Just another San Francisco band, ya know. Unfortunately, in the public eye Quicksilver Messenger Service aren't really notorious for anything but the name. They never made history like the Jefferson Airplane, never created a world religion like the Grateful Dead, and never even made it onto the official alternative list of "weird lost treasures" like Moby Grape. They were there at the time, made up some music, smoked some pot, played some shows, stayed together for a bit too long, and ended up in complete obscurity. Sort of like, uh, well, you know, the average mediocre fate of the average mediocre band.
Fact is, QMS may be "average", but they're anything but mediocre. The band revolved around a couple of really talented guitarists, capable of adjusting to a lot of different styles, from typical "acid guitar" to blues-rock and jazz. One of the main forces behind it was songwriter Dino Valenti (Valente), also known as Chet Powers, Jesse Oris Farrow, and under a couple thousand other names - a guy with his own flaws but also with creative ideas a-plenty. And at one time, the band could even boast the inclusion of none other than the fabulous pianist Nicky Hopkins as an official member, an honour that neither the Kinks nor the Rolling Stones nor any of the countless bands Nicky had played with could ever garner.
In short, QMS had a whole pool of talent to burn, or, rather, to dessicate. And they did. Starting out with a relatively accessible "hippie-folk" record, they followed it with a thoroughly unaccessible "hippie-jam" one, and afterwards plunged into cautious experimentation with a whole lot of things, merging psychedelia, folk-rock, blues, country, and artsiness in one boiling pot that never seemed to have much of a conceptual nature but was almost always nice to the touch, at least. It can't be said that Quicksilver made a whole lot of innovation in any one particular sphere, but they touched upon many, and, frankly, just wrote good songs, if that ain't enough for you. From: https://starlingdb.org/music/qms.htm
