Perfección Psicodélica

40 of the greatest seconds in psychedelia begin with the moment in Defecting Grey by The Pretty Things where the hippy nonsense abruptly transitions to one of the most savage freakbeat/garage psych riffs of the 60s, replete with one of Phil May's snottiest deliveries ever and a viciously treble heavy lead guitar that'd take yr face off at twenty paces. It's fucking fantastic, but, as I said, only lasts 40 bloody seconds before the flower children reappear and piss all the good work up the wall. Which is why On The Road South by The Stereo Shoestring is my favourite moment of blatant rock thievery ever*, not to mention one of the greatest fucking tracks of the psychedelic era. They took the few brilliant seconds of an otherwise hopeless piece of 60s folly, and turned it into 2.16 of the most balls-out speed-driven acid mayhem, giving even Blue Cheer a run for their money in the fuzz overload stakes, and outdoing everyone in terms of wah wah abuse until their ears bled. The singer doesn't quite reach Phil May's level of spitting disdain, but with the fuzzgun explosions detonating all around he doesn't really need to, he's a little more melodic, more flowing, interspersing the original riff with frantic spoken word during the one part of the song they actually wrote to break up the repetitions of the original. It's a total fucking drag race of a song, encapsulating an awful lot of things I love about the music of the 60s with none of the fucking shit and I urge you to seek out it's magnificence forthwith.

*cf. Can's Father Cannot Yell and the Velvet Undergrounds' European Son.