Pcinemadelic (Part One)

We're talking psychploitation, but in a good and groovy way. It's a mystery why there isn't one mainstream movie that uses hippie counterculture as a context. Bullitt was made at the height of Haight, but you wouldn't know it - the film-makers were in a totally different San Francisco, one where the men wore narrow lapel suits by Botany 500 and snapbrim hats. If hippies were shown at all in mainstream movies, the guys provided comedy as stoned-out goons, and the girls a lot of otherwise unavailable leg. The Haight Ashbury/Sunset Strip scene was over before the major movie suits knew what a Nehru collar was.

So it was left to the B-movie independents and the no-budget studios, never shy to grab the opportunity to make a quick buck, to don the kaftan and spin the oil wheel. Mainstream movies take a long time to make - independents could ship out the first-take reels while the incense still hung in the air. Psych Out is a classic of the genre. It's not very good, either. The appeal is mostly camp - Jack Nicholson in a nailed-on ponytail is something to see. Bruce Dern's acting is not. But let's not get all cinéaste on our asses. It gave us a surprisingly excellent soundtrack album. In addition to sterling work by The Strawberry Alarm Clock and the Seeds it contains the only known recordings of mystery combo The Storybook, who if they are a fake band (a project of soundtrack director Ronald Stein) are a damn fine one. Their contributions are authentically strange; a long way from sunshine pop, haunting, dreamlike lullabyes that hover on the edge of psychotic breakdown. I want more, dammit. The other surprise is a blistering instrumental by Boenzee Cryque, featuring proto-psych psteel guitar from Rusty Young, who would join Poco with fellow Cryquester George Grantham. This rip has authentic crackles, to match the authentic cover.

This post is the FalseMemoryFoam© double-header you've come to expect from the blog where Quantity Is Quality. Our main feature is The People Next Door, which I have never seen* and neither - I'm guessing - have you. IMDB tells us it's about "comfortable New York suburbanites discovering that their seemingly perfect 16-year old daughter has been tripping on LSD." Yup, four years after the Left Coast was doing it, NY makes a mainstream movie about it. But the soundtrack, helmed by the fascinating Don Sebesky, definitely falls into the psychploitation bag, man. It's beautiful. Really. Strong songs in a drugged-out dreamy mode broken by Sebesky's unsettling instrumental interludes make for a compelling experience, one you'll be proud to share when unexpected guests drop by. Featured acts The Glass Bottle and Bead Game both made disappointing albums, but they shine here. Don Sebesky will turn up again in this ongoing Pcinemadelic© franchise.

*In a synchronicity that can only be described as being of cosmic significance, I have found an active torrent of this movie and look forward to viewing it in the FalseMemoryFoam© private cinema as soon as Cody gets back from her scrapbooking class.