Psychedelia

Living To Music – Shuggie Otis ‘Inspiration Information’

ARTIST: SHUGGIE OTIS ALBUM: INSPIRATION INFORMATION LABEL: LUAKA BOP YEAR: 2001 (ORIGINAL RELEASE 1974) This Sunday (February 3rd) at 9pm, you’re invited to share a listening session with some likeminded souls, wherever you might be. This can be experienced either alone or communally, and you don’t need to leave the comfort of your own home to participate. If it’s not possible to make the allotted time, hopefully you can join in at your convenience at some point during the following weeks. See update here: https://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/07/living-to-music-update-july-2012/ […]

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:50+00:00January 28, 2013|Black Culture, Living To Music, Psychedelia, The Seventies|14 Comments

Living To Music – The Beatles ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’

ARTIST: THE BEATLES ALBUM: SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND LABEL: PARLOPHONE YEAR: 1967 This Sunday (January 6th) at 9pm, you’re invited to share a listening session with some likeminded souls, wherever you might be. This can be experienced either alone or communally, and you don’t need to leave the comfort of your own home to participate. If it’s not possible to make the allotted time, hopefully you can join in at your convenience at some point during the following weeks. See update here: https://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/07/living-to-music-update-july-2012/ […]

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:50+00:00January 3, 2013|Living To Music, Merseyside, Psychedelia, The Beatles, The Sixties|14 Comments

San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)

Scott McKenzie, the singer of the 1967 Summer Of Love anthem ‘San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)’, died last weekend, aged 73. With the hippie movement growing at pace, on January 14th 1967 ‘A Gathering Of The Tribes For A Human Be-In’ was held in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The event was in reaction to the banning of the drug LSD the previous October, and between 20-30,000 turned out, far more than anyone could have imagined, listening to music by bands like The Grateful Dead, Santana, The Steve Miller Band and Jefferson Airplane, and talks by counterculture guru’s like Allen Ginsberg, Richard Alpert (later to be change his name to Ram Dass), Dick Gregory, Jerry Rubin and, of course, Timothy Leary, who introduced the famous psychedelic slogan ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’ that day. This acted as an invitation to young and curious people far and wide to leave their workplace or their schools and colleges and join the hippie adventure.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:53+00:00August 20, 2012|Hear, Psychedelia, RIP, The Sixties|0 Comments

What Would You Do If I Sang Out Of Tune?

John Robb, my old friend and musical ally (I produced a couple of tracks for his band of the time, Sensuround, back in the early 90’s), blogged his views at Louder Than War a few days ago regarding Paul McCartney’s stuttering appearance at the Olympic opening ceremony last week. Like myself, John holds The Beatles in the highest regard, so I was interested to hear his take on things.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:53+00:00August 3, 2012|Articles, Live Performance, Psychedelia, Records, See, The Beatles, TV|10 Comments

Video Blog – Ravi Shankar At Monterey Pop

If I could have been at one single event during the 60’s, the Monteray Pop Festival in 1967’s ‘Summer Of Love’ is likely to have been it. D.A. Pennebaker's superb film of this historic gathering manages to get right to the essence of the era, for whilst the East Coast Woodstock festival, 2 years later, has been the enduring symbol of the 60’s, the moment when, through sheer force of numbers, the power of this new generation was acknowledged, Monteray, on the West Coast, set the wheels in motion, being the first festival of its type and a triumph of the Hippie spirit.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:53+00:00July 25, 2012|Live Performance, Psychedelia, See, The Sixties, Video, Video Blog|6 Comments

Living To Music – The Stone Roses ‘The Stone Roses’

As we enter 2012 I thought this would be the ideal Living To Music choice to kick off the year, especially given that the first Sunday in January is also the first day of a new year. This highly acclaimed and much-loved 1989 LP, which perfectly caught the mood of the times, provides us with the opportunity to re-visit the past, whilst looking ahead to the summer. When an announcement was made earlier this year, that The Stone Roses are to re-form for 2 shows at Manchester’s Heaton Park in June 2012 (with a 3rd later added), there was genuine intrigue and anticipation. This wasn’t a case of another comeback cash-in, but something more symbolic. If ever there was a band with unfinished business to accomplish, it’s The Stone Roses.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:56+00:00December 21, 2011|Art & Design, CD’s / Digital, DJ / Club Culture, DJ Appearances, Hear, Living To Music, Manchester, Merseyside, Photography, Psychedelia, Records, The Beatles, The Eighties, The Nineties|20 Comments

Living To Music – Love ‘Forever Changes’

This Sunday (May 1st), at 9pm, you’re invited to share a listening session with some likeminded souls, wherever you might be. This can be experienced either alone or communally, and you don’t need to leave the comfort of your own home to participate. Described as ‘one of the first racially diverse American pop bands’, Love, led by Memphis born ‘black hippie’, Arthur Lee, broke the mould. Hailing from Los Angeles, the band issued their self-titled debut album in 1966, following up with ‘De Capo’ in early ’67, before releasing the LP they’re best remembered for, ‘Forever Changes’ towards the end of the same year.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:59+00:00April 26, 2011|Black Culture, CD’s / Digital, Hear, Living To Music, Psychedelia, Records, The Sixties|19 Comments

Ball Of Confusion

Most of the interviews you do throw up the same type of questions, but every now and again someone takes a completely different approach, which can be very refreshing. One such occasion was a few years ago when I received a request for an interview by Berlin based DJ and writer Finn Johannsen, who told me he was doing a feature series for the blog ‘Sounds Like Me’ in which he asks people to chose a favourite record that has strong personal associations. Once I’d informed him of my choice, ‘Ball Of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today)’, a key single of my formative years by The Temptations, he came back with a whole heap of insightful questions that really caused me to get deep into my reasons behind this selection, including my views on its socio-political relevance, the role of the protest song, and the innovations of its producer, Norman Whitfield.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:59+00:00April 5, 2011|Black Culture, Hear, Interviews, Psychedelia, Records, The Seventies|4 Comments

Trip Clips

This recently discovered footage of an American housewife being filmed in 1956 during an experimental LSD session got me thinking about a couple of other classic trip clips.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:59+00:00February 11, 2011|Psychedelia, See, The Fifties, The Sixties, TV|5 Comments

The Punk & The Prankster

The following day I was back in Liverpool city centre, again with my son, when I saw the bus parked up outside the Royal Court Theatre, where Kesey had performed the previous night. I still had a camera with me from the previous day and began to take a few more shots of the bus. I noticed Kesey stood at the stage door and he recognised us. One of the younger Pranksters was with him and he asked if I’d like him to take a picture of the three of us together, and that’s how the photo above came about.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:38:01+00:00September 6, 2010|Books, Psychedelia, Read, The Beatles, The Sixties|0 Comments

Previous 123 Next

2026 DJ DATES:

31.12 Todmorden – NYE @ The Golden Lion

17.01 Belfast – The Deer’s Head

23.01 Bristol – Lost Horizon

05.02 New York – Jeans

07.02 Upstate New York – Disco Chalet

13.02 Los Angeles – Spotlight

14.02 San Francisco – Great Northern

21.02 London – Fac 51 Haçienda @ Drumsheds

06.03 Brussels – C12 Brussels

08.03 Bognor Regis – Bugged Out

21.03 Leeds – Downtown Disco @ Archive

03.04 Carlisle – The Brickyard

04.04 Dewsbury – The Terrace

05.04 Liverpool – Gloria’s

18.04 Margate – Margate Arts Club

19.04 London – Jazz Cafe

24.04 Manchester – Manchester Cathedral

02.05 London – Disco Disco @ Queens Yard

16.05 Bristol – Where We Belong Festival

23.05 Hastings – The Print Works

30.05 Steyning – Steyning Festival

12.06 Stockport – Moovin Festival

20.06 Newcastle – Frate

27.06 Penzance – Golowan Festival

11.07 London – Brixton Freight Island

26.07 Manchester Freight Island

26.07 Hertfordshire – Campo Sanchez

31.07 Oxfordshire – Wilderness Festival

15.08 Newcastle- E-Soul Cultura @ Freight Island

15.08 Warrington- Brickhaus

18.08 Ibiza- 528

23.08 Dorset- We Out Here Festival

04.09 Lindisfarne Festival05.09 Battle – Crafted @ Powdermills

10.09 Winchester – Mucky Weekender

I’m a DJ from Merseyside. I started out in 1975, but stopped for almost 20 years, between 1984 and the end of 2003, at which point I started again.

One night during the period I wasn’t deejaying, turning off my mind, relaxing, and floating downstream I had what might be termed a moment of clarity. Paradoxically, although I was no longer a DJ in the literal sense I suddenly became aware that I’d never actually stopped being a DJ, for even if I was in a room with just one person I couldn’t help but ask them ‘have you heard this?’, and not only ‘heard’, but ‘have you seen this / read this?’, for it goes beyond music. Already taken somewhat aback by this nugget of self-discovery, I realised, in true eureka style, that this all pre-dates my being a DJ and goes back as far as I can remember – I’ve always had an inherent need to share, it’s absolutely central to my nature. This was quite a revelation.

So it’s no wonder that I became a Disc Jockey, for once I fell in love with those circular pieces of magical plastic during my formative years, it wasn’t a matter of choosing this as a path, the path pretty much chose me.

I don’t intend this to be a DJ blog as such, but more a blog by someone who happens to be a DJ – a place where personal emphasis takes precedence over professional, although, as I’ve already explained, the two aspects are, of course, inescapably entwined.

If you want info about my DJ appearances, email greg@gregwilson.co.uk for regular updates.

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