Bad Trips: Ridiculous Psychedelic Music, Part 2

Welcome back, brothers and sisters.  Time to kick out the jams with our five lamest psychedelic excursions ever.  Watch out for flashbacks!

5. Captain Beyond featured in its first lineup singer Rod Evans (the original lead singer for Deep Purple) and drummer Bobby Caldwell, who later played with Johnny Winter and Rick Derringer.  Their self-titled debut, released in 1972, featured this incomprehensible piece of gibberish.  If you are truly unlucky, you will encounter a modern version of Captain Beyond at the wrong end of an oldies show.  You’ve been warned.

MP3: “Dancing Madly Backwards (On A Sea Of Air)” by Captain Beyond

5.34521777 Vanilla Fudge was actually inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006 (whew, for a minute I thought it was that other Hall of Fame).  Their 1967 debut bludgeoned the Beatles with ridiculous covers of “Ticket To Ride” and “Eleanor Rigby,” and Motown with “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.”  The album version of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” clocks in at over seven minutes but we have mercifully given you the 45 single edit to better prepare you for the horrors to come.

MP3: “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (45 single edit) by Vanilla Fudge

4. The Beatles really have a lot to answer for, because more than anyone they are responsible for the entire psychedelic era.  That’s OK, though – they redeemed themselves, don’t you think?  But let’s linger (for eight painful minutes) on “Revolution 9,” John Lennon’s drugged-out audio collage that allegedly contained “clues” to the death of Paul McCartney.  If only.  Many fans agree this is easily the worst thing in the Beatles’ catalog.

MP3: “Revolution 9” by the Beatles

3. As the Jefferson Airplane found it increasingly difficult to get off the ground, singer Paul Kantner assembled a solo project (with Grace Slick and members of the Grateful Dead) and credited it to the Jefferson Starship.  Blows Against The Empire was his politically flavored sci-fi “statement” from 1970; you can be certain everyone playing on the album indulged in some, ah, pharmaceuticals.  Beware: this song is capable of clearing a party in just a few minutes.

MP3: “Mau Mau (Amerikon)” by Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship

2. Bloodrock included this gory road-accident masterpiece on their second album, from 1970.  Our L.A. correspondent Randy Fuller said: “Never really thought of Bloodrock as psychedelic, but I wouldn’t know what else to call ‘D.O.A.’  That’s a bad trip, too.”  Amen. 

MP3: “D.O.A.” by Bloodrock

1. For a while, Iron Butterfly was the biggest selling group in Atlantic Records history. The title tune from their 1968 second album is their most famous song.  Clocking in at over 17 minutes (yes, it’s all here), FM radio DJs back in the day used to actually play the whole thing – and do god-knows-what while it was spinning.  Pass the bong.

MP3: “In A Gadda Da Vida” (album version) by Iron Butterfly