Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out

Timothy Leary's famous quotation about the LSD movement describes a way of life. It describes a way towards enlightenment. Leary himself described the process as opening your mind to levels of higher consciousness, interacting with the world in relation to those levels of consciousness, and then freeing yourself of the unnecessary burdens of the world. While Leary certainly used acid to do this (and rightfully so), another extremely important aspect to achieving this state of mind is music. Present throughout all of human history, music has played an integral role in all aspects of culture. It enhances the senses and can provoke all sorts of emotions. In relation to this motto, I'll start with a song closely associated with El Duderino. As we all know, CCR was just as important to Jeffrey Lebowski as bowling, roaches, and Tara Reid. "Susie Q" is my favorite CCR song and here's a link to it, along with a couple other nice classic rock songs.

"Susie Q" - CCR (right click and save link as)

Next, I'll throw in some electro remixes of some N.A.S.A. songs which will certainly expand your mind into outer-space. I highly recommend the "Gifted (Steve Aoki remix)" but they're all extra lush.

N.A.S.A. (right click and save link as)

For the final downloads of the day, I'll allow you to venture in to the world of Phish. Better than any band since the Grateful Dead at transferring your mind into another world, Phish knows how to bend your mind in every which way. This blog provides some links to some songs from their New Years show at MSG in '98. They opened the show with the fitting Prince cover "1999". If you're not that into Phish but want to hear something familiar, go with this extra funky version of this party song.

Phish - MSG 12.31.98 (right click and save link as)

I'll leave you with a video of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from the Concert for Bangladesh. Held at MSG in '71, George Harrison got together a bunch of amazing musicians to raise money for refugees in Bangladesh. Guys who played at the show include Harrison, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar (amazing Bengali Indian sitar player), Ringo Starr, and Billy Preston. You can buy a DVD of the entire concert and I'd certainly recommend it, if only to check out Shankar ripping up some Indian music on the sitar. This video's pretty dope and it features Clapton gently weeping away on a baller blues guitar.