Willie Simpson

Tag: psychedelic rock

  • The Byrds, Turn, Turn, Turn

    It’s one of those famous songs where nobody can remember the full title.  Officially its, “Turn, Turn, Turn (to Everything There is a Season.)”  Written by Pete Seeger in the 50s, and cribbed  almost entirely from a Bible verse, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” was one of the Byrds earlier hits coming out in 1965 along with…

  • John Lennon, #9 Dream

    I was sneaking under a bus parked over a snowy muddy pit.  I jostled a hinge holding the front of the truck to the freight, and it began to collapse on me.  As it caved in on me, I genuinely thought I was going to die.  This was the phrase that went through my mind,…

  • Greatest Rock Vocalists #5, Janis Joplin, Piece of My Heart, To Love Somebody

    Did you know “Piece of my Heart” was originally recorded by Aretha Franklin’s older sister Erma?  I didn’t even know Erma existed and had a music career.  Thanks Wikipedia.  Well, we all know Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company’s classic version.  The video I have below is the most hard rocking and…

  • Spencer Davis Group, Gimmie Some Lovin', I'm a Man (Live)

    Emerging like the God of blue-eyed soul in the first video below, 16 year Steve Winwood delivers one of the best rock vocal performances of all time in the seminal hit, “Gimmie Some Lovin.’”  In 1965, rock and roll’s first ever teenage prodigy churned out a series of hits with the Spencer Davis Group before…

  • John Lennon, India, India

    Sorry for the disturbing lack of updates, but I was busy packing up my Brooklyn apartment and heading north for Maine.  I’ve got three weeks in beautiful Portland before I head across the world to South Korea and Australia.  I’m happy to be out of the city and hear crickets out my window, as four…

  • Beulah, Gene Autry, Emma Blowgun's Last Stand, Ballad of the Lonely Agronaut

    Beulah was formed in a mail room in San Fransisco when Miles Kurosky and Bill Swan decided they both liked the same music, well mostly.  This is the kind of story yours truly can get behind due to own desire to hatch great ideas when I worked in a mail room.  Robert Schneider of the…

  • Of Montreal, Disconnect the Dots, Lysergic Bliss (live), Art Snob Solutions (live)

    R.E.M. broke up yesterday, but worry not, because Athens, Georgia rocks on with their other native sons, Of Montreal.  Of Montreal, famously not “of Montreal,” hail from R.E.M.’s hometown too.  Kevin Barnes, the group’s extroverted introvert genius front man, is peculiar guy.  When he broke into music, his talent wasn’t entirely assembled.  His early home…

  • The Olivia Tremor Control, Love Athena, Memories of Jacqueline 1906, Black Foliage (Itself)

    The oddly named Olivia Tremor Control hail from Ruston, Louisiana, and are probably the most beautiful thing ever to come out of that place.  Along with Robert Schneider’s Apples in Stereo, the OTC were founding members of the Elephant 6 Collective, the group of like-minded psychedelic  enthusiasts who sought to re-inject the world with the…

  • The Apples in Stereo, I Told You Once

    When I was 17 years old, I first heard Her Wallpaper Reverie, a sort of mini Apples in Stereo LP, and I was blown away.  It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone from the Elephant 6 Collective, and they were making the exact sort of music I was missing in the world.  In…

  • John Lennon, George Harrison, Oh My Love

    When the Beatles split in 1970, it was mainly a split between John and Paul.  It’s odd because George, Paul, and Ringo would have kept the group going, but because John wanted to end it, George and Ringo became as enthusiastic as John about kiboshing the whole affair.  I suppose John had more good will…