“I remember the day Darby Crash died. The next day, John Lennon was shot and killed and the world at large didn’t even care that Darby was gone.. sadly, I am now seeing the same thing happen with Sky Saxon, who died this morning….I guess that’s the price you pay when you swim outside the mainstream….”
I read this yesterday on my friend Kurt Ross’ (a.k.a “The Infamous Jet Rash”) Facebook update and I couldn’t agree with him more. Lost in the sadness and flurry of Michael Jackson’s death (RIP), so many people, and alleged music connoisseurs, seemed to have forgotten or worse yet, didn’t even know who Sky Sunlight Saxon was and the profound impact him and his band The Seeds had on music. As the frontman for the groundbreaking 60’s garage rock band The Seeds, Saxon unfortunately passed away yesterday. This man and The Seeds are fuckin’ bad ass and put out some epic music during their time. If it wasn’t for them, the whole garage psychedelic blues revival of today would not be possible. It was disappointing to see some music mags, blogs and industry twitters not even giving a shout out to this King of Garage Rock. As Kurt said, “you’re not a music writer if you don’t know who Sky Saxon is. You’re just a poser with an electronic pulpit.”
Widely known for his hit songs with The Seeds, “Pushing too Hard” and “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine,” with the latter being popularized by the AXE body spray commercial. Both are dope songs and covered by many awesome musicians such as Johnny Thunders, The Ramones, Garbage, etc. So sad to hear of his passing, but so thankful for the kick ass music he gave us. Rest in Peace Sky Sunlight Saxon.
Check out these kind words on Saxon by Nels Cline at LARECORD.com.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmHTyLBIZ1g]
