Psychedelic Spotlight: Ten Questions with valis from Trip Inside This House

I recently held an e-mail conversation with the great music blog Head Full of Snow. Thanks to Nick for allowing me to cross-post it here. –valis

The blog Trip Inside This House is…a cornucopia of psychedelic goodness, taking its name from the 13th Floor Elevators track “Slip Inside This House” and overseen by the encyclopedic mind gone high that is valis Hertel. A fairly regular series on the Trip Inside This House site is Ten Questions, where valis grills someone currently active on the psych music scene (playing, writing, bloody great fan), so the rest of us can discover what makes these polychromatic peoples tick.

Being the crusading force of originality that HFoS is, we decided to nick this idea wholesale and turn the technicolour tables on the man who poses the questions, valis himself.

The man knows his stuff and isn’t afraid to wax lyrical on all things mind-expandingly musical. One of the many thoroughly interesting, kaleidoscopic troubadours writing on the genre today.

Those adverse to infectious enthusiasm and the desire to share it with others need not apply.

1. In ten words, or less, define “psychedelic music.”

Brain-analogue triggering devices to trip inside this house…

2. When and where did your love of psychedelic music arise?

As far as psychedelic music it’s been nearly 20 years now. My readings in the late ’80s were leading me further and further “down a rabbit hole,” with Robert Anton Wilson leading, and showing, the way. I’d copy his bibliographies and always had those on hand when going to used book stores or the library. When I felt stymied enough over the course of a few months I’d request an inter-library loan and get a book that way as my only recourse. (I’d get some strange looks, too, when requesting some of those titles.)

That was a prefatory to music exploring the same things I was reading about, i.e. “explorations of inner space.” This culminated in late 1991 with a friend loaning me a copy of the Spaceman 3 cassettes and the Roky* tribute, Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye. That compilation was a true eye opening experience! No pun intended. I sought out further music from the bands contributing and haven’t been the same since. (I do enjoy power pop, too. But my main focus and obsession is psychedelic music. It fills that human desire which Ronald Siegel has termed “the Fourth Drive.”)

3. Where do think the line is drawn between psychedelic and progressive rock?  For instance, many psychedelic bands in the late sixties – Edgar Broughton or Soft Machine spring to mind – were also classed as progressive rock (in the UK, at least), yet a traditional prog band such as Camel would never be described as psychedelic.

I’m underqualified on this question. Having had this survey for a few weeks now this is the one question which I get hung up on. I “know”, as much as one can know, there is such a line but I’m unsure where it’s drawn; the phrase “I know it when I hear it” readily springs to my mind. I completely get the Soft Machine reference but would never classify-in my wildest imagination, Edgar Broughton Band as being anywhere near the category of prog. Their work seems to lean so heavily on blues based tropes with some dabbling in psychedelia, a la the Pretty Things, or the Rolling Stones even. My preference allows me to listen to Soft Machine works while eschewing Camel. I also avoid any Yes like a plague, but have time for early Gabriel-era Genesis. (I love ‘Carpet Crawlers’ from The Lambs Lie Down on Broadway.)

The whole question baffles, on multiple levels, in my mind. This possibly speaks to the complexities only I’m seeing in it, more than what may exist in reality. It doesn’t seem to be about the overall length of a track as putting it in progressive rock territory either. I can name numerous tracks in the 15-20 minute range which are full-on psychedelic without crossing any real or imagined line into prog’. I suppose if forced to make an easy distinction it seems prog was “overblown excess & egoistic ars gratia artis.” It works for me in an arena of music I pay little to no attention to. In the same way I pay no attention to the works (o_O) of Britney Spears and the other clones of pop/trash culture.

4. What are your reasons for laying bare your soul, so to speak, upon the internet with Trip Inside This House, and how do you hope TITH’s story to play out?

The reasons are fairly simple: a compulsion to share my obsession for flag-waving on behalf of the genre known as psychedelia. I’ve found the community of psychedelic music to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever communicated with and this adds to the overall positive experience and helps me continue the blog. As an extension of the blog, I’ve been doing a radio show, titled the same, for the past 15 months on our local community radio station. Trip Inside This House, the radio show goes out on Tuesdays, from 5-7 a.m., Central time. (You can access two weeks’ worth of archived shows for streaming, too.) The radio show has also allowed me to expand the horizons of the blog. Seems symbiotic.

As far as how the story plays out..? Well.., every once in a while a new hare-brained scheme will pop into the head and I’ll act on it, so new features are added or dropped depending on how far I think I can go with it. (E.g., “The Wayback Machine” feature was a long-running constant of the blog but it got harder and harder to get participation because band members really preferred to be highlighted and increase their visibility by the more lengthy “10 Questions.” I just couldn’t stay ahead of the curve in an “inventory of respondents” way so that I’d be further stressed by the need to get someone “right now!” and that usually didn’t happen. I hope the blog continues picking up followers/readers but that seems out of my control, too. The best I can do is try to promise as much original content as I can, on a weekly basis, and hope it satisfies all concerned. Other than that, it’s a means of creative expression which is two-sided: myself & the bands. I honestly don’t have an ego about it; I’m proud of it, to be sure, and I guess pride is a part of the ego but I don’t think the blog defines me, rather the opposite.

5. What’s the -valis position on the recent news that Roky Erickson is to release his first album of new material in 14 years? Do you think some things are better left in the past?

Hmm, the “-valis position”..? I’m excited to hear where Roky’s “at” now. In most cases, decisions like this might be discerned as market-driven cash grabs but I think this falls far from that. My opinion, of course.

His name certainly has cache value and there’s no denying the importance of the man on this genre. Let’s give him a chance, at least.

6. Which is better, the British or the American brand of psychedelic rock?

In my world there’s room for both. Turks, Africans, French, South American, Canadian, and perhaps even some Scottish, too! The collection isn’t weighted to either and I don’t make conscious decisions to play British or American psych’ on my radio show.

Now, if the question was meant to stir debate on the thematic and lyrical concerns of ’60s psychedelia coming out of the two countries I’m still going with the “room for both” statement. That debate has shaped up, in my mind at least, to be an oversimplification.

Yes, the Americans were dealing with the spectre of being drafted but there’s just as much as “light weight” & “toytown” psych’ here in the States as there was in the Isles. The argument simply doesn’t wash with me…

7. Which of today’s bands are really capturing the sound and essence of 60s psychedelic rock?

Lords! How much space do you want to devote to this survey as this may take up your entire allotment of web space? I tend to concentrate far more of my time and energy in exploring and seeking out these current purveyors, so this list could go on for, quite literally, days.

I think a couple of great starting points would be to point readers to the last two years’ “Best of…” posts. I believe I’ve named 100+ bands in my own lists! All worthy of the attention and exploration of their sounds, imho.

The BEST of 2008

Brain Buzzin’ Best of, 2009 Edition

That’s the short answer. Those which leap to mind, band-wise: The Asteroid No.4, Darker My Love, the Black Hollies, the Black Angels, Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, the Chemistry Set, Mondo Drag, the Grip Weeds, Outrageous Cherry, the Higher State, the Thanes, Anton Barbeau, the Dolly Rocker Movement, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Oblisk, Capsula, the Early Days, Lyserg Sands, Squires of the Subterrain, the December Sound, Stereoscope Jerk Explosion, Chatham Rise, Helicon, the Black Strands, A’dam Sykles, the High Dials, Troubador Dali, the Lovetones, the Quarter After, Screen Vinyl Image, the Starlight Mints, Evangelicals, Grails, Cosmic Trip Machine, Bipolaroid, the Upsidedown, Clinic, Deleted Waveform Gatherings, Dog Age, and on and on and on and on and on and on, ad inf.

8. Favourite psychedelic album of all time?

Primal Scream – Screamadelica

It’s the one which literally blew my mind, after hearing their version of the Elevators “Slip Inside This House” on the tribute compilation; has everything I really need from a psychedelic record and there’s no track I skip over.
After that it’d be Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request, by the Brian Jonestown Massacre and/or The Asteroid No.4’s brilliant These Flowers Of Ours: A Treasury of Witchcraft and Devilry… There, that’s three – ‘cos three is the magic number.

9. Top Ten Psychedelic Songs?

At this slice of time in the cone-cut:

(Randomly ordered)

1. The Beatles – Tomorrow Never Knows
2. Mondo Drag – Tallest Tales
3. Asteroid #4 – My Love
4. Cass McCombs – Tourist Woman
5. The Bongos – Numbers With Wings
6. Brian Jonestown Massacre – Malela
7. The Scoundrels – Up There
8. Legay – The Fantastic Story Of The Steam Driven Banana
9. The December Sound – Drone Refusenik
10. The Dolly Rocker Movement – Memory Lane

This answer will change in 23 minutes, and every 23 minutes thereafter.

10. Turn the tables, if you’d like, and ask me a question.

Where do YOU think the line is drawn between psychedelic and progressive rock?

HFoS: After giving it some thought, I find it impossible to give a definitive yay or nay. Suffice to say I have to agree with the “I know it when I hear it” answer. The two genres will never be exclusive to one another – early Procol Harum is definitely a case of both – but I think with the arrival of King Crimson the border became a little more defined, with prog rock being associated with a certain style of sound… Saying that, it’s impossible to draw a line between the two. Both are explorations of the further reaches of the musical stratospheres and, as such, an ear-pleasing one. The only way to separate is if you were to take the traditional aspects of both. ie Syd Barrett, Tomorrow and Kaleidoscope versus Yes, Camel and Gentle Giant. Even in that scenario the psychedelic wing could be classed as progressive, but not in the same way as the latter three, who, incidentally, could never be classed as psychedelic.

I think what I’m trying to say is, if there is an answer to this question, I haven’t got it.

I would like to thank valis of Trip Inside This House for taking time out to reveal a little bit more about the man behind the prismatic mind. And if you haven’t checked out his excellent site [and 88.1 KDHX radio show] already, now’s the perfect opportunity to do so.

Until next time…

Nick of Head Full of Snow

Posted by | March 6, 2010 | Music | Comment 

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