THE SEEDS – VAMPIRE

The Seeds remain amongst the most beloved and iconographic of the original 1960s garage-psych avatars. To many, their edgy dissonant sounds and relentless fuzz-fuelled drive, tinged with flights of psychedelic fancy, makes The Seeds the quintessential exponent of the genre, as heard on such classics-for-the-ages as “Pushin’ Too Hard,” “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine” and “Mr Farmer.” Their eponymous 1966 debut album has long been recognized as a minimalist rock ‘n’ roll masterpiece, while its sequels, the pop-art A Web Of Sound and florid Future, have also grown more influential as time goes on. For decades, the name The Seeds was most closely identified with the activities of their eccentric vocalist, the late Sky Saxon, but the first, path-finding line-up was always a collaboration, the musical director of which was, without a doubt, keyboard whiz Daryl Hooper. Now, in the 2020s, as the only surviving original Seed, Daryl has reclaimed his birthright with a new and powerful set of Seeds personnel: band historian Alec Palao on bass, singer/frontman extraordinaire Paul Kopf, and Sky Saxon alumni Mark Bellgraph on guitar and Justin Smith on drums.