Strawberry Alarm Clock has been a psychedelic institution for nearly 60 years now. Comprised of most of its original members, SAC has been working together again since 2006. They recently released their first new album in fourteen years. It’s called Where’s One? –a 13-track LP where each song is a serious departure from the last. But don’t worry– the group still managed to honor their psychedelic roots in these songs. The album is replete with intricate harmonies, face-melting guitar virtuosity, crazy time signatures, and, of course, you’ll hear that trademark feisty, swirling organ that defined the the late 60s sound.

 

Riffindots spoke with Mark Stephen Weitz, SAC’s keyboard player and psychedelic sound pioneer. In 1967, he wrote a wild novelty song called “The Birdman of Alkatrash.” It’s about a fictitious feathered man hybrid who flies “overneath the bridge” and “swoops” down to collect the narrator. Off they go on a wild adventure! (Incidentally, that’s Weitz himself on duck calls). However, this track needed a B-side. Weitz had a great hook he composed on his Farfisa, but the song was still missing a few parts. He called guitarist and pal Ed King (who went on to join Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1972) to come over and help him finish the song.  In 45 minutes, the song was complete. It was “Incense and Peppermints!” Weitz and King’s band at the time was called Thee Sixpence. But as DJs all up and down the coast of California started playing the new song, it caught on. Uni Records picked up the single, while the band changed its name to Strawberry Alarm Clock. The song went on to chart at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 25, 1967! Had this song never existed, Psychedelic Scene may be an entirely different online music blog today!

 

Mark and Riffindots talk everything from Indian kurtas, smashing up a perfectly good Cadillac for a laugh, the songwriting process, the music business of the 1960s, Buffalo Springfield, private jets, being in a band with original founding members, tropical fish, and finding the ONE!

 

RELATED: Interview with George Bunnell of Strawberry Alarm Clock

 

Riffindots is Britta Pejic. Britta is a musician. Songwriter. Artist. Foreign Language Teacher. Grew up in Maine. Lived in France (The Basque Country). Now back in New England. Enjoys getting lost. Makes a lot of songs at home, puts them into a canister, then into a hatch and then through her own pneumatic tube system under the Atlantic. The songs are vacuumed out the other end, dusted off and polished by Console Lole, her loyal sound engineer back in Basque Country. It’s a system that works well for her. Follow @riffindots for cartoonish fun and visual mayhem or simply enjoy her music at https://brittapejic.bandcamp.com