the nocturnal adventures of sky saxon
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On 1966's 'A Web of Sound,' the second album by The Seeds, the one with 'Mr. Farmer' and 'Rollin' Machine,' there is a track called 'Up In Her Room,' which, along with the opus on side 2 of Love's 'Da Capo,' marks a turning point in the annals of garage-rock, where it wasn't enough to simply snarl for three blistering minutes, but to keep up with the Stones (in particular, "Goin' Home" from 'Aftermath'), bands felt compelled to indulge themselves, at some length. 'Up In Her Room' is The Seeds' variation on 'Gloria' (so many roads lead back to her), except she (unnamed, but apparently experienced: she's 'everybody's girl') does not come knocking on his door. At her place, the narrator has sex, and smokes a couple of cigarettes. He enjoys the sex. And the band plays on. And on. You could say that The Seeds were the proto-Doors, with all that swirling organ, and hypno-guitar, and the hedonistic pretensions of the lead singer, except that I dig The Seeds more than The Doors, who never made a single as good as 'Pushin' Too Hard,' who never captured a vibe as sexy as 'Can't Seem To Make You Mine,' whose poetic aspirations made their longer pieces not nearly as much dumb fun as 'Up In Her Room.'
(Oh, all you Morrison fans out there who want to berate me, the way Billy Joel fans have, for being not sufficiently in awe of his immense talent, so ahead.)
I'm not saying that The Seeds were a great band, or that Sky Saxon was anyone's notion of a first-rate singer. But I got a real kick out of those first two albums ('No Escape' and 'Evil Hoodoo' are other tracks worth checking out), and when I heard that Saxon had passed away, I thought of when I bought 'A Web of Sound,' and brought it over to my friend's house to play it, and how we thought it was so cool and subversive and titillating. So, R.I.P., Sky.
Comments (7)
very nice post!
thanks
I can remember listening to "Up in Her Room" on Tom Donahue's show once ... as I recall, he wasn't impressed :-). I definitely prefer "Goin' Home" and even "Revelation" (which I confess I played over and over).
Masoo, who recorded "Revelation"? I haven't heard of it, but now you've aroused my curiosity. emscee, that trashy poster makes me really want to see Psyche-Out, with Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern. Mentioning Morrison in the context of the Seeds can trigger thoughts of Van ("Gloria") as well as Jim. I just listened to iTunes snippets of the other Seeds songs you mentioned, and they make the grade. Good post!
"Revelation" was the side-long track from Da Capo that emscee mentioned. It goes on forever, everyone in the band gets a chance to take long solos, Arthur Lee is, well, Arthur Lee. It's not much good, but it was a big part of my teenage years.
Other things being equal, a long track could seem important and deep just because it was long; also, it filled out the album and fulfilled the recording contract so the group wouldn't have to come up with more songs by the deadline, I'm guessing.
According to legend, or at least Arthur Lee, it was a song they played in concert. The Stones saw the band live, went into the studio, released Aftermath with "Goin' Home" on it, then Love released "Revelation" and people thought they'd copied the Stones.
Ah ha, I wondered about the timing. Last year I mentioned "Goin' Home" in one of my posts, tangentially.