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 […]
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 […]
There’s been a lot of discussion recently about decriminalization or legalization of various kinds of drugs, including psychedelics. The podcast “The Argument” held a panel discussion on this topic in the episode “The World’s View on Drugs Is Changing. Which Side Are You On?” Oregon was among the first to experiment with decriminalization of drugs, […]
The world, or at least the US is opening up to psychedelics more and more. Psychedelic assisted therapy continues to gain acceptance and the legal market for psychedelics is growing quickly. MarketWatch called on Citigoup to cite innovative ideas that could transform society, and where to invest your money to take advantage of these changes. […]
Back with another collection of recent psychedelia, ranging from stoner to psychedelic pop. There have been a couple of interesting items about psychedelic music in the past few days: In Dublin, the inaugural Stratospheres Psych night took place at The Grand Social on Sept. 25th, featuring some of Ireland’s best psych rock acts: Sun Mahshene, Tuath and Thee UFO. Stolen Body Records announced the dates for Astral Festival VII, April 30/May 1, 2022 at Strange Brew in Bristol. Australia has a thriving psychedelic scene, and Adelaide’s CityMag ran an article “Introducing Mystique Records: Founded by musician Harry Taylor, Mystique Records aims to bring Adelaide’s thriving psychedelic music scene out from the underground.”
Magic mushrooms now have their own holiday”: September 20th is Magic Mushroom Day, created by the 920 Coalition, and Entheofest, the first-ever psychedelic mushroom festival, was held in Ann Arbor on Sept. 19th. The popular press is starting to take notice of the use of psychedelics in treating mental illness. In the past week Newsweek ran an article on “The legality of magic mushrooms and potential use as treatment for depression”. Also, Forbes announced ‘The End In Mind’ Conference, in End-Of-Life Care Is The New Frontier In Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy. Decriminalization efforts have made progress recently: “Class A drug possession ‘effectively decriminalised’ in Scotland.”
00:27 Vulcanodon Phazer – Lemurian Thunder
07:10 Ogua – Iyan
12:39 Jeffrey Alexander & The Heavy Lidders – Beowulf’s Trip
18:49 Mort Rose – On part au soleil
23:06 Scatter Light – Leave Some Room Inside Your Mind
26:40 Psyconauts – Breathe The Love
31:24 Saucer Eyes – Out Of Vision
35:11 Acid Magus – Rituals
41:47 Black Magick Marching Band – Big Dead Everything
44:39 Su Evets – Arc Awakening
52:12 Maragda – Hermit
We are living in a time where we’re rethinking “forever wars” and that includes the war on drugs. Legalization/decriminalization drives, particularly for psychedelics, are underway in several cities and states across the US. Psychedelics are also under serious study for their mental health benefits. Alongside these developments is a resurgence of psychedelic music. The music featured in this episode comes from the US, Europe (Fairyport Convent from Poland and The Spacelords from Germany) and Latin America (Los Tabanos Experience from Chile and Khan Khan from Mexico). This episode opens with the Burning Balloons, a collaboration between Ben Bachman (High Tiny Hairs, Fuck Knights) from Minnesota and Raul Romero (The Flashback V, Psiconautes, Lola) from Barcelona.
04:22 The Burning Balloons – Drained
10:49 Fairyport Convent – Partizan Underground
17:09 Dark Fog – Floor Ceiling
22:53 Babe Ruthless – Aqua Cola
22:53 Los Tabanos Experience – The Wooden Curse
41:03 Evolfo – Zuma Loop
27:19 Khan Khan – Nubes de Mayo
27:19 Reality Cult – Close My Doors
41:03 The Electric Myrrs – Salvation (4 Miles)
41:03 The Spacelords – Liquid Sun remix
Time keeps marching on and it’s the end of the summer. The music of the summer will continue to reverberate, though. This episode features some pre-releases by The Venus Overload, the Kundalini Genie, Tibetan Miracle Seeds, and 10 000 Russos, and a host of tracks released throughout the summer.
00:21 The Kundalini Genie – Half In, Half Out
03:28 Tibetan Miracle Seeds – Boa Constrictor
08:14 Comet Control – Secret Life
11:44 Drowning Effect – Bright Lights
14:45 10 000 Russos – A House Full of Garbage
19:32 Bad Psychic – Man In Bed
22:40 Menk – Eyes (Глаза)
30:00 Wheels – Badlands
34:41 The Dolphins – Die in California
39:21 The Venus Overload – TSW (Canto XIII)
43:28 Temporal Marauder – State of the Station
48:40 Maha Sohona – Leaves
A look at current psychedelia and a look back at life during wartime. A few more releases from prominent labels this time around. This episode opens with The Mountain Movers on the Trouble In Mind label, with tracks from Axis: Sova and Birds of Maya on Drag City as well as The Holy Family on Rocket Recordings. The artists in this episode come from the UK (The Holy Family and Longheads), Canada (Dark Bird and Dr. Joy), Australia (The Dharma Chain) and the rest from the US.
01:19 The Mountain Movers – I Wanna See The Sun
04:22 The Dharma Chain – So You Wanna Be A Spaceman?
10:49 The Holy Family – Inward Turning Suns
17:09 Axis: Sova – Fractal USA
22:53 Dopesoul – Karma Kaze
27:19 Dark Bird – Out Of Line
32:14 Dr. Joy – Signed, The Body Electric
37:47 Playing With Circles – Page 63
41:03 Birds of Maya – Please Come In
48:00 Longheads – One and a Half Each
A lot of people have experienced loss in the last year. Sometimes music can help in difficult times–old favorites and new favorites. In this episode I’m going to focus on new tracks by some of the leading voices of current psychedelia (and garage rock, too) released on some of the most prominent indie labels. This episode more than most demonstrates how we’re in a psychedelic renaissance.
01:18 Meatbodies – Reach For The Sunn
06:09 Night Beats – Shadow
09:04 Goat – Queen of the Underground
14:59 New Candys – Begin Again
20:00 Ty Segall – Pictures
24:32 Acid Mothers Temple – Free Your Infinity Desire
32:09 Cosmic Dead – Crater Creator
36:25 King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Butterfly 3000
39:12 Darkside – Narrow Road
43:41 Wavves – Hideaway
47:31 Six Organs of Admittance – All That They Left You
53:51 King Buffalo – Burning
A look at some of the reissues that have come out recently. The tracks in this episode come from every decade since the 1970s, but have been reissued in some form this year. Breaks come from the wonderfully awful 1976 short film Joy Ride about the dangers of trying to be a “hot shot” by stealing cars and trying to outrun the police. It’s all innocent fun until the inevitable crash.
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro
01:25 Dead Meadow – I’m Gone
05:21 Goat – Alarms
08:25 Blair1523 – Fantasy of Folk
11:25 The Mushroom Club – Heroin Picnic
17:53 Lilys – Ginger
23:12 Foot – Rupert Turdoch
26:55 Views – Say It!
31:18 Black Rainbows – Hawkdope
40:21 Acid Reich – Revenge of Tim Boo Ba
48:29 Brant Bjork – Low Desert Punk
53:12 Guru Guru – Stone In
A few days ago the Pentagon released a report on UFOs to Congress called Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). They went with UAP rather than UFO because of the stigma associated with UFOs. Maybe this newfound transparency will shut down conspiracy theories–or not. Anyway, this episode has 11 new psychedelic tracks, mostly by American artists and almost all released in the last couple of months.
Interesting reading:
How pop culture has shaped our understanding of aliens in The Guardian
The truth is still out there: why the current UFO craze may be a problem of intelligence failings in The Conversation UK
Pentagon UFO report: Government transparency and desire for better data might bring science to the UFO world in Phys.org
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro
01:28 Criminals Hate Answering Machines – 20,000 Cheers For the Chain Gang
04:50 Illuminating Daydream – The Things
08:07 Electric Mindfunk – Coming Home
15:17 Venture Lift – You Changed
18:56 Drooling Clerics – Sleep For Days
22:52 The Gluts – Eat Acid See God
30:33 Cosmic Letdown – Bezumie (Demo)
35:18 Fuguers Cove – Blowdogs
37:55 Black Tempel Pyrämid – Wildlife Advisor
41:39 Dog in Confusion – Turbulent Mind
46:28 Chino Burga – Meditación
All of the tracks in this episode are cover versions or tributes. The songs are from the sixties and seventies but all of these tracks have been released in the last year or so. I asked the artists featured in this episode what their desert island disk would be. The Dust Bunnies, who cover the Beatles song Long Long Long chose the White Album, which makes sense. Other picks weren’t so close to the cover you’ll hear in this episode. Tuluum Shimmering’s version of Eight Miles High closes this episode and they selected Cornell 1964 by the Charles Mingus Sextet. Dub Wreckage, who cover the Velvet Underground, said their desert island disk would be Y by the Pop Group. And Spacelab, who cover Hawkwind couldn’t decide on a single album. They split between John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and DRI’s Dealing With It. The episode starts off with a Kiss cover from CIA Hippie Mind Control, who picked the Ramones It’s Alive as their desert island disk.
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro
01:47 CIA Hippie Mind Control – Goin’ Blind (Kiss)
05:16 Buried Feather – Earthquake (13th Floor Elevators)
10:23 Dub Wreckage – Hard Drugs (Velvet Underground)
17:39 Vapour Theories – The Big Ship (Brian Eno)
26:31 Spacelab – We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago (Hawkwind)
29:56 Dust Bunnies – L0ng L0N2 Lo25 (The Beatles)
32:47 Moon Duo – Planet Caravan (Black Sabbath)
37:12 Tuluum Shimmering – Eight Miles High (The Byrds)
This episode was initially posted on June 17, 2021. All of the tracks in this episode have been released in the last three months. The one exception is The Spacebombz track, which was on their demo released in January. The tracks in this episode are from all over the world, with bands from the US, Australia, Europe, Argentina and Japan.
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro
01:16 Magic Castles – Sunburst
04:30 ZOOID – Buy The Ticket
08:03 Spacebombz – space//today
16:11 Djinn – Sun Ooze
20:19 Apollo80 – Lung Beers
29:17 Farfisa – Out Of My Mind
33:12 The Space Huns – Lehel’s Horn
37:12 Expo Seventy – Echoes of Ether
46:28 Acid Twilight – Acid Twilight
52:00 Hibushibire – Trepanation Breakdown
This episode of Turn Me On, Dead Man features several recent psychedelic releases. All released in 2021 except Davi Rodriguez di Lima’s Fantasma, which is from 2020. The breaks in this episode come from the educational (maybe?) film What’s The Big Hurry? This 1974 short film was the sort of car crash gore movie they used to show in driver’s ed, only in this film the accidents are audio only. The visuals in What’s The Big Hurry? show the process of dismantling wrecked cars in a salvage yard–an interesting process but lacking the visceral impact of the human carnage-driven fare favored by driver’s ed teachers. The really interesting thing about this film nine-minute film is the electronic music score by Louis Barron. The cover is a nod to Zen Arcade.
00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro
01:12 Shirese – The Glue Murder
03:50 Cult of Dom Keller – Cage The Masters
09:21 Some Pills For Ayala – Some Weed For This Samaritan
13:56 Davi Rodriguez di Lima – Fantasma
18:16 Pseudo Mind Hive – Holy River
23:27 The Silk Railroad – A Caustic Rhythm
29:10 Dark Fog – The Statue
33:21 Mdou Moctar – Chismiten
38:04 Long Slow Dissolve – Sour Bush
43:49 Andrew Thomas Jacobs – Love and LSD in the USA
48:58 Mythic Sunship – Maelstrom
