Ten Of The Best: John McBain

John McBain is a legend! From those incredible early Monster Magnet recordings ('Tab'....woah!), through Hater and Wellwater Conspiracy to the mindfuck that is Evil Acidhead via contributions to the Desert Sessions, The Freeks and fellow legends Carlton Melton, McBain's unique style and vision has been a mainstay of the psych/garage/stoner scenes since the early 1990's. McBain has also contributed a track to the ongoing God Unknown's Singles Club, hopefully due to fall through our letter boxes soon. John has kindly shared his top 10 records with you, dear reader!

13th Floor Elevators: Easter Everywhere

"Stacey Sutherland’s guitar is LSD."



Morgen: S/T

"Timeless. Fantastic songwriting and some of the best fuzz tones ever."



Butthole Surfers: Psychic...Powerless.. Another Man’s Sac

"Modern era psych begins here. This album changed me on a molecular level. And their live sets delivered!"



Dino Valente: S/T

"On the surface this was a psych/folk record. (Not my favorite genre, by the way.) But Dino was operating on another plane. Top notch songwriting and some truly bizarre/druggy singing. An unsettling album on many levels. Zero commercial potential. A perfect compliment to the next record on my list."



Skip Spence: Oar

"The sound of a man on the edge. Oar is a powerful argument for sobriety."



Blue Cheer: Vincebus Eruptum

"Leigh Stephens is God."



Flipper: Generic

"Psych music is supposed to be mind altering, right? Well you can’t get much more of a mind fuck than this. Still a guaranteed room clearer. Seriously, what the fuck is Ted Falconi playing? Is it even a guitar?"



Screaming Trees: Invisible Lantern

"Love the Mark Pickerel era lineup! The band was at their pre-MTV pinnacle. Pop/psych perfection. And Mark Lanegan is a national treasure."



The Beach Boys: Smiley Smile

"My favorite album from one of my favorite bands. I read somewhere that they were smoking a metric ton of hash during the recording sessions. Sounds about right. To my ears, Smile was the real letdown. Smiley Smile all the way."



Neu!

"Way back when, Wellwater Conspiracy did a 2 week West Coast van tour. Neu! was our soundtrack. One CD. For two weeks. Non stop. By the end of week one, we were hearing “Sonderangebot” in our sleep. We were hearing “Hallogallo" coming from our amplifiers. We were hearing it in our food. That CD became the 4th member of the band. It was our drug of choice."



Cheers John!