![\"Blue](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Blue-Cheer-LSD-famous-feuds-and-the-forgotten-teenagers-who-might-have-invented-heavy-metal-Far-Out-.jpeg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Jack de Nijs \/ Album Cover)<\/p>\n
Tue 7 April 2026 16:45, UK <\/p>\n
LSD\u2019s introduction to the artistic realm of the 1960s<\/a> certainly has a lot to answer for, but much of it is dominated by floaty flower power, \u2018peace and love\u2019 politics, and pretty kaleidoscopic patterns. There was only one band that used the power of acid to finally succumb to the temptation of turning their amps up to ten and making a right racket, and that was Blue Cheer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Taking their name from Owsley Stanley\u2019s personal variety of LSD, Blue Cheer emerged during the eye of the hippie storm, back in 1966. At the time, the music scene of their native San Francisco was dominated by transformative counterculture icons, the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin\u2019s Big Brother and the Holding Company, all of which were exercising their newly-established psychedelic muscles. That is where Blue Cheer differed<\/a>. <\/p>\n Rather than following the crowd into that colourful age of psychedelia, the Dickie Peterson-formed group decided to pursue a far more abrasive, raw kind of sound. With a Hells Angels biker for a manager<\/a> and the kind of naive arrogance that suits teenage bands so well, Blue Cheer unknowingly revolutionised the rock and roll landscape, simply by turning their amplifiers up to the max.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople thought we were just making noise,\u201d Peterson told Classic Rock<\/a> back in 2009. \u201cThey thought we were a detriment to the scene.\u201d Detriment or not, the band certainly stood out when compared to their Bay Area comrades<\/a>, playing louder, faster, and with a greater fury than any of their bare-footed, acid-dripped peers. <\/p>\n \u201cI just knew we wanted to be loud,\u201d he continued. \u201cI wanted our music to be physical. I wanted it to be more than just an audio experience. This is what we set out to try and do.\u201d Admittedly, the group were pretty successful in those aims, although it did little to endear them towards the rest of the musical realm. \u201cWe ended up being in a lot of trouble with other musicians of the time,\u201d Peterson admitted. <\/p>\n Those other musicians became particularly miffed when the band scored a hit record with their 1968 cover of Eddie Cochran\u2019s classic \u2018Summertime Blues\u2019, giving the old rock and roll anthem a far more anarchic, proto-metal feeling. <\/p>\n That hit earned Blue Cheer a ticket into the primetime, playing legendary venues and even making an appearance on Dick Clark\u2019s American Bandstand, during which Clark reportedly declared, \u201cIt\u2019s people like you that give rock \u2019n\u2019 roll a bad name.\u201d<\/p>\n Clark wasn\u2019t the only one who couldn\u2019t see the appeal, either. As Peterson recounted, \u201cI remember Mike Bloomfield came up to me at the Avalon Ballroom, and he says, \u2018You can\u2019t do that\u2019. I said, \u2018C\u2019mon, Mike, you can do it, too. All you gotta do is turn this knob up to ten.’\u201d The songwriter added, \u201cHe hated me ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n Blue Cheer might have been written off by their fellow musicians back in the 1960s, but their endearingly anarchic playing style far outlasted that criticism. \u2018Summertime Blues\u2019, in fact, is routinely hailed as being a touchstone for the early days of hard rock and metal, predicting the kind of sounds that would dominate the next few decades of rock expression \u2013 not that they meant to, of course. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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