Turn On Your Mind: Jim DeRogatis - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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Dick Heath View Drop Down

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Topic: Turn On Your Mind: Jim DeRogatis
Posted: June 25 2008 at 17:54

In London today and ended up in Oxford Street's HMV, and found the book Turn On Your Mind - Four Decades Of Great Psychedelic Rock by Jim DeRogatis (the enlarged, rewritten seconde dition) imported from the USA), available for 10 quid (and >600pages long, with a variety of discographies, and some very specific top ten lists). Read the first 84 pages coming back on the train and it reads very learn (and relatively learnedly) about the early day. Definitely something for PA's psychedelic team to chew over. More of a solid review once I've read it.

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salmacis

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Posted: June 26 2008 at 05:54

I read Derogatis' earlier book 'Kaleidoscope Eyes' and whilst his open-minded approach to prog is to be applauded (I seem to remember he was very critical of the endless claims that prog is 'pretentious'), his definition of psychedelia was somewhat odd- I recall Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were included!

I read a review of this particular book which said he excluded The Grateful Dead as he didn't like them, but Genesis and Jethro Tull are in it!

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Posted: June 26 2008 at 08:10

salmacis wrote:

I read Derogatis' earlier book 'Kaleidoscope Eyes' and whilst his open-minded approach to prog is to be applauded (I seem to remember he was very critical of the endless claims that prog is 'pretentious'), his definition of psychedelia was somewhat odd- I recall Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were included!

I read a review of this particular book which said he excluded The Grateful Dead as he didn't like them, but Genesis and Jethro Tull are in it!

How odd; just got to the section on SF based bands and literally reading about Grateful Dead this morning! He is quite precise about his definition of psychedelic rock, which however, enables him to pull in many other bands which may not seem likely candidates. In his defense he does get more selective (with the constraints of his definition) when it comes to a "psychedelic rock album library", evenso again listing bands that need good explanations for their inclusion. Amused that prog becomes part of psychedelia rather tthan vice versa. Finding the occasional use and then abandonment of chronology in favour of geographical location, muddying the coherence of 'when' as well as 'where' - so I seem to be working too hard think who might of influenced whom?

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Dick Heath View Drop Down

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Posted: July 02 2008 at 09:54

200 pages in (but not quite half way) and bad news I've got my sharpened pencil out and now marking errors, particularly with numerous potted, bare-bones biographies which can have errors or important omissions.....there is a laughable one about ELP which should have been been picked up at the galley/proof reading stage. And here we get one of those rare (incorrect IMHO) associations of Gentle Giant with the Canterbury movement - which you occasionally find propagated in so-called references.

I'm increasingly getting frustrated by a seemingly lack of stable time lines (or ordered chronology), other than the book seeming to be going from ~1965 to the late 90's, but we are jumped backwards and forwards during the first decade of the psychedelic movement, based on vaguely geographical/vaguely sub-genre threads. I would suggest a need for at least one rock family tree to demonstate far more fully inter-relationships.

I am also concern at the number of relatively extensive quotes taken from references, especially in defining genres and sub-genres, hey we get that line that Macan takes (in Rocking The Classics) that early progressive rock is an exclusively English thing. Even so, here there is vagueness wrt what psychedelia is, and what psychedelia isn't - although I get a clear impression DeRogatis knows his type of psychedelia when he hears it but doesn't communicate it that well to the reader. Remembering I've only got to page 200, so far there appears to be a wholesale dismissal of jazz-based psychedelia. This must be bad news to labels such as Warners, who have issued several compilations with "psychedelic jazz" somewhere in the title:

Psychedelic%20Jazz%20and%20Soul:%20the%20in%20Sound%20-%20from%20the%20Atlantic%20and%20Warner%20Vaults

Psychedelic%20Jazz%20And%20Funky%20Grooves

and those of us aware of the work by Free Spirits, Charlies Lloyd, Count's Rock Band, John McLaughlin's Devotion, perhaps Herbie Mann, etc. (Indeed, me thinks from various statements in the book, jazz isn't DeRogatis's favourite music). And I do wish American and other "foreign" authors would make the effort to understand more about societies that are not their own, if they are going write about them, e.g. we get told Jonathon King "graduated" from Charterhouse School (a "high school"???) - it's about time DeRogatis and others realised we Brits only 'graduate 'having passed a degree at university - Jonathan King in fact was an "ex-pupil" of Charterhouse School.

There is a huge amount in this book, and clearly the author has great enthusiasm for the subject - but I don't feel this book is an easy read nor an easy way to absorb information. Evenso it has hooked me to keep on reading. At least in his favour he does quote discussions he has had with people, for instance those who weren't happy of his 'rejection' of the Grateful Dead in the book's first edition - but there also seems a need to have the last word on the subject; but okay this is his book. BTW I do really agree with his assessment of Pink Floyd - but I can be selective too.

More later.

(typos and English corrected 1 Aug)

Edited by Dick Heath - August 01 2008 at 08:27

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gsolman

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Posted: July 31 2008 at 23:47

I'm about a third through. Even though I know alot of this history already the author's perspective is refreshing. He's good at finding quotes from well known artist that I've never seen before. The whole thing flows really well and I'm looking forward to the rest of this..........

All that said I think is definition of psychadelic is a bit vague and too inclusive, but I don't mind that so much since I wasn't expecting a scholarly, must-follow-these-rules approach.

A whole section on Genesis (a bit reaching again) but not even a mention of the dissonant and beloved VDGG.

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Posted: November 28 2008 at 11:35

Confession time: I ground to halt ~100 pages from the end of the book 4 months ago and only just taken it up again. (BTW Attacking Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series has been so much more attractive reading experience - and there are plenty of prog references used by Rankin, often used in context to the plot, e.g. like a silent musical sound track).

I think the writing style eventually gets repetitious and tedious (I got to feel too often I'm reading a shopping list rather than being entertained and informed); even dealing with new (and to largely unfamiliar) bands he has been failing to turn me on. But then with bands I know, I can't often make out the author's justification for calling many them 'psychedelic'.

I'm reinforced in my feeling that the author clearly knows in his mind what a 'psychedelic band 'is when he hears one (and one that isn't) but can't fully communicate this. Similarly, I know what a progressive or jazz fusion band is when I hear one (and vice versa), so I can make my case, up to a point. But music being so abstract and without aid of musical examples (and I'm not enthused enough to go out and buy to samples) , then it can be very difficult to justify all the bands listed.

Edited by Dick Heath - November 28 2008 at 11:39

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