On the eve of its second International Festival Of Psychedelia, local DJ Bernie Connor explains why mind-bending music is part of the city's DNA
In 1963, it was said that there were more than 200 bands in Liverpool. It's a hackneyed thing, but being a busy sea port, records used to flow in from America. Blues and folk's influence was enormous on the Liverpool scene, and that was the blueprint for psychedelic music, the merging of American blues and British folk music.
In 1967, a band from Liverpool put out one of the best British psychedelic records ever made; not Sgt Pepper but Michael Angelo by the 23rd Turnoff. Still, a lot of Liverpool bands just couldn't get signed. Merseybeat had had its moment in the sunshine and attention moved somewhere else.
I used to work in a record shop called Probe, which was the epicentre of everything in the 1970s and 80s. Every weirdo and no-gooder in the city would gravitate there on Saturday. Geoff Davies, who opened Probe in 1971, is the second most important man in the history of Liverpool music. That's after Brian Epstein. He loved the album Forever Changes by Love and he never stopped playing it to people. All the young kids who would come into the shop looking for punk or the Velvet Underground – he would never miss an opportunity to play them that record. That or Captain Beefheart.
There was actually a much bigger LSD influence in Liverpool music in the 80s than in the late 60s and early 70s. There were huge levels of youth unemployment; you were really lucky to have a job. So a lot of young people found work to do in the form of taking drugs and listening to – and making – incredible music. They were 10 or 15 years too late, but people really were turning on, tuning in and dropping out. Some of the groups that came out of Liverpool at that time were acid-drenched, you might say. Echo And The Bunnymen were always my favourite. As time passes, the spectrum of influence becomes bigger and bigger. When the Bunnymen were doing their thing, they were influenced by the Velvet Underground and the 13th Floor Elevators. And then the Coral come along and they're influenced by the 60s bands and the 80s bands. There's a vein that runs through it all.
Psychedelia is part of Liverpool's heritage, part of its DNA. It's one of Liverpool's gifts to the world. They even put an exhibition of psychedelia on here at Tate Liverpool in 2005. The Liverpool international festival of psychedelia is a revelation; it's the sort of thing you have in London or San Francisco. It was heaving last year and us older types were saying how it had the air of a very old happening from many years ago, like this generation's version of the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream. Now even people on the other side of the world can see Liverpool for what it is: the great psychedelic capital of Europe.
*The Liverpool International Festival Of Psychedelia, Camp & Furnace, Liverpool, 27 & 28 Sep* Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
In 1963, it was said that there were more than 200 bands in Liverpool. It's a hackneyed thing, but being a busy sea port, records used to flow in from America. Blues and folk's influence was enormous on the Liverpool scene, and that was the blueprint for psychedelic music, the merging of American blues and British folk music.
In 1967, a band from Liverpool put out one of the best British psychedelic records ever made; not Sgt Pepper but Michael Angelo by the 23rd Turnoff. Still, a lot of Liverpool bands just couldn't get signed. Merseybeat had had its moment in the sunshine and attention moved somewhere else.
I used to work in a record shop called Probe, which was the epicentre of everything in the 1970s and 80s. Every weirdo and no-gooder in the city would gravitate there on Saturday. Geoff Davies, who opened Probe in 1971, is the second most important man in the history of Liverpool music. That's after Brian Epstein. He loved the album Forever Changes by Love and he never stopped playing it to people. All the young kids who would come into the shop looking for punk or the Velvet Underground – he would never miss an opportunity to play them that record. That or Captain Beefheart.
There was actually a much bigger LSD influence in Liverpool music in the 80s than in the late 60s and early 70s. There were huge levels of youth unemployment; you were really lucky to have a job. So a lot of young people found work to do in the form of taking drugs and listening to – and making – incredible music. They were 10 or 15 years too late, but people really were turning on, tuning in and dropping out. Some of the groups that came out of Liverpool at that time were acid-drenched, you might say. Echo And The Bunnymen were always my favourite. As time passes, the spectrum of influence becomes bigger and bigger. When the Bunnymen were doing their thing, they were influenced by the Velvet Underground and the 13th Floor Elevators. And then the Coral come along and they're influenced by the 60s bands and the 80s bands. There's a vein that runs through it all.
Psychedelia is part of Liverpool's heritage, part of its DNA. It's one of Liverpool's gifts to the world. They even put an exhibition of psychedelia on here at Tate Liverpool in 2005. The Liverpool international festival of psychedelia is a revelation; it's the sort of thing you have in London or San Francisco. It was heaving last year and us older types were saying how it had the air of a very old happening from many years ago, like this generation's version of the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream. Now even people on the other side of the world can see Liverpool for what it is: the great psychedelic capital of Europe.
*The Liverpool International Festival Of Psychedelia, Camp & Furnace, Liverpool, 27 & 28 Sep* Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.