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Back In
The Garage
Sonics, 13 Floor
Elevators, Seeds & Count 5
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In The Garage |
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Dirty
fuzzed up guitars twisting old blues licks. Songs about cars,
girls and of course psychedelics set to some wacked out garage
sound. Three minutes of snappy pop punk to set those feet a
tapping, those girls a running and those snakes writhing on the
wallpaper. Distortion............... hip but not hippy
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| The Sonics.
There was none dirtier or majestic than The Sonics. This band
had it all, fuzzed up guitars, great riffs, screaming vocals
akin to Little Richard. This band rocked from 1964-67 giving us
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such as
The Witch,
Strychnine (later covered by The Cramps),
Boss Hog,
Psycho and Louie Louie. "IF
our records sound distorted, its because they are...they were always overdriven. My Brother
Larry ... he was disconnecting the speakers and
poking a hole in them with an icepick. That's how
we ended up sounding like a train crash."
Sonics bassist.
Essential
super fuzz. A tough new sound blending rock 'n' roll,
singers like James Brown and the Yardbirds and early Stones.
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Count 5. Immortalised
in Lester Bangs book 'Psychotic Reactions'
they trod a path of
never ending weirdness into the outer fringes of lunacy.
Their debut album here sees them standing over a grave
while the music contains the classic Psychotic Reaction (covered by
The
Cramps and Radiators from Space) fuzz and flange to great
effect while romping thru tracks such as Big
Mouth. Recommended. |
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The Seeds.
Long before
Richard Hell... was... Sky Sunlight Saxon (what a name
to give to the dole !!) and his merry men The Seeds. This
album features their righteous two chord toon Pushin' Too Hard
and (as covered by
The Vacants) along with Can't Seem To Make You Mine
(covered by The
Ramones).... a perfect piece of proto punkery and an
essential to hear. Like our other pals here Sky went a
bit batty, lived in a caravan and collected 8 track
cassettes because he thought that was the
future...mmmmmm...
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Above happier times
with the jug man on the left.
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13th Floor Elevators.
My
personal favourites for what its worth. They were without doubt
before the fate that befell their leader Roky Erikson definitely orbiting another planet. The sleeve notes
of their first album contain pure gibberish about the
lyrics but f**k me the music is excellent. Tracks like
'Fire Engine' and
'Monkey Island'
and of course the
sublime 'You're Gonna Miss Me' all make up a great album.
What can you add to fuzzed up guitars and psychedelic
lyrics..... mmm the sound of a jug.. and they did!
Well they were good ole Texas boys!
By the next album
'Easter Everywhere' they had moved onto the next solar
system but still produced magic tracks like 'Levitation'
(covered by Julian Cope) and without doubt their epic
'Slip Inside This House' (mercilessly slaughtered by
Primal Scream). I haven't the faintest idea what Roky is
talking about but I know when a song is good and it is. |
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| Roky was busted for one dope joint and to escape a
sentence elected for shock therapy which left him
absolutely f****d. Its heartrending to read the interview
with Nick Kent in his book 'Tales from the Darkside'
where minutes elapse between q's and the answer is just
'uhhh'. Roky now is scared to go on stage repeats the
same song over and has been left a virtual pauper having
been ripped off by record companies. If there was any
justice those arseholes who give out those lifetime
achievement awards to muppets like Metallica would
recognise Roky and the Elevators. All respect to ZZ Top
who contributed to the covers tribute album (they all
knew each other in Texas! Just to show how wacked
out they all were
click here
to visit the drummers website... he is still on
another planet !! However he publishes chapter by chapter
his story of the band and its bloody interesting.
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Get a copy of
'
Nuggets' and stick to compilations where you can. You can't go
wrong !
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