The Sonics – Here Are The Sonics!!!

Title: The Sonics - Here Are The Sonics!!!
Year/Genre/Sub-Genre/City: 1965, Garage Rock, Proto-Punk, Rock and Roll, Tacoma, Washington 9/26
Matrix #: HIQLP 065
Condition: VG+ (ob) | Members: The Sonics (N/A) | Producer: Buck Ormsby, Kent Morrill
Cultural Facts:

1. Too Loud on Purpose: The Sonics wanted their records to sound dirtier and more violent than the polished pop coming out around them. Engineer Kearney Barton famously let them overload the studio equipment instead of cleaning up the distortion, helping give Here Are The Sonics!!! its blown-out sound decades before punk made that approach normal.
2. Tacoma Teen Chaos: The band came out of Tacoma's rough-and-ready Northwest club circuit, where teenagers packed halls to hear local groups battle it out at punishing volume. The Sonics built their reputation playing dances and teen clubs long before national audiences knew them, turning regional R&B and rock and roll into something far more aggressive.
3. Songs About Poison and Witches: Gerry Roslie wrote some of garage rock's strangest early originals, including "Strychnine," a gleeful song about drinking poison, and "The Witch." Their dark humor, screamed vocals and deliberately crude attack later became a blueprint for generations of punk and garage bands.