This episode focuses on recent Garage rock and psychedelic music from the US and Canada. I’ve recently done a show on psychedelia in the UK and another show focusing on Australia and New Zealand. So with this episode I’ve covered all of the founding member states of the Five Eyes alliance. I’m not exactly sure […]
This episode features garage rock, stoner and psychedelic bands from Ukraine. The Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 24th and it looks to have stalled without taking any major cities in Ukraine. But even so, the Russian invasion has led to a horrific amount of death and destruction as well as profound upheaval in […]
The title of this episode comes from the most recent release from Psychedelic Source Records, a remarkable artistic collective based in Hungary playing mainly improvised music. They’re incredibly prolific, with more than 50 releases since they started putting out albums around 2017. A number of different bands play under the Psychedelic Source banner, and I’ve […]
In the last few episodes I’ve been exploring psychedelia from various parts of the world. The playlist in this episode is made up of new psychedelic music from Australia and New Zealand. I’ve noticed over the last couple of years that Australia, in particular, has a thriving psychedelic scene and this episode really bears that […]
When I started making maps of the playlists for each episode I noticed that it was fairly predictable which places would be represented in the playlist. Given the history of psychedelia and the fact that I live in the US, the anglosphere has always been well represented in the playlists for Turn Me On, Dead Man. The US, the UK, Canada and Australia have vibrant psychedelic scenes. So do many European countries, and in addition to that, I’ve had no trouble finding great garage rock and psychedelia from Latin America.
For this episode I made an effort to establish an entire playlist of bands from Asia, and in the process I discovered a lot of great music that I would have otherwise missed. In addition to the wealthier countries of the pacific rim, active scenes exist in Thailand, Indonesia, and India. When you look at the music map for this episode it makes a great arc of port cities on the oceans bordering Asia. The major exception is Solar Zero, who close out the playlist with a 17-minute jam. Solar Zero is based in Tyumen, Russia, a city east of the Ural Mountains, which historically has been considered the dividing line between Europe and Asia. Given the shit that’s happening in Ukraine right now I wanted to include these guys. I corresponded with them a little and they’re very cool. When I asked them about what’s next for them and they said “Don’t know. If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” I corresponded with them before the invasion of Ukraine which makes that answer all the more poignant.
00:19 Pale Blue Sound – Just Like a Dream 03:58 ZeitGeistS – Juvenile 08:00 The Dude of Stratosphear – Dharma Wheel 13:32 Hebi Katana – Running in My Vein 17:11 Spacedays – Lucy’s Space Garden 22:13 Solid Liqui – Combo Miss 25:19 Kinder Bloomen – Brainless The Third, On A Cloudy Mission 29:51 落差草原 WWWW / Prairie WWWW – 轉來 Tńg-Lâi 35:48 Candydrain – Temptations 39:27 Jash Jhaveri – They Might Have Killed Me Back In Egypt 42:30 Bardia Haddad – Chaos as the Storm Tears it into Shreds 50:52 Solar Zero – Transcontinental Bus
This episode focuses on psychedelia coming out of the various parts of the United Kingdom. The UK has long been at the forefront of psychedelic music with several key British bands among its originators. The musical styles in this episode run the range from pop to drones to soundscapes.
00:26 The Lee Rudes – Insignificant Man 06:16 The Lunar Fog Occult – Seaglass 09:09 The Web of Lies – Best Friend 12:33 Artifacts & Uranium – Dive Bomber 17:42 Melodrome Man – The Dead Planet 20:55 Permanent Rain – Street Song 24:27 The Galileo 7 – The man who wasn’t there 27:26 Necessary Animals – In The Twilight 31:19 My Opal Garden – Mind Wandering 35:19 Deep Hum – Thoughts of Cats 44:05 Organs – Furious Return 53:50 Empty House – Zanshin
Since the start of the year I’ve been making music maps to go along with these podcasts. Since the maps show where the artists in the playlist are from, I decided to go with a geographical theme for the next couple of episodes. The playlist for this episode features bands from all over Europe. One of the most interesting tracks is from Turas Naofa, who made a holy journey from Berlin back to Ireland to record what I’d describe as a shamanistic track that really gets to the essence of psychedelia.
00:25 Juárez – Nébula 03:57 The Lost Noise Figure – Wake Me Up (When It’s Over) 08:46 Decasia – Hrosshveli’s Ode 14:33 Turas Naofa – I Mo Bholg 18:54 Bad Bed – No One Can Hear You 23:26 Syndrom Samasvanca – Alimpijada-20 30:41 Lunar Funeral – Burn The Shadow 36:10 Courge, MatttKonture, Alice ElRakun – Arthfuzz 38:31 The LSD Zapata – Organik 41:40 Küllä Küllä – Aural Surf 50:11 black (w)hole – unwind 55:24 Apex Ten – The Fourth Passenger
Trainspotting has taken on a narcotic connotation because of the 1996 film directed by Danny Boyle, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh. Although that story was not about psychedelics, the film has its share of hallucinatory moments, the sequel less so. About the music in this episode, the playlist features psychedelia that starts out more in the hallucinatory vein but then becomes more meditative. Check out the music map below. A good illustration of how psychedelia has become a worldwide phenomenon. This episode features artists from the US, Canada, the UK, Norway, Israel, Guatemala, and closes out with a soundscape from Peruvian artist Chino Burga.
The title of this episode is from something my two-year-old and I have been doing recently. We’ve been going to an overpass nearby and wait for trains to pass. I’d never thought of myself as a trainspotter but I guess I’ve had a fascination since my childhood days staying at my grandparents’ home. Their house was about 100 yards from train tracks and I vividly recall the booming sound of the freight trains on summer nights when all the windows were open. So anyway, where my son and I go there are two sets of tracks, one for the DC metro trains, which comes above ground where we are, and one for the intercity trains. It’s always a jolt when we get the metro drivers to honk the horn.
00:19 Self-Immolation Music – Anhedonia 03:30 Helicon – Freakquency 07:46 The Orange Dots – Lost A Dream 12:29 A Crone’s Orchard – Worms 19:23 Solipsisme – Chimiosynthèse 23:31 The Midnight Vein – The Link 29:05 Carlton Melton – Hazel Heat 34:29 Ouzo Bazooka – Monsters 40:25 The Soundcarriers – Falling Back 44:02 The Groovy Nobody – Elevated 47:39 Baghdad Battery – Days Gone By 53:11 Chino Burga – Quien Como Dios
The movie Soylent Green was released in 1973 and offers a dystopian view of the future, set in our current year, 2022. (Spoilers ahead) In Soylent Green’s vision of 2022, the world is overpopulated with a permanent heat wave from greenhouse gases. The Soylent company controls the food supply and they start producing a “miracle food” that they claim is made from plankton but as Charlton Heston discovers, it’s really made from human beings. In other words things get so bad by 2022 that cannibalism becomes the order of the day. As Tony Sokol points out in Den of Geek, Soylent Green did anticipate some of the darker features of our current world: face coverings, meat substitutes, climate change. Cannibalism, though? I don’t know, we’re not quite there yet but who knows? Anyway, in our timeline 2022 is already starting off with great psychedelia. All of the tracks in this episode have been released in the last month.
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro 00:19 Solilians – Old Schmeckled Hen 06:13 Lamp of the Universe – Return as Light 10:49 Clyde Von Klaus – Concede 13:40 Turn Me On Dead Man – Break 15:12 Ogua – Waves 24:03 Waylon Thornton – Blown Princes 26:11 Barbican Estate – The Divine Image 31:01 Elephant Stone – La fusée du chagrin 34:40 Los Árboles – Bebe Jesús 38:55 Thee Tabs – Carrier Pigeons 41:27 Parker Sprout – Milk in the Sun 44:02 Monte Meteoro – Contra 50:41 Aeon – Five 53:23 io audio recordings – Awaiting The Elliptical Drift
I’ve already posted my “best of 2021” lists and podcasts. As 2021 comes to an end, I’m including a couple of recordings that made on my “best of” list.
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro 00:25 White Manna – Light Cones 06:04 The Myrrs – Buggy Chawnker 08:03 Dislocated Flowers – Renaissance Three Two Zero 14:00 Magoodin – Prisma 16:20 Melt Plastic Group – The Birdman Explodes 21:33 StarBath – StarBath Jam 1 27:54 ST 37 – Over and Over Again 33:08 Den Osynliga Manteln – Vortexlöpare 39:17 Moshi Moshi and the Moist Boys – Fluorescent Eye Part 1 43:03 Sonic Delays – Coast 46:44 Frozen Planet…. 1969 – Diamond Dust
It’s that time of year where we look back, take stock of everything that occurred during the year and try to make sense of it. I’m looking back on a year of loss–my mother died during the summer and my grandparents’ old house where I spent much of my childhood was destroyed in a fire. As if that weren’t enough, I lost two teeth (!) in 2021. Like 2020, though, music was a particularly bright spot in an otherwise challenging year.
As for my choices for the best of 2021, I made three lists. The first a Mixcloud compilation of some of the best tracks of 2021, followed by a list (in no particular order) of some of the best albums of 2021, and finally some singles and EPs that I managed to list in alphabetical order.
Last year I also posted a list of notable reissues but I didn’t try to keep up on all the reissues that were released in 2021. I was just happy to finally have The Beatles Let It Be box set, and to finally see the Peter Jackson documentary, Get Back. Really fun to watch.
I’d just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the artists for providing the world with such wonderful music. My picks for the best tracks of 2021:
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro 00:29 The Dharma Chain – So You Wanna Be A Spaceman? 07:03 Mt. Mountain – Aplomb 11:31 Meatbodies – Reach For The Sun 16:22 The Mountain Movers – I Wanna See The Sun 19:21 Thee U.F.O. – Putrefied Block 22:28 Dope Smoker – NASDAQ 27:09 Grinding Eyes – When The Night Falls 31:01 The Holy Family – Inward Turning Suns 37:05 The Myrrs – Buggy Chawnker 39:11 The Slow Voyage – Expansion 43:14 Magic Castles – Sunburst 46:29 Chainsaw Rainbow – blonde with dark roots 50:05 Mantras – Sunlight Swell 53:54 Ogua – Iyan 59:17 Swan Faucet – Wandering 1:05:48 Raw Optics – Aqua Mundo 1:08:04 The Sonic Splits – Like the Steady Flowing of a Stream 1:12:42 Cheval Sombre – Althea 1:20:22 Hooveriii – Shooting Star 1:24:24 Firefriend – Poison Tree 1:29:41 Comet Control – Secret Life 1:36:37 Shirese – The Glue Murder 1:38:54 Broken Sky – California 1:41:41 Goat – Queen of the Underground 1:47:36 Chino Burga – Meditación
As we enter the season of advent, Reality Sandwich outlines the shamanic origins of Christmas. One type of mushroom, Amanita muscaria, has some interesting similarities to Christmas imagery. In our times mushrooms are “finally having a moment,” according to Lucy Jones in The Guardian, and illustrator Brian Blomerth celebrates the history of mushroom lore in a new book.
In the past couple of episodes of Turn Me On, Dead Man, I’ve mentioned that the use of psychedelics has been a topic of conversation for Will Smith, Jada Pinkett-Smith and their son, Jaden Smith. It may or may not have been because of their candid discussion of taking psychedelics, but recently a petition has been circulating online to “stop interviewing Will and Jada Smith“. Writing in Psychedelic Spotlight, Emily Jarvie asks the question, “Celebrities: Are They Helping or Harming the Psychedelic Movement?“
A number of states (Florida and California among them), as well as the city of Toronto, are discussing or moving forward with legislation to decriminalize psychedelics. The website MDLinx cites “breaking the psychedelic ceiling” as one of the top medical breakthroughs of 2021. Discussions at the Wonderland psychedelic conference were optimistic that psychedelics are to be the next big development in mental health treatment, and the Australian ABC podcast All in the Mind devoted a recent episode to “Psychedelics for mental illness.” Even though barriers against using psychedelics for treating mental health disorders are still substantial, the market for these drugs could be huge. Some worry, however, that if legal psychedelics are dominated by big pharma, it could enrich large corporations rather than a broader community benefitting from these developments.
The music in this episode ranges from psychfolk to lo-fi garage to experimental psych and concludes with an extended jam by Wizard Beast. One of my standard questions for the artists is “What record changed your life?” I’ve been impressed with the wide range of influences the artists cite, but The Velvet Underground and Nico gets mentioned quite often. Here it takes on new meaning through the lens of “Cold Equations”.
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro 00:38 Thee U.F.O. – Putrefied Block 03:46 Pancho and the Wizards – Dog With two Masters 07:02 Meatbodies – Reach For The Sun 13:33 Cheval Sombre – Althea 21:14 The Yellow Blackness – Gift of Illusion 24:37 Constant Smiles – Run To Stay 27:07 Sons of Zoku – Lovers Trance 34:40 Anti-Corn League – Let Me Begin 37:25 Alice Tambourine Lover – Forse Non Sei Tu 41:54 Wizard Beast – Pathways of the Magical Mind part 1
It’s interesting to reflect on how the renewed interest in psychedelics started. In the 1990s researchers at Johns Hopkins wanted to study the mental health benefits of psilocybin. Psychedelics were so stigmatized at that point, however, that they weren’t sure the FDA or even their own institution would approve the research. They managed to get approval for their research efforts and published their positive results in 2006, and the “psychedelic renaissance” has gained momentum since then.
A growing number of studies have shown the mental health benefits of psychedelics, and this has become an area of intenseinterest. Veterans are a group that has shown great interest in these studies, as psychedelics have been demonstrated to be effective in treating PTSD. Among others, veterans have been given new hope by these developments, and the New York Times points out that “Veterans Have Become Unlikely Lobbyists in Push to Legalize Psychedelic Drugs”. Some health insurance providers are starting to cover psychedelic mental health treatments, and private companies are now competing to develop treatment regimens to tap into this potentially huge market.
One interesting note emerged from a recent study where some attendees of an ayahuasca retreat were given placebos. The people who took placebos reported benefits, such as lower anxiety and depression, and using the measures devised by the researchers, these benefits were statistically similar to the attendees who actually took ayahuasca. The researchers acknowledged that there may have been mitigating factors in their study, but it remains a subject for future research.
The optimism about psychedelics is being felt in a variety of unlikely places. Benzinga writes about parenting aided by microdosing psychedelics in the article “Moms on mushrooms“. House Beautiful suggests that the popularity of decorating home decor items with mushrooms is “a side effect of—or even a sly wink to—the recent legalization of magic mushrooms in some parts of the world.” Big Think discusses research showing that psychedelics can change how users see the universe, leading individuals to adopt a more transcendental outlook.
More celebrities continue to make public their psychedelic experiences. I mentioned Will Smith in my previous podcast, but this time around more members of the family join in the discussion. Jada Pinkett Smith and their son, Jaden Smith, shared their psychedelic stories on Jada’s talk show, Red Table Talk. Mike Tyson has become a rather unlikely advocate for psychedelics, as he has been open about his life-changing experiences with 5-MeO-DMT, which is the venom of the Bufo Alvarius toad. L.A. Weekly is calling him the “New Face of Psychedelic Healing.”
While the music in this episode of Turn Me On, Dead Man is psychedelic, the theme is not. Today is November 22, 2021, which is the 59th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A couple of days ago I made my regular trip to Joe’s Record Paradise and found a still-sealed LP copy of Years of Lightning, Day of Drums, a celebration of JFK’s life as a counter to the shock of his assassination. You can draw a direct line from the JFK assassination to our current polarized and conspiracy-theory-driven political environment, but I’ll leave that there for the time being. Right now I just want to enjoy the breadth and depth of current psychedelia.
00:20 Dope Smoker – NASDAQ 05:17 Electric Eye – Den Atmosfaeriske Elven 11:12 Bard’s Flying Vessel – Cut In Half 15:57 The Violet Mindfield – Stranger In The Mirror 18:50 Exnovios – Un Nuevo Día 22:10 Dead Horse One – Nevermore 25:22 Dead Otter – Eye Elevator 31:34 Yokujitsu – Yawarakai Tejou 37:27 Hanford Flyover – Golden 42:10 Kuunatic – Para Bennyà 48:28 Some Pills For Ayala – Space Octopus
Investment in psychedelic medical treatments has been rising as liberalization of drug laws has expanded. Detroit became the latest city to decriminalize psychedelics, as voters approved the decriminalization of magic mushrooms and other entheogenic plants. As psychedelics become more accepted and the stigma recedes, research opportunities have increased and even though psychedelic therapy is still in its infancy, investors are putting money into companies focusing on psychedelic mental health treatments. Psychedelics are also being used to help people with end-of-life care. Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) was featured in GQ, and MAPS announced an upcoming event, Psychedelic Science 2023. Also, the Wonderland conference, the largest psychedelic medicine event of its kind, is currently taking place in Miami.
Despite all the optimism about psychedelic therapy, cautionary messages about psychedelics are also starting to appear in the popular media. An article in RealClearScience suggests, “Staunch Advocates of Therapeutic Psychedelics Need a History Lesson,” pointing out that excitement about psychedelics has reached this level before only to fade away. This was in part due to the “war on drugs” initiated by the Nixon administration, but also because the FDA imposed more rigid regulation on the pharmaceutical industry and tighter restrictions on research, as well. There have also been allegations of misconduct among psychedelic therapists, as detailed in the Forbes article “Psychedelic Therapy Is Hyped, But It’s Not Risk-Free: How Therapy Abuse Can Retraumatize Clients.” Also, an article in Vice, “The False Promise of Psychedelic Utopia,” cautions that the enthusiasm about psychedelics should be kept in perspective.
Recent TV shows and movies have demonstrated a psychedelic influence, such as Dune and Stranger Things. Far Out Magazine lists The 10 greatest psychedelic films of all time. The VW microbus, a symbol of counterculture. is making a comeback as an electric vehicle, and Volkswagen is previewing the new version with a “psychedelic wrap“. An ever-growing list of celebrities has taken ayahuasca. In the past few days, Will Smith and Lil Nas X have both made public statements about their experimentation with ayahuasca.
This episode of Turn Me On, Dead Man features a number of artists from Latin America. The opening set features The Slow Voyage from Los Angeles, Chile, Firefriend from São Paulo, Brazil, and El Universo from Mexico City, and this episode closes with Telephone Exchange, another artist from Mexico City. Other than Annunaki from Nanaimo, BC, Self-Immolation music from Leeds, UK and Shamaniacs from Berlin, the rest of the artists are from the US: The Sonic Splits and The Webbers from Oregon, The Mary Veils from Philadelphia, and the Poppy Seeds from Los Angeles. The breaks are from an episode of X Minus 1 called “No Contact”.
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro 00:32 The Slow Voyage – Expansion 05:11 Firefriend – Poison Tree 10:29 El Universo – Monkeys & Apes 16:15 The Sonic Splits – Doors of Perception 20:00 The Sonic Splits – Like the Steady Flowing of a Stream 24:35 Self-Immolation Music – Remain Eternally Hateful 28:22 The Webbers – The Skinwalker 30:31 Shamaniacs – Dopamine – دوبامين 32:40 The Mary Veils – Home Video 35:41 The Poppy Seeds – Coming To Get You 38:40 Annunaki – The Cries of Hypatia 51:53 Telephone Exchange – Qué irresponsable