11. The Chocolate WatchbandThe Inner Mystique
This is an album I connected with through doing pharmaceutical research. I’m going to be totally open here: sometimes, when you’re tripping, music with words is not so good, because most songs are on some level quite sad. And you don’t want something to emotionally trigger you onto the wrong path. I’ve discovered a lot of things that have set my own mind reeling, rather than my mind being filmed and shown as a performance to me – which is what a song with lyrics is. Listening to ‘Voyage Of The Trieste’ when you’re off your cake on acid is wonderful. For the record, I always treated that drug with the greatest respect. The Chocolate Watchband were the focus, not the background to some of those experiences. Like Kim Fowley says at the end of ‘The Trip’, "Just put your head back". This is an interesting record in that Ed Cobb was a very straight, suit-and-tie guy but produced music like this; like David Axelrod, who worked with The Electric Prunes and was pushed somewhere he may not have otherwise gone. But there’s ‘I Ain’t No Miracle Worker’ on there, too, which is an old R&B standard. Then there’s that fabulous Kinks’ cover, ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’, and once you’ve listened through ‘Voyage Of The Trieste’, ‘In The Past’ – which is wonderful – and ‘Inner Mystique’ under chemical influence, believe me, you will not be like everybody else.
