THE MUSIC MACHINE
The Music Machine (1965–1969) was an American garage rock and psychedelic (sometimes referred to as garage punk) band from the late 1960’s, headed by singer-songwriter Sean Bonniwell and based in Los Angeles. The band sound was often defined by fuzzy guitars and a Farfisa organ. Their original look consisted of all-black clothing, (dyed) black moptop hairstyles, and a single black glove. (More from Wikipedia)
Now, on their website, Sundazed Records insists of the Stillroven that “their pedal-to-the-metal, frenetic version of ‘Hey Joe’ [is] still THE definitive version as far as we’re concerned”. That’s a pretty strong statement considering that “Hey Joe” was one of the most recorded songs of the 1960’s. Better-known covers include those by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Deep Purple (on their debut album, Shades of Deep Purple, they even claimed to be the songwriter!), Johnny Rivers, the Byrds, the Music Machine, and the Leaves.
So, if you want to test that claim, here is the Stillroven on YouTube (audio only) performing “Hey Joe”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-0zMnkCYOE .
(September 2012)
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Another great Canadian band (from Montreal), the Haunted had a fairly big hit that has the title “1-2-5”. A CD called The Haunted has been released on Voxx Records recently; the Voxx CD includes “Pourquoi”, their French version of “Talk Talk” by the Music Machine.
(April 2013)
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The two songs on the B side of SS-20 with Sky Saxon are outtakes from the Dream Life LP (Sky Saxon is not involved in these recordings) and are two more cover songs by SS-20 of the Music Machine’s “Trouble” and “No Matter What” by Love (who had called the song “No Matter What You Do”). In their entry on this disc, the website www.skysaxonseeds.com/ notes: “This EP is a very rare post-Seeds instance of Sky [Saxon] not including ‘Sunlight’ in his name.”
(December 2017)
