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The Psychedelic Supermarket

music venue in Boston, Massachusetts

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ23018403 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Psychedelic Supermarket was an underground music venue in Boston, Massachusetts, that was open in the 1960s, and became one of the core establishments of the city's psychedelic rock scene. It stood at 590 Commonwealth Avenue inside a parking garage that was converted into a club by promoter George Papadopoulos in 1967. The Psychedelic Supermarket was active for two years before closing.

The venue was established in August 1967 by promoter George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos, who was already an owner of a popular Boston-based folk club called the Unicorn, hastily put together the Psychedelic Supermarket in an abandoned parking garage to cash in on the scheduled performances dropped by the Crosstown Bus after it was shut down by police. On September 8, 1967, the Supermarket opened to an eight-day stay by Cream, just as the psychedelic rock group was preparing to record their second album Disraeli Gears. Cream utilized this time to practice their new material, including "Sunshine of Your Love" and "Strange Brew", before showcasing themselves to a national audience.

Donna Summer, at the time using her real name Donna Gaines, debuted in this venue as lead singer of a rock band named "The Crow".

The Psychedelic Supermarket's greatest shortcoming was its need of renovation and refurbishing. The venue was described as a "very industrial place" that had walls littered with album covers, no windows, and could hold between 200 and 300 patrons, but in its beginning stages the Supermarket had no seats installed.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Psychedelic Supermarket” as music venue in Boston, Massachusetts. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1967—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1967. The account is most persuasive where Psychedelic, Supermarket and music can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as music venue in Boston, Massachusetts. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23018403. Authority coordinates are 42.349, -71.100. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1967.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Psychedelic Supermarket”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Psychedelic Supermarket primary sources, The Psychedelic Supermarket archive and Psychedelic research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Psychedelic Supermarket”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Psychedelic Supermarket” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.