Now Playing: Barry Levinson's bizarre, accidentally psychedelic "Toys" (1992)
The first review of Psychedelia in a major daily paper arrived the other day, and somewhat unexpectedly it is Svenska Dagbladet ('Sweden's Daily Paper') who are first at bat -- almost all our PR is international and I wasn't even aware that SvD had received a promo copy. Based in Stockholm, this is Sweden's second largest morning paper.
So that's pretty cool, but cooler still is that it's a rather enthusiastic review, I must say. Spread out across 1.5 page in the printed version of the paper, the review describes the book as 'knowledgable and well-written', and it mentions the cross-cultural approach which is one of the central aspects behind it. Similarly well-observed by reviewer Dan Backman is the comment that Psychedelia eschews the usual acid casualty rock star stories (such as Syd Barrett) to instead delve into a much lesser known world of chemists, smugglers, advocates and artists, whose 'stories are at least as spectacular'. The chapter on early Electronica & Exotica receives special praise as a 'wonderful collector geek' piece, and I guess that's true too!
Here is a link to the review, which is written in Swedish. I'm waiting to receive a copy of the printed newspaper, which featured a bunch of psychedelic images in addition to Backman's review.
This certainly ended the year 2012 on a high note! Imagine that a few months back we figured the world wouldn't even exist today (ho-ho).
Stay high & see ya on the other side.
