We Remember Sky

While the pages of the media and the blogsphere and TV infotainment news shows will be filled with the stories of, about, behind and rumored of Michael Jackson, and the rest filled with the "Oh, yeah, Farrah Fawcett, the Charlie's Angel icon also died," as well, I want to take some time out to remember another music hero passed away on the same day.

Sky Saxon, lead singer and founder of the 1960's band the Seeds and the Sky Saxon Blues Band, who had a Top 40 hit in 1967 with The Seeds' "Pushin' Too Hard," has died after a brief illness.Saxon's publicist said Saxon died Thursday but did not have other details. He was in his 60s, we think, as his birthday is not exactly known and the year was either 1946 or 1947, or maybe it was 1937. It was never really confirmed.

Springing up in California, the Seeds, to many of us, defined the term garage band, with their 60's psychedelic rock sound. Saxon's Mick Jagger-influenced vocals, with a dash of Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly, dominated their sound and later influenced punk rock bands of the late 70's to the present. After the British Invasion came and before the Woodstock induced music explosion, the radio was dotted with songs that had a sound that was barely professional in its presentation, yet almost primordial in its ability to capture the heartbeat of the teenage America in the 1960's. It was the All American rock result of seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and the Brits on Hullabaloo and Shindig. Bands like the Shadows of Knight, The Standells, The Electric Prunes, The Count Five , The Knickerbockers, The Amboy Dukes, The Castaways and The Seeds took the look of the English Bands, the fuzz tones of the west coast bands and used raw energy and enthusiasm over technical skill and rattled the dashboard speakers of date night cars all over the country.

"Pushin' Too Hard was featured on the LP, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era is a compilation album of American garage rock singles released in the mid- to late 1960s. The original LP was released by Elektra in 1972, with liner notes by Lenny Kaye that contained one of the first uses of the term "punk rock". Another hit single of 1967 was "Can't Seem to Make You Mine" and their song "Mr. Farmer" was included in the soundtrack for the movie "Almost Famous." "Pushin Too Hard" remains to this day, for me, a dial twister, one of those songs that when it comes the tune box, you gotta turn it up

Saxon was living in Austin, Texas, where he played with his new band, Shapes Have Fangs. He had been planning to perform this summer with the California '66 Revue, a tour featuring a lineup of California bands from the 1960s.

I just thought that Sky Saxon should be recognized on what has to be one of the more somber days in America's pop culture.

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