'60s Rock 2

When it comes to the ’60s, you can love ’em, hate ’em, even forget ’em, but you can’t ignore ’em, so we’re back for a second fistful of fab faves from a decade that just won’t go away. You can’t even think about the era without invoking the supernatural spirit of Jimi Hendrix, king of the flaming guitar, spot-welding the blues to psychedelia in a tower of fuzz in “Foxey Lady.” Eric “Slowhand” Clapton is, in many ways, Hendrix’s Brit doppelganger, leading Cream to Marshall-stacks-cranked godhood in the acid-etched “Sunshine of Your Love.” And the Who, behind a one-man percussion wrecking crew named Keith Moon, pack mystic crystal musings into a four-minute time bomb called “I Can See for Miles.”

In Next Steps, we’ll put rock back where it belongs . . . the garage.

Some folks use the garage to tinker with their cars, others to tinker with the history of rock. And we love it: the stripped-down sound of what’s come to be known as “garage rock” contains the seeds of both punk and grunge, and ’60s garages were packed like the Lincoln Tunnel on a Friday afternoon. Take the Swingin' Medallions, with their swaggering machismo and high-fiving handclaps over the strains of a slightly out-of-tune Farfisa organ in “Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love).” Or the bass drum’s jackboot stomp, coupled with a freak-out psychedelic meltdown in the Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction.” Or stream-of-consciousness lyrics snapping back to reality every chorus as Dylan meets the Seeds in the Hombres’ “Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out).”

In Deep Cuts, we’ll discover that some bands with pretty nutty names cut some pretty excellent tracks.

One of the ’60s’ defining excesses — and there were many — comes in the form of the bands’ names: Chocolate Watchband. Strawberry Alarm Clock. Ultimate Spinach. But make no mistake: many of these goofy-monikered musicians turn out some awe-inspiring songs. Brit blues-rockers Spooky Tooth split the difference between Traffic’s soft-focus hallucinations and Led Zeppelin’s hard-edged crunch in their heavy-as-Dostoyevsky cover of “I Am the Walrus.” The Nazz, led by then-future superstar Todd Rundgren, opens up “Open My Eyes” with an organ riff lifted from the Who’s “I Can’t Explain,” then spins into a swirly maelstrom of phase-shifted proto-power-pop. And perhaps the era’s ultimate fusion of art and rock — how many other bands can claim a cover designed by Andy Warhol? — the Velvet Underground ride roughshod over a leather-jacket-tough track where boogie-woogie meets the blues somewhere down a dark alley in “White Light/White Heat.”

It’s the decade that brought us the war in Vietnam and the Summer of Love, the first man on the Moon, the first working laser, and the first Touch-Tone telephone. It’s that miraculous era when Dr. Strangelove met Mary Poppins and gave us Rosemary’s Baby. The British Invasion came and went . . . and came back again. Canada got a new flag, Berlin got a new wall, the National Hockey League doubled in size, and the United States’ population crossed the 200-million threshold. It was a big decade, no question, and that’s why one Essentials playlist couldn’t nearly scratch the surface of all its musical bounty, so we’re serving up a heaping second helping. From the Animals to the Youngbloods, from Bob Dylan to Janis Joplin, we’ve got all the magic, mayhem, and music that made the ’60s a decade we’ll never forget . . . even if weren’t there.