Sky Saxon, the mop-haired bass player and front man for the psychedelic protopunk band the Seeds, whose 1965 song Pushin’ Too Hard put a Los Angeles garage-band spin on the bad-boy rocker image personified by the Rolling Stones, died onJune 25 in Austin, Texas. He was thought to be 71.
His death was announced by his wife, Sabrina Smith Saxon, on her Facebook page. In a telephone interview on Thursday, she said the cause was heart failure.
Saxon, who had remained an active musician, played his final gig at an Austin club with a local backup band on Saturday night and was taken to the hospital on Monday, she said.
The Seeds, formed in 1965, were a short-lived but cultishly memorable band that melded primitive rock rhythms with the free-love message of the flower power generation. Both their look (mod fashions and bowl-cut hairdos) and their sound borrowed from British rockers. Critics gave them credit for helping to popularize psychedelic rock and for prefiguring the punk movement.
Saxon composed songs and played electric bass, but it was perhaps his sullen, stylized lead vocals that best characterized the band. Never as threatening as the Stones, they were, instead, rather sweetly dangerous, appearing on white-bread television music and dance shows like American Bandstand wearing tailored bellbottoms and velour shirts or shiny Nehru jackets. Saxon voiced the vaguely menacing lyrics to songs like Can’t Seem to Make You Mine, Painted Doll or Pushin’ Too Hard, a pulsing, anthemic warning to any girlfriend with ambitions to rein in her man.
The Seeds flamed out in the early 1970s, but they lingered in the annals of rock history as representatives of their time and place. Their songs have appeared in movies including Cop Land (1997) with Sylvester Stallone and Secretary (2002), the story of a dominant-submissive relationship, which starred James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Sky Sunlight Saxon was the name he used in later years, the middle name given to him in the 1970s as a member of the Source Family, a cult whose leader — known as Father Yod or Ya Ho Wha — started what has been described as the quintessential hippie commune; Saxon was also known within it as Arelich.
He was born Richard Elvern Marsh in Salt Lake City in 1937, according to several online sources. Sabrina Saxon said her husband’s birthday was Aug. 20 but would not confirm the year because he believed age was irrelevant, she said. He moved to Los Angeles to start a music career after high school.
His death was announced by his wife, Sabrina Smith Saxon, on her Facebook page. In a telephone interview on Thursday, she said the cause was heart failure.
Saxon, who had remained an active musician, played his final gig at an Austin club with a local backup band on Saturday night and was taken to the hospital on Monday, she said.
The Seeds, formed in 1965, were a short-lived but cultishly memorable band that melded primitive rock rhythms with the free-love message of the flower power generation. Both their look (mod fashions and bowl-cut hairdos) and their sound borrowed from British rockers. Critics gave them credit for helping to popularize psychedelic rock and for prefiguring the punk movement.
Saxon composed songs and played electric bass, but it was perhaps his sullen, stylized lead vocals that best characterized the band. Never as threatening as the Stones, they were, instead, rather sweetly dangerous, appearing on white-bread television music and dance shows like American Bandstand wearing tailored bellbottoms and velour shirts or shiny Nehru jackets. Saxon voiced the vaguely menacing lyrics to songs like Can’t Seem to Make You Mine, Painted Doll or Pushin’ Too Hard, a pulsing, anthemic warning to any girlfriend with ambitions to rein in her man.
The Seeds flamed out in the early 1970s, but they lingered in the annals of rock history as representatives of their time and place. Their songs have appeared in movies including Cop Land (1997) with Sylvester Stallone and Secretary (2002), the story of a dominant-submissive relationship, which starred James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Sky Sunlight Saxon was the name he used in later years, the middle name given to him in the 1970s as a member of the Source Family, a cult whose leader — known as Father Yod or Ya Ho Wha — started what has been described as the quintessential hippie commune; Saxon was also known within it as Arelich.
He was born Richard Elvern Marsh in Salt Lake City in 1937, according to several online sources. Sabrina Saxon said her husband’s birthday was Aug. 20 but would not confirm the year because he believed age was irrelevant, she said. He moved to Los Angeles to start a music career after high school.
Last edited by a moderator:
