The passing of a rock legend who though only had one hit on the charts back in the 1960s, went on to influence hundreds of artists and musicians in the past four decades - Sky Saxon. The single "Pushin' Too Hard" was a primitivo-motorik driving piece of rock blast which defines punk before punk actually happened. Grinding, urgent, intense and manic (just listen to Saxon's vocals), Saxon and his band, the Seeds basically handed down the basic mould for hard, garagey psych punk rock. Together with the 13th Floor Elevators and the Sonics, they created a sub-genre of post British Invasion derived bands in the States in the late 1960s.
Saxon subsequently disbanded, reformed, disbanded again, etc the band and released some solo effort, involved in musical and communitarian projects of another West coast legend Yahowha 13 in the 1970s (check out the Captain's Trip Records 13 CD box set for some of his contribution to this infamous cultic psych rock band; a killer set by the way).
Too bad his death has been overshadowed by another lesser legend of popular music, and I simply refuse to mention his name anywhere here...
If you want to pay tribute to this great musician, go to:
Sky Saxon
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