For a writer about mindbending music, DeRogatis is remarkably lucid. Taking a panoramic view of the disorienting genre and its disoriented figures, he keeps the story moving and leaves the flying to his subjects. — Ira Robbins, TROUSER PRESS

Jim DeRogatis has written one of the most readable and intelligent and worthwhile rock 'n' roll histories of any sort so far. Kaleidoscope Eyes is as well written and fascinating and fun as one might wish a survey of psychedelic rock would be. Read it and get your consciousness expanded! — Paul Williams, CRAWDADDY

In this ambitious and fascinating book, Jim DeRogatis knowledgeably explores every facet of psychedelic rock--not merely the obvious tie-dyed, Day-Glo music that swirled around the Summer of Love, but every type of rock music with a theme of expanding the mind. — Trudi Miller Rosenblum, BILLBOARD

With all the media schlock about rock and roll in the '60s, a cynical twentysomething like me might think that psychedelic rock belongs to twirling Deadheads and Budweiser-sponsored concerts--music that investment bankers pop in the cassette player in the Volvo on the way to junior's soccer practice. I admit, I'm jaded; I think Jim Morrison was a lousy poet, and I don't "get" anything the Moody Blues sing... Enter Kaleidoscope Eyes, a refreshing and objective account of psychedelic rock over the last four decades. — Gretchen Federlein, RESONANCE

Kaleidoscope Eyes does for psychedelic music what Jon Savage's England's Dreaming did for punk, and is an essential work in the significant world of rock writing. — MID-WALES COUNTY TIMES & EXPRESS

In his first book, Kaleidoscope Eyes (Citadel), rock journalist, rabblerouser, and former Chicago Sun-Times pop editor Jim DeRogatis persuasively argues that psychedelic music did not die in the '60s. Instead, DeRogatis draws the connection between Ken Kesey's acid tests and My Bloody Valentine's guitar tapestries, the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and De La Soul's "Three Feet High and Rising," Pink Floyd and Portishead, Amon Duul II and Husker Du. — Greg Kot, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Jim DeRogatis' Kaleidoscope Eyes is by no means the definitive book on psychedelic music, but its inclusiveness and flexibility expand the concept far beyond the standard canon of psychedelic masters like the Beatles, 13th Floor Elevators, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Jefferson Airplane. It encompasses a myriad of musicians who also explore altered states of consciousness while coming out of cultural, artistic, political, and social contexts far removed from the youth explosion of the late '60s. — Carlo McCormick, HIGH TIMES

For music fans who want to explore the region where hippies, punks, hip-hoppers, and rave kids can sit down and share a spliff together, this is an indispensible guidebook. — Will Hermes, MINNEAPOLIS CITY PAGES

Kaleidoscope Eyes is a scholarly but opinionated chronicle/extended meditation that takes the reader from Dr. Albert Hoffman's discovery of LSD, through the early days of psych (Beatles, Beach Boys, the German Krautrock bands) and onward, winding up in the modern era with analyses of pop, hip-hop and rave culture, plus a pair of extended looks at contemporary avatars My Bloody Valentine and Flaming Lips. Many, many bands and their significant recordings are mentioned along the way, from Pink Floyd to Pere Ubu to Plastikman. — Fred Mills, MAGNET

Jim DeRogatis is bound by neither time nor place; he follows psychedelic sound wherever it takes him, as the major or minor element in an array of styles. His concentration in Kaleidoscope Eyes is, as befits a rock critic, soundly on the music; personalities and scenes enter to elucidate musical points. Drug references are mainly confined to the impact of drugs on the creativity of the musicians and the ways in which the music attempts to simulate the psychedelic drug experience. — Deena Dasein, ILLINOIS ENTERTAINER

The term "psychedelic" is an oft-abused one, summoning images of long-haired kids kicking back in the park outfitted in loose-fitting hemp trousers and tie-dyed tees. Jim DeRogatis' new book, Kaleidoscope Eyes, attempts to rejuvenate the term "psychedelic," reminding  those who have forgotten and those too young to remember that the term once meant more than its current usage as a trite adjective for all things lava-lamp-like. — E.M. Lorsbach, SMUG

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