Today marks the day that Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered the properties of LSD, on 16 April, 1943, and rode his bike home.

THE DISCOVERY OF LSD


Albert Hofmann first synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in his Basel laboratory in 1938 working for Sandoz Laboratories whilst studying scilla and ergot in an attempt to purify and synthesize the active constituents for use as pharmaceuticals.


He set aside his discovery for five years at which point he accidentally absorbed a quality through his fingertips and reported feeling dizzy, intoxicated, stimulated and seeing kaleidoscopic shapes and colors when he closed his eyes.


HOFMANN'S TRIP AND BIKE RIDE

Record Store Day is almost here! Check out these mouth-watering limited, exclusive 45s... remastered Zappa single available on vinyl for the first time in 40 years; Pink Floyd on pink wax; an amazing David Bowie "Drive-In Saturday" picture disc; and the Rolling Stones 5x5 EP, re-pressed for the first time since 1964! You're gonna have to line up early for these. See you on Saturday for RSD13!

Download our menu (.pdf) of exclusive Record Store Day titles available on April 20, 2013.

See our list of events and happenings at all three stores on RSD.

 

In honor of the upcoming Record Store Day 2013, I decided to make a list of 20 records I think everyone should own on vinyl. Take this Record Store Day to build a nice foundation for your record collection. I picked this list based on pretty arbitrary criteria, including what critics generally think are great, what I think is great, what I think particularly sounds good on analog-warm vinyl, and what you won’t have to pay $100 for or scour for (e.g. no hard-to-find ’90s vinyl or things out of print). I also left it to one album per artist. These aren't in any particular order. Send any omissions to this list to idontcare@makeyourownlist.com. Or just leave a comment!

 

The Beatles – Revolver

In my mind, The White Album is the greatest Beatles album, but you can’t beat the utterly perfect one-disc punch of Revolver. It should go without saying that every Beatles album is essential and is worth owning on vinyl yadda yadda, but if you have to start somewhere, do it here. Their catalog was recently reissued on vinyl in stereo mix, so you should have no trouble finding them if you’re just starting out — and you should have no trouble finding quality replacements, if your old Beatles LPs are worn out.

To read more Behind The Grooves, go to http://behindthegrooves.tumblr.com.

On this day in music history: December 3, 1965 - Rubber Soul, the sixth album by The Beatles is released (US release date is December 8th). Produced by George Martin, it is recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London on June 17 and from October 12 - November 11, 1965. Recorded in just four weeks following their second world tour, the album will be a major artistic milestone in their career, demonstrating yet another great leap forward in the bands' material both musically and lyrically. The influence folk rock (particularly Bob Dylan and The Byrds) will be apparent on several tracks. No singles will be released from the album, but nearly every track will become an airplay staple over the years including "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," "Michelle," "Drive My Car," "In My Life," and "If I Needed Someone." The albums' iconic cover shot is taken by photographer Robert Freeman. He will change the original picture to its distinctive altered state after showing the band slides of the photo session projected on an LP sized piece of cardboard. When the cardboard falls backward it will slightly distort their faces into the now familiar image. Rubber Soul will top the UK album chart, Billboard Top 200 for eight weeks and is certified 6x Platinum in the US by the RIAA.
 

Waiting patiently in line yesterday afternoon behind a half dozen other dreamers at a downtown Manhattan 7/11 to buy a $2 Powerball lottery ticket for my (very slim) chance to win last night's jackpot drawing of a record $588 million, I fully understood that my chances of winning were almost zero. In fact with the odds of winning at an estimated 175 million to one, I stood a much better chance of been invited by Lil Wayne to make a rap cameo on his next (and final) album than my randomly drawn numbers coming up in last night's Powerball lottery drawing. But even armed with all of this knowledge, like millions of others across America - with that refrain "you got to be in it to win it" echoing in my head, I happily forked over money for a lottery ticket.

Yes even though I fully knew I didn't stand a snowball's chance of being a winner (two people were: one in Arizona and another in Missouri) for those few hours between when I bought my ticket and when the winning numbers were announced I had an opportunity to mentally bathe in fantasies of what I might do with my nearly six hundred million dollars (or $385 million after tax as I reminded myself). For a few escapist moments I imagined what and who I might spend all my easily earned money on and started thinking about all the songs along those lines like the Barenaked Ladies' "If I had $1000000" in which they sang "I’d buy you a house" and "I'd buy you an exotic pet like a llama or an emu" or "a monkey."