"We were the bastards of Greenwich Village."
Ralph Scala
The psychedelic era made a huge impact on pop culture in the 1960s. Art, fashion, movies, and music all felt the impact of psychedelia. A blast from the psychedelic past comes to New Haven on Friday night.
Blues Magoos was one of the first bands to be identified as "psychedelic." Their first album was called "Psychedelic Lollipop," and they were famous for their elaborate stage shows, complete with giant lava lamps and suits that would light up.
The band got its start, in all places, in the folk clubs in Greenwich Village.
"We were the bastards of Greenwich Village," said Ralph Scala, lead singer of Blues Magoos. "We would go in there and destroy the place, and get fired and get yelled at."
But they gained a following. Their single of "Tobacco Road" took them out of the folk clubs in the Village and into the national spotlight.
In 1967, they reached number five on the U.S. charts with "We Ain't Got Nothing Yet."
Ralph Scala said that being associated as a psychedelic band was completely by accident.
"If you look at the first Blues Magoos album cover," Scala said, "the background behind our picture is an actual oil painting called "Psychedelic Lollipop," which was painted by [Blues Magoos lead guitarist] Mike Esposito. That's when the word psychedelic first came into our nomenclature."
Scala said the pressure of following up the success of "We Ain't Got Nothing Yet" took its toll on him and the band.
They finally called it quits in 1968, but after sporadic gigs through the years, the band decided to reunite. In 2014, they released their first new album in over 40 years, Psychedelic Resurrection, and began touring again.
Blues Magoos perform on Friday night as part of the New Haven PsychFest at Cafe Nine.
