Takes & Glories

Takes & Glories is an unusual 1987 album credited to Sky Sunlight Saxon and The Original Seeds, released on the Line label in Germany in June 1987 on white vinyl. It features some new music, some decades-old recordings with new overdubs, and various remixes and remakes of other songs.

The front cover is a cool 1960s-vintage photo of The Seeds hanging around moodily in an abandoned rail yard, while the back cover features an oft-used black and white photo of Sky from the same era. Despite these photos, and the “Original Seeds” artist credit, Sky seems to be the only original band member here. (Daryl Hooper and Rick Andridge are thanked in the liner notes; Jan Savage is not, but it doesn’t appear that any of them actually made new contributions.)

The liner notes give little indication as to who does perform on Takes & Glories. Bassist/multi-instrumentalist Gary Stern is mentioned, and it is likely that he and Mars Bonfire are the core of the band. Vocalist Cleopatra, from the band SS-20, also appears. Several of the vaguely “thanked” names on this LP also show up on Fire Wall albums, but it is unclear what direct involvement they may have had. At any rate, half of Takes & Glories is made up of older recordings with new overdubs so a full band wasn’t really needed for every track.

Be forewarned: Takes & Glories is one mystifying grab-bag of a Seeds record. Of its thirteen tracks, seven are previously-released songs with varying amounts of new overdubs added. The backing track of one of these is then reused, with new lyrics. Two others are new remakes of 1960s Seeds classics. There is one short sound effects collage, one new song with Sky singing back-up for Cleopatra, and only one truly new song with Sky Saxon front and center.

The source of most of the older songs

The early-60s pre-Seeds songs and the MGM Seeds songs from 1970 on Takes & Glories were evidently taken directly from a vinyl copy of Bad Part Of Town, a 1982 French compilation on Eva Records which itself utilized old 7-inch vinyl singles for its sources. The questionable legality of that release is further muddied here since several of these songs are renamed and have had their artist credits changed.

Sky presumably didn’t have access to the master tapes of these old songs so he and his friends opted to just overdub directly onto taped copies of the Bad Part Of Town album. It’s an eccentric approach – why not just record all-new versions of them? What was the point of drawing attention to these old songs anyway? Nobody knows.

The upshot is that these songs are low in sound quality, and the overdubs are mostly superfluous. I imagine that Takes & Glories was an effort to generate some income, somehow; I can’t imagine it was successful in that regard.

Takes & Glories has not been released on CD, but original vinyl copies are not too hard to find. It is a strange LP, but necessary for Sky completists. If you can, find a vinyl copy for a good price. Be amazed and confused, and fall in love with it despite yourself.

About the songs on Takes & Glories

1. "As Much As I Love You"
   Despite the title the lead-off song is in fact "Can't Seem To Make You Mine", in a completely newly-recorded version with a different set of lyrics and vocal melody. It’s as dense and tense as the 1965 Seeds classic was.
2. "In Paradise"
   The first of two songs from Sky Saxon’s (and Mars Bonfire’s) 1986 Voxx EP with the band SS-20, this is the same recording from that disc (where it was called "Paradise") with some differences. It’s been remixed and had minor overdubs added.
3. "Born To Be Wild"
   A remix of Sky and Mars Bonfire’s 1986 version of the Steppenwolf classic (which Mars wrote) from the Voxx EP.
4. "Swim"
   Now things start to get really strange. This is "Do The Swim", Sky Saxon and The Electra-Fires’ 1964 b-side, but now with 1987 Sky doubling the vocals of 1964 Sky and sporting a new guitar solo. "Swim" has a several-seconds chunk missing from the middle, suspiciously just as it did on the Bad Part Of Town LP which is why I think that LP was used in the making of this one.
5. "Aphrodite"
   Now we’re getting somewhere. Sorta. This completely new song has a groovy 1960s vibe with fuzzy psych guitar and big churchy organ, but as vocalist Sky Saxon takes a back seat to Cleopatra, supporting her vocals with some mumbling and an occasional verse of his own.
6. “Sodom & Gomorrah”
   OK now we’re really getting somewhere. This is the only completely new Sky-led song on Takes & Glories, a great crunchy guitar-rock song. It proves that Sky had a band at his disposal; it doesn’t explain why they didn’t cut more tracks as a unit.
7. "30 Seconds Over Hollywood"
   This is a short (50 seconds, actually) snippet of some unholy, swirling psych jam, sculpted in the studio into a brief sound collage. It closes Side 1.
8. "Love Dog"
   The same recording that had already been released on the 1986 Fire Wall album ...A Groovy Thing, but in a sleeker and punchier remix and with new vocal overdubs by Cleopatra.
9. "Wish Me Up"
   The 1970 recording that the last-gasp Seeds made for MGM. It’s been overdubbed extensively here – new vocals and loud, psychedelic guitars are slathered haphazardly on top.
10. "Statue Of Stone"
    A 1963 a-side by Sky Saxon and The Soul Rockers originally called "Go Ahead And Cry". There’s a new vocal overdub on top by Sky that seems to be the extent of the changes. The new title comes from a line in the lyrics.
11. "Picnic In The Grass"
    This is "Love In A Summer Basket", the a-side of The Seeds’ second MGM single in 1970. It features new vocal and organ overdubs and those keyboards, it must be said, fit very nicely with the song and even enhance it. Sky’s new vocal track, however, is so heavily echoed it tends to sour the trippy blissfulness of the original.
12. "Pushin' Too Far Too Hard"
    This of course is "Pushin' Too Hard", but it’s a complete remake. It sounds more like the heavy metal band Sky used on the 1984 Masters Of Psychedelia LP than the other new recordings on Takes & Glories and it may well date from that time.
13. "Skid Row Children"
    Wrapping up the album with one final strange choice is the backing instrumental track of "In Paradise" but with new, off-the-cuff lyrics by Sky centering around “matchstick girls” selling matches on a street corner in London. Goes to show you what Sky could do when he still had access to master tapes: confound you anyway.

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