So... some of you Mudcat guys and gals have been aboard this strange old planet for a long, long time and may be and may be able to shed some light for some us relatively freshfaced types (notwithstanding the old saw that if you can remember the 1960s you weren't there)...

Those of you who were around in the 1960s (I believe the decade lasted from around 1958 - 1973) and can remember the beatnik era transforming into the hippy era, the influence of all things psychedelic on popular (and unpopular) culture, the idealism and the idiocy - what can you remember about the influence of psychedelia, the hippy scene and so on on folk music?

I am a big fan of people like Michael Hurley, Holy Modal Rounders, Pearls Before Swine and the Fugs from the US side of the pond, and people like the Incredible String Band, Dr Strangely Strange and Forest from the UK side. What else was going on? I'm not talking about the big acts from the era who had a folk element to their music, but the little people - the local bands who fused folk and psychedelia, the troubadours who took it too far, the one-obscure-album wonders who sank without a trace - in short, people you may have known, played gigs with, seen in concert... people you may have been.

Hope some of you feel able to share your reminiscences and shine an insider's light on this fascinating ear. As a person who wasn't born till 1963, it appears like an exotic foreign country to me... and I'd love to know more from those of you who were in the thick of it...