Flower Punk
by The Seeds
1996 album
Label: GNP Crescendo
Flower Punk was a good idea for a Seeds box set: three CDs with every song from every album, plus the outtakes and B-sides that had been released here and there over the years. Unfortunately it went out of print and buyers were yet again left high and dry.
But used and sometimes even brand new copies of Flower Punk can still be found for sale and it’s highly recommended for anyone who knows they love The Seeds and wants to try it all. Their five classic albums The Seeds, A Web Of Sound, Future, A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues (as the Sky Saxon Blues Band), and Raw & Alive (with the fake crowd noise) are all here in their entireties, plus several rarities, b-sides, and other goodies (but nothing heretofore unreleased).
The only main things missing from Flower Punk are the four MGM songs from 1970 and the two obscure songs from the 1972 Productions Unlimited record (understandable, since Flower Punk is a GNP Crescendo product and those tracks date from the period when The Seeds had left the label). All six are available on compilations like Bad Part Of Town, and the MGM songs were released (in better quality) as a double 7″ package for Record Store Day, and were added to Singles As & Bs 1965-1970 from Big Beat in 2014.
The other complaint about Flower Punk might be that the track "Lose Your Mind" doesn’t appear on CD #1 with its parent album (The Seeds) because there wasn’t room after all the tracks from A Web Of Sound were added, so "Lose Your Mind" appears on the last half of CD #3 in the Rare Seeds section. Highly annoying and even unsatisfying, but at least it’s there somewhere, unlike the standalone 2-on-1 CD that GNP Crescendo put out which just jettisoned "Lose Your Mind" altogether.
Flower Punk at the time of its release featured the only CD appearance of “The Wind Blows Your Hair [reprise]”. That song has been reissued on the Big Beat deluxe Seeds CDs, rendering Flower Punk admirable but superfluous for most. Still, if you see a copy for cheap and don’t have much Seeds yet, it’s recommended.
Track listing
Disc One
The Seeds (1966):
1. "Can't Seem To Make You Mine"
2. "No Escape"
("Lose Your Mind" should be here)
3. "Evil Hoodoo"
4. "Girl I Want You"
5. "Pushin' Too Hard"
6. "Try To Understand"
7. "Nobody Spoil My Fun"
8. "It's A Hard Life"
9. "You Can't Be Trusted"
10. "Excuse, Excuse"
11. "Fallin' In Love"
A Web Of Sound (1966):
12. "Mr. Farmer"
13. "Pictures And Designs"
14. "Tripmaker"
15. "I Tell Myself"
16. "A Faded Picture"
17. "Rollin' Machine"
18. "Just Let Go"
19. "Up In Her Room"
Disc Two
Future (1967):
20. “Introduction/March Of The Flower Children”
21. "Travel With Your Mind"
22. "Out Of The Question"
23. "Painted Doll"
24. "Flower Lady And Her Assistant"
25. "Now A Man"
26. "A Thousand Shadows"
27. "Two Fingers Pointing On You"
28. "Where Is The Entrance Way To Play"
29. "Six Dreams"
30. "Fallin'"
A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues (1967):
31. "Pretty Girl"
32. "Moth And The Flame"
33. "I'll Help You (Carry Your Money To The Bank)"
34. "Cry Wolf"
35. "Plain Spoken"
36. "The Gardener"
37. "One More Time Blues"
38. "Creepin' About"
39. "Buzzin' Around"
Disc Three
Raw & Alive — The Seeds In Concert At Merlin’s Music Box (1968):
40. “Introduction by ‘Humble’ Harv/Mr. Farmer”
41. "No Escape"
42. "Satisfy You"
43. "Night Time Girl"
44. "Up In Her Room"
45. "Gypsy Plays His Drums"
46. "Can't Seem To Make You Mine"
47. "Mumble And Bumble"
48. "Forest Outside Your Door"
49. “900 Million People Daily All Making Love”
50. "Pushin' Too Hard"
Non-LP singles and other rarities (a.k.a Rare Seeds):
51. "The Wind Blows Your Hair" (1967 A-side)
52. "The Other Place" (1966 B-side)
53. "She's Wrong" (outtake first released on Fallin' Off The Edge)
54. "Fallin' Off The Edge Of My Mind" (1969 A-side)
55. "Chocolate River" (outtake first released on Fallin' Off The Edge)
56. "Daisy Mae" (1965 B-side)
57. “The Wind Blows Your Hair [reprise]” (outtake first released on Fallin' Off The Edge)
58. "Satisfy You" (without crowd noises; first released on Fallin' Off The Edge))
59. "Wild Blood" (1969 B-side)
60. "Sad And Alone" (outtake first released on Travel With Your Mind)
61. "Lose Your Mind"
62. “A Thousand Shadows [new mix]” (first released on Travel With Your Mind)
