Tunes of Terror Vol. 4 - The Witch

'The Witch' makes me think of the Batman theme song on steroids. In fact the titular Witch would make the best super hero ever. A garage rock heroine roving the city late at night in a long black hearse fighting villains with sex, hair and a massive shotgun she calls her BroomStick. Goddamn yes. What was I talking about?

Right! The Sonics are old favorites here on That Song Blog. We've spoken about their brutally percussive brand of sixties rock before, so you know what to expect. It beats the shit out of you while forcing you to do a violent twist.

You know the drill- load it up and make it LOUD, because it's illegal to listen to The Sonics if your ears aren't beginning to bleed.

Shanghied - The Fabulous Wailers

Shanghied - The Fabulous Wailers (Spotify)

In the late fifties and early sixties proto-punk bands began to explode out of the Pacific North-West. The Fabulous Wailers (not those Wailers) were a garage rock band from Tacoma, Washington chiefly active from the late fiftes to sixties. They are widely hailed as one of the original garage bands, and are chiefly known for their song 'Tall Cool One.'

Today I have pulled out the instrumental number 'Shanghied.' The song opens with a drum hook almost stolen straight from 'Suzie-Q' before gently gliding into two minutes of smoke filled guitars and gurning sax.

Roll Over Beethoven - The Sonics

Before you even DARE hit play, turn your volume up to max. If you're not on a computer with big speakers put on headphones. NOW. It's illegal to listen to The Sonics without nearly blowing out your eardrums.

The Sonics are a band made of drums. Every sound has the crack, whoomp, bang of a snare hit so hard it explodes. Every drum strike is like your heart being suffocated by a bomb. Guitars aren't strummed, they're punched. The pianos sound like they're being smashed with hammers. With every scream ripping out of Gerry Roslie you can feel eyes bugging out of his head like a pair of pounding kick drums while he throws up a cascade of cymbals.

When not ripping apart cover songs to shreds, The Sonics were happy to sing about the sexual power of witches, recreational strychnine drinking, and slowly going psychopathic from love.

Proto-punk doesn't even begin to describe or do justice to the pure brute force of this sound. Every song they touch sounds like it has rabies.