Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1202 (starts 1/12/12)

This week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is dedicated to Sean Bonniwell, who passed away on Dec. 20th 2011 of lung cancer. I thought about doing a tribute set in the second hour, but then hit upon an idea that I think Bonniwell himself would have appreciated: a Music Machine track in every song set. The result is a show with no less than eleven tracks from Bonniwell's Music Machine, one of the most underrated garage-psych bands of the late 1960s. Bonniwell was one of the first rock musicians to take a holistic approach to his musical presentation. The name of the band itself reflected Bonniwell's idea to segue directly from song to song for an entire set, never pausing long enough to let members of the audience call out requests that Bonniwell had no desire to play. Visually, the Music Machine had a look all their own, with all the members dressing entirely in black (including dying their hair) and wearing one glove on stage, years before Michael Jackson did his first moonwalk. The songs themselves showed a sophistication seldom, if ever, heard among their contemporaries. Elements of Bonniwell's music can be heard in later bands such as the Doors (Ray Manzarek's keyboard work has much in common with that of organist Doug Rhodes) and Iron Butterfly (in particular Doug Ingle's vocal style). In addition to the Music Machine tracks we have nearly two dozen more tunes by the usual variety of artists, including one or two you probably never heard of as well as some old favorites like Jimi Hendrix, the Standells and even the Grateful Dead. See the songlist below for details.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: Some Other Drum
Source: CD: Turn On
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Collectables
Year: 1966
The Music Machine is best known for its high energy arrangements and snarling vocals, as typified by their greatest hit Talk Talk. Some Other Drum, from the Music Machine's debut LP, shows a different side of Sean Bonniwell's songwriting. Sounding a bit like the Lovin' Spoonful, Some Other Drum emphasizes the more traditional elements of pop songwriting such as a catchy melody and layered harmonies and shows that Bonniwell, if he wanted to, could probably have been quite successful if he had chosen to go that route.

Artist: Beatles
Title: Words Of Love
Source: CD: Beatles For Sale (released in US on LP: Beatles VI)
Writer: Buddy Holly
Label: Parlophone (US label: Capitol)
Year: 1964 (US release: 1965)
By 1964 John Lennon and Paul McCartney were already well on their way to becoming one of the most successful songwriting teams in history. Despite this, the Beatles continued to record cover tunes such as Words Of Love, which had been one of Buddy Holly's biggest hits (and one of the few without a co-writing credit for producer Norm Petty). It wasn't until 1965, with the release of Rubber Soul, that the Beatles would write 100% of the material that they recorded.

Artist: Love
Title: My Little Red Book
Source: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Love)
Writer: Bacharach/David
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
My Little Red Book was a song originally composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for the soundtrack of the movie What's New Pussycat and performed by Manfred Mann. I think it's safe to say that Bacharach and David did not intend the song to sound anything like this recording by Love, the first rock record ever released on the Elektra label.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: Absolutely Positively
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
I'm going to use Sean Bonniwell's own words to describe Absolutely Positively: "Demanding that you get what you don't have without knowing what you want is the same as wanting what you haven't got, then not wanting it after you get it." Heady stuff that describes a very American attitude that has only become even more prevalent in the years since the song was written.

Artist: Byrds
Title: Mind Gardens
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer: David Crosby
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Mind Gardens is a perfect example of what songwriter David Crosby refers to as "one of those weird David Crosby songs". The song is a deliberate attempt at abandoning Western concepts such as chord progressions in favor of a more modal approach favored in Eastern composing. Roger McGuinn's guitar perfectly compliments Crosby's esoteric lyrics and melody on this track from the Younger Than Yesterday album, the last LP to be completed with Crosby as a full member of the Byrds.

Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Castles Made Of Sand
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
When I was a junior in high school I used to fall asleep on the living room couch with the headphones on, usually listening to pre-recorded tapes of either the Beatles' Revolver album or one of the first two album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One song in particular from the second Hendrix album, Axis: Bold As Love, always gave me a chill when I heard it: Castles Made Of Sand. The song serves as a warning not to put too much faith in your dreams, and stands in direct contrast to the usual goal-oriented American attitude.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: Beyond The Garage
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1967
After the success of Talk Talk, the Music Machine issued a series of unsuccessful singles on the Original Sound label. Band leader Sean Bonniwell attributed this lack of success to mismanagement by record company people and the band's own manager. Eventually those singles would be re-issued on Warner Brothers on an album called Bonniwell Music Machine, along with a handful of new songs. One of the best of these singles was Double Yellow Line, which Bonniwell said he wrote while driving to a gig. This seems to be a good place to mention the rest of the original Music Machine lineup, which consisted of Mark Landon on lead guitar. Ron Edgar on drums, Doug Rhodes on organ and Keith Olsen on bass. This lineup would dissolve before the release of the Bonniwell Music Machine album but was featured on the majority of tracks on the LP nonetheless.

Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Bringing Home The Bacon
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1973
After the departure of original lead guitarist Robin Trower, the remaining members of Procol Harum continued to record quality albums such as Grand Hotel, although their airplay was limited to sporadic plays on progressive FM stations. One song that probably should have gotten more attention than it did was Bringing Home The Bacon, from the aforementioned Grand Hotel album. The group would experience a brief return to top 40 radio the following year with the release of their live version of Conquistador, a track that originally appeared on the band's 1967 debut LP.

Artist: Leslie West
Title: Blood Of The Sun
Source: 45 RPM single B side (single taken from LP: Mountain)
Writer: West/Pappaliardi/Collins
Label: Windfall
Year: 1969
After the Vagrants disbanded guitarist Leslie Weinstein changed his last name to West and recorded a solo album called Mountain. Helping him with the project was producer Felix Pappaliardi, who had previously worked with Cream on their Disraeli Gears and Wheels Of Fire albums. The two meshed so well that they decided to form a band with drummer Corky Laing, using the name Mountain. One of the first gigs by the new band was the Woodstock festival, where they played Blood Of The Sun to an enthusiastic crowd. This week, making its Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut, we have the original studio version of the tune.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: The People In Me
Source: CD: Turn On
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
After Talk Talk soared into the upper reaches of the US charts the Music Machine's management made a tactical error. Instead of promoting the follow-up single, The People In Me, to the largest possible audience, the band's manager gave exclusive air rights to a new station at the far end of the Los Angeles AM radio dial. As local bands like the Music Machine depended on airplay in L.A. as a necessary step to getting national exposure, the move proved disastrous. Without any airplay on influential stations such as KFI, The People In Me was unable to get any higher than the # 66 spot on the national charts. Even worse for the band, the big stations remembered the slight when subsequent singles by the Music Machine were released, and by mid-1967 the original lineup had disbanded.

Artist: Doors
Title: Unhappy Girl
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
After the success of their first album and the single Light My Fire in early 1967, the Doors quickly returned to the studio, releasing a second LP, Strange Days, later the same year. The first single released from the new album was People Are Strange. The B side of that single was Unhappy Girl, from the same album. Both sides got played on the jukebox at a place called the Woog in the village of Meisenbach near Ramstein Air Force Base (which is where I was spending most of my evenings that autumn).

Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Overdrive
Source: LP: Sailor
Writer: Boz Scaggs
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
The Steve Miller Band, in its early years, was in a sense an American version of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, serving as a launching pad for the careers of Ben Sidran and Boz Scaggs, among others. This early Scaggs tune shows a harder-edged side to the Boz than most of his later solo hits.

Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Doin' That Rag
Source: CD: Aoxomoxoa
Writer: Hunter/Garcia/Lesh
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1969
After spending six months on their second LP, Anthem Of The Sun (and going way overbudget in the process), the Grateful Dead reeled things in a bit (but not all that much) for their third effort, Aoxomoxoa. Like Anthem Of The Sun, Aoxomoxoa still combined live recordings with studio overdubs, but the individual songs were shorter and more distinct than on the previous effort. One good example is Doin' That Rag, a song that inexplicably disappeared from the band's live repertoire relatively quickly.

Artist: Standells
Title: Riot On Sunset Strip
Source: CD: Best Of The Standells (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on movie soundtrack LP: Riot On Sunset Strip)
Writer: Valentino/Fleck
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Anyone who doubts just how much influence bands like the Standells had on the punk-rock movement of the late 1970s need only listen to this 1967 track from the movie Riot On Sunset Strip. The track sounds like it could have been an early Ramones recording. The song itself (and the movie) were based on a real life event. Local L.A. business owners had been complaining about the unruliness and rampant drug usage among the teens hanging out in front of the various underage clubs that had been springing up on Sunset Strip in the wake of the success of the Whisky-A-Go-Go, and in late 1966 the Los Angeles Police Department was called in to do something about the problem. What followed was a full-blown riot which ultimately led to local laws being passed that put many of the clubs out of business and severely curtailed the ability of the rest to make a profit. By 1968 the entire scene was a thing of the past, with the few remaining clubs converting to a more traditional over-21 approach.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: Astrologically Incompatible
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1967
Astrologically Incompatible, in addition to being one of the first known rock songs to make references to the signs of the zodiac (which would become fashionable in the following decade), marks a transition point in the history of the Music Machine. One of the last tracks recorded by the original lineup, it was also the B side of the first single released under the name Bonniwell Music Machine on Warner Brothers. The horn overdubs were played by Bonniwell himself and organist Doug Rhodes, using then state-of-the-art 8-track technology.

Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year: 1967
Starting off this week's show is one of the iconic songs of the summer of love. Interestingly enough, this was supposed to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash, but somehow ended up getting all the airplay. I haven't bothered to actually count, but I wouldn't be surprised to find I have more copies of this particular song than any other. It appears on just about every collection of psychedelic music ever assembled, it seems. I do have a copy of the original 45, but when I bring that in I generally play...you guessed it, The Birdman of Alkatrash.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: Trouble
Source: LP: Turn On
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
Sean Bonniwell had definite plans for the Music Machine's first album. His primary goal was to have all original material (with the exception of a slowed-down version of Billy Roberts' Hey Joe that he and fellow songwriter Tim Rose had been working on; before you ask, both Rose and the Music Machine recorded it before Jimi Hendrix did). Unfortunately, the shirts at Original Sound Records did not take their own company name seriously and inserted four cover songs that the band had recorded for a local TV show. The best way to listen to Turn On The Music Machine, then, is to program your CD player to skip all the extra cover songs. Listened to that way, the album becomes an 8-song EP and this track becomes the second song on the disc, following the classic Talk Talk.

Artist: Leaves
Title: Hey Joe
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Billy Roberts
Label: Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year: 1966
In 1966 there were certain songs you had to know how to play if you had any aspirations of being in a band. Among those were Louie Louie, Gloria and Hey Joe. David Crosby claims to have discovered Hey Joe, but was not able to convince his bandmates to record it before their third album. In the meantime, several other bands had recorded the song, including Love (on their first album) and the Leaves. The version of Hey Joe heard here is actually the third recording the Leaves made of the tune. After the first two versions tanked, guitarist Bobby Arlin came up with the idea of adding fuzz guitar to the song. It was the missing element that transformed a rather bland song into a hit record (the only national hit the Leaves would have). As a side note, the Leaves credited Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) as the writer of Hey Joe, but California-based folk singer Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962 and had reportedly been heard playing the tune as early as 1958.

Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Oh Yeah
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Elias McDaniel
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
The original British blues bands like the Yardbirds made no secret of the fact that they had created their own version of a music that had come from Chicago. The Shadows Of Knight, on the other hand, were a Chicago band that created their own version of the British blues, bringing the whole thing full circle. After taking their version of Van Morrison's Gloria into the top 10 early in 1966, the Shadows (which had added "of Knight" to their name just prior to releasing Gloria) decided to follow it up with an updated version of Bo Diddley's Oh Yeah. Although the song did not have a lot of national top 40 success, it did help establish the Shadows' reputation as one of the premier garage-punk bands.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: The Day Today
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released
Writer: Bonniwell/Olsen
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1967
For some unknown reason, every person who wrote a song in the late 1960s wrote a song like The Day Today; a slow, somewhat sappy tune with a kind of hokey spoken section in place of an instrumental break. (I even wrote one myself called Leaves. I cringe every time I think of it.) The odd thing about The Day Today is that it is a rare instance of Sean Bonniwell collaborating with another songwriter (in this case Music Machine bassist Keith Olsen, who himself was about to embark on a career as a record producer). What possessed people to write things like this is beyond me, but just in case you are one of the few that can appreciate this sort of song, here it is. The rest of us can take comfort in the fact that the track is less than three minutes long.

Artist: Turtles
Title: To See The Sun
Source: The Turtles-1968
Writer: The Turtles
Label: Rhino
Year: 1968
In 1968 the Turtles, feeling restricted by the dictates of producers and record company people, decided to rent studio time to produce some tracks of their own. The result was four songs, three of which were rejected outright by their label, White Whale. (The fourth track, Surfer Joe, made it onto their Battle of the Bands album). Several years later a new local L.A. record label, Rhino Records, was looking to move beyond the niche it had carved out for itself as a novelty label. The chance to make previously unreleased material such as To See The Sun from a band as well-known as the Turtles was just what the label was looking for, and, along with re-releasing long out-of-print Turtles albums, got the label moving in a whole new direction that they continue to excel at.

Artist: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Title: Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Source: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Writer: Stephen Stills
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
After the demise of Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills headed for New York, where he worked with Al Kooper on the Super Session album and recorded several demo tapes of his own, including a new song called Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (reportedly written for his then-girlfriend Judy Collins). After his stint in New York he returned to California, where he started hanging out in the Laurel Canyon home of David Crosby, who had been fired from the Byrds in 1967. Crosby's house at that time was generally filled with a variety of people coming and going, and Crosby and Stills soon found themselves doing improvised harmonies on each other's material in front of a friendly, if somewhat stoned, audience. It was not long before they invited Graham Nash, whom they heard had been having problems of his own with his bandmates in the Hollies, to come join them in Laurel Canyon. The three soon began recording together, and in 1969 released the album Crosby, Stills and Nash. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was chosen as the opening track for the new album and was later released (in edited form) as a single.

Artist: Front Line
Title: Got Love
Source: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Lanigan/Philipet
Label: Rhino (original label: York)
Year: 1965
The Front Line was a band from San Rafael, California whose story in many ways was typical of their time. Marin County, being a fairly upscale place, had its share of clubs catering to the sons and daughters of its affluent residents. Of course, these teens wanted to hear live performances of their favorite top 40 tunes and bands like the Front Line made a decent enough living catering to their preferences. Like most bands of the time, the Front Line had one song that was of their own creation, albeit one that was somewhat derivative of the kinds of tunes they usually performed so as not to scare off their audience. That song was Got Love, which was released on the York label in 1965.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: CD: Turn On (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
The Music Machine's big hit.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: Come On In
Source: CD: Turn On (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
The B side of the Music Machine's big hit.

Artist: Seeds
Title: Mr. Farmer
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: A Web Of Sound)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
With two tracks (Can't Seem To Make You Mine and Pushin' Too Hard) from their first album getting decent airplay on L.A. radio stations in 1966 the Seeds headed back to the studio to record a second LP, A Web Of Sound. The first single released from the album was Mr. Farmer, a song that once again did well locally. The only national hit for the Seeds came when Pushin' Too Hard was re-released in December of 1966, hitting its national peak the following spring.

Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: San Franciscan Nights
Source: Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals (originally released on LP: Winds of Change and as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
In late 1966, after losing several original members over a period of about a year, the original Animals disbanded. Eric Burdon, after releasing one single as a solo artist (but using the Animals name), decided to form a "new" Animals. After releasing a moderately successful single, When I Was Young, the new band appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. While in the area, the band fell in love with the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, during what came to be called the Summer Of Love. The first single to be released from their debut album, Winds Of Change, was a tribute to the city by the bay called San Franciscan Nights. Because of the topicality of the song's subject matter, San Franciscan Nights was not released in the UK as a single. Instead, the song Good Times (which was the US B side of the record), became the new group's biggest UK hit to date (and one of the Animals' biggest UK hits overall). Eventually San Franciscan Nights was released as a single in the UK as well (with a different B side) and ended up doing quite well.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: Me, Myself And I
Source: Beyond The Garage
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1968
With the members of the original Music Machine gone their separate ways, Sean Bonniwell recruited a whole new lineup to record and perform as the Bonniwell Music Machine. The new lineup included Guile Wisdom on lead guitar, Jerry Harris on drums, Harry Garfield on organ and Eddie Jones on bass. The new lineup provided a handful of tracks for the LP Bonniwell Music Machine in 1967 and released three singles on Warner Brothers, none of which made any headway on the charts, despite being among Bonniwell's best songs. The first of the singles was Me, Myself And I, a song that Bonniwell himself described as "punk pop" and one that presaged the "me first" attitude that would characterize the disco era in the late 70s.

Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Bad Moon Rising
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer: John Fogerty
Label: Rhino
Year: 1969
It's a mystery to me why the Woodstock movie completely ignores the presence of Creedence Clearwater Revival, especially considering that they were at their commercial peak at the time of the performance. Bad Moon Rising was one of a series of consecutive hits for the band that each made it just short of the top of the charts, stalling out at # 2.

Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer: McKinley Morganfield
Label: United Artists (original label: Sonobeat)
Year: 1968
Johnny Winter's first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, was originally released in 1968 on the Texas-based Sonobeat label. The album featured a mix of Winter originals and blues cover tunes such as the Muddy Waters classic Rollin' And Tumblin'. A ctitical success, the album was picked up and reissued on the Imperial label a year later.

Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: I Need A Man To Love
Source: LP:Cheap Thrills
Writer: Joplin/Andrew
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Big Brother and the Holding Company recorded their first album at the Chicago studios of Mainstream records in 1967. Mainstream, however, was a jazz label and their engineers had no idea how to make a band like Big Brother sound good. When the band signed to Columbia the following year it was decided that the best way to record the band was onstage at the Fillmore West. As a result, when Cheap Thrills was released, four of the seven tracks were live recordings, including the Janis Joplin/Peter Albin collaboration I Need A Man To Love.

Artist: Music Machine
Title: Soul Love
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1968
The B side of the first single released by the second version of the Bonniwell Music Machine was a wild R&B/punk piece called Soul Love, which features an instrumental section that seemingly goes on forever but in fact lasts barely more than a minute. Compared to the usual Bonniwell song, which generally managed to pack in as much substance in less than two and a half minutes than most modern songs have in twice that amount of time, Soul Love is practically a jam session.