Ten Reasons Sky Saxon Was Cool

Sky Saxon, one of the founders of '60s garage rock group The Seeds, has passed away.

Saxon (real name Richard Marsh), who was set to appear at the very awesome Wooly Weekend later this summer, died early this morning at St. David's Hospital in Austin, Texas, due to complication from what is being called an infection of the internal organs.

Rather than dwell on too much of a bummer trip, though, we here at CHARTattack prefer to celebrate the interesting and exciting things in an artist's life. Here, then, are ten reasons why Sky Saxon was cool:

1) The song "Pushin' Too Hard" by The Seeds. Do yourself a favour: go out and buy a box set called Nuggets — which features this song — and it will become obvious why The Seeds were part of something important.

2) He did time as a mystical guru in Hawaii.

3) In the past, he had claimed he invented the term "flower power." It's reasonably unproveable, but you gotta appreciate his enthusiasm for the concept.

4) Some other tags he liked to use included "king of garage rock," "godfather of punk," "master of psychedelia" and "the founding father of flower power."

5) Saxon was part of Yahowa 13, the musical arm of religious/hippie group the Source Family, who put out a 13-CD box set of psychedelic tribal music in 1998. The group's lead singer/spiritual leader was a dude named Yahowha (James Edward Baker, the former owner of a California health food restaurant) who was also a jiu-jitsu expert.

6) He was never shy about changing band names, band members, actual bands, or music projects (an inspiration for Rick White, perhaps?). Some of the projects he was involved with include: The Seeds, The Starry Seeds Band, Sky Sunlight Saxon's Flight, Sky Saxon & Firewall, King Arthur's Court, The Electra-Fires, Sky Saxon & The Soul Rockers, Sky Saxon Blues Band, Yahowa 13, Sky Sunlight Saxon & The Dragonslayers and Sky Saxon's U.S.A.

7) His 1984 album Starry Ride featured members of Steppenwolf and Iron Butterfly.

8) In 1986, he formed Purple Electricity with members of Redd Kross and The Primates and released an unrehearsed album called Private Party. The Redd Krossers would have been barely out of their teen years at the time.

9) Billy Corgan was a fan. He got Saxon to appear in the Smashing Pumpkins video for the song "Superchrist."

10) Saxon still toured regularly. In fact, he performed a show this past Saturday with Austin band Shapes Have Fangs, even though he had already taken ill.