Sunday Music: The Seeds

The 1968 hippiesploitation movie Psych-Out has, judging from the trailer, much to recommend it. It stars a young Jack Nicholson as uber-cool rock guitarist "Stoney,"with a supporting cast that includes Dean Stockwell, Bruce Dern, and indie film maker Henry Jaglom. The plot appears to be a little Easy Rider with a dash of Reefer Madness. Beautiful deaf-mute runaway girl? Check. Rapacious hippie-hating thugs? Check. Bad acid trip where guy tries to cut off his own hand? Check. In contrast, The Trip, made in 1967, has Peter Fonda running wildly through the woods wearing a peasant blouse while the Death character from "The Seventh Seal" chases him. That's a very bad trip.

Psych-Out was supposed to take place in San Francisco, but it featured two well-known Los Angeles bands: The Strawberry Alarm Clock and The Seeds. The Strawberry Alarm Clock are best known for "Incense and Peppermints," which reached number one on the Billboard charts in 1967. The Seeds, with only one national hit, "Pushin' Too Hard," held close to their garage rock roots. Widely admired by other musicians, their blues-inflected sound was not embraced by the general public, at least outside of Southern California.

In 1970, lead singer Sky Saxon joined the Yahowha cult, and released several records as The Yahowha 13. The community disbanded after their leader, Father Yod, died in a hang-gliding mishap. Saxon, who is now called "Sunlight" Sky Saxon, always seems to have several projects going, judging from his Google search results. The most recent seems to be the group King Arthur's Court.

If you were suffering from a far-out deficiency, the preceding paragraph should have set you right. Here's a couple of lesser-known selections:




Trailer for Psych-Out [Link]

Psych-Out at BadMovies.org [Link]