The Seeds

In 2013, Future was re-released on the Big Beats label featuring outtakes, alternate versions, and extensive liner notes by Alec Palao.
Though the Seeds' third album, 1967's Future, was pegged by critics as the band's attempt to ride the wave of baroque/psychedelic/orchestral magic the Beatles defined with Sgt. Pepper's, the recording was actually complete before the release of the Beatles' far more popular breakthrough album, making it impossible for the influence to touch the uncannily similarly minded flower power tones of Future. The Seeds had their own relatively huge smash with the raw high-pressure garage thumper "Pushin' Too Hard" the year before, and saw nothing wrong with recycling that tune's melody on more than a few songs on their first two albums…

Recorded in the midst of 1966, naturally after the spring release of their debut but before "Pushin' Too Hard" climbed into the national charts in the spring of 1967, A Web of Sound finds the Seeds pushing their sound into new dimensions, happily keeping pace with their Los Angeles contemporaries Love and the Doors. That the Seeds never received the respect accorded to their peers, either then or now, may be partially due to their lack of lyrical ambition, or it could be due to the Hollywood teenage sleaze that seeped out of this quartet led by garage rock icon Sky Saxon. Whatever the Seeds did, it sounded somewhat dirty, a maxim that applies to A Web of Sound even if it lacks singles as hard and filthy as "Pushin' Too Hard"…

Of the great garage punk bands of the 1960s, some were louder (the Sonics), some were angrier (the Music Machine), and some were trippier (the 13th Floor Elevators), but few seemed like a bad influence on so many levels as the Seeds. The Seeds had long hair, a gloriously lamentable fashion sense, an attitude that was at once petulant and lackadaisical, and music that sounded aimless, horny, agitated, and stoned all at once. Is it any wonder America's delinquent youth loved them? The Seeds' aural signature was as distinctive as any band of their era, and they got a bit fancier with their formula as they went along, but they never captured their essential seediness with more impressive concision than they did on their self-titled debut album from 1966…

This deluxe reissue boasts the superlative, punchy mono mix, heretofore unavailable on CD, along with ten bonus tracks - seven of which are previously unissued - thereby doubling the length of the original album. The 36-page booklet examines the Seeds’ early career in unprecedented detail, based on fresh research and interviews with the surviving participants. Keyboard player Daryl Hooper - the true architect of the Seeds sound - opened his files to share a swathe of incredible, rarely seen illustrations.
Of the great garage punk bands of the 1960s, some were louder (the Sonics), some were angrier (the Music Machine), and some were trippier (the 13th Floor Elevators), but few seemed like a bad influence on so many levels as the Seeds…

Though the Seeds' third album, 1967's Future, was pegged by critics as the band's attempt to ride the wave of baroque/psychedelic/orchestral magic the Beatles defined with Sgt. Pepper's, the recording was actually complete before the release of the Beatles' far more popular breakthrough album, making it impossible for the influence to touch the uncannily similarly minded flower power tones of Future. The Seeds had their own relatively huge smash with the raw high-pressure garage thumper "Pushin' Too Hard" the year before, and saw nothing wrong with recycling that tune's melody on more than a few songs on their first two albums…

As they unwittingly proved with their overly ambitious concept album Future, the Seeds were at their best when they kept things simple and to the point, and in 1968, uncertain where to go next after Future tanked, the band decided it would be a good idea to document their energetic live show with a concert album. However, in order to best control the audio, they ended up cutting a live set in a studio rather than taping an actual concert, laying in the sounds of cheering fans after the fact. The results were released as Raw and Alive: The Seeds in Concert at Merlin's Music Box, even though it was recorded at Western Recorders studio in Hollywood rather than the folk-oriented coffee house namechecked in the title, and the incongruous-sounding cheers and applause, which rise and fall at unpredictable moments, give away the game that this is that curious artifact of the era, The Fake Live Album…

The Seeds were one of the most influential bands in the '60s American garage rock scene; they delivered hypnotic, stripped-down tunes dominated by Daryl Hooper's circular keyboard lines and the fuzzy, feral guitar breaks of Jan Savage, while lead singer Sky Saxon wailed a thinly veiled paen to drugs and sex, including "Mr. Farmer," "Rolling Machine," and "Up in Her Room." The Seeds scored their biggest hit with "Pushin' Too Hard" in 1967, but the band had already attracted a sizable following in their hometown of Los Angeles, and they would release a string of memorable singles through the end of the decade. Singles As & Bs 1965-1970 collects both sides of the 11 singles the Seeds released during their heyday, including variant B-sides for two releases, and as a bonus the set includes a rare, unedited take of "Pushin' Too Hard"…

Recorded in the midst of 1966, naturally after the spring release of their debut but before "Pushin' Too Hard" climbed into the national charts in the spring of 1967, A Web of Sound finds the Seeds pushing their sound into new dimensions, happily keeping pace with their Los Angeles contemporaries Love and the Doors. That the Seeds never received the respect accorded to their peers, either then or now, may be partially due to their lack of lyrical ambition, or it could be due to the Hollywood teenage sleaze that seeped out of this quartet led by garage rock icon Sky Saxon. Whatever the Seeds did, it sounded somewhat dirty, a maxim that applies to A Web of Sound even if it lacks singles as hard and filthy as "Pushin' Too Hard"…