THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
760) The Savage Resurrection — “Thing in E”
This ’68 A-side and album track is “a total stormer” (Lee Dorrian, https://www.loudersound.com/features/deep-cuts-the-savage-resurrection-the-forgotten-west-coast-freaks-from-1968) that sounds so punky it seems a decade ahead of its time. I can almost hear the Talking Heads’ version. Retpaarticles says that it’s “mainly composed of the line, ‘My world’s better than your world,’ giving in a self-important swagger that matches perfectly with the driving rock tone of the song. It also shows off the guitar chops of precocious the band’s 16-year old lead guitarist Randy Hammon.” (https://retpaarticles.weebly.com/savage-resurrection-band.html)
Patrick Lundborg says that the SR’s sole LP is “[o]ne of the classic heavy psych albums . . . . What makes the album really cool is that they have not one but two wild guitarists, and [they] spew fuzz and feedback brilliantly”. (The Acid Archives) Lee Dorrian agrees, writing that “West Coast freaks the Savage Resurrection were formed out of local garage bands, and this album is one of the better-known major-label acid rock releases of the era. What makes the record so cool is the double dose of aggressive fuzz lead guitar”.(https://www.loudersound.com/features/deep-cuts-the-savage-resurrection-the-forgotten-west-coast-freaks-from-1968
As to the young savages, Alec Palao tells us that:
[They] set[] off smoke bombs during their fiery, power-packed sets. These Who-Hendrix-besotted youngsters from Richmond ruled the roost at the East Bay’s very own mini-Avalon, Maple Hall, in San Pablo, during 1967. They were all graduates of the small but partisan garage rock scene in West Contra Costa County and coalesced . . . as almost a kind of Richmond supergroup. . . . a strong, punkified psychedelic . . . album . . . . [T]he unexpected pressure of promoting their [LP] fractured the group . . . .
liner notes to Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970
Richie Unterberger adds that:
One of the most obscure San Francisco Bay-area psychedelic groups to release an album on a major label, the Savage Resurrection managed to release one LP in 1968 before breaking up in a blitz of personnel and business problems. The Savage Resurrection were also one of the youngest psychedelic bands working the Bay Area circuit; one of their dual lead guitarists . . . was only 16 when they recorded their album. Formed in the East Bay . . . by members of several teen rock groups in 1967, they played psychedelic hard rock that drew heavily not just from San Francisco acts but also from Jimi Hendrix and the blues, as well as occasional lighter touches of more folk-rock-oriented riffs. [They] sounded rawer and punkier than most psychedelic bands, which could be an advantage or a hindrance. Some numbers on the resulting erratic LP were humdrum heavy blues-rockers; others had more unexpected chord shifts and song structures to anchor their molten-intensity lead guitar riffing . . . . There were flashes of promise, especially considering their extreme youth, but these were not fulfilled, as [the lead singer . . . and bassist . . . left shortly after the album came out.
On their only album, the[y] mined a psychedelic sound that was . . . more garagey in feel than that of the average Bay Area psychedelic band.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/savage-resurrection-mn0000305405; https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-savage-resurrection-mw0000043853
Here’s a rehearsal take:
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