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Short Band History  

 

Captain Paisley was formed in Sonoma County in 2012, dedicated to recreating the heady days of the late 1960’s when every week brought amazing new boundary-stretching songs to the radio, including the “psychedelic” music from the Fillmore Auditorium and Woodstock.

 

The Birth of Psychedelic Music

In the beginning (of our story at least), there was Rock and Roll, a confluence of Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and many others who fused blues, gospel, country and hillbilly into a new, completely American artform.  And it was good!

But Chuck got jailed, Elvis got drafted, Buddy's plane crashed, and the next thing you know, Perry Como, Fabian and Bobby Vee ruled the airwaves.

 

But then came a blast of undeniable musical energy and melody out of "provincial" Liverpool and Merseyside, followed by a thousand bands in their footsteps, and once again, it was good!

 

But their creative genius could not be limited to composing perfect pop songs and performing them brilliantly...their expanding consciousness required them to go further.  And so they did... incorporating Indian and Western classical musics, the avant-garde, and the new folk music of Bob Dylan and others.  Lyrics moved beyond “She Loves You” and “Calendar Girl” to more literary, spiritual and topical inspirations.

 

And so "Psychedelic Rock" was born.  And it too was good!!

 

Donovan was singing about the lost continent of Atlantis, a Hurdy-Gurdy Man and a “Sunshine Superman”*.  Jimi Hendrix sang about “Purple Haze”* and “Manic Depression”*.   Steppenwolf sang about a “Magic Carpet Ride”* and coined the phrase “heavy metal” in “Born To Be Wild”*.  Meanwhile, the Byrds turned a visit to England into a psychedelic journey in “Eight Miles High”*.  Jimi and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown both sang about “Fire”*, while The Doors asked you to “Light My Fire”.

 

Jefferson Airplane did their take on Lewis Carroll (“White Rabbit”)*, while Steppenwolf named their band after a Herman Hesse novel.  The Doors took their name from Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, and The Beatles quoted a psychedelic treatise adapted from The Tibetan Book Of The Dead (“Tomorrow Never Knows”).  

 

Others commented on the budding “counter-culture”, the Vietnam war and other current events, with The Beatles’ “Revolution”*, Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”, Joni Mitchell (and CSN&Y’s) “Woodstock”*, Country Joe’s “Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag”, and Creedence's John Fogerty declaring he was not a "Fortunate Son"*.

As this new music hit the radio (on AM and, if you could get them, "underground" FM stations), 

some young people were expanding their instrumental abilities, absorbing every new song, and starting bands.

 

To be continued…

(*) songs we perform

© 2017 Captain Paisley                           

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