Alistair McCulloch

Alistair McCulloch has been listening to good music since his early teenage years in the 1960s. It is his genuine belief that music started to go downhill on 31 December 1969 and, with the very odd exception, has failed to re-achieve its previous heights!

Raised on blues, folk and the original R&B (rhythm and blues), his favourite band is the Incredible String Band, as anyone who meets him soon discovers. He also holds a particular affection for Arthur Lee and Love, Roger McGuin and The Byrds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream and anything involving Al Kooper or Mike Bloomfield. And, of course, there's also Jimi Hendrix!

Blown away by the music of the San Franciscan psychedelic scene, he became a fully-non-paid-up member of the counterculture and is particularly interested in the relationships between the music and psychedelic art and literature, and the influences that fed into the counterculture and those those that came out of it. He is passionate about the art of the Fillmore.

Also very interested in the politics of the era (as well as those of today in which he can see similarities with the 60s), Alistair later studied the subject, going on to gain a PhD and becoming an academic. He currently works in the area of research and graduate studies and is an expert in the doctoral (PhD) process. The music helps keeps him sane!

One of his latest articles combines his interests in music and politics and is about the paradox at the heart of the Live Aid concerts. Other music-related articles include one on the Monterey International Pop Music Festival, held 40 years ago this year, and Pink Floyd's first album, 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn'. The latest of his collection of articles on the San Franciscan music scene of the 60s looks at Country Joe and the Fish.

Other recent articles draw on his academic background and take an informed look at the motivations for doctoral study, preparing for a doctoral viva, preparing to go to Graduate School, and the importance of your first week of graduate studies.