Lots of great 60s psychedelic music i've discovered over the past year on myspace.Lots of great bands with great songs i've never heard of before 'cos they're not that well known and thought i'd share with anyone interested..Many thanks to all the people who put these great pages up..

FIRE  showed childlike playful psych-pop whimsy par excellence, revelling in the absurd..The utterly stellar Who-ish 'My Fathers Name Was Dad'i can't believe wasn't a massive hit. The Syd Barrettish 'Treacle Toffee World is great too.

APPLE London based Psych pop/rock band with a wonderful kinda leftfield melodicism,somewhere between The Kinks and Syd Barrett....The strange,magical atmospheric pop of 'Photograph' and 'Buffalo Billycan' are both really great.'The trippy 'The Otherside' is worth checking out too..

NIRVANA (no not them!)were a late 60s British soft pop psychedelic band with wonderfully pretty breezy melodic songs ..Check out the  phasey-swirling 'Rainbow Chaser' or the ultra whimsical 'Girl In The Park'

PUSSY were a British psych band leaning toward prog..Try the brilliant and slightly sinister 'The Open Ground'

TINTERN ABBEY were a  band who only made one single!..Luckily,the swirling,stately b' side 'Beeside' is a real hidden gem.

CARTOONE Great Scottish Psych-pop band who's only album Jimmy Page played on-Love his voice..'Penny For The Sun' is wonderful warm-hearted pop and 'Let Me Reassure You' is fuzzily sunny and delightfully insistent...

TURQUOISE only ever released 2 singles..The naggingly stubborn Kinksy 'Flossie Fillet' and (especially) the suburban Who-ish '53 Summer Street' are great..

TOMMOROW Listen to the utterly classic story-song 'Excert From A Teenage Opera(Grocer Jack)' or the fabulous 'My White Bicycle

THE SYN I love the playfulness of 'Flowerman'

THE IDLE RACE Birmingham  pop band,the band Jeff Lynne was in pre ELO..'I Like My Toys' is  typically British,very pretty whimsical pop of the time ..

BOEING DUVEEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL SOUP with the beautifully ridiculous (and slightly sinister) monster-mash-on-acid of 'Jabberwock'

SKIP BIFFERTY 'When She Comes To Stay' is great atmospheric psych-pop..

THE HERD  scored some big hits in the late 60s..'Sunshine Cottage' is a great sunny pop song ,but sadly wasn't one of them

THE END Bill Wyman produced late 60s band..Try  the wonderfully breezy Manfred Mann-like 'Cardboard Watch'(love that fade!)

DANTALIANS CHARIOT 'Madman Running Through The Fields' is a great atmospheric track.

THE PRETTY THINGS British RnB band who developed into a creative psychedelic band..The nagging 'Walking Thru My Dreams' is good as is She's A Lover

THE 23RD TURNOFF'Michael Angelo' is a beautiful melancholic psychy folk track..Its B side 'Leave Me Here' is a delightful peice of Beatlesque folk pop too..

CREATIONBritish Garage mod-psyche pop..The anthemic 'For All That I Am' is my favourite tho they're all pretty good..

Was just thinking about Jimi Hendrix and what a beautiful soul he was..Apart from the fact he was by far the most effortlessly natural rock performer ever-dazzlingly transcendent yet sensual and earthy-a shaman-a true magician- 'a force of nature',he was really generous-spirited too..Little things like suddenly stopping playing purple haze on the Lulu show to play Creams 'Sunshine Of Your Love'-or working out and playing a version of The Beatles 'Seargent Pepper' live THE DAY IT WAS RELEASED just 'cos he was passionate about it ..He cared not for convention or what was expected,he just loved the music-and rode the wave where his muse took him..That quality of bigging up other bands,just 'cos he loved their music he shared with Kurt Cobain..I loved him too for bringing an unknown band- The Meat Puppets-onto his MTV unplugged show at the height of his fame...Such a beautiful thing..F*ck thinkin' about the %age gross from the world tour.The greedy dollar-eyed careering and (as Bill Hicks says) sucking Satans cockers.Love the f*ckin' music man-be true to youself-Why give away your love and money to the talentless,bland marketing men posing as 'artists' the media shove down our throats? Are we that stupid?Why be a sheep?

Los Angeles 60's group LOVE..What an amazing,magical band! I've just been listening to their music again for maybe the first time in 5 years and am totally obsessed.Incredible mysterious,bizzarre songs,brilliant playing-maybe THE most original,inventive group from the golden era of original,inventive groups.

Their leader Arthur Lee has to my mind is one of the greatest vocalists ever(tho never receives that kind of accollade).Able to move effortlessly from gutteral blues howl,to whisper soft intimacy to night club crooner often within the same track!

His genius songs range from the explosively cathartic'Seven and Seven is' to the beautiful spanish-tinged airiness of 'The Castle' to the joyful lightness of 'Wonder People (I Do Wonder)'

Arthur Lee was an angry loner punk with the artistic soul  of an ethereal  romantic dreamer gazing at the stars..The huge contradictions in his personality produced  creations of such incredibly dark beauty,filled with suprising chord changes,elegant mood shifts and strange rythmic jolts..Like the best of Lennons music (similarly free-spirited) his music always sounds intuitive and natural tho-never forced..

Supported by another incredbly gifted songwriter Bryan  Maclean,who was his equal in quality if not quantity(Softly To Me,Old Man and the sublime 'Alone Again Or') they really were an incredible band..

I remember the first time i heard their masterpeice 'Forever Changes' in the early 90s,it made me seriously think about quitting writing music-as i thought i'd never be able to create (or get close artistically) to something as timelessly brilliant as that-I was light years away..Luckily i don't feel the same anymore-and try to use the spirit,creative freedom and effortlessly transcendent spirit in their music to be inspired by and as an artistic signpost of where to go..

Just started a song a week idea with my friend and brilliant musician friend Harper Stephens..I always write loads'n' loads of half baked 'tunes',most without words-and get bored and go onto the next idea,leaving a legacy of tapes full of fragmented ideas but no songs to show for it..Mr Stephens has the same problem-and he's got a stack of truly GREAT tunes stockpiled..(unlike me unfortunately)

So we've agreed to meet up once a week with ONE completed song each to play to each other..Its a challenge and will get my head into a lyric writing space-which i feel i've really neglected..Will hopefully focus my songwriting too..

I wanted to post this here-as a reminder to myself,so the agreement dosn't just fade away thru laziness or whatever as these kind of fanciful ideas are prone to do.Also as a kinda diary..