The mode of the music changed, the walls of the cities shook, rooms hummed harder, ceilings flew away. In his 1965 poem, ‘Who Be Kind To?’, the preeminent beatnik spokesman Allen Ginsberg envisaged ‘nameless voices crying for kindness in the orchestra, screaming in anguish that bliss come true’. Amidst the hallucinatory shangri-la of 1967’s Summer of Love, the potential of that bliss came to visit under the thin disguise of UFO-ria. Tomorrow’s ‘real life permanent dream’, unable to gestate quite long enough to be fully realized, nonetheless appeared tangible enough within those twelve tumultuous months as to plant blossoms within an entire generation’s worth of young minds. Building upon the achievements of the psychedelic pioneers of 1965-66, the British counterculture took flight, penetrated the mainstream, flew too close to the sun in conglomerate homage to Icarus, before falling into a disorganized and acid-fried retreat which by the decade’s end proved irreversible. Yet, 1967’s hippie high water mark, a desperate bid to enact an Eden of peace, free love and not insubstantial drug use before the encroaching tide of violence could destroy the schemes of the cognoscent bohemian dreamers, changed the society which birthed it in a manner few other subcultures have managed. Not just in the U.K, but across the Western world and beyond, the movement unleashed some of the most compelling music ever recorded. So potent was the power of the new exploratory genre of psychedelia that Rolling Stone’s Langdon Winner recalls this all too brief epoch as ‘the closest Western civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815’.

‘…spent 1967 wallowing in the dim and distant past. UK bands who employed the word ‘revolution’ were primarily seeking to establish the right to drop out while wearing cavalry red double-breasted Regency jackets and some really groovy crushed velvet trousers- as perfidious Albion dropped in, tuned up and turned out, the imaginations of the nation’s leading pop acts were fired by the indigenous culture that had informed their childhoods on what was still, to use Thomas Dibdin’s phrase, a snug little island’.

The beatific flower children initially charmed the media of Britain’s affluent post-war society. A Pathé newsreel from 1967 is curious and sympathetic in equal measure, framing the youth explosion that year as a historical event worthy of serious (as opposed to mocking) attention, whilst BBC news coverage of the Legalise Pot rally that July even concluded with the newsreader giving a namaste gesture into the camera. Hans Keller, in his notorious May 1967 interview with Pink Floyd in which he claimed to be ‘too much of a musician to appreciate’ their performance of ‘Astronomy Domine’, still reluctantly noted that ‘they have an audience. And people who have an audience ought to be heard’. Even in his attempts to be derisive, he quite accidentally stumbles upon the appeal to the genre, and perhaps even the entire raison d’etre of the hippie movement at large:

‘My verdict is that it is a little bit of a regression to childhood- but after all, why not?’

The result, in a year where pushing musical boundaries became, paradoxically, the new manner by which to play it safe and earn airplay, was that dozens (perhaps even hundreds) of worthy records found themselves buried by the competition of their contemporaries. What was advanced in the preceding months became passé in 1967, such was the rate of sudden musical experimentalism. As was the case during 1966, a surprising proportion of lost psychedelic classics can be found on the B-sides of single releases, the A-side often comprising a deceptively commercial song. Early psych groups hoped against hope to burst into the charts with a middle-of-the-road musical Trojan horse from which they could leap, having earned the confidence, audience, exposure and budget to exhibit their more turned-on tendencies.

What follows is a list of 15 Brit-psych B-sides from the era of the Summer of Love, which reflect the diversity of the genre as the underground lurched from the seedy depths and launched a petal laden coup d’état upon the unsuspecting establishment. Playful, confrontationally unorthodox and- admittedly- often whimsical to the point of painfully saccharine, each of these recordings are nonetheless imbued with the infectiously adventurous spirit of an age where it seemed anything was possible.

To put it another way- slip into your kaftan, adorn your granny glasses and love beads and perhaps even wear a flower in your hair.

A bassist that doubled as a celloist, a melodic yet incendiary live act and a pet monkey by the name of ‘Freak Out’, whom it was claimed produced ‘psychotic smells’: hailing from Southend, the Fingers could well have been created in a petri dish in an intentional effort to capture the gleeful, fleeting pandemonium of the zeitgeist as 1966 ticked over to 1967.

When their third single, ‘All Kinds of People’ b/w ‘Circus with a Female Clown’ was released in January 1967, it virtually vanished amidst a scene congested with innovation, swollen with anticipation, pregnant with promise. An interview with Paul McCartney on January 18th for the pending Granada documentary ‘It’s So Far Out, It’s Straight Down’ seems, in retrospect, akin to an emergency message from an early warning system. Paul, adhering to a similar role as his biblical namesake, addresses the gentiles watching from home on television and spreads the psychedelic gospel of Indica and the International Times, an advanced tip-off that the culture was on the cusp of a seismic shift. The new movement, he stressed, was not to be feared, coming as it was with peace-

‘…so, the next time you see the word, like– any new strange word like ‘psychedelic,’ the whole bit, you know- ‘freak-out music’ and all of that, don’t immediately take it as… because your first reaction’s gonna be one of fear, you know. So if you don’t know anything about it, you can sort of trust that it’s gonna be alright.’

The Fingers’ ‘Circus With A Female Clown’ is as much the opening musical salvo to this new year as anything recorded by their better known contemporaries, preempting many recording tropes that would become increasingly familiar upon turntables nationwide within in the coming months- an atypical title and subject matter (right down to the curious fascination with circuses and vaudeville), Beach Boys-esque harmonies, liberal application of echo, a driving drumbeat, and a hook-laden chorus that tapers off into mysterious, quasi-gregorian chant in a manner not dissimilar to Episode Six’ simultaneous release, ‘Love, Hate, Revenge’.

2: ‘Feelin’ Reelin’ Squealin’- The Soft Machine (A-Side: ‘Love Makes Sweet Music’)

Just as Jefferson Airplane’s ‘Surrealistic Pillow’ LP fired the starting pistol for the proliferation of records courtesy of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury scene, Soft Machine’s ‘Love Makes Sweet Music/Feelin’ Reelin’ Squealin’, released the same month, marked the first time the probing Dadaist tendencies of the burgeoning British underground emerged from the cellars of the UFO club and leapt onto the airwaves- debuting at #34 on pirate station Radio London’s ‘Fab 40’ on February 26th 1967.

Produced by American psych svengali Kim Fowley (who had written the lyrics for Cat Steven’s ‘Portobello Road’ in 1966), the A-side ‘Love Makes Sweet Music’ is fast-paced, comparatively straightforward psychedelic pop. The flipside, ‘Feelin’ Reelin’ Squealin’, however, is more abstract, pointing towards the ‘progressive’ genre that would emerge fully at the end of the decade with Soft Machine at the fore. Indeed, here is a key strand of the famed Canterbury Scene’s D.N.A, ahead of it’s time to the extent that when Caravan frequently performed it as part of their live set as late as 1971 in largely the same arrangement, it still sounded relevant and in-step with the times, an impressive feat given how quickly many of the florid efforts by their compeers sounded dated by 1968.

3: ‘Through My Eyes’- The Creation (A-Side: ‘Life Is Just Beginning’)

Steady success eluded Hertfordshire group the Creation following their 1966 top 40 hit ‘Painter Man’, with its thunderous riff and the novelty of guitarist Eddie Phillips using a violin bow on his guitar- a gimmick Jimmy Page would later pay homage to/pilfer (depending upon whom you ask) in Led Zeppelin.

4: ‘14 Hour Technicolour Dream’- The Syn (A-Side: ‘Flowerman’)

In the wake of police raids intended to bring the publication to its knees, International Times, the underground paper of choice of the British Underground, seemed to be on thin ice by April 1967. In a last- ditch attempt to keep the magazine afloat, founders John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins and Barry Miles, together with David Howson, Mike McInnerney and Jack Henry Moore, set about organizing a benefit concert to generate adequate funding to allow for the continued distribution of International Times. That concert has since taken on a larger than life presence in collective memory as perhaps the seminal event of the British experience of the Summer of Love- the famed 14 Hour Technicolour Dream at Alexandra Palace.

Here was the spirit of 1967 distilled into one night- a lineup featuring the prime alumni of the psychedelic scene, including Pink Floyd, Tomorrow, the Soft Machine, the Pretty Things, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and the Sam Gopal Dream to name but a handful. Performance art courtesy of Yoko Ono, who is said to have contributed with her famed ‘Cut Piece.’ An area signposted ‘Banana Be-In’ for partaking in the preeminent in-crowd rumour of the year- that, owing to a misinterpretation of Donovan’s hit single ‘Mellow Yellow’, smoking banana skins could bring about a form of natural intoxication. Even a visibly stoned John Lennon was present to witness Pink Floyd’s now-legendary dawn performance, where Syd Barrett directed sunbeams off his mirrored guitar into the faces of the 10,000 strong audience.

The Syn, in fact an earlier lineup of 70’s prog band Yes, were also in attendance and opted to immortalise the memory of the event on the B-side of their September 1967 single, ‘Flowerman.’ The dizzy giddiness of the Technicolour Dream stains the Syn’s lyrics:

Regulars at the Marquee club in 1967, the Syn earned the affections of pirate radio DJ John Peel, who broadcast both sides of this single on the final edition of his influential ‘Perfumed Garden’ show. By 1968, the Syn had evolved into Mabel Greer’s Toyshop- the final stepping stone on the road to Yes’ 1970s successes and excesses.

5: ‘Cheadle Heath Delusions’- Felius Andromeda (A-Side: ‘Meditations’)

6: ‘Sun Came Bursting Through My Cloud’- Dantalion’s Chariot (A-Side: ‘The Madman Running Through The Fields’)

‘Everyone seems determined to knock Dantalion’s Chariot- including hairy colleague Mick Farren’, John Peel wrote for International Times issue 19 in October 1967. ‘However, I know that Zoot Money is sincere in his sudden reformation and he’s not trying cynical bandwagon jumping as has been ofttimes suggested.’

8: ‘Sara Crazy Child’- John’s Children (A-Side: ‘Midsummer Night’s Scene’)

Lyrically, here lies the blueprint for Marc Bolan’s hep-cat character studies he would perfect in the early 1970’s as frontman of the electrified T. Rex.

9: ‘Give ‘Em A Flower’- The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (A-Side: ‘Devil’s Grip’)

The winking, self-aware keyboard-led arrangement is almost vaudevillian in tone, even incorporating a brief organ quotation of the popular 1900’s music hall knees-up ‘I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside’ just before the second verse. The call and response nature of the ending predicts an increasingly violent, visceral edge to Britain’s ‘Beautiful People’, torn between the ideal of responding to any and all provocation by, as Arthur Brown recommends, giving the aggressor a flower, or hitting them on the head ‘with a bicycle chain’ as the cockney inflected response suggests. The apathy-inducing self-indulgencies of the Summer of Love were a source of concern both within and beyond the counterculture; in the words of one underground publication of the era:

‘The atmosphere in London can be almost eerie in its relentless frivolity – Britain seems willing to sink giggling into the sea.’

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown remained a fixture on the airwaves and the live circuit in 1968 as the gentle utopianism of 1967 gave way to disillusionment and protest. The incendiary psych classic ‘Fire’ ascended to #1 and soundtracked the same summer of discontent that served as a muse for both the Rolling Stones’ ‘Street Fightin’ Man’ and the Beatles’ ‘White Album.’

10: ‘Leave Me Here’- The 23rd Turnoff (A-Side: ‘Michelangelo’)

The 23rd Turnoff cut one of the most highly esteemed singles of the era with ‘Michelangelo/Leave Me Here’ in September 1967. Named for the exit off the M-6 that led to their native Liverpool, the 23rd Turnoff, fronted by Jimmy Campbell (described by Bob Stanley as ‘the era’s lost songwriter’) evolved from merseybeat group the Kirkbys, who had gigged extensively at the famous Cavern Club and even supported the Beatles in 1962.

11: ‘Halliford House’- The Virgin Sleep (A-Side: ‘Love’)

In common with many of the cult classic psychedelic acts (23rd Turnoff, Tintern Abbey, Felius Andromeda) signed to

Deram- Decca’s ‘progressive pop’ sublabel- over the 1967/68 period, the reputation of West London group the Virgin Sleep (formerly a beat group by the name of ‘Themselves’) hinges entirely on the two classic singles they cut within that period, which flopped before reemerging from the depths following the wave of 1960’s obscurity mining that arose following the unexpected success of Elektra’s ‘Nuggets’ compilation in 1972.

‘Now it’s empty, full of decay- Peter Pan has flown away….’

12: ‘The Gnome’- Pink Floyd (A-Side: ‘Flaming’)

Speaking of acid casualties…

The immaculately turned-out Grimble Gromble, the scarlet-tunic wearing gnome who populates this cracked nursery rhyme, serves as a fitting analogue to his dandyish creator. Syd Barrett embodied the foppish flamboyance of British psychedelia, with his frilled shirts, velvet double breasted jackets and gaudy cravats- not to mention his voracious chemical appetite.

‘They were opening the doors of musical perception and we felt they belonged to us. There were other people . . . there was Dylan, but he was far away and sort of God-like, The Beatles had evolved, but they didn’t play live. So The Floyd were like our local consciousness come to life. It was as though they’d always been there . . . poets from the cosmos.’

Syd Barrett was ‘a little wild Puck figure coming out of the woods’ in the words of Emily Young- supposedly the muse behind ‘See Emily Play’, a #5 psychedelic hit that summer. ‘He seemed to me to be borne of the English countryside.’ Born of the English countryside he was- Barrett’s bucolic childhood experiences would continue to encroach upon his lyrical content for the duration of his all-too-brief career. ‘The Gnome’, an album track on the crucial ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ LP eventually released as a B-side late in the year, showcases many of Syd Barrett’s guiding songwriting idiosyncrasies. His Tolkien-esque imagery captured the underground fascination with all things Middle Earth, whilst his distinctly English-accented vocals would enormously influence David Bowie- who paid homage to Barrett by covering ‘See Emily Play’ on his 1973 LP ‘Pin Ups’.

13: ‘Listen To The Sky’- The Sands (A-Side: ‘Mrs Gillespie’s Refrigerator’)

‘Listen To The Sky’ is an unlikely anti-war masterpiece. There’s a poignant eye for whimsical detail to be found in this tale of a reluctant pilot in an unnamed war. The responses of the pilot (endearingly named ‘Bertie Baker’) are deeply human; when he receives his conscription notice he is ‘horrified’, when he receives his uniform he wishes he could be with his family, and when he finally takes flight for battle, his eyes ‘full of rain’ are in conflict with his ears ‘full of praise.’ When he ultimately dies amidst a twisted tangle of burning wreckage, the powers-at-be strive to sanitise the horror, forging a letter on his behalf to frame his death as ‘not in vain.’

On the surface, this is a catchy popsike song in the same vein as the Bee Gees penned A-side. Yet, the lacerating guitar flourishes punctuating the harmonic choruses, the subversive lyrical content and the sensory overload of the denouement (featuring air raid sirens and an invocation of Gustav Holst’s ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ from the Planets suite) combine to make ‘Listen to the Sky’ one of the all-time finest recordings from the psychedelic era. It’s a scathing protest against the bureaucracy and sanitisation of the horrors of war, in line with popular anti-war sentiment in 1967 as the unignorable sceptre of the Vietnam bloodbath loomed ever larger on both sides of the Atlantic.

14: ‘Colour of My Mind’- The Attack (A-Side: ‘Created by Clive’)

The Attack almost single-handedly define the subcategory of druggish garage rock popularly known as ‘freakbeat’. There is more than a whiff of well-crafted, slick mod-pop to the Attack’s 1967 John du Cann-penned B-side ‘Colour of My Mind’, with a definite sense of urgency that evokes the frenetic shindiggery of a Swinging London now fuelled as much by acid as by amphetamines. The Attack withered on the vine thanks to the neglect of their label, Decca, which shelved several of their recordings- including the classic ‘Magic In The Air’ single and a projected concept album based upon the Roman gods of war- on the basis that they were ‘too heavy’ to be commercially viable. In the aftermath of the Attack, Du Cann would flit restlessly from the studio-only project the Five Day Week Straw People, the Cream-influenced riffing of Andromeda and the progressive rock of Atomic Rooster.

15: ‘Vacuum Cleaner’- Tintern Abbey (A-Side: ‘Beeside’)

A highly cherished single that often commands prices of up to £1000 in auction.

But does Tintern Abbey’s psychedelic Fabergé egg deserve the hushed reverence bestowed to it by rabid psych collectors? Yes, it rather does.

Sourcing their name from William Wordsworth’s poem ‘Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey’ and managed by teenage multi-millionaire Nigel Samuel (who funded plenty of publicity in International Times) Tintern Abbey’s only single was released in December 1967, whereby it was promptly stifled amidst the competitive Christmas market.

Woozy, crushed velvet vocals, blatant drug references, a hazy, distorted guitar solo- ‘Vacuum Cleaner’ is one of the undisputed jewels in British psychedelia’s crown. The consumerism of the mod movement is condemned (‘new clothes can’t buy my soul’) in favour of the introspection and escapism of the psychedelic lobby and the chemical temptations it brought (‘fix me up with your sweet dose’). In the few live shows Tintern Abbey performed, ‘Vacuum Cleaner’ was the group’s opening number. A projected follow-up single and an album (scheduled for release in August 1968) never materialised. No sooner had Tintern Abbey arrived on the scene, they were gone- taking 1967, the epochal year of flower power, with them. In parallel to the psychedelic era they were spawned of, the exotic mystique surrounding Tintern Abbey increases day by day- even as the Summer of Love recedes into ever-distant memory.

‘Come in, ’67, your time is up……’