Not sure how a doc about some of my favorite proto-punks got past me. This goes straight to the top of my list if it’s available anywhere.
Tales of True Adventure for Rugged Men Not Unlike Yourself
Tales of True Adventure for Rugged Men Not Unlike Yourself
Not sure how a doc about some of my favorite proto-punks got past me. This goes straight to the top of my list if it’s available anywhere.
Thanks!
Looks great! I’d love to watch it on Amazon for like $2.99 or Netflix for free. But the only way I found was to join Vimeo and pay $6.99 for a 48 hr rental.
It’s like they don’t want anyone to see it.
Scarcity!
They’re charging $6.99 because suckers like me will pay it. Same reason they made the vinyl reissues of their first two albums double albums with stereo and mono mixes. As WC Fields said, never give a sucker an even break. Just take my money. I’ve been a Seeds fan since 5th grade.
With a three-day weekend looming, I might find enough time and resources to join you in the madness.
Monkeystador Certified: enthralling!
Let us never downplay the importance of good sound engineers.
I enjoyed it as well. The Seeds were the first proto-punk band to hit me in a big way. I don’t remember which proto-punks I heard first. Seeds? Troggs? Standells? Shadows of Knight? Since all of them took their cues mostly from the early Stones, Kinks, and maybe the Who, would you push the term “proto-punk” back to them? Like Andrew Hickey always says, there is no first. When I first heard “Pushin Too Hard,” I loved the energy, sneering attitude and overall sloppiness. It definitely sounded like the punkiest music I’d heard, although of course that term didn’t exist yet. It helped that I was in 5th grade, which for my generation at least was the grade when most boys stopped being completely compliant and began thinking “fuck this” about certain aspects of school or home life. It also helped that it annoyed parents (also good for profits). I bought the single, and it had an impressive picture sleeve of them in their bizarre clothes. Not long after I saw them on The Mothers-in-Law, and they just looked insane–Sky with that blue cape and the guitarist with the Indian headband, etc.
Iggy had some great comments, and I’m glad they got a Johnny Echols interview. Love and the Seeds were active in LA at the same time, and it’s hard to tell who influenced each other more. And did Arthur Lee borrow the “7 and 7 Is” machine-gun drumming from the chorus of the Seeds’ “Tripmaker,” or vice versa? Either way, Love obviously became more sophisticated, whereas the Seeds could only do garage punk. They did it very well, although you could make the case that the majority of their best songs are “Pushin’ Too Hard” and “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” re-written over and over. I don’t care. A great band, as far as I’m concerned.
And then there’s Sky Saxon. To paraphrase Linus, of all the famous acid casualties, he was the acid casualtiest. I remember once in the 80’s, a magazine (Spin?) did a “where are they now” article. It said that Sky worshipped dogs because “dog is God spelled backwards.” It also said, like the movie, that he was living with three women. The Mormon background, I guess.
Great. Now I gotta see it.
I was curious if Renfield’s first exposure to proto-punk might have been the Sonics… just the Pacific Northwesterner in me. Not sure how nationwide their profile ever got. I think they debuted before TikTok was invented, so it’s a wonder anyone ever heard of them.
My first rebellious music wasn’t punk, but probably KISS. “Rebellious” in the fifth grade sense that it wasn’t something you heard on the radio, or that your parents liked. And only available via my friend’s older brother, in their basement. Alive II had just come out when I got into them.
Also a strange TV tie-in: I was super excited to watch “KISS Meets The Phantom of The Park”. Heavily emotionally invested into the show at my grandma’s house, I heard my parents say we had to go. Maybe like 20 minutes left in this exclusive once-in-a-lifetime special, and it took 30 minutes to get home. This was before anyone could record anything, so if you missed the network airing, you were just fucked.
My parents wouldn’t give in.
I never watched how it ended. I assume KISS triumphed.
I don’t remember hearing the Sonics until the 70’s after I got to know various fellow music obsessives. I lived in Germany when their most well-known songs came out, so I can’t say how much exposure they got outside of the PNW. We just got the US top 40 over there, although we got deeper exposure to UK hits.