS, but of the casual listener and of Seattle's indie/rock kids. Regarding the scene, I've been to West Coast, Midwest and East Coast sike/garage/soul nights/shows for the past 15 years, too poor to go to Europe tho'...i know very well what the scene defined (or projected) is/was, I didn't invent it...the definitions were in place when I turned up. Define it however you like tho'...you know, I WANT this to happen in Seattle. No sike peeps turned up when I was playing sike @ Mccleod and I only was asked to play garage @ the last two Lo-Fi NYEs!

I know Aubrey via IE (I reviewed the LP, and previewed a couple shows, should be in the stranger archives) and I only was confused by his "corny" as it sounded like a dig, the quote didn't sound like he meant "lull"...read it again, maybe? It seemed odd to me considering the '60s fashion in that pic. His "elders" would be those who've played pretend '60s since the late '70s...um, like, more recently the Makers, for instance...who were not so corny, till they turned to parody.

Um...Minnie Riperton solo or w/the Rotary Connection...soul as sike well, that I can certainly take you to task on. There are few, if any convincing crossovers...

Nipper: Thanks for your input.

A few points: Soul can too be psychedelic. Why be so rigid? Selected songs by Rotary Connection, Sly & the Family Stone, Shuggie Otis, and the Temptations strike me as excellent examples of this phenomenon. I could go on...

True, since the '60s, psychedelic music always has been happening; the public acceptance/awareness of it, though, fluctuates. It's helpful and inspirational to have gatekeepers/tastemakers/promoters/enthusiasts, etc. spotlighting the best specimens of psych (or sike, if it makes you happier). Nobody in the story is claiming that psych is new; they're simply noting that the psych scene is experiencing a resurgence and that there are a lot of good new artists emerging.

I thought Screaming Trees were based in Ellensburg. I didn't think that counts as local. Whatever the case, Even If and Especially When is great.

Here I want to say I should've mentioned Hovercraft in this piece. They were present, along with Hendrix, in an early draft of the story, but were later deleted. I consider Hovercraft to be the best Seattle band ever—and they were very, very psychedelic.

I've tried for years to suss out some soul groups/performers (Sly, the Bagetelle, Scorpion, Magnificent Men...) that played sike, but I've never heard any convincing sike by any soul group/performer...later, theres plenty of funk that crosses over (Shuggie, Sly), but even a group like the Parliments who, playing live were known to be BLAZED and would proceed to throw down some solid psychedelic freakouts, this while still in their Revilot period, were producing/recording straight soul, even on the first Parliments LP the raging track "Call My Baby Pussycat" is straight soul. But I wasn't in Detroit in 1968 to see em live...um, Dave did you see any of those shows?! HA!

I've also never heard/read any soul producers/writers/performers express success in crossing over from soul to sike, having read/heard a LOT of interviews that touched on why there wasn't any proper soul sike, even ROCK (Black Rock is TOO thin on the ground)...the Temps Psychedelic Shack is the only acknowledged near success. The only "yeah, theres that", it was an attempt. Granted, there are a shit ton of sike songs covered by soul performers...but always played as soul. Hmmm, that makes me think of Loraine Ellison's Stay w/Me Baby which was bettered by Terry Reid...but anyways...

Rotary Connection, their LPs are filled w/baroque pop, their version of Soul Man? Fail for soul. I do love Paper Castle, FUCK, that song rips! Oh, and the Xmas LP they did...eep, um, I prolly should sell that. That LP s awful.

Soul is black pop (from '66 - 70 specifically), and was meant for radio play...dancing, 2.5 minutes, 4 beats to the bar...and there was plenty of woodshedding and time in the studio, but it wasn't to experiment to take themselves or us onto another level, those folks were reaching for hooks, to get those 45s ON THE RADIO.

Hey #24, I think the point we're trying to make, which keeps getting de-railed by other commenters here, is that ANYTHING and EVERYTHING can be psychedelic, and we're not interested in splitting hairs. It just so happens that rock music is where we find ourselves, but as record labels like Sublime Frequencies prove, the groove we're interested in tapping into is much much older than the 1960s and can be found in all times and places of the world. True, Portable Shrines exists to promote psychedelic music made in Seattle and environs in the here and now, but you know, if it sounds good, it is good.

I take back calling RC - Baraoque Pop, BTW. Its orchestrated sike...not so sweet as baraoque.

And the Chamber Bros could maybe pass as soul that crossed over...

@ 24 we're NOT cool, we are nerds. And we're old. And fat. And ugly. Thats why we have so much time to sit around w/records and books and think about things vs going out and stuff.

@26, who's "we"?

Thanks for jogging my memory, Nipper. I knew there was something I was forgetting re: soul/psych examples—Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today" was my EUREKA! moment when I heard it on the radio as a 7-year-old. Hearing that song definitely flipped a switch in my "fragile eggshell mind" (yeah, I went there) and set me on the course of seeking and loving psychedelic music. It's a journey that I hope never ends.

i LOVE this thread!
keep talking people!

Psychedelia has a tendency to ebb and flow, you know, like ocean tides. Currently it seems to bubbling forth up to the surface. Maybe it's the 'strange times' we are livin' in these daze. Seems to be in more in tune with the 'chaos' around us. I for one am pleased it appears to be on the increase.

From teener/'50s rock -> Soul -> SIKE...we have....(ahem) Chubby Checker - My Mind (Ariola 14.922) 1971, 45 was issued in Spain, after he'd moved to Holland. He recorded an entire LP of sike/garage hella long hair gear, he wrote all the songs, so I've been told. I think there is an Ugly Things featrued on the LP also which tells the tale of the record, it was issued in the US, in abridged form in the '80s (I think). I know the GENIUIS track from the comp "Nightmares @ Toby's Shop.

I've heard about, but never heard, this Chubby Checker sike material. It's so implausible, it has to be true. Wonder if it's as good as Muddy Waters' Electric Mud...

hey, it's not Psych, but what about the VICE Scion Garage Festival in PDX in october?

the Mummies sellin' out!
whoop whoop!

WHA? The Mummies are playing a fest sponsered by Scion? What next? A Mummies Sub Pop Singles club 45?! ZING! Tho I guess...why not, Russell needs a haircut.

Dave,

I have one track somewhere from the Chubby Checker psych stuff....nowhere near as interesting as it sounds.

@36
I hear that the album's going to be reissued and available in shops soon. My expectations are low, but my curiosity is high.

ritter told me the chubby checkers is at sonic boom or will be really soon.