Song:Pushin' Too Hard
Album:The Seeds
Pushin' Too Hard was the only top 40 hit for the 60s garage band The Seeds. Despite its crudeness, the song is considered as a major influence on the psychedelia that would follow. The leader of The Seeds was Sky Saxon (born Richard Marsh in Salt Lake City). He started out in the early 60s performing doo wop as Little Richie Marsh and then got involved in the Los Angeles garage band scene with groups like The Electra-Fires and The Soul Rockers. He changed his name to Sky Saxon. In 1965, he formed The Seeds with keyboardist Daryl Hooper, guitarist Jan Savage and drummer Rick Andridge. After some regional success in Los Angeles, The Seeds signed with GNP Crescendo and their first national single Pushin' Too Hard reached #36 on the pop singles chart. The problem was they kept trying to recreate that song in subsequent singles and none of them caught on. This CD is a rerelease of the original 1966 album but Pushin' Too Hard is also available on the Nuggets 60s garage band comps. The Seeds continued to record but their music didn't sell and even an endorsement from Muddy Waters didn't help. And psychedelic music would soon become more sophisticated than The Seeds were capable of. The Seeds finally split up in 1970 but Saxon continued to use the name until 1972. He joined the religious cult Yahowha and has continued to record over the years. He reformed The Seeds in 1989 and again in 2003. I'm not going to tell you that Pushin' Too Hard is a great song but it is an influential song. Here's The Seeds performing Pushin' Too Hard on the Shebang TV show in 1967.
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