n acid and took on a whole different meaning." Psychedelic rock--which had already revolutionized fashion, poster art, and live performance--continued to grow after the 1960s, influencing a host of subgenres, including heavy metal, progressive and art rock, "Kraut-rock" (experimental electronic music by German bands such as Tangerine Dream), and the space-age funk of Parliament-Funkadelic (which, along with Jimi Hendrix, proved to be a key connection between black funk and psychedelia). Moreover, psychedelic rock's influence was evident in later genres, from punk to trip-hop to acid-house dance. As Paul McCartney said in 1967, psychedelia meant musical liberation: "The straights should welcome the Underground because it stands for freedom." The Long, Strange Trip Continues by Jim DeRogatis Of rock 'n' roll's myriad genres, psychedelia may well be the hardest to get a grip on. Like punk music, it is a sound based largely on knocking down doors--or breaking on through to the other side, to quote Jim Morrison of the Doors (who borrowed the sentiment from novelist Aldous Huxley, who, in turn, drew inspiration from transcendent Romantic poet William Blake). Punk could at least be defined by the things that it negated, but at its best, psychedelic rock remains an ever-changing genre that refuses to accept any rules. Nevertheless, the significance of these swirling and sometimes disorienting "head sounds" can be found by examining their evolution from the 1960s to the '90s and by going back to the roots of the word itself. (Contrary to nostalgic accounts, psychedelic rock did not begin and end in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love.) The term "psychedelic" originated in correspondence during the early 1950s between two pioneers in the study of psychoactive drugs: Humphry Osmond, a British psychiatrist who studied the effects of mescaline and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide; "acid") on alcoholics in Canada, and Huxley, the English auth...
