Acid rock

This article is about the rock music genre. For the geologic term, see Igneous rock#Chemical classification.

Acid rock is a style or subgenre of psychedelic rock which emerged during the 1960s psychedelic era among rock bands, many of whom aspired for sociological and cultural change and used, or anticipated listeners using, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD or "acid").[nb 1] The term has several characterizations and may often refer to a louder, heavier, and intense variety of psychedelic rock, representing both "good trips" and "bad trips." It is generally defined by distorted guitars, lyrics that contain drug references, and long improvised jams. It may also include a subset of bands that were part of, or were influenced by, the San Francisco Sound.

The term may include early hard rock, heavy metal, and proto-metal, as acid rock influenced and later evolved into those genres. Acid rock was also a precursor of progressive rock.

Origins

In 1968 Life magazine referred to The Doors as the "Kings of Acid Rock".[5]

Acid rock got its name because it served as background music for acid trips in underground parties in the 1960s (e.g. the Merry Pranksters' "Acid Tests").[6] Associated bands aimed to create a youth movement based on love and peace, as an alternative to workaholic capitalist society.[7] David P. Szatmary states, "a legion of rock bands, playing what became known as 'acid rock,' stood in the vanguard of the movement for cultural change."[8] Szatmary also quotes from the San Francisco Oracle, an underground newspaper published between 1966 and 1968, to explain how rock music was perceived at that time and how the acid rock movement emerged: "Rock music is a regenerative and revolutionary art, offering us our first real hope for the future (indeed, for the present)."[8]

Former Atlantic Records executive Phillip Rauls is quoted saying, "I was in the music business at the time, and my very first recognition of acid rock ... was, of all people, The Beach Boys and the song 'Good Vibrations'."[9] Writer Vernon Joyson observed flirtations with acid rock in the Beach Boys' albums Pet Sounds (1966) and the unfinished Smile.[10] Rolling Stone magazine includes early Pink Floyd as "acid-rock."[11] Bands credited with creating or laying the foundation for "acid rock" include garage rock bands such as The 13th Floor Elevators[12] and Count Five.[13] The blues rock group the Paul Butterfield Blues Band are also credited with spawning the harder acid rock sound,[14] and their 1966 song "East-West," with its early use of the extended rock solo, has been described as laying "the roots of psychedelic acid rock"[15] and featuring "much of acid-rock’s eventual DNA."[16] By July 1967, Time magazine wrote, "From jukeboxes and transistors across the nation pulses the turned-on sound of acid-rock groups: the Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Moby Grape".[17]

Development and characteristics

Psychedelic rock

Main article: Psychedelic rock

The term "acid rock" may refer specifically to a heavier, louder, or harder subgenre of psychedelic rock.[18][19][20] Alan Bisbort and Parke Puterbaugh write that acid rock "can best be described as psychedelia at its rawest and most intense [...] Bad trips as well as good, riots as well as peace, pain as well as pleasure - the whole spectrum of reality, not just the idyllic bits, were captured by acid rock."[21] "Acid rock" has also been described as more heavily electronic and containing more distortion ("fuzz") than typical psychedelic rock.[22] By the late 1960s, in addition to the deliberate use of distortion and feedback, acid rock was further characterized by long guitar solos and the frequent use of electronic organs.[13] Lyric references to drug use were also common, as exemplified in Jefferson Airplane's 1967 song "White Rabbit" and Jimi Hendrix Experience's 1967 song "Purple Haze."[13]

Jefferson Airplane, early 1966

At a time when many British psychedelic bands played whimsical or surrealistic psychedelic rock, many 1960s American rock bands, especially those from the West Coast, developed a rawer or harder version of psychedelic rock containing garage rock energy.[1] When contrasted with whimsical British psychedelia, the harder American West Coast variant of psychedelic rock has been referred to as acid rock. [23] British psychedelia was often more arty in its experimentation, and it tended to stick within pop song structures.[24] Along with its whimsical and surrealist tendencies, British psychedelic rock was generally not as minimalist and not as aggressive as its American counterpart, often featuring longer song arrangements and incorporating Eastern instruments such as sitars.[25] Meanwhile, American psychedelic rock and garage bands such as the 13th Floor Elevators epitomized the frenetic, darker and more psychotic sound of American acid rock, a sound characterized by droning guitar riffs, amplified feedback, and guitar distortion.[25] The term "acid rock" was soon applied to define this pounding, hard rock variant of psychedelic rock, a variant that evolved from the 1960s garage-punk movement.[26] Acid rock has been described as lacking the recording studio "gimmickry" that typified the more Beatles-influenced strain of psychedelic rock, though acid rock experimented in other ways with electrified guitar effects.[26] However, cross-over in these two psychedelic rock variants did occur; the Animals' 1968 song "Sky Pilot" was among the few songs of the era to juxtapose the more Jimi Hendrix-influenced, electric guitar-centered American acid rock style with the elaborate orchestration of Sgt. Pepper-influenced, British-style psychedelic rock.[27]

Tonal distortion was also one of the defining characteristics of the San Francisco Sound.[28] The acid rock of the San Francisco Sound heavily incorporated musical improvisation, jamming, repetitive drum beats, experimental sound and tape effects, and intentional feedback.[29] San Francisco acid rock generally took a non-commercial approach to song-writing: it often involved almost free jazz-like, free-form hard rock improvisations alongside distorted guitars, and lyrics often were socially conscious, trippy, or anti-establishment.[30] Many of the musicians in the scene, including bands such as the Charlatans and the Quicksilver Messenger Service, became involved in Ken Kesey's LSD-driven psychedelic scene, known as the Merry Pranksters.[29] The Charlatans were among the first Bay Area acid rock bands, though Jefferson Airplane was the first Bay Area acid rock band to sign a major label and achieve mainstream success.[31]

Garage rock

Main article: Garage rock
See also: Proto-punk
Count Five – "Psychotic Reaction" (1965)
Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction", among the first successful acid rock songs, contained the characteristics that would come to define acid rock: the use of feedback and distortion replacing early rock music's more melodic electric guitars.[13]
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In the 1960s, various American garage rock bands began playing psychedelic rock with the rawness and energy of garage rock, incorporating heavy distortion, feedback, and layered sonic effects into their psychedelic music.[1] "Garagey" psychedelia, exemplified by acts such as Blues Magoos, the Electric Prunes, and the Music Machine, has been identified as falling under the label of acid rock.[21] The "garage psychedelia" of the 1960s has also been described as a transition between early 1960s garage rock and the more elaborate acid rock of the late 1960s, with the 1972 anthology compilation Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968 showcasing this transitional sound.[32] Both garage rock and acid rock were featured prominently on the Nuggets compilation.[33] This acid rock present in the Nuggets anthology has been described as an offshoot of 1960s punk rock.[34][nb 2] Bands such as Count Five, with their 1965 song "Psychotic Reaction", as well as other groups featured on Nuggets, would eventually epitomize the overlap between 1960s garage rock and psychedelic punk.[36] As one of the first successful acid rock songs, "Psychotic Reaction" also contained the characteristics that would come to define acid rock: the use of feedback and distortion replacing early rock music's more melodic electric guitars.[13]

Another group included on the Nuggets album, the 13th Floor Elevators, began as a straight garage rock band before becoming one of the original early acid rock bands and the innovators of psychedelic rock in general, with a sound consisting of distortion, often yelping vocals, and "occasionally demented" lyrics.[37] Hailing from Austin, Texas, the 13th Floor Elevators and their frontman Rocky Erickson have been described as pioneers of acid rock.[12] Their debut album, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, featuring the garage rock hit "You're Gonna Miss Me," was among the earliest psychedelic rock albums.[38][37] By 1966, the New York City garage band the Blues Magoos were referring to their wailing blues rock as "psychedelic music", and their hard variant of psychedelic rock, with its roots in the garage movement, would be increasingly labeled "acid rock."[26]

Hard rock and heavy metal

Main articles: Hard rock and Heavy metal music
See also: Stoner metal

"Acid rock" has also been used to refer to early hard rock or heavy metal.[39][nb 3] Although often originally deployed as a catchall term for the experimental Haight-Ashbury psychedelic rock scene, the term "acid rock" would come to encompass other heavy and hard psychedelic rock bands outside of the San Francisco scene.[43] Early heavy metal in particular evolved partially from or as a continuation of psychedelic rock and the heavier aspects of the San Francisco Sound of Haight-Ashbury.[44] Early heavy metal often combined acid rock and psychedelic rock with a blues rock structure.[45] In the 1960s, the heavy, blues-influenced, psychedelic hard rock sound of bands such as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Deep Purple, and Cream was classified as acid rock.[43] Other acid rock groups such as Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, and Vanilla Fudge served as examples of early heavy metal, or proto-metal, creating stripped-downed, loud, intense, and "fuzzy" acid rock or hard rock.[43] Bands such as Blue Cheer, Cream, and the hard rock group The Amboy Dukes have all been described as "leading practitioners" of the harder variant of psychedelic rock known as "acid rock."[26]

The influence of acid rock on early heavy metal was evident in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" being described as an example of the transition between acid rock and heavy metal or the turning point in which acid rock became "heavy metal."[46][47] "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" serves a notable example of 1960s and early 1970s acid rock or heavy psychedelic rock, and the band would continue to experiment with distorted, "fuzzy," heavy psychedelia into the 1970s.[48] Both Iron Butterfly's 1968 album, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and Blue Cheer's 1968 album, Vincebus Eruptum have been described as greatly influential in the transition of acid rock into "heavy metal."[49] Heavy metal's acid rock origins can further be seen in the loud acid rock of groups such Steppenwolf, who contributed their song "Born to Be Wild" to the soundtrack of the 1969 film, Easy Rider, which itself glamorized the genre.[13] Ultimately, Steppenwolf and other acid rock groups such as Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Led Zeppelin paved the way for the electrified, bluesy sound of early heavy metal.[50]

Black Sabbath, 1970

By the early 1970s, bands such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath combined the loud, raw distortion of acid rock with occult lyrics, further forming a basis for the genre now known as "heavy metal."[51] By the 1970s, the then tenuous distinction between the terms "acid rock," "hard rock" and "heavy metal" began to fully form.[52] Many of the bands integral to acid rock would go on to become increasingly defined as "heavy metal".[18] At a time when rock music began to turn back to roots-oriented soft rock, many acid rock groups instead evolved into heavy metal bands.[26] As its own movement, heavy metal music continued to perpetuate characteristics of acid rock bands into at least the 1980s,[28] and traces of psychedelic rock can be seen in the musical excesses of later metal bands.[26] In the 1990s, the stoner metal genre combined acid rock with other hard rock genres such as grunge, updating the heavy riffs and long jams found in the acid rock and psychedelic-influenced metal of bands such as Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer, Hawkwind, and Blue Oyster Cult.[3]

Progressive rock

Main article: Progressive rock

In addition to hard rock and heavy metal, acid rock also gave rise to the progressive rock movement.[53] In the 1970s, elements of psychedelic music split into two notable directions, evolving into the hard rock and heavy metal of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin on one side and into the progressive rock of bands such Pink Floyd and Yes on the other.[42] Bands such as Yes, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer kept the psychedelic musical movement alive for some time, but eventually moved away from drug-themed music towards experiments in electronic music and the addition of classical music themes into rock music. [13]

List of artists

Notes

  1. ↑ According to Jerry Garcia, acid rock is music you listen to while under the influence of acid, who further stated there is no real psychedelic rock and that it is Indian classical music and some Tibetan music that are examples of music "designed to expand consciousness."[4]
  2. ↑ At the time, the term "punk rock" referred to the garage rock of the 1960s, such as that present in the Nuggets compilation.[35]
  3. ↑ Conversely, hard rock and heavy metal have also been described as evolving from psychedelic rock.[40][41][42] More specifically, hard rock and heavy metal have been described as an "evolutionary form of 1960s acid rock."[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Psychedelic/Garage at AllMusic.
  2. 1 2 "Loyola entertainment law journal". Loyola Entertainment Law Journal 6: 90. 1986.
  3. 1 2 Stoner Metal at AllMusic.
  4. ↑ Rolling Stone Magazine Staff, p. 195.
  5. ↑ Powledge, Fred. "Wicked Go The Doors". Life (April 12, 1968).
  6. 1 2 Wolfe 1968, p. 223.
  7. ↑ Szatmary 2014.
  8. 1 2 Szatmary 2014, p. 158.
  9. ↑ Romano 2010, p. 17.
  10. ↑ Joyson 1984, p. 8.
  11. ↑ "Pink Floyd Biography". Rollingstone.com. Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001). Andy Greene contributed to this article.
  12. 1 2 Moore 2015, p. 126.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Browne & Browne 2001, p. 8.
  14. ↑ Roberts, Randall. "Laying the odds on the Rock Hall of Fame nominees". NorthJersey.com. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  15. ↑ Erlewine, Michael. "East-West Live - The Paul Butterfield Band". Allmusic.com. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  16. ↑ Giles, Jeff. "How the Paul Butterfield Blues Band Earned Its Spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  17. ↑ "Youth: The Hippies". Time (July 7, 1967).
  18. 1 2 3 Acid rock at AllMusic
  19. ↑ Jasinski 2012.
  20. ↑ McCauchlin, Luke (2015). "Acid Rock: LSD, Psychedelc Rock, and the San Fransciso Sound". Ipicturebooks. Retrieved 20 November 2015.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Bisbort & Puterbaugh 2000, p. 31.
  22. ↑ Luft 2009, p. 173.
  23. ↑ Brend 2005, p. 88.
  24. ↑ British Psychedelia at AllMusic
  25. 1 2 O'Brien, Lucy M. "Psychedelic Rock". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
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  28. 1 2 Dasher 1985, p. 67.
  29. 1 2 Misiroglu 2015, p. 10.
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  42. 1 2 Henderson, Lol; Stacey, Lee (2014). Encyclopedia of Music in the 20th Century. Routledge. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  43. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Knowles 2010, p. 199.
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  45. ↑ Weinstein, Deena (2009). Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture. Da Capo Press.
  46. ↑ Rood, Karen Lane (1994). American culture after World War II. Gale Research.
  47. ↑ Smith, Nathan. "The Warning: The 10 Heaviest Albums Before Black Sabbath". Houston Press. Retrieved 26 April 2016.
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  50. 1 2 Kirkpatrick, Rob (2011). 1969: The Year Everything Changed. Skyhorse Publishing. pp. 27–28. Retrieved 26 April 2016.
  51. 1 2 Browne & Browne 2001, p. 687.
  52. ↑ Waksman, Steve (2001). Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience. Harvard University Press.
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  56. 1 2 Patoski, Joe Nick (Feb 1979). "Gather Ye Records While Ye May". Texas Monthly 7 (2). Retrieved 22 January 2015.
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  61. ↑ Clerk, Carol (2009). The Saga Of Hawkwind. Omnibus Press.
  62. ↑ Paytress, Mark (2010). The Art of Dying Young: Vicious. Music Sales Limited.
  63. ↑ Wein, Gary (2003). Beyond the Palace. Trafford Publishing.
  64. ↑ Swanson, David. "Top 10 Iron Butterfly Songs". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  65. ↑ Larson 2004, p. 140.
  66. ↑ DeCurtis, Anthony; Henke, James; George-Warren, Holly (1992). The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll: The Definitive History of the Most Important Artists and Their Music. Random House. p. 455.
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Bibliography

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