https://exchange.prx.org/p/562190
We're keeping things on an even keel this week, with each segment containing exactly eight songs, one of which exceeds the five minute mark. We do have one artists' set, however, and the show itself starts with what might actually qualify as an early rap song...
Artist: Plastic Ono Band
Title: Give Peace A Chance
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1969
The future of the Beatles was very much in doubt in 1969. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were feuding, Ringo Starr had briefly quit the band during the making of the White Album and George Harrison was spending more time with friends like Eric Clapton than his own bandmates. One notable event that year was the marraige of John Lennon to performance artist Yoko Ono. The two of them did some world traveling that eventually led them to Toronto, where they staged a giant slumber party to promote world peace (don't ask). While in bed they recorded Give Peace A Chance, accompanied by as many people as they could fit in their hotel suite. The record was the first single released under the name Plastic Ono Band, a name that Lennon would continue to use after the Beatles disbanded in 1970.
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nugent/Farmer
Label: Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
Detroit was one of the major centers of pop music in the late 60s. In addition to the myriad Motown acts, the area boasted the popular retro-rock&roll band Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the harder rocking Bob Seger System, the non-Motown R&B band the Capitols, and Ted Nugent's outfit, the Amboy Dukes, who scored big in 1968 with Journey To The Center Of The Mind.
Artist: Doors
Title: Strange Days
Source: CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Strange Days)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
One of the first rock albums to not picture the band members on the front cover was the Doors' second LP, Strange Days. Instead, the cover featured several circus performers doing various tricks on a city street, with the band's logo appearing on a poster on the wall of a building. The album itself contains some of the Doors' most memorable tracks, including the title song, which also appears on their greatest hits album (which has Jim Morrison's picture on the cover) despite never being released as a single.
Artist: Leaves
Title: Hey Joe
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Billy Roberts
Label: Elektra (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. The Byrds' 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, who had recently replaced founding member Bill Rinehart on lead guitar, 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: Grass Roots
Title: Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 6-Punk, Part Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1965
In late 1965 songwriters/producers P.F. Sloan (Eve of Destruction) and Steve Barri decided to create a series of records by a band called the Grass Roots. The problem was that the existing L.A. band calling itself the Grass Roots had no interest in recording for Sloan and Barri. Angered by being treated rudely by one of the band members, Sloan and Barri did a little research and came to the realization that the existing Grass Roots had not legally copyrighted the name, so Sloan and Barri did so themselves and then found another band to record as the Grass Roots. This of course forced the existing band to come up with a new name, but that's a story for another time. Meanwhile, the band Sloan and Barri recruited was the Bedouins, one of the early San Francisco bands. As the rush to sign SF bands was still months away, the Bedouins were more than happy to record the songs Sloan and Barri picked out for them. The first single by the newly-named Grass Roots was a cover of Bob Dylan's Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man). The band soon got to work promoting the single to Southern California radio stations, but with both the Byrds and the Turtles already on the charts with Dylan covers it soon became obvious that the market was becoming saturated with folk-rock. After a period of months the band, who wanted more freedom to write and record their own material, had a falling out with Sloan and Barri and it wasn't long before they moved back to San Francisco, leaving drummer Joel Larson in L.A. The group, with another drummer, continued to perform as the Grass Roots until Dunhill Records ordered them to stop. Eventually Dunhill would hire a local L.A. band called the 13th Floor (not to be confused with Austin, Texas's 13th Floor Elevators) to be the final incarnation of the Grass Roots; that group would crank out a series of top 40 hits in the early 70s. The Bedouins never had the opportunity to record again.
Artist: Crosby, Stills And Nash
Title: Wooden Ships
Source: LP: So Far (originally released on LP: Crosby, Stills And Nash)
Writer(s): Crosby/Stills/Kantner
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
Among the various legendary characters on the late 60s San Francisco music scene, none is more reviled than Matthew Katz. His mistreatment of It's A Beautiful Day is legendary. Just about every band he managed was desperate to get out of their contract with him, including Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane. In fact, it was because of the Airplane's fight to get out from under Katz's thumb that Paul Kantner did not get a writing credit for Wooden Ships on the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album. David Crosby had this to say on the matter: "Paul called me up and said that he was having this major duke-out with this horrible guy who was managing the band, and he was freezing everything their names were on. 'He might injunct the release of your record,' he told me. So we didn’t put Paul’s name on it for a while. In later versions, we made it very certain that he wrote it with us. Of course, we evened things up with him with a whole mess of cash when the record went huge." Although Jefferson Airplane eventually won their battle with Katz, others weren't so fortunate. Katz's San Francisco Sound still owns the rights to recordings by Moby Grape and It's A Beautiful Day, which explains why it's so hard to find quality copies of those recordings these days. Anyone want to take a guess how much the surviving members of those bands receive in royalties from the CD reissues of their albums?
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Back To The Family
Source: CD: Stand Up
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol
Year: 1969
The second Jethro Tull album, Stand Up, shows a band in transition from its roots in the British blues-rock scene to a group entirely dominated by the musical vision of vocalist/flautist/composer Ian Anderson. Back To The Family is sometimes cited as an early example of the style that the band would be come to known for on later albums such as Aqualung or Thick As A Brick.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Brainwashed
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1970
Starting in 1966, Ray Davies started taking satirical potshots at a variety of targets, with songs like A Well Respected Man, Dedicated Follower of Fashion and the classic tax-protest song Sunny Afternoon. This trend continued over the next few years, although few new Kinks songs were heard on US radio stations until the band released the international hit Lola in 1970. One single that got some minor airplay in the US was the song Victoria, from the album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). The B side of that track was Brainwashed, one of the hardest rocking Kinks tunes since their early 1964 hits like You Really Got Me.
Artist: Harbinger Complex
Title: I Think I'm Down
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Writer: Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label: Rhino (original label: Brent)
Year: 1966
Most garage/club bands never made it beyond a single or two for a relatively small independent label. The Harbinger Complex, from Freemont, California, however, benefitted from a talent search conducted by Bob Shad, owner of Mainstream Records. The band was one of about half a dozen acts from the Bay Area to be signed by Shad in July of 1966, with the single I Think I'm Down appearing on the Brent label later that year. The song was also included on Shad's Mainstream sampler LP, With Love-A Pot Of Flowers, in 1967.
Artist: Chocolate Watch Band
Title: No Way Out
Source: CD: No Way Out
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
The Chocolate Watch Band, from the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area (specifically Foothills Junior College in Los Altos Hills), was fairly typical of the South Bay music scene, centered in San Jose. Although they were generally known for lead vocalist Dave Aguilar's ability to channel Mick Jagger with uncanny accuracy, producer Ed Cobb gave them a more psychedelic sound in the studio with the use of studio effects and other enhancements (including additional songs on their albums that were performed entire by studio musicians). The title track of No Way Out, released as the band's debut LP in 1967, is credited to Cobb, but in reality is a fleshing out of a jam the band had previously recorded, but had not released. That original jam, known as Psychedelic Trip, is now available as a mono bonus track on the No Way Out CD and as a limited edition Record Store Day single B side from a few years back.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Combination Of The Two
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Sam Andrew
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Everything about Big Brother And The Holding Company can be summed up by the title of the opening track for their Cheap Thrills album (and their usual show opener as well): Combination Of The Two. A classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, Big Brother, with Janis Joplin on lead vocals, had an energy that neither Joplin or the band itself was able to duplicate once they parted company. On the song itself, the actual lead vocals for the verses are the work of Combination Of The Two's writer, bassist Sam Houston Andrew III, but those vocals are eclipsed by the layered non-verbal chorus that starts with Joplin then repeats itself with Andrew providing a harmony line which leads to Joplin's promise to "rock you, sock you, gonna give it to you now". It was a promise that the group seldom failed to deliver on.
Artist: Sly and the Family Stone
Title: Everyday People
Source: CD: The Essential Sly & The Family Stone (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Sylvester Stewart
Label: Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
Sylvester Stewart, aka Sly Stone, is of course known for his band, the Family Stone, that is recognized as one of the first "funk" bands. But Sly Stone was far more influential on the San Francisco music scene than most people realize. As a staff producer for Autumn Records, he worked with a variety of up and coming artists, including the Beau Brummels, Bobby Freeman and a group called Great Society that featured a fashion model turned vocalist named Grace Slick. He was also a popular disc jockey on KSOL (which he identified as "K-Soul"), where he acted as sort of a reverse Allan Freed, bringing the music of white bands like the Beatles and Rolling Stones to a black audience. He also played keyboards behind a variety of touring artists (a common practice of the time being to hire local musicians to back up pop stars rather than have them bring their own band on the road), including Dionne Warwick, Marvin Gaye, the Righteous Brothers, Freddy Cannon and a host of others. In 1966 Stewart formed his own band, the Stoners, which evolved into Sly And The Family Stone the following year. The band's first three albums were moderate successes at best, but they sold well enough for the band to continue to develop its sound. In November of 1968, Sly And The Family Stone had their commercial breakthrough with the release of Everyday People, a song that topped both the mainstream and R&B charts in early 1969, going on to become the fifth most popular song of the entire year. The song's repeated line "Different strokes for different folks" became a catchphrase of the younger generation and eventually inspired a popular TV show. For that matter, so did the line "And so on, and so on and scooby dooby doo".
Artist: Spanky And Our Gang
Title: Sunday Will Never Be The Same
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Pistilli/Cashman
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
The terms "rock star" and, for that matter "rock music", did not come into common usage until the late 1960s. Prior to that we had "pop stars" singing "pop songs", which included virtually everything that made it into the top 40, from Dean Martin ballads like Everybody Loves Somebody Sometimes to funky James Brown tunes like Papa's Got A Brand New Bag. One of the last of the true pop groups was Spanky And Our Gang. Actually more artistically oriented than they are generally given credit for, Spanky And Our Gang were saddled with a producer who was more concerned with getting an album out quickly to cash in on a hit single than making a quality record. The hit single in question was Sunday Will Never Be The Same, which, despite the band achieving success with other tunes as well, came to define the band in the minds of record buyers, and actually hobbled their efforts to be seen as more than just a Mamas and Papas clone. Not long after the death of multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Hale (from either bronchial pneumonia or carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty heating system, depending on whose account you read), who had been the group's primary arranger and de facto leader, Spanky And Our Gang disbanded, with lead vocalist Spanky McFarlane going on to a solo career and eventual membership in the Mamas And The Papas as Cass Elliot's replacement.
Artist: New Dawn
Title: Slave Of Desire
Source: British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Leonti/Supnet
Label: Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1967
New Dawn, from the small town of Morgan Hill, California (a few miles south of San Jose), was not really a band. Rather, it was a trio of singer/songwriters who utilized the services of various local bands for live performances and studio musicians for their recordings. Schoolmates Tony Supnet, who also played guitar, Mike Leonti and Donnie Hill formed the group in 1961, originally calling themselves the Countdowns. They released a pair of singles on the local Link label, the second of which was recorded at San Francisco's Golden State Recorders. It was around that time that Bob Shad, owner of Mainstream Records, was in the Bay Area on a talent search. Shad was holding his auditions at Golden State, giving bands that had already recorded there an automatic in. Shad was impressed enough to offer the trio a contract, which resulted in a pair of singles using the name New Dawn. Although most of the group's material could best be described as light pop, the B side of the second single, a tune called Slave Of Desire, was much grittier. Leonti is the lead vocalist on the track, which, like the group's other recordings, utilized the talents of local studio musicians.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Manic Depression
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
My dad bought an Akai X-355 reel to reel tape recorder when we moved to Ramstein, Germany in early 1968. It was pretty much the state of the art in home audio technology at the time. The problem was that we did not have a stereo system to hook it into, so he bought a set of Koss headphones to go with it. One of my first purchases was a pre-recorded reel to reel tape of Are You Experienced. The Akai had an auto-reverse system and I would lie on the couch with the headphones on to go to sleep every night listening to songs like Manic Depression. Is it any wonder I turned out like I did?
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Ruby Tuesday
Source: LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
One of the most durable songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Ruby Tuesday was originally intended to be the B side of their 1967 single Let's Spend The Night Together. Many stations, however, balked at the subject matter of the A side and began playing Ruby Tuesday instead, taking it to the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Although credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, there is evidence that Ruby Tuesday was actually written by Richards with considerable help from Brian Jones.
Artist: Monks
Title: Drunken Maria
Source: German import CD: Black Monk Time
Writer(s): Burger/Spangler/Havlicek/Johnston/Shaw
Label: Repertoire (original label: Polydor International)
Year: 1966
The Monks were ahead of their time. In fact they were so far ahead of their time that only in the next century did people start to realize just how powerful the music on their first and only LP actually was. Released in West Germany in 1966, Black Monk Time both delighted and confused record buyers with songs like Drunken Maria, which has an intro section that's about twice as long as the actual song, which itself is just one line repeated over and over. The Monks were a group of five American GIs (probably draftees) who, while stationed at Frankfurt, managed to come up with the idea of a rock band that looked and dressed like Monks (including the shaved patch on the top of each member's head) and sounded like nothing else in the world at that time. Of course, such a phenomenon can't sustain itself indefinitely, and the group disappeared in early 1967, never to be seen or heard from again.
Artist: Monkees
Title: (Theme From) The Monkees
Source: CD: The Monkees)
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1966
Fun facts about the Monkees: Songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart got involved in the whole Monkees thing thinking that a) The Monkees would be an actual performing band that happened to be stars of their own TV show, and b) they (Boyce and Hart) would be core members of the band itself. They even recorded a demo of the Monkees theme song. The powers that be, however, decided (after briefly considering making the show about the Lovin' Spoonful) that using four guys from entirely different backgrounds who were almost complete strangers was a better idea [shrugs]. Everyone knows that the Monkees did not play their own instruments on their first two albums, but did you know that there is not a single song on the first LP that features all four members on it, even as vocalists? Most of the backup vocals, in fact, were provided by studio musicians.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Porpoise Song
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Head soundtrack)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1968
In 1968 the Monkees, trying desperately to shed a teeny-bopper image, enlisted Jack Nicholson to co-write a feature film that was a 180-degree departure from their recently-cancelled TV show. This made sense, since the original fans of the show were by then already outgrowing the group. Unfortunately, by 1968 the Monkees brand was irrevocably tainted by the fact that the Monkees had not been allowed to play their own instruments on their first two albums. The movie Head itself was the type of film that was best suited to being shown in theaters that specialized in "art" films, but that audience was among the most hostile to the Monkees and the movie bombed. It is now considered a cult classic.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Last Train To Clarksville
Source: CD: The Monkees
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1966
The song that introduced the world to the Monkees, Last Train To Clarksville, was actually a bit of an anomaly for the group. For one thing, most of the early Monkees recordings utilized the services of various Los Angeles based studio musicians known collectively as the Wrecking Crew. Last Train To Clarksville, however, was recorded by the Candy Store Prophets, a local band that included Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who wrote and produced the song (Boyce and Hart originally had hopes of being members of the Monkees themselves, but had to wait until the 1980s to see that happen). The song was released as a single on August 16, 1966, two months in advance of the first Monkees album, and hit the #1 spot on the charts in early November. Last Train To Clarksville was also included in seven episodes of the Monkees TV show, the most of any song.
Artist: Hollies
Title: Bus Stop
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Imperial
Year: 1966
The Hollies already had a string of British hit singles when they recorded Bus Stop in 1966. The song, written by Graham Gouldman (later of 10cc), was their first song to make the US top 10, peaking at #5. Gouldman later said the idea for the song came to him as he was riding on a bus. His father, playwrite Hyme Gouldman, provided the song's opening line "Bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say please share my umbrella" and Graham built the rest of the song around it.
Artist: Phil Ochs
Title: Flower Lady
Source: CD: The Best Of Phil Ochs (originally released on LP: Pleasures Of The Harbor)
Writer(s): Phil Ochs
Label: A&M
Year: 1967
Singer/songwriter Phil Ochs first started making a name for himself in 1962 playing protest songs (although he preferred to call them "topical songs") in the coffee houses and folk clubs of New York's Greenwich Village. By the summer of 1963 he was well-enough known to secure a spot in the Newport Folk Festival. The following year he recorded his first of three albums for Elektra Records, then a small New York based folk and blues label. By 1967, however, Ochs decided to make some drastic changes in his life, moving from New York to Los Angeles and from Elektra to the more commercially-oriented A&M label co-owned by trumpet player Herb Alpert. His music underwent radical changes as well. Whereas his Elektra material was mainly Ochs accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, his A&M material was much more lavishly produced. For example Flower Lady, from his LP Pleasures Of The Harbor, runs over six minutes in length and features a chamber orchestra. Ochs himself later said that he had gone overboard with the song's production techniques (knowing Ochs, the pun was probably intentional). Nonetheless, hearing Flower Lady now is as unique an experience as it was in 1967.
Artist: H.P. Lovecraft
Title: At The Mountains Of Madness
Source: CD: Two Classic Albums From H.P. Lovecraft (originally released on LP: H.P. Lovecraft II)
Writer(s): Edwards/Michaels/Cavallari
Label: Collector's Choice/Universal Music Special Products (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
The second H.P. Lovecraft album was even more psychedelic than the first, and had more original compositions as well. Lovecraft's Chicago-based psychedelia, however, was much closer to British bands such as Pink Floyd than what was being heard out on the West Coast, as can be heard on the five minute long track At The Mountains Of Madness.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Octopus's Garden
Source: CD: Abbey Road
Writer: Richard Starkey
Label: Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year: 1969
In the Beatles's early years, guitarist George Harrison was generally allotted one song per album as a songwriter. Around 1966 this began to change, as Harrison's songwriting began to be featured more prominently. In 1968 drummer Ringo Starr stepped into the role of one song per album songwriter, with his first recorded song, Don't Pass Me By, being included on the so-called White Album. The band's finally LP, Abbey Road, included another Starr song, Octopus's Garden, which, unlike the former tune, actually got occassional airplay on both AM and FM stations.
Artist: Crow
Title: Cottage Cheese (long version)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Weigand/Waggoner
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1970, released 2013
In late 1970 I found myself living in Alamogordo, NM, which was at the time one of those places that still didn't have an FM station (in fact, the only FM station we could receive was a classical station in Las Cruces, 70 miles away). To make it worse, there were only two AM stations in town, and the only one that played current songs went off the air at sunset. As a result the only way to hear current music at night (besides buying albums without hearing them first) was to "DX" distant AM radio stations. Of these, the one that came in most clearly and consistently was KOMA in Oklahoma City. My friends and I spent many a night driving around with KOMA cranked up, fading in and out as long-distance AM stations always do. One of those nights we were all blown away by a new Crow song called Cottage Cheese, which, due to the conservative nature of the local daytime-only station, was not getting any local airplay. Years later I was lucky enough to find a copy in a thrift store in Albuquerque. More recently I picked up a copy of The Best Of Crow, a 2013 CD collection that includes the original unissued long version of the song as it was usually performed live, including a drum solo from Denny Craswell.
Artist: Santana
Title: Evil Ways
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Santana)
Writer(s): Clarence Henry
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
Evil Ways was originally released in 1968 by jazz percussionist Willie Bobo on an album of the same name. When Carlos Santana took his new band into the studio to record their first LP, they made the song their own, taking it into the top 10 in 1969.
Artist: Bob Seger System
Title: Death Row
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Noah (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Bob Seger
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
I like to play Bob Seger's Death Row, written from the perspective of a convicted murderer waiting to be executed, for fans of the Silver Bullet Band who think that Turn the Page is about as intense as it gets. The song was originally released as the B side of the first Bob Seger System single, 2+2=?, but was not included on the band's debut LP. Later in 1969 a fake stereo mix of the song was tacked onto the end of the group's second LP, Noah, an album which Seger himself has disavowed and has never appeared on CD.
Artist: Cream
Title: We're Going Wrong
Source: Mono European import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer: Jack Bruce
Label: Lilith (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
On Fresh Cream the slowest-paced tracks were bluesy numbers like Sleepy Time Time. For the group's second LP, bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce came up with We're Going Wrong, a song with a haunting melody supplemented by some of Eric Clapton's best guitar fills. Ginger Baker put away his drumsticks in favor of mallets, giving the song an otherworldly feel.
Artist: Troggs
Title: Wild Thing
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Chip Taylor
Label: Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year: 1966
I have a DVD copy of a music video (although back then they were called promotional films) for the Troggs' Wild Thing in which the members of the band are walking through what looks like a train station while being mobbed by girls at every turn. Every time I watch it I imagine singer Reg Presley saying giggity-giggity as he bobs his head.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
The Seeds originally released their biggest hit in late 1965 under the title You're Pushin' Too Hard. It wasn't until the song was re-released in 1966 under the more familiar title Pushin' Too Hard that it became a local L.A. hit, and it wasn't until spring of 1967 that the tune took off nationally. The timing was perfect for me, as the new FM station (KLZ-FM Denver) I was listening to before we moved to Germany was all over it that spring.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: The People In Me
Source: 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
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 relatively low-rated Burbank 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 like KHJ and KRLA, 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, although Bonniwell continued to tour with a new Music Machine for another year.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
One of the Original Sound singles that also appeared on the Warner Brothers LP Bonniwell Music Machine, Double Yellow Line features lyrics that were literally written by Bonniwell on the way to the recording studio. In fact, his inability to stay in his lane while driving with one hand and writing with the other resulted in a traffic ticket. The ever resourceful Bonniwell wrote the rest of the lyrics on the back of the ticket and even invited the officer in to watch the recording session. He declined.
