THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,441) The Seeds — “Gypsy Plays His Drums” (live at Merlin’s Music Box)
The supremely seedy Sky Saxon and the Seeds (see #116, 446) “combined the raw, Stonesy appeal of garage rock with a fondness for ragged, trashy psychedelia” (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-seeds-mn0000500664/biography), and here is a supreme example, a “snarling, evil-sounding tune” (Sky Sunlight Saxon and the Seeds, https://www.skysaxonseeds.com/songs/gypsy-plays-his-drums), “a wicked track”. (billyx67, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GSS-1PmpkNM&pp=ygUfdGhlIHNlZWRzIGd5cHN5IHBsYXlzIGhpcyBkcnVtcw%3D%3D) “You can hear here where John Lydon took his way of singing!” from Sky Saxon. (jac6350, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3UnZQ56Zs) Indeed. Man, this song would have shone in Apocalypse Now! had Francis Ford Coppola ditched “The End”.
Of course, there are other views. “At first I thought this music really sucks But after listening to it for couple minutes, I am sure this music really sucks”. (wildtill9, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3UnZQ56Zs&pp=ygUfdGhlIHNlZWRzIGd5cHN5IHBsYXlzIGhpcyBkcnVtcw%3D%3D) : )
Sky Sunlight Saxon and the Seeds tells us about “Gypsy”:
[T]he first time that The Seeds attempted to record [“Gypsy”] was on January 13, 1968. This fantastic version languished in the vaults for decades until take 6 was chosen, with overdubs from the same session, as a bonus track on the 2013 expanded Future double CD. One Bob Atkins plays bass on this version. Daryl Hooper’s famous genre-defining keyboards give the tune its droning queasiness and Jan Savage’s crunchy guitar remind the listener that this is definitely The Seeds. Sky, at the height of his 1960s audaciousness, turns in another always-reliable showing, drawling out the mesmerizing lyrics as “gypsih PLIES his DRAWWWWWW”. But on February 20, 1968, The Seeds gathered some fans in the studio and played a “live” show for them, intending to pass it off as a live album. Only two of these recordings were ultimately chosen, a remake of “Pushin’ Too Hard” and a new attempt at “Gypsy Plays His Drums”. When The Seeds attempted to record the album again in April this song wasn’t even included. Apparently they knew they had it already. Live crowd noises were added and it was issued on Raw & Alive, becoming the one that fans knew for years.
Sky Sunlight Saxon and the Seeds tells us about Raw & Alive:
First thing’s first: Raw And Alive — The Seeds In Concert Merlin’s Music Box is not a live album — it’s a studio album. The sounds of screaming fans were grafted on after recording. Crass, perhaps, from today’s perspective, but The Seeds weren’t the first sixties band to do this. . . . And it is a Seeds album and should be judged on its musical merits. Raw And Alive remains some fans’ favorite Seeds record, due to its energetic performances and its many truly fantastic new songs. It was the band’s first album since the unexpected hard blues fourth LP A Full Spoon of Seedy Blues, and represents something of a return to the form of Future, the band’s adventurously psychedelic third album. Five of Raw And Alive‘s eleven tracks are re-recordings of older Seeds songs . . . examples of how a more experienced band can tackle its old stuff with panache. . . . But it’s the new songs, unavailable elsewhere, that make Raw And Alive truly notable, and necessary. . . . “Gypsy Plays His Drums” is as snakily psychedelic as its title suggests. . . . Over the years there was a steady drip of Raw & Alive recordings without the offending crowd noises. . . . [T]he complete crowd-less Raw & Alive was released, in 2014 by Big Beat. Also on the CD is the original crowd version of the album plus an earlier live-in-the-studio performance done for a group of fans that was the original attempt at the LP. . . . There really was a place called Merlin’s Music Box for a brief time in Los Angeles but The Seeds probably never played there (it isn’t known definitively). Merlin’s was more of a quiet folk club but the name sounded nice for the album title. . . . [T]he album’s status as “live” didn’t seem to overly trouble anyone, and official word for decades was that it was really recorded in concert. After all, there’s screaming and an introduction by local disc jockey ‘Humble’ Harve Miller, and Sky even addresses the “crowd” before “Pushin Too Hard” just as he did in real Seeds concerts (dedicating the song to “society”). It wasn’t until some of the songs started being released without crowd noises that people began to notice the curious lack of connection between band and audience, and ponder why the album seemed so well-produced . . . .
https://www.skysaxonseeds.com/albums/raw-alive-merlins-music-box-1968
Mark Deming also writes about the LP:
[T]he Seeds were at their best when they kept things simple and to the point, and in 1968, uncertain where to go next after Future tanked, the band decided it would be a good idea to document their energetic live show with a concert album. However, in order to best control the audio, they ended up cutting a live set in a studio rather than taping an actual concert, laying in the sounds of cheering fans after the fact. The results were released as Raw and Alive: The Seeds in Concert at Merlin’s Music Box, even though it was recorded at Western Recorders studio in Hollywood rather than the folk-oriented coffee house namechecked in the title, and the incongruous-sounding cheers and applause, which rise and fall at unpredictable moments, give away the game that this is that curious artifact of the era, The Fake Live Album. However, as such things go, this is one of the best Fake Live Albums ever, and a better-than-average Seeds set as well. The songs really were cut live to tape, with no overdubs and edits, and the Seeds sound plenty tight and enthusiastic here, with Sky Saxon’s vocals reaching a near-feral intensity on “Satisfy You,” “Night Time Girl,” and “900 Million People Daily All Making Love,” and Jan Savage’s guitar work cutting significantly deeper than in the original recordings of these tunes. A few new tunes were played at the “live” sessions, and . . . “The Gypsy Plays His Drums” [isn’t a] milestone[] in the Seeds’ catalog . . . . Maybe not raw, but more alive than you think, and one of the Seeds’ best offerings.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/raw-alive-the-seeds-in-concert-at-merlins-music-box-mw0000678031
Of the Seeds, Stephen Thomas Erlewine says:
[T]hough they never quite matched the commercial peak of their first two singles, “Pushin’ Too Hard” [see #116] and “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine,” the band continued to record for the remainder of the ’60s, eventually delving deep into post-Sgt. Pepper’s psychedelia and art rock. None of their new musical directions resulted in another hit single, and the group disbanded at the turn of the decade. Sky Saxon . . . and guitarist Jan Savage formed the [band] . . . in Los Angeles in 1965. By the end of 1966, they had secured a contract with GNP Crescendo, releasing “Pushin’ Too Hard” [which] climbed into the Top 40 early in 1967 . . . . While their singles were garage punk, the Seeds . . . branch[ed] out into improvisational blues-rock and psychedelia on their first two albums . . . . With their third album . . . the band attempted a psychedelic concept album . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-seeds-mn0000500664/biography
Here it is with a fake audience:
Here is the January 13, 1968 version:
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