from the LP How to Blow Your Mind & Have a Freak Out Party, Audio Fidelity Records, 1967The endearingly noble idea that one could possibly impart all the perceptions & feelings of a mind on psychedelic drugs merely within the medium of music (or film, or art, or whatever) was most often a short-sighted folly---sure, sweetly idealistic in the sense that so many people who turned on seemed to really be convinced of these substance’s ability to transform society, so much so that it compelled them to share those revelations any way they could. The problem is that drugs like LSD & psilocybin don’t exactly present their trips in a manner befitting of re-creation or re-interpretation outside of the experience itself; now, that’s not to say that one can’t establish the thoughts they have while tripping as relevant or not after you come down, even absorbing some self-truths found along those kaleidoscopic roads into one’s own psyche going forwards. The entire second-half of this LP is virtually unlistenable, and I would imagine if you happened to actually be tripping while you heard that riff-raff, it could cause you to flip the fuck out. Thankfully, a clutch of tracks on the first side manage to rise above the period-piece din, this one in particular being ripe for the sampling, thanks in no small part to the snappy drumming and druggy, new age theme, “…time to dig yourself, it’s really what you need; freedom is the groove, when insight is to see…” Yea, dig it man, right on, like far out.
