Weekly Artist Overview: The Seeds - Page 2

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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