For those of you who packed away your incense and peppermints after Alderman Library's "The Psychedelic '60s" exhibit closed its doors in 1998, there's good news. Former Rolling Stone and Creem rock critic Robert Hull is coming to the University on Thursday to extol the virtues of a genre of rock 'n' roll that gets no respect.
To the uninitiated, psychedelic rock might sponsor vague notions of music that unspools with all the intensity and organization of a ball of yarn while hippies lounge around, maybe muttering to themselves about crimson and clover, over and over.
"At the mere mention of the term 'psychedelic rock,' most folks turn livid," Hull wrote in Creem in 1981. "Their eyes cross, purple dots splotch their rosy cheeks and steam begins puffing in short snorts from their nostrils."
Even today, there's not much nostalgia for psych rock. Hull believes, however, that rock music wouldn't be what it is today had it not been for the advent of psychedelic rock.
"I think psychedelic music, whether you're on drugs or not, influences our culture," he said in a telephone interview from his executive producer office at TimeLife Music. "Pop music was a simpler form of music. Ever since the onslaught of psychedelic music in the '60s, we've begun to expect more in rock music."
The movement toward using the studio as an instrument all began, or at least it entered the popular consciousness, with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in 1967.
"When the Beatles introduced [psych rock] to mass audiences with 'Sgt. Pepper,' it was a turning point. We really haven't turned back as listeners," Hull said.
As executive producer of TimeLife, Hull has a vested interest in the preservation of fading music genres. The largest record company in the world, TimeLife specializes in compilations like "The Doo Wop Gold Collection."
But while there has been little professional veneration of psych rock, Hull still sees its influence in current pop music.
"I recently saw Super Furry Animals," he said. "It's just a psychedelic experience."
For those who are too young or too sober to appreciate the heyday of psychedelic music, Hull recommends "Sgt. Pepper" and the first Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane albums as an introduction. His personal favorite, however, is Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica."
On Thursday, Hull plans to spin his story around songs that might seem familiar, as well as some more obscure tunes. But don't expect a blow-by-blow account of the 1960s.
"It's not just history," Hull said. "[Psych rock] is very much alive in anything you can do creatively in the studio."
The U.Va. Library's Special Collections department will present Robert Hull, rock critic for Rolling Stone and Creem Magazine, executive producer for TimeLife Music and founding band member of the Memphis Goonz, for an evening of psychedelic music from the 1960s and '70s, on Thursday at 7 p.m. in Alderman Library.
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