A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues

So, why did The Seeds release A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues in that otherwise psychedelic year of 1967?

This seems to remain the central question about this most unusual album. Released in November 1967, three short months after the deliriously psychedelic art rock of Future and the brilliant, spooky psych single "The Wind Blows Your Hair", A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues confounds every expectation any fan might reasonably have had at the time.

Much about A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues is curious. For one thing, it is credited to The Sky Saxon Blues Band, although it is in fact the usual lineup of The Seeds. Many assume it was a different band playing with Sky; one rumor that persists is that Sky recorded the album with “Muddy Waters’ band”. Muddy wrote some notes for the album jacket, and members of his band do appear on several of the songs — but in fact it is our beloved Seeds pictured on the cover (Jan, Rick, Daryl, and Sky) and it is part of The Seeds’ official canon. Some vinyl reissues, as well as 4-track, 8-track, and cassette versions, listed the band as The Seeds right on the cover.

So why is A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues so controversial and defiant of expectations? It’s not for its strange, out-there music; quite the opposite: A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues is almost completely non-psychedelic, non-garage, and non-punk. Every song is straight-up blues, no adornment. It seemed an unusual move for a band in the Summer of Love who had already given ample evidence of their willingness to pied piper a new generation of flower children to a lysergic utopia.

And so, what the LP became is more like a speed bump in the band’s career. For a young white blues album, it’s pretty good — certainly not embarrassing or inept — but so out of step with the band’s trajectory otherwise that it sticks out like a sore blue thumb, for better or worse. And for the record, Rick Andridge said he is perhaps prouder of this album than any other.

The album was actually recorded right after A Web Of Sound, but held back since that album and the debut album were still selling well. It would have been jarring in late 1966 or early 1967, but when it was finally released in late 1967, it was especially dissonant with the times.

It is, at any rate, important to note that The Seeds were never followers of flower power; they were pioneers. Their breakthroughs nearly always predated others’, and as such they could break off into a new direction any time they wanted. Perhaps this album was a Sky Saxon vanity project — it would explain the temporary band moniker, and Alec Palao’s liner notes in Big Beat’s A Web Of Sound reissue of 2013 take this stance. Was it released to fulfill a contractual obligation, as some aver, or to break ties with GNP Crescendo, as Sky would later say? Perhaps but probably not. Maybe it was just a typically bold decision attributable to chemicals, nothing more.

Whatever the cause of the album, the effect was to prick the band’s balloon with a needle, deflating their street cred and eventually, apparently, breaking up the original foursome. They would go back to deranged psych punk on their following LP, the excellent Raw And Alive (which was raw but not live), but then crumble, with Sky Saxon carrying on the Seeds name in various guises until his 2009 death.

Yeah yeah yeah, what about the music?

And what of the music on A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues? Well, as mentioned, it’s hard blues. No rock, no pop. No psychedelia, unless you are feeling generous and want to classify the occasional bubbly organ (and Strawberry Alarm Clock keyboard wheedling on "One More Time Blues") as such. Plenty of harmonica, I-IV-V chord patterns, and lyrics that barely exist and rarely register in the mind. If you are looking for some 1960s white pop band blues, A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues will (ahem) satisfy you. If you are looking for something akin to "Pushin' Too Hard", "A Faded Picture", "Fallin'", "Out Of The Question", or "Tripmaker", you won’t find any hints of it here.

At the end of the day, the things Seeds fans tend to love most are Sky Saxon’s outrageous voice and the band’s uncomplicated musicianship; A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues has both. If it had been released in, say, 1964, it may have made more sense, and would probably enjoy a better reputation today. Ultimately, of course, it is what it is: the album The Seeds put out in late 1967. Hardcore fans can’t do without it, of course; others may want to preview it before buying it because it may not be what you’re looking for.

Songs from A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues rarely appear on Seeds compilation albums.

Reissues

The album is available on a single CD that also includes the band’s previous album, Future. Because Future is totally necessary Seeds, you may end up with A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues by accident.

Mono reissue by Big Beat (2013)

The Big Beat label reissued The Seeds’ second LP A Web Of Sound as a two-disc package in 2013; as outtakes and bonus tracks from that album’s sessions were sparse the reissue was fleshed out with the first CD reissue of the mono version of A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues. These made up tracks 9-17 of CD2. Aggravatingly, several unreleased songs from the sessions for Full Spoon remain in the vault.

Track listing

1. "Pretty Girl"
2. "Moth And The Flame"
3. "I'll Help You (Carry Your Money To The Bank)"
4. "Cry Wolf"
5. "Plain Spoken"
6. "The Gardener"
7. "One More Time Blues"
8. "Creepin' About"
9. "Buzzin' Around"

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