Members of Los Angeles band The Byrds were part of the commercial folk scene, but by experimenting with new instrumentation they helped to pioneer a whole new musical counterculture. Guitarist Roger McGuinn’s 12-string electric Rickenbacker and the sustain effect he used would inspire many other musicians in the style known as psychedelic rock.

1966, San Francisco. Ken Kesey’s parties were called “acid tests” and their house band, The Warlocks, would later change their name to the “Grateful Dead”. Young people grew their hair long, wore colorful secondhand clothes and danced in the streets. Music moved away from the commercial folk music and doo-wop sound of the 50s and the style was experimental, the lyrics more emotionally authentic. Jefferson Airplane’s “Surrealistic Pillow” would become the soundtrack for the new generation.

While the hippie counterculture was growing in San Francisco, a whole different scene was happening in New York City. The Velvet Underground hooked up with famous artist Andy Warhol to create darker, edgier music and a traveling show called “The Exploding Plastic Inevitable”.

The Beatles made a name for themselves as charismatic teen idols with a wholesome image. Once they started experimenting with marijuana and LSD their look changed drastically. They grew long hair and beards, wore flowered robes and John started sporting those granny glasses. The music changed too, becoming more trippy and introspective.

Pink Floyd started out with frontman Syd Barrett, who wrote chart-topping songs unlike any others. When Syd’s experimentations with LSD made it hard for him to perform the band replaced him with guitarist David Gilmour. The new line-up went on to make some of the best-selling records of all time.

Woodstock could have been a disaster, and it almost was. In August of 1969 thousands of young people went to an upstate NY farm for the three-day music festival. The nearest town, Bethel wasn't ready for them. Food and gas were in short supply. Rain washed the roads out. But the hippies rolled around in the mud and shared food, staying on for the music. Sly And The Family Stone went on at 3am Sunday morning and woke the crowd with electrifying versions of "Dance to the Music" and I "Want To Take You Higher."

Oklahoma psychedelic band The Flaming Lips create an alternative reality with a stage show filled with confetti cannons, animation, blasts of light, animal costumes and huge balloons.

UK band the Orb started out in DJ world – as part of the electronic music explosion of the late 80s and early 90s. The founding member of The Orb, Lx Paterson, was a DJ who started recording his own samples and changing them into drum beats, or adding sounds like airplanes, animals breathing or footsteps in the snow to the mix of his songs. The Orb’s music quickly became its own genre “ambient house” and these songs were played after raves in back rooms and urban apartments in places called “chillout lounges”, where partiers would recuperate after a night of dancing.

Influenced by The Velvet Underground, Spiritualized’s lyrics, written by founding member Jason Pierce, are intensely personal. They’re also sung with a deadpan delivery, much like Lou Reed’s . So it’s ironic that their stage show seems to try to take the focus away from the band. Flashing lights are aimed toward the audience and the waves of volume are so loud they effect you physically.

Hello, Michele Myers here. Your friendly neighborhood DJ and Documentary Producer.
My job at KEXP (when I’m not DJing) is to make a KEXP Documentary every week. Each story is about 5 minutes long and is on a musical subject. We do these in series of 10. Over the years I’ve done series like Punk Evolution, Masters of Turntablism, Death Drugs and Rock n Roll, Music Revolutionaries, The Heart of Soul, Portraits of Post-Punk, American Sabor, The New World and Pop Goes Electronic.
I often feel like I’m practicing journalism without any training. Maybe because I am. But the beauty of KEXP is that they let me do these stories in my own, personal way. To me it’s more about the experience than about lists of dates and places. In every doc you’ll learn something about human nature. And I’ll bring you as close to the artist and music as possible, without being aggressive in interviews trying to get information. I’m the shy interviewer. And you can listen to my (very public) learning experience in the on-demand tab at kexp.org under “documentaries”.
Last week we finished off another series. This always is a huge relief. We do ten episodes in ten weeks. This time on “Psychedelics” where we traced the origins of psychedelic music from its roots (with Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, The Velvet Underground ) to the UK Scene (The Beatles, Pink Floyd) to Woodstock (Sly and The Family Stone, Janis, Jimi) to today (Spiritualized, The Flaming Lips).
And our final episode was on Animal Collective.
This is a band who people react to. Some people herald them as the most brilliant group in today’s alternative scene. Others just don’t seem to get it. I have to admit I was among those who didn’t get it.
When I first heard Animal Collective I thought they sounded a lot like a group of kindergarteners sitting in a cardboard box humming and pounding on the sides. In this doc I actually find a clip that sounds EXACTLY like that. But I also talk to academics who say that Animal Collective embrace the spirit of punk. And the band themselves get to speak up as well. And some of the music is actually very sophisticated. What do you think?