Music-Drop Magazine

Heavenly Recordings has had a phenomenal few years with their signing, including Temples , their latest signing is H Hawkline a very talented and unique singer/songwriter. H Hawkline recently finished an opening slot for Cate Le Bon which he has applauded for in several reviews. His music is not perhaps as groundbreaking as you would wish. It does not conjure up a feeling of euphoric discover, nor does it make you feel like you've just heard god. Rather his music, in a abstract way, reminds you of the past, a past full of exclusively psychedelic guitars and songwriters sat on open porches. This is the time when H Hawkline would have been faultlessly successful. Unfortunately  however he has been placed in a world where selling out, looks and cheerfulness are the greatest habits a charting performer can have. H Hawkline will not do any of those things for the money, he is an artist, he promises great music, and with Heavenly Recordings behind him, I think we can all hop...

There are two bands called Felt. Both are cult artists. One was a jangle pop group from the 1980s who reached levels of critical fame but barely any popular recognition. The other band is a psychedelic band who formed 2 years after the summer of love and didn't gain any sort of fame for over 20 years. One of the few things we know of this band is that it was made up of five musicians from Arab, Alabama. Mike Neel on drums, Stan Lee on guitar, Tommy Gilstrap on bass, Alan Darlymple on Keyboard and lead singer and guitarist Myke Jackson (Now Mychael John Thomas).  Mychael John Thomas was enlisted to help uncover the secrets of this top-secret cult band. Music-Drop Magazine: How did Felt form? Mychael John Thomas : Sometime in April or May of 1970 Mike Neel came back from Florida (He had moved there a couple of years earlier). He came to me and said he wanted to start an all original music band, because that‘s what all the bands in Florida were doing. So we started writing song...

Gandalf is the sort of record the 60s loving hipster you know references to try to seem knowledgable about psychedelic music, it's a pretty obscure record. However since it's release in the late 1960s it has built a large cult following and the band Gandalf is now considered one of the best little known secrets of the psychedelic era.  Gandalf were together for four years from 1965 until 1968 and despite their cult status not much is popularly known of the band. One person hoping to rectify that is Peter Sando, the guitarist for Gandalf. Perhaps the most overt Psychedelic album artwork in existence “ I met Bob Muller in detention hall in the 7th grade. He had a band [the Thunderbirds] and they were in the process of dumping their guitarist, Michel Nouri, later to become a successful actor. I joined the Thunderbirds, later to become the Rahgoos.” Peter Sando recalled of the band's origin. Sando's earliest musical influences are common for many his ...

This album is the greatest album ever. First a little background on Love and why you probably haven't heard of them. They were led by the singer/songwriter Arthur Lee, who was one of the most prominent musicians in Los Angeles in the late 60s (He also played in bands with Jimi Hendrix and Billy Preston pre-fame.) Love are famous retrospectively for being one of the first major racially integrated bands, but despite this during the 1960s they were unknown outside of LA, and partially due to this their pre- Forever Changes  albums  Love  (1966) and  Da Capo  (1966) both failed to sell internationally and domestically, forever condemning them to a cult band status. Lee eventually died in 2006, but by that point Love were critically acclaimed internationally, but he would never create a masterpiece that equaled  Forever Changes . Forever Changes  is largely seen by modern critics as the album which revealed the...

Out of every ongoing band which is currently creating the sounds for our ears best known as Psychedelic music, Peace are one of the few acts which openly admits its Psychedelic influences and sounds. With the ongoing creation of so many new, fantastic psych bands (see Tame Impala, Temples , Jacco Gardener , Etc), why should you listen Peace. Well although its impossible to sway your opinion with other peoples opinion it is a well known and established fact that Peace are one of those bands that have nothing dislikable about them, the band members appear happy albeit somewhat crazy and loveable.  Perhaps one of the greatest things about this band is there album name, which i loved, "In Love",  now the album title is not a cheesy Rom-Com about a boy in love, it's actually a play on the old much loved hippy slogan "peace and love", now squint your eyes and imagine a donkey. Now forget the donkey as its not that important. 'Peace n' Love' is ho...

A Dutch child bravely forces open the chest to unveil a kind of treasure never expected by him nor anyone, this child has just discovered what we in the mortal world describe as.... Psychedelic Music. Now that somewhat long introduction truly serves no purpose except to tell the reader that this post is about a young dutch boy who creates psychedelic music, i thought i was a ok intro actually... Jacco Gardener was the boys name and people frequently refer to him as the next Syd Barrett which as a massive Syd fan i disagree with but this does not mean that i don't love his music. He is however comparable to the musical unknown Curt Boettcher, one of psychedelica's greatest servicemen. The honest sad truth is that Jacco won't make it into the mainstream attention unless he sells out, he may be brilliant but no one yearns for brilliance anymore they yearn for a young attractive person with no mind of their own, unfortunately Jacco fits none of this billing. You're ...

Psychedelica, the lost artform is being reborn inside the mists of the underground. With foreign artists leading the scene at the moment, we brits must feel depressed at our lack of success as of now with Aussie's Tame Impala, Scandanvian's Goat, America's Foxygen, and Holland's Jacco Gardener . So we people of the British isles must be somewhat lost... right? wrong! We have a whole host of young musicians who are clinging to the mists of the past, with Peace and Temples being the most prominent two. Temples are a band from the midlands of England, a rather unexpected area for Psychedelic to be reborn. But despite these somewhat plain origins, Temples are making splashs inside the music industry, with many elder statesmen of music announcing their love for their sounds. Now i'm not going to start saying they are anywhere as good as the old psych gods of Jefferson's Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Syd Barrett or The Grateful Dead, however i am willing to...