Dale Simpson's generous contribute to It's Psychedelic Baby

Dale Simpson is interested in psychedelic culture. He paints all kinds of psych art. Among that he has done this trippy painting for Psychedelic Baby. He started psych art back in the late 80's and early 90's doing backgrounds in Freakbeat magazine...

He shared his story in this article:

I was born in the centre of England, in the city of Derby in 1966. My influences as an artist stem from the evolving diversity of cultures I have seen and lived in. As a child I was passionate about the Beatles, the Monkees, The Banana Splits, Wacky Races, Roy Orbison, a favourite with my parents, and Rock n roll! Throughout my youth I was a keen Northern Soul Dancer, a Skinhead, Casual and Hippy revivalist. All of which were stimulated by my love of music. My greatest and most acute obsession is with Psychedelic music.

In such a short period of time in the sixties creativity went through the roof and changed everything. What is fascinating is the diversity of styles and the different approach’s by bands to stimulate audience’s minds. I started collecting my first psych records when I was a Skinhead. My first such records included albums by Jimi Hendrix, Small faces and Traffic. There seems to be an ever growing appeal and demand for Psychedelic music and amazingly, all these years after the sixties, new music is being unearthed. For example, the previously unreleased album “Of Wondrous Legends” by Owl, the acetate of which was picked up in a second hand shop and also the equally impressive unreleased at the time album by The Spoils Of War.

I am also a keen collector of New Psychedelic bands from around the world and to encourage the new scene I set up a Facebook group “New Millennium Psychedelia” to showcase new talent. My Psychedelic artwork began in the late 80’s when I drew pictures whilst listening to records. I then began to send them to Freakbeat magazine, a great independent magazine set up by Richard Allen and Ivor Truman showcasing the Psychedelic groups from the 80’s. They would use the drawings as backgrounds on the pages to create a colourful reading experience. The influences for my art at this time were Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Furry Freak Brothers comics and Sir John Tenniel, the original Alice in Wonderland illustrator! Freakbeat evolved into Delirium Records and I created some artwork for them on a couple of inserts for albums including “Psychedelic Psauna” and Nick Riffs “Freak Element.”

During the 90’s my artwork took a back seat because most of my time was taken up bringing up my two boys Liam and Max. When they were old enough to go to school I found I had some free time on my hands and decided to apply for a degree in illustration with the University of Derby. In 2006 I graduated with a 1st class honours degree in Illustration. These days I love nothing better than to put on some music and create new artwork inspired by my imagination. My art work takes influence from my past experiences and life. It is Psychedelic and surreal. I enjoy experimenting with different mediums such as paint, pen and ink, collage and printmaking. It was an honour for me to be asked by Klemen to design the new logo for ‘Its Psychedelic Baby magazine’, I have also designed the cover for The Hypnotic Eye’s first single. This will be released in the near future. My ambition is to continue to design covers for other psychedelic bands.