THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,477) The Sonics — “Strychnine”
Aristotle’s favorite tune! “If you listen to what I say You’ll try strychnine some day Make you jump, it’ll make you shout It’ll even knock you out” The Sonics were “flame-throwing” (Cub Koda, https://www.allmusic.com/album/here-are-the-sonics-mw0000245191), as “Gerry Rosalie, the song’s author, pounds the 88s and screams out the words with his customary fervor over Rob Lind’s growling sax and the band’s rocking backbeat, while Larry Parypa kicks in with another mangled, tube-heated guitar break.” (Mike Stax, liner notes to the CD comp Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968) It’s from the Sonics’ first LP — Here Are the Sonics!!! — “the greatest punk rock album ever made. Recorded on the run by a bunch of beat infected no-counts and released on a hunch by a fledgling local label that just let it all roll”. (Miriam Linna, liner notes to the CD reissue of Here Are the Sonics!!!) Lead guitarist Larry Parypa recalled: “I know from the songs it sounds like it was like a satanic kind of thing we were on — I mean, The Witch, Strychnine, Psycho. I’m not sure why it turned out that way!” (liner notes to the CD reissue of Here Are the Sonics!!!)
Matthew Greenwald writes that:
One of the most demented and powerful obscurities to come out of the ’60s, [it] was a regional hit in the band’s hometown of Tacoma, WA, in 1965. A combination of loud, distorted frat rock, psychedelic, and hard, Rolling Stones-inspired garage rock & roll, the song sings the virtues of taking the poison as opposed to catching a buzz from wine or anything else. . . . [T]he powerful, live-in-the-studio performance captures this band in all of their glory, with singer/pianist Gerry Roslie screaming the lyrics Little Richard-style over the wailing din of the band. For sheer power and attitude, this record predated punk by over ten years.
As to the Sonics, Mark Deming tells us:
Of all the garage bands that made a glorious racket in the 1960s, few if any were louder, wilder, or more raw than the Sonics, a Tacoma, Washington quintet whose over the top style, complete with roaring guitars, pounding drums, and the fevered howls of lead singer Gerry Roslie, anticipated the mania of punk and pushed rock & roll deep into the red zone during their 1963-1966 heyday. The Sonics were stars in Washington, but it took a while for the rest of the world to catch on, and in time they would become one of the most fabled bands on the Pacific Northwest rock scene. The Sonics were founded in 1960 by guitarist Larry Parypa . . . . beg[inning] as an instrumental combo that featured Larry’s older brother Andy . . . on guitar and, for a brief time, another Parpya sibling, Jerry, on sax, while their mom occasionally played bass at rehearsals. The Sonics initially specialized in tough R&B material and guitar-based instrumentals . . . . Before long, the Sonics became a fixture on the Tacoma teen club scene . . . . The Sonics’ early lineup shifted often, but the group’s membership became stable in late 1963 with the arrival of . . . . [d]rummer Bob Bennett, sax player Rob Lind, and keyboard player Gerry Roslie . . . with Larry remaining on lead guitar and Andy shifting to bass. . . . [T]he new lineup evolved into a powerhouse . . . when Roslie was encouraged to sing, they discovered he could wail like a leather-lunged Little Richard, and the Sonics quickly became the most talked-about band in the Northwest. In 1964, Buck Ormsby, who played bass with Northwest heroes the Wailer, was impressed with the Sonics’ new lineup and became their manager, as well as signing them to Etiquette Records, a local label he helped run. For their first single, the Sonics took one of their few original tunes and changed it from a number about a proposed dance craze into a cautionary tale about a treacherous female; the results, “The Witch[]” [see #230] . . . was louder and crazier-sounding than anything else a Northwest band had committed to tape. . . . [It] was too much for many local radio stations, but eventually it broke through in enough smaller markets that the record became a major hit in the Northwest . . . . [T]he band recorded another original, “Psycho[]” [see #231] that soon turned the 45 into a two-sided hit. In 1965, Ormsby rushed the Sonics into the studio to cut a full-length album, and Here Are the Sonics!!! was a garage rock touchstone . . . . [T]he Sonics [became] a major draw in the Northwest . . . playing some of the biggest and most prestigious venues available to local rock bands of the day . . . . In 1966, the Sonics cut a second LP for Etiquette . . . Boom, which featured several more local hits . . . . However, it became evident that the Sonics had gone as far as a local band could go in the Northwest, while they enjoyed only scattered airplay in the rest of the United States. The Sonics signed a deal with Jerden Records, another Northwest label that had a distribution deal with ABC-Paramount Records, giving the band a better shot at national success. Unfortunately, Jerden . . . sent the Sonics to Los Angeles to record their third album, 1967’s Introducing the Sonics . . . and [the LP] sounded anemic compared to their Etiquette recordings . . . . Bennett and Roslie left the band, and . . . it wasn’t long before the Sonics were history.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-sonics-mn0000428717#biography
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