I've often had people ask me what UK 60s psych is like and what they should listen to, so I decided to try and put together an imaginary CD-r that includes what I consider to be the finest examples. While I haven't timed it, I always assume I'll get about 26 tracks onto a CD-r, so that is the number I went for.

The only rules I had were no hit bands (so no Floyd/Beatles/Small Faces/Stones etc), 45 only tracks and only one per band. Here is what I came up with:


Misunderstood – I Can Take You To The Sun
Family – Scene Through the Eye Of A Lens
Pretty Things – Defecting Grey
One In A Million – Fredereek Hernando
Winston’s Fumbs – Real Crazy Apartment
Blossom Toes – Look At Me I’m You
Tickle – Subway
Dantalian’s Chariot – The Madman Running Through the Fields
Tintern Abbey – Beeside
Caleb – Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad
Idle Race – Imposters of Life’s Magazine
23rd Turnoff – Michelangelo
Kaleidoscope – Flight From Ashiya
Accent – Red Sky At Night
Tomorrow – Revolution
July – My Clown
Boeing Duveen And The Beautiful Soup – Jabberwock
Aquarian Age – 10,000 Word In A Cardboard Box
Virgin Sleep - Secret
Turnstyle – Riding A Wave
Factory – Path Through the Forest
Mike Stuart Span – Children Of Tomorrow
Attack – Lady Orange Peel
Mandrake Paddle Steamer – Strange Walking Man
Open Mind – Magic Potion
Jason Crest – Black Mass

A fairly pointless exercise I admit, but would be good to see other people's choices.

Thanks PP any chance of a dl link for it please?

Sorry Phil, it was more of an imaginary comp of what I would make for someone who knew nothing about this music, trying to capture the very best UK non-hit psych 45s. I hoped others may attempt the same thing and post it here.

Yeah, over this pandemic one of my projects is to record my psych 45s onto reel-to-reel. So far I’ve made four tapes, but if I were to make a “best of” that boils down to 27 songs (about one 90 minute reel, it might look like this:

1. George Bean—The Candy Shop is Closed
2. Soft Machine- Feelin’ Reelin’ Squeelin’
3. Blossom Toes—Postcard
4. Phil Cordell-Red Lady
5. Excelsior Spring—It
6. Freedom- Where Will You Be Tonight
7. The Idle Race—Imposters of Life’s Magazine
8. Kaleidoscope—A Dream for Julie
9. July—Dandelion Seeds
10. Tintern Abbey—Beeside
11. One in a Million—Fredereek Hernando
12. The Mirage—Ebeneezer Beaver
13. Pink Floyd—Apples and Oranges
14. The Quik—I Can’t Sleep
15. The Tickle—Subway (Smokey Pokey World)
16. The Pretty Things—Talking About the Good Times
17. The Paper Blitz Tissue—Boy Meets Girl
18. Plastic Penny—Your Way to Tell Me Go
19. Svensk—Dream Magazine
20. Vamp—Floatin’
21. Virgin Sleep- Secret
22. Warm Sounds—Nite is A-Comin’
23.Hat & Tie—Finding it Rough
24. Fire—Father’s Name is Dad
25. Mark Wirtz—(He’s Our Dear Old) Weatherman
26. Cream—Anyone for Tennis
27. State of Micky and Tommy—Nobody Knows Where You’ve Been

Some interesting picks there Joe, a few I might have considered if they had occured to me. Nice to see Vamp, Quick and State of Micky and Tommy in there. They did two brilliant 45s that I think are still pretty underrated and also the Nimrod French only 45 that was class too. Would have maybe gone for Floatin' by George Bean myself....

True, and then there would be two different songs called “Floatin’” in the set list. I just like the mood of Candy Shop is Closed. Sort of an air of Kinks nostalgia to it...
It’s also a recent acquisition to my 45 collection, so it’s fresh in my head at the moment😀

This needs some thought. The way songs are sequenced is very important to the trip. This seems to be saying the same thing.http://frombetweenthecracks.blogspot.com/
l-a-z-y
o-l-d
s-u-u-u-n

When I saw this on my infrequent visits to this site I had just finished revisiting my Rubble collection so I thought I can do this. The Rubbles were just what I needed at the time in helping me to hear lesser known UK psychedelic bands that were beyond me on the other side of the world. In those pre internet days with very little information it was a task almost beyond me until I found them in a second hand record store one day,

So now rising to the challenge I set about fitting 100 great songs into a space for 20. For my effort I took the line that to be a true representative UK compilation you needed at least one track from the individual countries comprising Great Britain – that being England Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland. So I ended up with this:

1, 6AX Penelope Breedlove
2. ACCENT Red Sky at night
3. ACTRESS Good job with prospects
4.AL STEWART Turn to earth
5, ANDROMEDA Go your way
6 APPLE The other side
7 BUNCH Looking glass Alice
8 CALIFORNIANS The cooks of cake and kindness
9 CIRCUS Do you dream
10 DON FARDON Sunshine Woman
11`FORTES MENTUM Saga of a wrinkled man
12 FREEDOM The better side
13 FRUIT MACHINE I’m alone today
14 GROUNDHOGS Crosscut Saw
15 LION TAMERS Light
16 KATE Don’t make a sound
17 KLUBS Can’t Ebenezer see my mind
18 McGOUGH & McGEAR Ex art student
19 MOLES We are the Moles
20 POETS In your tower
21 RICHARD BARNES High flying electic bird
22 SHADES OF MORLEY BROWN Pretty blue bird
23 SMOKE Sidney Gill
24 SUNSHINE THEATRE Mountain
25 TINTERN ABBEY Beeside
26 THEM Black widow spider
27 UNAUTHORISED VERSION Girl in a bus Queue
28 UNIT Would you believe what I say
29 VIRGIN SLEEP Secret
30 Y TIBOT PIWS Dilyn Colomen

As it is this is the list I would give someone to listen to this year. My tastes will have changed a bit by next year so there will be 5 or so changes- there is no definitive list. The next question is sequencing.
After reading Crystal Tipps post it struck me that you need not just sequence it based solely on musical characteristics – you can also tell a story. So after a bit of thought I found that you could make two separate stories from my list so I could split it up into story 1 and story 2.
ONE is as follows
Tracks : 28. 2. 13. 14. 19. 6. 29. 16. 22. 4. 10

Than TWO
6, 5, 26. 12. 9, 23. 10, 15, 3 27,20, 11.

Of course there are songs out there that don’t fit- I mean “Ex Art student” is a trip in itself. How could it fit anywhere ?

Anyhow thats my ten cents worth.

My god I would love to know the rationale for those two stories. A brief synopsis please? I think I glimpse genius at work...

The Them track is superb Butterfly Robot