Magical Music Box alt/w The Golden Road

Dr. Strangely Strange's Magical Music Box

Psychedelic and Progressive Music of the Past, Present and Future

The Show

In addition to an eclectic and varied mix of psychedelic and progressive music spanning the last forty years including current releases, the listener will hear interviews, discussions and information about the music, the musicians, the history and the spirit of this exciting and adventuresome music.

The Music

Psychedelic music is a broad set of popular music styles that originated in the mid to late 1960s. During the period when psychedelic music first became popular, society was going through a period of radical social, sexual, political and cultural change. This created an environment conducive to wild experimentation, and the musicians of day began to push their craft to new extremes. Typical psychedelic musical elements include the use of elaborate studio effects (heavy reverb, tremolo, echo or fuzz), exotic instrumentation (sitars, finger cymbals, jaw's harp), surreal dream-like lyrics, and stretched out musical improvisation. The influence of East Indian music was felt, and resulted in the use of new scales and time signatures.The word psychedelic is derived from the Greek words for mind and manifest, and, although often synonymous with the use of hallucinogenic drugs (hence the term acid rock), the word psychedelic in a broader sense encompasses any experience of creative exuberance occurring when the mind is liberated from its ordinary fetters.

From 1966 to 1969, psychedelic music scenes thrived in London (Pink Floyd, The Soft Machine, The Nice, The Beatles), Los Angeles (The Doors, The Byrds, Love, Spirit), and the city that seemed to be at the center of the psychedelic movement, San Francisco (The Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, Country Joe and the Fish, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service). Albums that are considered psychedelic classics include Electric Music for the Mind and Body (Country Joe And The Fish), Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Pink Floyd), After Bathing At Baxters (Jefferson Airplane), and the most popular and influential psychedelic work of all, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles).By 1969, the first psychedelic movement had run its course, and most bands were ready to progress to the next level.

Progressive music evolved out of the psychedelic underground scene in Europe, primarily London, but also other cities including Canterbury, Amsterdam and Berlin. The bands were growing tired of the limitations of psychedelia, and began to be influenced by genres of music other than rock music. Along with jazz, electronic, avant garde, classical and folk styles, the musicians were also listening to music from around the world. These influences began to take hold of the music, and progressive music was born.For the first time, rock artists sough to move away from the limitations of radio formatted rock and pop, and "progress" rock to the point that it could achieve the sophistication of jazz or classical music. They began to reject specific genre norms, pushing the music to new limits which utilized relatively uncommon musical structures and ideas. Often complex and multi layered, the music not only required a high level of musical virtuosity to perform, but also full undivided attention by the listener in order to fully appreciate it.

Earlier psychedelic bands such as Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, and The Nice shifted their music to explore these new dimensions. Newer bands such as King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant, Genesis and Yes added fresh new ideas and new instrumentation such as the melotron and VCS3 synthesizer. Bands shuffled line-ups, forming new super groups such as Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Hatfield and the North.

The progressive music movement (becoming known to some as the familiar term "prog rock") spread across the world, with prog bands springing up on all of the continents (including North America with bands such as Kansas, Styx and Rush). As music that defies labels is often labeled, sub genres developed such as symphonic rock, space rock, art rock, jazz fusion, folk prog and electronic.The popularity of progressive music sky rocketed as the seventies progressed, until it was buried under its own weight by the punk movement. With the advent of the accessible two minute, three chord simplicity of punk, the complex extended song structures and elaborate stage shows of the prog bands began to be seen as bombastic, indulgent, high brow and elitist.Although a few progressive bands, such as Pink Floyd, Genesis and Yes were able to adapt and remain popular into the eighties, many previously popular bands succumbed to lagging record and concert ticket sales. However, many of the new bands of the eighties, such as Talking Heads, Flock of Seagulls and Blondie carried on the tradition of experimentation of the progressive movement.

The Renaissance of Progressive and Psychedelic Music began in the mid 90s and continues in the new millennium. A new wave of bands is getting back to the essence of what progressive music is all about; writing and performing ambitious, complex and moving rock music regardless of its commercial potential. Bands such as Porcupine Tree, Spock's Beard, the Flower Kings, the Aphex Twin, Radiohead, Dream Theater and the Mars Voltacontinue to blaze fresh and contemporary musical ground, while often paying tribute to the styles of their musical predecessors from the seventies. Accordingly, new sub genres have surfaced, including acid folk, psychedelic ambient, trance and techno, jam-bands, and progressive metal.

The D.J.

Dr. Strangely Strange (a.k.a. Ron Cotterel) has been spinning discs and listening to music of all sorts while cavorting wildly about the room since age four. By eight years of age he was playing air guitar to well-worn Beatles singles, and while still in grade school he made the first of many life-long attempts at playing a real guitar. His very first date was taken to the movie Woodstock, during which Jimi Hendrix received far more attention than the poor teenage girl sitting next to him. Considering himself a late blooming flower child raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, he was too young to make the scenes at the Avalon Ballroom or the Fillmore, but old enough to rock out to the Easy Rider soundtrack. He made it through puberty in time to get into plenty of trouble while living in England during the early 70's, where his mind was first blown by experiencing live performances by early progressive rock bands such as Hawkwind, Genesis, King Crimson, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come and Pink Floyd. His first DJ gig was in the eighties while a graduate student in the state of Washington. There, at station WZUU, he attempted to blend progressive rock with the so called new wave music popular at the time. There then followed a twenty year hiatus in his radio programming career, allowing for the minor distractions of medical school, residency, and establishing a medical practice. The Doc's current day job is as a physician in Davis, where, true to his eclectic (and eccentric) style, he blends Family Medicine and Alternative Medicine.