The Seeds stand tall amongst the handful of mid-60s American garage bands whose influence is palpable in rock to this day. Led by charismatic frontman Sky Saxon, the original Hollywood-based quartet’s unique and exciting brand of minimalist rock’n’roll still sounds contemporary and is perfectly encapsulated on this first album. If their later “A Web Of Sound” was pop-art flash, and 1967’s “Future” a florid take on psychedelia, then the July 1966 debut remains The Seeds’ grand statement; an all-original programme of rock and R&B-inflected garage punk that buzzed with a peculiar yet riveting energy that was the ensemble’s very own.
Whilst the record contains a pair of familiar classics in ‘Can’t Seem To Make You Mine’ and ‘Pushin’ Too Hard,’ it is instructive to remember that “The Seeds” was recorded and released some time before either tune became a hit. Unlike so many albums of that era, the Seeds’ debut was not a quickie thrown to together to follow up on singles chart success. Instead, the record constitutes a sharp definition of their unique and aberrant style, featuring several key items within their canon, be they the rough-hewn rockers ‘Girl I Want You’ and ‘No Escape’, the pot-boiling blues ‘Nobody Spoil My Fun,’ or the lengthy and downright sinister ‘Evil Hoodoo.’
This is the first occasion that “The Seeds” has been as a standalone album in its original mono format, and it has carefully mastered for maximum impact, along with close reproduction of the original artwork. The package includes a 1500 word essay by Seeds archivist Alec Palao detailing the whys and wherefores of the record’s creation. For anyone not familiar with its charms, prepared to make your turntable home to one of 1960s rock’n’roll’s most compelling artefacts.
