I'm reading a book about psychedelic music called "Kaleidescope Eyes" by Jim DeRogatis (who also wrote "Let it Blurt", an excellent biography of critic Lester Bangs). I've seen a couple of other books about psychedelia which focus on it's 1965-1969 heyday. DeRogatis takes a far more ambitious approach and covers it from the 60's right through to the '90's, from the Beatles and Stones through pretentious 70's prog like Yes and ELP, right up to shoegazing and ambient in the '90's. Even though conventional music history states that psychedelia died with the '60's, DeRogatis knows better. It didn't die, a scene, a culture can't just die, it morphs into something else and continues to evolve. After enough time has passed, the music has changed so much that its roots are not easily visible, but they are there. DeRogatis attempts to follow these roots, which is a difficult job to be sure, but this is the most accurate way to follow a "scene". That is the strongest point he can make: we shouldn't stand for books that cover a short period of musical history and make that period out as the "be all and end all", without adressing the manner in which the story continued. This is more of a problem than many people realise. Take disco, for instance. Most people think that disco was hot for a few years in the '70's and then it died abruptly, as DJ's stopped playing it, records ceased to be pressed, and Solid Gold was on TV one week and off the next, all because of Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey park or some other ridiculous reason. Disco didn't die, it slipped quietly from the mainstream, while wimp-rock balladry and English New Romanticism pushed up to the forefront. But you can't listen to early Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet and claim that there isn't a disco influence. Disco itself went underground, into the clubs in Europe, New York and Chicago, and re-emerged most famously as house, and without house there'd be no Eiffel 65 or remixes of Jennifer Lopez' latest single on your radio.

Punk suffered from the same malady, as people assumed it vanished from the face of the earth once the Sex Pistols broke up or between the Clash's "London Calling" and "Combat Rock". Once grunge hit big, there was a mass wake-up call to grunge's punk roots, as the world at large became aware of the existence of Sonic Youth and Husker Du. And thus, punk's story has been more truthfully told. But to suggest that psychedelia died, vanished in '69, or disco in '79 (or Britpop in '96, or Rave in '92, or shoegazing in '93, or ....) is pure myth, is misleading, and it is factually wrong.