So there we were, sitting around waiting for the hallucinations to start. "Man, this is going to be so cool!" I said to Jimmy, who was leaning on a pine tree, looking at the fire. Neither of us had ever tripped on mushrooms before.
"Yeah, dude," he said. "Way cooler than that time we ate raw Kool-Aid and I puked on your sister's shoe."
"Yeah, way cooler than that," I said. "Turn the music on, man. We need a little atmosphere if this is going to work correctly."
Jimmy put the Tyde's debut album in the stereo and hit play. "Dude, I hear this is, like, totally psychedelic. Three of these guys are in Beachwood Sparks."
"Aren't they a country band or something?" I asked. "I thought they were basically a throwback to the Flying Burrito Brothers."
"Well, kinda." But it's just the drummer, the lap steel guy and the bassist. The other half of the band is different, so it's not really the same band." The album's first song, "All My Bastard Children," wafted out of the speakers. Big, clean guitars arpeggiated over a leisurely drumbeat before being joined by Darren Rademaker's baritone musings on cheating lovers and drug abuse. It was pleasant, but I couldn't see it enhancing the mood much.
"Hey, this is pretty good," said Jimmy. "It's nice and mellow. This song, 'New Confessions,' is close to Beachwood Sparks, with all the swelling steel guitars."
"The melody sounds like it came from a Blue Oyster Cult song, though," I said. "Either way, these guys are stuck in 1972." "Strangers Again" began to play. "Whoa! If I didn't know better, I'd say that intro was lifted from an early Flaming Lips song or something. Ann Do's warbly, pitch-altered keyboards and the strained falsettos are pretty psychedelic, I guess. But I'm still not seeing anything."
"Yeah, me neither," intoned Jimmy, reaching for the bong. He took a big, long puff and immediately started coughing like crazy. "Ugh. I don't know if this is working like it's supposed to. This smoke is really weird."
"It smells kind of like a French restaurant," I offered, as the "Get Around Too," yet another ode to lovers going everywhere but to their own bed, swooned from the stereo. "Wow, when the cymbal-heavy drums finally kick in and those guitars start the slow, raking strums, it's pretty cool. I think this is my favorite part so far. It's pretty psychedelic, but man, I'm still not seeing anything."
"You know what I don't like about this stuff?" Jimmy asked, suddenly looking more focused than usual. "Every song uses the same types of scales. It's all this pentatonic stuff over and over again."
"You can't really fault them for that, though, dude. Every other psychedelic song ever recorded is pentatonic, be it British, American, or... I don't know... Italian. It just sounds spacy. Which makes this music kind of weird. The Tyde sound like a country band from space. They should all go live on a space ranch or something."
"Whoa. Space ranch! That'd be so cool!" Jimmy sat back and gazed at the stars for a second. "Damn! I'm fucking still not seeing anything. What about you, spaceboy?"
"Well, I made that stupid space ranch remark a little easier than I'd like to admit, but, no, I don't think I'm seeing anything. You'd think with all the phaser on that organ in 'The Dawn' we'd be seeing all kinds of crazy stuff by now."
"Phasers are cool," mused Jimmy, throwing a stick onto the fire. "We should have brought marshmallows, you know that?"
"The Dawn" petered out in a wash of phasers, harmonies and buzzy organs. A slightly chill breeze blew through the woods. You could hear the highway in the distance. The sky was so clear. You could see the band of the Milky Way stretching out in both directions, 100,000 light years thick. If I was going to have my first trip, this was the place to do it. Of course, the trip was refusing to materialize.
"Are you sure we're doing this right?" I asked. "Is the bong set up properly? Are you even supposed to smoke mushrooms? I heard you're supposed to eat them."
"This is how my friend Al said to do it!" defended Jimmy. "I don't know why it's not working. Maybe the music's not psychedelic enough. I should have brought Disraeli Gears."
"The music's plenty psychedelic, Jimmy. I think we're doing it wrong. You kind of have a point about the music, now that I think about it, though. It's psychedelic in a very American way, with those California steel guitars and the loose, jammy vibe. It's the kind of music that'd probably be enhanced by hallucinations, but it's not the kind of stuff that'd ever produce them. 'Improper' even sounds a bit like Crooked Rain-era Pavement, only more produced."
"Hey, I think I'm starting to see stuff!" said Jimmy, getting excited. "Oh, wait, that's just a smudge on my glasses."
