News & Updates — psych

Pete Cosey is a Chicago guitar legend, a heavy man with a heavy sound. He is best known for his mid-'70s work for Miles Davis. Despite having never recorded as a leader, he has gotten on many sessions and had a notable career as a Hendrix-esque sonic poet. He was born into a jazz family in Chicago, his father played sax with Sidney Bechet, Louis Jordan, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Big Bill Broonzy and Josephine Baker, and his mother was a composer. He spent his teenage years in Tucson but came back to Chicago for some session work at Chess. He...

One of my favorite '60s rock singers, Dutch gypsy vocalist Mariska Veres had a powerful presence as front woman for the arty psych band Shocking Blue, one of the great teenage rock bands of the era. Best known for their original version of "Venus" (covered thousands of times, literally, around the world) and their FAR SUPERIOR original version of "Love Buzz" (covered by Nirvana), they had a lot of great tunes! Other great tunes from them are the Indian-tinged "Acka Raga", "Send Me A Postcard" and other killers. Born in The Hague, her father was a Hungarian/Romani gypsy violinist and...

Glam rock superstar Marc Bolan was born on this day. Born in London as Mark Feld to an Ashkenazi Jewish family, he grew up listening to the rock & roll boom. He started playing guitar at 9 and had a skiffle band as a teenager. As a young mod he did some acting and found good work as a model, as well as dabbling in poetry. He may have worked with Joe Meek as early as '63 but this is disputed. He changed his name to Toby Tyler and recorded some cover songs in '64. He signed to Decca in...

Feliz anniversário para Tim Maia, the fun & lovable Brazilian soul singer and MPB star who's direct honesty appealed to his fans. Born Sebastião Rodrigues Maia from a favela of Rio, the 18th of 19 children, he started as a drummer at 14 but soon became an excellent guitarist. He was a childhood friend of Roberto Carlos, Erasmo Carlos and Jorge Ben. He was in the doo-wop group The Sputniks with Roberto Carlos before adopting the name Tim Maia and going solo. He spent the early '60s in the US and recorded there with the doo-wop group The Ideals (the...

Happy birthday to the beatnik poet/singer/artist/anarchist Tuli Kupferberg! From NYC, he founded a beat magazine, Birth, in 1958, publishing Allen Ginsberg, Diane DiPrima, Leroi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka), Ted Joans and others. In 1964 he and Ed Sanders founded the unfiltered anti-pop group The Fugs, who released their humorous and crude tunes on ESP Disk and turned the NYC rock scene upside down (despite being the old man of the scene!). Tuli wrote several of their tunes, such as "CIA Man" and "Kill For Peace". He cut the bizarre spoken word album No Deposit, No Return in '66, the same...