"The Golden Dawn", "George Kinney" (vocals, guitar), "Tom Ramsey" (lead guitar), "Jimmy Bird" (rhythm guitar), "Bill Hallmark" (bass guitar) and "Bobby Rector" (drums), was an American Psychedelic Rock band formed in Austin, Texas, in 1966.
The band released one album, titled "Power Plant" (International Artists, IA-LP-4, 1968), before breaking up soon after the album's release in 1968.
The record company, the infamous "International Artists" label out of Houston, had made a decision that seems to have 'shafted' the career of the vibrant "Golden Dawn".
This is what happened: a few months after the release of "The 13th Floor Elevators"' "Psychedelic Sounds" debut, "The Golden Dawn" had finished "Power Plant" in July 1967 and were ready to let it fly; but, by that time, the Elevators were beginning to record their second album, "Easter Everywhere", which the record company management thought, should come out first in order to focus on it.


When "Power Plant" was finally released in 1968, it was largely panned as the work of an Elevators knock-off band and was unjustly snubbed in a way that was big enough to discourage the development of the band.
It's worth pointing out, that "Power Plant" is not an "Easter Everywhere" imitation — it was recorded 2 months before "Easter Everywhere", but IA sat on the release to concentrate on the Elevators. That said, there is indeed an audible influence from the Elevators in general, and the two bands were close friends.


Excerpt from "George Kinney"'s interview:
What did inspire you to write so many amazing songs?
"George Kinney": Inspiration was everywhere, You kinda have had to have been there. The world was changing and music was the leading force of change. I wanted to incorporate intellectual thinking concepts into music, thus integrating the mind/heart aspect of our beings. That was and still is the underlying principle within my music. Heart and mind, together, working for the benefit of us humans. The music and voice opened the heart and the lyrics opened the mind. It was very artistic, of you ask me.


Excerpt from another "George Kinney"'s interview:
What was the concept behind your album, "Power Plant"?
"George Kinney" The concept was primarily that our species was mired in a stagnated pool of maleficent complacency, trapped in conditioned behavior that is propagated by false information about our identity, the kind of beings we are.

The transcendent aspects of our being are being ignored in favor of the ego-based selves that mass marketing and false religion has imposed upon us through mass media and other more traditional methods of deception. My idea, after meeting "Tommy Hall" ("The 13th Floor Elevators") and discovering the teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspenski, was to devote my life to discovering all I could about the human potential for psychological evolution and to write, play music, and sing about it in hopes I might be able to chip away at the vast, cathedral fallacies in our understanding of our selves and our world.