(1888PressRelease)
February 23, 2007 - Kiloh R. Smith, leader of the Texas Psych Google Group & Laughing Madcaps (Syd Barrett) Yahoogroup, runs a free Internet radio station that caters to fans of garage / psych, early punk & psychedelic music. Right now, it has well over 25,000 artists, albums and songs rated for play.
You can listen to the station by clicking,
or pasting into a browser, this
URL: http://music.yahoo.com/lc/?r t=0&rp1=0&rp2=1453797336
According to Mr. Smith; “The emphasis on the station is American garage/psych, psychedelic with a smattering of early punk. Due to the multitude of psych-comps rated for play, you’re going to hear lots of “’no-hit wonders’” along with groups such as the Electric Prunes, MC5, 13th Floor Elevators, Red Crayola, New York Dolls, Stooges, Mothers, Roky Erickson, Captain Beefheart, Velvet Underground, Love, Moby Grape, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Count Five, Standells, Sonics, Flaming Groovies, Kingsmen and more… There’s also a healthy dose of psychedelic from artists like Jimi Hendrix, early Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, early Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett and lots more… Then there are *sympathetic cousin* additions like Jane’s Addiction, Violent Femmes, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Wolfmother and others… Plus, there are *favorites* like Tom Waits, Zappa, Allman Brothers, Black Sabbath, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Band, King Crimson and more… It’s all good music.”
Kiloh Smith is well-known as the Moderator of the world’s largest Syd Barrett and Texas Psych fan discussion groups. The Laughing Madcaps- Syd Barrett group has put out the wildly successful “Have You Got It Yet?” set. This is a 19 CD set that covers all unreleased Syd Barrett audio and video as well as interviews (“exhaustive” isn’t the word here). Mr. Smith is also involved in preserving and sharing rare Texas psych music. He is friends with many of the artists and calls Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Texas Music “friend”.
He says: “I got sick of hearing all this bad psychedelic music all the time. You’re not going to hear any sicky-sweet, syrupy, psychedelic music from Ennnnnnnnnngland on my station. I mean there’s some: early Pink Floyd, some Soft Machine, Zombies, ‘Stones, Pretty Things and other good stuff. But that Mellotron-drenched, tape-loop infused, crap put out by all those other English groups is nowhere to be found here. A lot of the, so called, “San Francisco Scene” stuff has been minimized too. The emphasis here is upon three-chord psych and what came from that.”
Kiloh Smith says; “See… originally, psychedelic music was dangerous. It was American kids in their garages, utilizing electric instruments and trying to marry Dylan-type “’serious’” lyrics with the beat coming out of England. The results were *interesting* and produced the first “’modern’” rock music. Soon after, the songs & guitar solos got too long and one was expected to be this “’great musician’” to even play it. When the sound went back to England they really wrecked it by adding a bunch of silly studio gimmickry and whatnot. This morphed into that dinosaur known as Progressive Rock. Ick! It took punk to rescue us and all they were doing was listening to Nuggets and wondering why great music like that wasn’t being made any more.”
“My radio station is attempting to throw exposure upon the garage psych > early punk connection” says Mr. Smith. The station plays 27/7/365 and blasts a potent mix of lo-fi garage-punk music with the occasional “ringer” thrown in and Mr. Smith explains: “That might just be a personal favorite of mine. Hey, I love groups like Black Sabbath, the Band and Allman Brothers so sue me! Additionally, to keep the service free, Yahoo must play a very small percentage of tunes randomly selected. One more thing, sometimes it doesn’t load the fist time. If that happens just try it again and it loads.”
This station is a worthy addition to any music lover’s list of sites that serves up a fine helping of delinquent-type rock music.
