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 intense interest. 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
| Dope Smoker – NASDAQ [from Devil’s Bridge, released October 29, 2021] |
Though Dope Smoker responded affirmatively when I reached out to them, they would prefer to let the music speak for itself. Check out the video for NASDAQ. Rise again!
| Electric Eye – Den Atmosfaeriske Elven [from Horizons, released November 05, 2021] |
I corresponded with Øystein Braut of Electric Eye
TMODM: How does the place you live — your city, landscape, music scene — feed into the music you make?
ØB: We are all from the western coast of Norway, where the North sea hits the land pretty hard at times. Its rainy, windy and salt. This kind of stuff gets under your skin, no doubt about it. Also for this record we went out into the sea, on the tiny island of Utsira off the coast of our home town of Haugesund, to start working on the new album. There´s more about how this all went about in the bio on the link above.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
ØB: For me personally i think Black Rebel Motorcycle club – ‘BRMC’, CAN – ‘Future Days’ and Bo Hanson – ‘The Lord of The Rings’ all changed a lot for me at different times in my life and truly shaped my mind into what is my musical taste today.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
ØB: Now we are working on booking live dates to bring ‘Horizons’ out to people. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to travel freely across the Eu continent again. Also we´re starting to write new material for the next record. Gotta keep moving!! hehe
| Bard’s Flying Vessel – Cut In Half [from I, released October 29, 2021] |
I corresponded with Matt Dwyer of Bard’s Flying Vessel. When I contact him, I didn’t realize we had already corresponded. Matt is a member of Blood Moss and I had included a track of theirs on Podcast 2021.04 A Time For Glory.
TMODM: How does the place you live — your city, landscape, music scene — feed into the music you make?
MD: we wrote and recorded most of the songs in our apartments in Brooklyn, a piecemeal process that I think contributed to the multi part nature of the songs along with the range of sounds we wanted to use. we all live pretty close together so the energy of getting together and wandering around our neighborhoods is something i’ll always associate with how this came together
TMODM: What record changed your life?
MD: for me that would be Cannibal Ox’s The Cold Vein, an early 2000s hiphop record that has beautiful, melancholic raps on top of these dark and grimey beats. it’s definitely stuck with me for a long time now and i’d recommend a listen.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
MD: we’ve written a bunch of new songs for our second LP and are going to keep playing shows so stay tuned for more to come!
| The Violet Mindfield – Stranger In The Mirror [from Odds & Ends, released April 15, 2021] |
I corresponded with John Duran of the Violet Mindfield.
TMODM: How does the place you live — your city, landscape, music scene — feed into the music you make?
JD: We live in the Inland Empire of Southern California. It’s a bit of a wasteland. I think that generally causes us to look elsewhere for inspiration, either geographically, back in time or inward. Contrary to the general order of things our new soon to be released record “California Burning” has geographics playing more of a role. It was written during the covid lockdown with riots and wildfires all going on at the same time in California.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
JD: Sgt. Pepper changed my life when I was 12.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
JD: The next big thing for us is “California Burning” which features “Stranger In The Mirror” it’ll be our second vinyl LP and our first on Outro Records.
| Exnovios – Un Nuevo Día [from Un Nuevo Día, released October 24, 2021] |
I corresponded with Juan Del Puente of Exnovios
TMODM: How does the place you live — your city, landscape, music scene — feed into the music you make?
JDP: I don’t think our city influences us more than the music we have in our heads since we were children
TMODM: What record changed your life?
JDP: My parents had some cassettes that I played all day, especially one of Juan and Junior, I remember hearing, at the age of 10, Anduriña, a song about a girl who leaves her home and feeling very sad thinking about what would have happened to that. girl.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
JDP: write songs, maybe one about a girl who leaves her home
| Dead Horse One – Nevermore [from Nevermore, released October 15, 2021] |
I corresponded with Olivier Debard of Dead Horse One
TMODM: How does the place you live (Hossegor / France) your city, landscape, music scene — feed into the music you make?
OD: Absolutly not ahah, reach for the 90’s
TMODM: What record changed your life?
OD: too many.. The Velvet Underground And Nico, Nevermind, Siamese Dream, The Head On The Door.
TMODM: What’s next for you? Releasing our ep When Love Runs Dry (March 18)
OD: And then with the sales of the album, buy a ticket for SpaceX.
| Dead Otter – Eye Elevator [from No Sleep Till Kozfest, released August 06, 2021] |
TMODM: How does the place you live — your city, landscape, music scene — feed into the music you make?
DO: Dead Otter is from Glasgow, Scotland, in many ways it’s the perfect place for otters as we excel in a damp and temperate climate, also we are lucky in that Glasgow is a regular touring stop for many of the great bands that have come over the years and shaped our ears to the possibilities of sound not to mention all the fantastic bands we have met along the way such as Sloth Metropolis, Headless Kross, Slomatics, Hibushibire, . The music we make is like a slow, winding journey into the core of the otterverse where only the most viscous frequencies can cast any weight.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
DO: This is Omar, guitar otter and the record that changed my life is The Impossible Dream by The Sensational Alex Harvey band, it was one of the LPs I found as a kid stuffed under the record player at my Gran’s house and I still have it to this day, my version skips at the first guitar solo in ‘Vambo’ so there is this wee bend that always loops in my head just as it does on my record. There is something so bombastic and ambitious about this record from start to end that it will always inspire my approach to music and playing.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
DO: Autumn 2021, the otters are deep in alchemical formulations conjuring up the follow up record to our first album Bridge of Weird, meanwhile we aim to see the year out with a trip to the mystical town of Glastonbury where we will be playing alongside the mighty Hawklords. In 2022, all things going well we hope to release the next ottering album out into the wild and perhaps embark on a few live dates – let’s see what happens!
| Yokujitsu – Yawarakai Tejou [from Doom Fujiyama Vol. 3, released October 30, 2021] |
TMODM: How does the place you live — your city, landscape, music scene — feed into the music you make?
Y: We live in Tokyo and nearby prefectures. Tokyo is full of different kinds of music, but the psychedelic rock scene is small.
A few small bands have come together to form a small scene.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
Y: Records that changed my life… too many to list them all, but here are a few.
GASP / DROME TRILER OF PUZZLE ZOO PEOPLE
YURA YURA TEIKOKU / KUDODESU
Black Sabbath / Master Of Reality
And all the Dead Meadow / The Black Angels / Brian Jonestown Massacre stuff.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
Y: I’m working on a lot of songs right now, hoping to release an album.
| Hanford Flyover – Golden [from Golden, released September 18, 2021] |
I corresponded with Josh of Hanford Flyover.
TMODM: How does the place you live — your city, landscape, music scene — feed into the music you make?
HF: I live in a converted 19th century tile factory in an area that was once surrounded by smokey polluting factories. Its now an area full of trees and nature. Nature ultimately always wins out and reminds me that ultimately everything will be ok.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
HF: Two actually – Black Sabbath Paranoid and Jimi Hendrix Axis Bold as Love. See a picture of Hendrix play his guitar upside down made me realise I could do the same – I play left handed and until seeing that picture I was playing right handed and I was really rubbish. I met Noel Reading and got him to sign my Axis album- a treasured item.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
HF: We have been asked to play some festivals next year so playing live could be interesting. We are working on a new album that will be out in the new year.
| Kuunatic – Para Bennyà [from Gate of Klüna, released October 29, 2021] |
TMODM: How does the place you live — your city, landscape, music scene — feed into the music you make?
Kuunatic: Actually all of us live in a different countries right now.
Yuko: I live in Tokyo and there are so many mix cultures maybe inspired me to make fusion music.
Fumie: I am currently in Taiwan. I don’t get to see bands much here, but I really enjoy temple music and indigenous music here. They gave me good inspirations to compose tribal rythms.
Shoko: I am in London. I am enjoying listening to field sounds since the lockdown. I can listen to the sounds clearer in London than in Tokyo. Maybe because the air is different. And I can say that the UK is the country where the music I listened to as a teenager was born. Europe was also an important part of my childhood as my family used to visit there for work. So the music, the smells, everything here is nostalgic and relaxing to me. It also allows me to explore an essence of myself, and in return it affects the music I make and it gives my music a nice breeze. I am currently in the process of getting back to the roots of my music.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
Yuko: Ash Ra Tempel – Ash Ra Tempel
Fumie: La’cryma Christi – Magic Theater
Shoko: Joy Division – Closer
TMODM: What’s next for you?
Kuunatic: We are going to Europe tour in May-June 2022, so excited!!
| Some Pills For Ayala – Space Octopus [from Space Octopus, released November 06, 2021] |
Some Pills For Ayala have already been featured on Turn Me On, Dead Man. Some Weed For This Samaritan was on the playlist for Podcast 2021.12 After the Crash. Some Pills For Ayala, from Santiago, Chile, is a solo project from Nestor Ayala of At Devil Dirt.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
NA: Well, my answer always will be a lot of bands and records, but if I had to choose just one, The Beatles “Revolver”
TMODM: What’s next for you?
NA: I am working on a full album, and it will be released in vinyl during 2022. I am in the process of composing and looking for something that can differentiate this work in terms of sound and experimentation. The lyrics will be influenced by The Tibetan Book of the Dead.