Illustration titled "Cerbere et Leonard" by Bataille from Le Diable au XIXe Siècle, 1895
You know who I always felt bad for? John Ritter. Poor guy died on the same day as Johnny Cash and, as a result, his passing was largely overlooked. The star of Problem Child and Problem Child 2 deserved better. Weirdly, Sky Saxon, the frontman of the Seeds, the archetypal American garage rock band, was not even John Ritter in yesterday's news cycle. That was Farah Fawcett, but I have trouble connecting with her passing on a personal level - I was a little too young to have any formative experiences involving her nipples.
I mostly know the music of the Seeds through garage comps I've collected (both their hits are found on the Nuggets discs), but I feel like recognizing Saxon's passing because so much of the music I listen to has descended directly from the garage rock tradition that Saxon was a part of. Moreso than, say, Michael Jackson, who was such a big cultural force that the word "influential" doesn't really apply. For now, I'm enjoying the Seeds' "other" hit song, "I Can't Seem to Make You Mine". Sky Saxon sounds really great here - definitely America's premiere Jagger imitator in his day. The keyboard bit is nice, too - try to listen to it without seeing images of the recent Lynx body spray commercial it was used in.
"I Can't Seem to Make You Mine" by the Seeds
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