Book 'em

Welcome to my virtual library. You'll find these books on music and related mindbending topics worth many hours of your time. Kick off your shoes, settle into a comfy chair, and let your mind leisurely float through these scholarly collections.

Beat Books - A British used book store and a whole lot more. Massive catalog of books, records, posters, magazines (practically the whole print run of IT and ZigZag - for a price!) from the psychedelic era, specializing in rare, out-of-print titles and first edition manuscripts.
Cary Loren of Destroy All Monsters and Monster Island fame runs this amazing book store (not to be confused with the previous entry) which caters to free thinkers and anarchists everywhere.
Cosmic Dreams At Play - Of the many bibles covering the krautrock scene in West Germany in the 7Ts, Norwegian author Dag Erik Asbjornsen's tome is still one of the most informative and well written. As authoritative as Vernon Joynson's encyclopedias on British, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, Latin American and US psych (see below), but without the gushing prose of Julian Cope's "Krautrocksampler."
In addition to leading the Deviants and issuing over a dozen solo albums, Mick Farren is an accomplished author of over two dozen works of speculative fiction, a dozen non-fiction books (including four about Elvis!), and numerous rock 'n' roll essays for such prestigious 'zines as Mojo, Ptolemaic Terrascope, International Times, ZigZag (which he once edited), Creem, et.al. This site includes his personal evaluation of most of his work. Honest...hilarious...controversial...essential.
LSD, My Problem Child - Albert Hofmann's account of his "discovery" of acid 60 years ago is not as scientific as some of these scholarly missives tend to be. Light on the jargon, heavy on the details, everyone with a few spare grey cells left over from the 6Ts should bookmark this site and return often until they've finished it. Just don't try this alone!
The Psychedelic Archive at Borderline Books hosts online versions of Vernon Joynson's massive psych compendiums, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Dreams, Fantasies and Nightmares and Fuzz Acid and Flowers as well as Chris Williams' Adrift in the Ether. The first (and possibly last) place all you psychedelic music researchers will ever have to visit. If the band you're looking for isn't listed, they probably only exist in your imagination!
The Psychedelic Library - Here's a virtual storage house of what some of the finest minds have debated since man discovered his navel. If you can inject it, smoke it, swallow it, or otherwise introduce it to your mind, it's probably discussed in one of these many fine articles and books.
RE/Search - "We believe that our entire library forms an essential foundation for an expanded artistic (and darkly humorous) futuristic vision. Against irony and trivialization, our books satisfy the curiosities of all who value independence and suspect that truly important history and culture-making is being obscured by corporate agendas flooding us with information overload."
Piero Scaruffi's History of Rock - I've spent years scouring the net for the ultimate online music resource, and this may be it: Scaruffi's massive undertaking translates his near-definitive, 6-volume, Italian-only guide to everything that falls under the generic misnomer we call "rock and roll."
Robert Anton Wilson - Speaking of counterculture, here's the man who wrote the book (actually, he wrote over 30 of them!) My favorite author, speculative fictionist, conspiracy theorist, guerilla ontologist, punk rocker and all around mental case, good ol' Mr. Wilson has provided me with a more expansive education on what really matters than all the Kindergarten teachers combined. Check out his extensive list of essential links, buy his books and understand why "Reality is What You Can Get Away With."
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