THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,406) The Music Machine — “Absolutely Positively”
This ’67 Music Machine (see #171, 1,179) B-side, which also appeared on the ’68 Bonniwell Music Machine LP, is a garage anthem if there ever was one. If the Machine ever played an arena, I could imagine 20,000 kids singing along — “Absolutely positively I want what I want I want”! OK, the lyrics are sarcastic: the song represents Sean Bonniwell’s rejection of the “Me” decade — before it even occurred!
Bonniwell recalled:
I was disappointed with the lyric . . . . [The song] was not developed fully. I was really being quite satirical in that song: I was saying hey, this is what it’s gonna be like when you start demanding your way, and your way only, when you start thinking about nothing but yourself. The next stop is the toilet or the gutter, because you’re gonna alienate everybody around you. I saw the “me” generation coming – that’s really what those songs are about.
Well, organist Doug Rhodes loved the song:
My favourite was “Absolutely Positively”, which had that riff that I played up high. One of the hottest things we ever did. I’d found that, from a classical background, the thing that was the most accessible and applicable to rock’n’roll – I didn’t know how to play blues – was the baroque stuff, and Sean really liked that. The first opportunity I had to use the harpsichord in the studio, I just loved it, because it was so percussive and so rhythmic. Sean just picked up on it, and it seemed to lend itself well to that baroque style.
Of Bonniwell and the Music Machine, Mark Deming tells us:
Sean Bonniwell was the leader of the band the Music Machine, who . . . enjoyed a major hit in 1966 with a sneering anthem of teen-aged alienation, “Talk Talk.” The Music Machine had evolved from the Ragamuffins, an earlier Bonniwell project rooted in folk-rock and British Invasion influences. By the time the band renamed itself the Music Machine, Bonniwell and his band mates . . . had taken on a much darker approach, dominated by sharp fuzztone guitars and peals of Farfisa organ. Bonniwell was the principal songwriter and uncontested leader . . . [W]hile they had minor success with the follow-up single “The People in Me” ([#]66), Bonniwell’s bandmates became weary of his hardline leadership of the group, coupled with tough touring experiences and slow payment of record royalties, and by mid-1967, Bonniwell was the only member . . . still on board. . . . [He] managed to free himself from his contract with Original Sound and signed with Warner Bros. Records as he assembled a new lineup . . . . bec[oming] the Bonniwell Music Machine . . . . Bonniwell began to work on another album. The finished product, 1968’s The Bonniwell Music Machine, featured three songs that began as demos cut with the original band, but for the most part it found Bonniwell pursuing a more eclectic sound . . . with arrangements that included horns and woodwinds and songs that moved from garage rock to folk-rock and even a dash of proto-hard rock. Despite (or perhaps because of) its ambitious approach, [it] was a flop in the marketplace . . . . Warner Bros. dropped Bonniwell, and after briefly launching a third edition of the Music Machine, he dissolved the group and went solo, releasing the album Close as T.S. Bonniwell in August 1969. . . . [which] fared no better commercially . . . and Bonniwell gave up on the music business for the next two decades, never recording another album.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-bonniwell-music-machine-mn0000082410#biography
Of the LP, Richie Unterberger writes:
[T]he album was pasted together from some singles (some of which had appeared on Original Sound in 1967) and other tracks, both by the original incarnation and a second outfit that was pretty much a Sean Bonniwell solo vehicle. Accordingly, the tone of the album is pretty uneven, but much of the material is excellent. In fact, some of the songs rate among their best . . . . Some of the cuts (presumably those recorded after the first lineup broke up) find Bonniwell branching out from psych-punk into a poppier and more eclectic direction, sometimes with very good results, sometimes not.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-bonniwell-music-machine-mw0000847923
Of his songwriting process, Bonniwell once mused that:
As is true with most (not all) songs that endeavor to capture timeless, mystical enchantment, their creation is guided by the rush of one, epiphenomenal writing session…a visit for twenty minutes or so with your muse connected — and oblivious to — the sum total of your past and future.
https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2011/07/sean-bonniwell-interview-html.html
Here is the 45 version:
Here is an alternate take:
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 900 songs. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊 