Weekly Artist Overview: The Seeds

The Seeds, from Los Angeles, only had one top-40 hit in their career, the primitive, fuzzed-up, organ-driven "Pushin' Too Hard", which reached #36 on the pop singles chart in early 1967. They never had an album chart better than #87. None of the members went on to greater success, few paragraphs have been devoted to them in the history books.

Still the Seeds represent a time and a place like almost no other band of their era, and deserve a footnote place in history. Their story is an interesting one; a story of life at the third-tier level for a locally reknowned band that could never quite get it together.

"Moronic" is a word that has been tossed by critics in their direction, unfairly. They never set out to be geniuses. On the surface, the Seeds were a Stonesy garage band with a vaguely cheap organ sound. Daryl Hooper played simplistic organ riffs over and over again, sometimes going up an octave, sometimes going down. They had no bassist; they pioneered the organ-as-bass approach the Doors, also from L.A., would adopt a year later. The guitarwork from Jan Savage was a fuzzfest, and seldom bothered with more than three chords, sometimes making do with two. The vocals of lead singer Sky Saxon had a tight, choked, snotty punk quality to them. They couldn't do anything fancy, they sang repetitive lyrics mostly about sex and drugs, they had long hair and dressed shabbily.

In short; the sonic essence of a true garage band. Except the Seeds didn't record in a garage; for a year or so they were one of the hottest bands on the fertile Sunset Strip scene and had access to some pretty good Hollywood studios. Their label was small enough, hip enough, or fool enough to let the Seeds make their records with little executive interference. The result is a garage band with a substantial body of work; there's that and the singularly strange odyssey of a young man from Utah who became Sky Saxon, leader of the rudest, meanest, most primitive, and openly druggiest band in America. And then went on to be sect devotee and self-made guru Sunlight Saxon. It's a story that could only happen in Hollywood.

Sky Saxon was born Richard Marsh in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1945. At the age of eighteen, he moved to Los Angeles, and hustled around Hollywood, managing to get some studio time and release six soft R&B singles under a variety of names in 1963 and 1964; soon he started experimenting with the name Sky Saxon. Hollywood was bustling in 1964; Capitol records was reaping an enormous windfall from the Beatles, and was spreading the wealth. Studios were everywhere; like many other newcomers to Los Angeles, Marsh had fantasies about scoring big, fast. None of these singles went anywhere, but he left an impression on people. He spent time in a couple of L.A. garage bands, the Soul Rockers and the Electra Fires. They too, were not destined for success.

Undaunted, the young Marsh answered an ad placed by Savage, Hooper and drummer Rick Andridge for a frontman in 1965. The tryout succeeded, and the Seeds were launched. After a number of wild local gigs, they landed a contract with Gene Norman Presents, to be distributed through local label Crescendo. Colorful producer Marcus Tybalt was put in charge. They quickly recorded two albums' worth of material almost back-to-back in 1966; The Seeds and A Web Of Sound.

The Seeds is an album of punky nuggets all in the two-and-a-half minute range. Its single "Pushin' Too Hard" is on many people's short lists of great mid-60's garage band tunes. Fuzzed to the extreme, with Saxon's choking, starling delivery, Savage's dancing lead guitar, Hooper's sped-up Zombies organ providing propulsion, and Andridge crashing in the back, it captures all the qualities a great punk record should. The rest of The Seeds is pretty much the same; raw and abrasive, hazy and druggy, simplistic and unpretentious. At times, the album gets a little too much the same; the band really had one essential approach to everything. In some circles The Seeds is considered the very first punk album ever made; Iggy and the Stooges might have picked up a thing or two from listening to it. "Pushing Too Hard" was a big hit locally, where the Seeds shared venues with other L.A. bands like The Doors, The Byrds, Love, and Buffalo Springfield. Nationally, it broke the top-40, peaking at #36. A second single, "Can't Seem To Make You Mine", a slower number but with the same basic sonic texture as their first single, peaked at #41. The album found fewer takers, peaking at #132.

It was an impressive showing for what had been a minor label issue, and GNP quickly issued A Web Of Sound within months. A Web Of Sound has to be considered the Seeds' magnum opus. On first listen, it doesn't sound very dissimilar to the debut; fuzzed guitars, rudimentary organ melodies, Saxon's growl. However, the band had absorbed some of the flower power sounds blossoming all around them at the time, particularly raga rock and psychedelic guitar. The band was quite drugged at this point; the result is the punk of the debut with a psychedelic hypnotic overlay. Hooper's organ lines get languid and trancey, as on the single "Mr. Farmer", the title character the grower of seeds of another variety. "Up In Her Room" takes us through an 11-minute account of Saxon's lovemaking, with Hooper's organ going round in circles and Savage playing the same riff, over and over. None of it sounds indulgent; it all comes across as sincere. Marcus Tybalt contributed some wacked out liner notes.

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