Travel With Your Mind

In 1993 GNP Crescendo released their second-ever compilation of Seeds rarities (after the 1977 LP Fallin' Off The Edge). Travel With Your Mind included twenty songs from 1965-1969 – a mix of previously-released material (some on CD for the first time) and recordings new to this collection.

Most of the songs from Fallin' Off The Edge appear for the first time on CD on Travel With Your Mind but not quite everything. Many of the other tracks seem to have been chosen because GNP’s new overseer Neil Norman was fond of them (they mostly date from the Future era). Daryl Hooper worked with the label on some new mixes for this CD, and the archives were dipped into for alternate versions and outtakes. It was a most welcome collection at the time, and an indispensable one until Big Beat’s massive Seeds overhaul in the 2010s.

Among the singles and the one completely unreleased track ("Sad And Alone"), seven of Future‘s eleven songs are represented on Travel With Your Mind, as are nine of the eleven songs from Fallin' Off The Edge. (Criminally, the “Satan” version of "The Wind Blows Your Hair" wasn’t included.) Two from The Seeds, zero from A Web Of Sound (!), one from A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues, and three from Raw & Alive are here. Some are in alternate mixes or takes or (for the latter album) without fake crowd sounds.

The CD booklet features a short essay by Daryl Hooper about the formation, and the excitement of being in, The Seeds, as well as an exclamation mark-heavy description of each song by Neil Norman, son of Gene. (The “GNP” in GNP Crescendo stood for “Gene Norman Presents”). There are some nice rare photos of The Seeds in the studio and in live situations but owing to the format are very small. The front cover art is atrocious – it would seem someone got a hold of MacPaint and couldn’t just let go. The back of the CD case looks great, though.

About the Songs on Travel With Your Mind

1. "Satisfy You"
   This is the version from Raw & Alive but, for the first time ever, without the fake live crowd overdubs. Neil’s rambling notes for the song are more about The Seeds’ punk credentials and “raw psycho-sexual sounds” than this song specifically. As a CD opening number, it’s hard to fault of course – it is indeed a glorious, sexy punk song. Number of exclamation marks in Neil’s liner notes: 3.
2. "The Wind Blows Your Hair"
   The A-side from The Seeds’ great 1967 single; this is the standard version of this song. The booklet mentions a show at which The Seeds performed this song “as beautiful teen queens gyrated hypnotically in sync with the cosmic light show” and refer to Daryl Hooper’s “incredible ‘mysterious castle’ style” inspiring The Doors and Iron Butterfly. Number of exclamation marks: 3.
3. "Pretty Girl"
   The 1977 mix of the exciting track from A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues, a mix that originally was done by Neil Norman for Fallin' Off The Edge. The only representative of The Seeds’ controversial blues album on Travel With Your Mind. Number of exclamation marks: 0.

4. "Chocolate River"
   Everyone’s favorite Future outtake; this originally appeared on Fallin' Off The Edge. Zonked-out and poppy and stunning on all fronts. Neil goes out of his way to heap generalized criticism on the Future album in his blurb for this song, though he does call "Chocolate River" “strong” at least. Number of exclamation marks: 3.
5. "Out Of The Question"
   Originally the B-side to “You’re Pushing Too Hard”, a recording which was then dug up and added to Future two years later. An excellent, fast punk song with an especially raunchy guitar squawk. Neil digresses into a mini-essay about his love for the precise guitar of Jan Savage. Number of exclamation marks: 8 (yes, eight!).
6. "March Of The Flower Children"
   The dramatic and weird opening track of Future (the "Introduction" isn’t included here). This is the regular album track, not the mono 7″ single variant. Neil refers to this song’s parent album as “one of their best selling albums”, having apparently gotten past his objections to it. Number of exclamation marks: 1.

7. "The Other Place"
   The infamous saxophone-featuring non-LP B-side of the obscure "Try To Understand" single in 1966. Another Fallin' Off The Edge track released on CD for the first time here. Number of exclamation marks: 1.
8. "Fallin' Off The Edge Of My Mind"
   From The Seeds’ final GNP Crescendo single of 1969, this is the regular version of this song written by Kim Fowley and featuring a modified band lineup. Number of exclamation marks: 1.
9. "Travel With Your Mind"
   The “title track” as it were is a new remix of this psychedelic raga from Future. Neil Norman did this mix with Daryl Hooper in a (successful, I’d say) effort to undo the extreme stereo separation of the original and give it a denser, more echoing sound. It works out very nicely indeed. Number of exclamation marks: 0.
10. "Flower Lady And Her Assistant"
    The standard version from Future in which all band members shine, and featuring Tjay Cantrelli from Love. Neil mentions that Sky Saxon wore a mustache for a short time around the recording of this song, and that it was cut in the same studio where Iron Butterfly recorded “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. Number of exclamation marks: 1.

11. "Daisy Mae"
    The original B-side to the "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" single of 1965. Super-fast Little Richard tribute on which Sky promises to “love my life away” (as, indeed, he would go on to do). If any song’s liner notes deserve to be all excitable punctuation it might be this one, but number of exclamation marks: 0.
12. "Pushin' Too Hard" [rehearsal]
    The liner notes claim erroneously that this is a recording from a rehearsal in Sky’s Malibu garage, then use that to veer into a discussion about Sky’s hippie wardrobe that morphs into praise for his house and its “accoutrements for ‘tripping’ and/or dreaming up new albums”. I like the image of Sky sitting around “dreaming up” albums. This is in fact the same version as the one on Fallin' Off The Edge; it was recorded on February 20, 1968 in the studio at the original, rejected Raw & Alive sessions. Number of exclamation marks: 2.
13. "900 Million People Daily (All Making Love)"
    One of the best things (at the time) about Travel With Your Mind was this, the first release of an un-overdubbed and complete earlier take of this song from Raw & Alive. Later issued on the Contact High disc of the Future deluxe package. Remixed for Travel With Your Mind by Neil Norman and Daryl Hooper to realize “the spacy, floating, psychedelic flavor that Sky and The Seeds were always imagining”. The title is rendered without the parenthetical part (“900 Million People Daily”) on the CD case. Tsk tsk. Number of exclamation marks: 4.
14. "A Thousand Shadows" [new mix]
    This new mix of the Future track is meant to make it sound more like The Seeds’ earlier garage rock than their 1967-era psych, a peculiar mission that is nevertheless accomplished. Neil complains in the notes that this song was so much like "Pushin' Too Hard" that the lack of artistic progress it presaged damaged the band’s credibility permanently. The first point is irrefutable; the second is conjectural. Number of exclamation marks: 0.

15. "Nobody Spoil My Fun"
    Described as an alternate take, this may be the only reason nowadays to own Travel With Your Mind. It’s similar to the well-known take from The Seeds’ first album but the vocal is different and so is the mix. Sky’s voice is more prominent and the band has fewer sharp edges. This version was not released on Big Beat’s CD and is apparently only available here. Take number unknown; it may be take 4 before any overdubs were done. Number of exclamation marks: 5.
16. "Wild Blood"
    The Kim Fowley-led song from The Seeds’ final GNP Crescendo release of the 1960s, the flip side of "Fallin' Off The Edge Of My Mind". The liner notes are more about Fowley than the groovy Troggs ripoff that this song is. Neil mentions, without elaboration, that Kim the randy scenester has recently (i.e., early 1990s) offered to conduct “spanking seminars” in Neil’s new night club. Number of exclamation marks: 3.
17. "Now A Man"
    The take from Future, described as a guitar duel between Jan Savage and otherwise-keyboardist Daryl Hooper. Tense but cheerfully psychedelic; it sounds at times like Love’s “Revelation”. Number of exclamation marks: 0.
18. "Sad And Alone"
    A heretofore unreleased song from Future. Dramatic and punchy two-chord track with frequent dips into a lower register decorated with Catharine Gotthoffer’s lovely harp notes. Sky sounds especially crazed on this song about a girl “just crying night and day“. Number of exclamation marks: 1.
19. "Fallin'"
    The final track from Future , all nearly-eight minutes of it. Rick Andridge is singled out in the liner notes for his work on drums, and reference is also made to the “teenage mayhem” that resulted when the band played this one live. Number of exclamation marks: 1.
20. "Pushin' Too Hard"
    Well it wouldn’t be a Seeds compilation without including (“just for fun”) the regular ol’ version of their most popular song now would it? Number of exclamation marks: 3.

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