Blog by Bonniwell
http://www.bonniwellmusicmachine.com/blog/index.php
MM @ Music Fan Festival
http://www.bonniwellmusicmachine.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry081030-084004
We are pleased to announce -- and invite you to -- the Music Fan Festival http://www.musicfanfestival.com ... where myself, Keith Olsen, Mark Landon and one or two others from the Bonniwell Music Machine will be autographing photos and Music Machine memorabilia; a limited supply of BMM T-shirts will be available, as will the full line of related items from http://www.bonniwellmusicmachine.com/blog/index.php .
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With fond apprecation, we're looking forward to the privilege of this reunion with our friends and fans..
IGWT, Sean Bonniwell
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Hi Sean,
I was at the hotel this past weekend for the music festival and met Eric of the Larksmen who suggested I drop you a note...
Just wanted to say how much you were missed!! The talk talk at the festival was that you couldn't make it due to the fires. I hope you are safe.
I met Ron, Keith, and Mark who all signed my 'Best Of' Music Machine LP and we took this picture..
If you plan to do any more appearances, please let us know. I would still love the opportunity to meet you.
peace & love Kara
Uncle Helmet's Music (Shirt & Photo) P.O. Box 409 Porterville, CA 93258
]]>PRIVATE LIBRARY SERIES
http://www.bonniwellmusicmachine.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080518-101301
Both versions of "Black Snow" may be included on the Guerilla Garage CD upon request. The 'Close' album version is a fully orchestrated 'mood piece' designed to engage and engulf the listener's intimate sensibilities. The Bmm version (also featured on 'Ignition'-- Sundazed) assaults those sensibilities with characteristic MM angst, and is perhaps the pinnacle expression of same by way of its unrestrained delivery.
With the exception of the Euro Tour CD (now a bona fide Collectible being in all likelihood the first and last of its kind), many of the tracks are featured on the BTG Anthology CD (only available with purchase of the book re Special Offer; the expanded Special Offer includes 5 CD albums, a Euro Tour sticker and signed MM photo; please see BOOK OFFERs for details).
The BTG Anthology CD,while featuring a few classic MM tracks (all of which have been newly re-mastered), is a compendium of 40 years of writing & recording. The songs mirror the events and turning points chronicled in the book, adding specifically significant enlightenment to each corresponding chapter. The Star Witness CD album continues and closes the reading with that same, unique intention. Both companion CD albums represent my body of work as a songwriter, and the evolution of my personal journey Beyond The Garage.
All Private Library items are signed and pricing includes shipping. Please make Check or Money Order payable to:
RECORDINGS FROM THE 'DOILY' DECADE chronicled in 'Beyond The Garage': FEATURING VOCAL COLLABORATIONS with CHRIS (My Cake & Eat It Two), PAM (Chrome Throated Song Kissers), and GARY HALL (piano, Blue In The Face), etc.
This was written by an 8 year old, Danny Dutton of Chula Vista, California, for his third grade homework assignment. The Assignment was to explain God:
One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way He doesn't have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and Fathers.
God's second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times beside bedtime. God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this. Because He hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in His ears, unless He has thought of a way to turn it off.
God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn't go wasting His time by going over your Mom and dad's head asking for something they said you couldn't have.
Atheists are people who don't believe in God. I don't think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren't any who come to our church.
Jesus is God's Son. He used to do all the hard work like walking on water and performing miracles and trying to teach the people who didn't want to learn about God. They finally got tired of Him preaching to them and they crucified Him. But He was good and kind, like His Father and He told His Father that they didn't know what they were doing and to forgive them and God said "O.K."
His Dad (God)appreciated everything that He had done and all His hard work on earth so He told Him He didn't have to go out on the road anymore. He could stay in heaven. So He did. And now He helps His Dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of and which ones He can take care of Himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary, only more important.
You can pray anytime you want and they are sure to help you becausethey got it worked out so one of them is on duty all the time. You should always go to church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there's anybody you want to make happy, it's God. Don't skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong. And besides, the sun doesn't come out at the beach until noon anyway.
If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can't go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He's around you when you're scared in the dark or when you can't swim and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids.
But... you shouldn't just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases.
And... that's why I believe in God.
THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC
There is no human activity more intriguing to angels than our making of music. An explanation of why this is so can be found in scripture, the implications of which dare us to challenge all that we know of mankind's never ending need to express the duplicity of his soul.
Angels inhabit the Kingdom of Heaven, and are counted among the heavenly host. Numbered by the Word of God as are grains of sand, they glorify His name with celestial singing that is incomprehensible to earthbound sensibilities. If it can be so explained, the music of Heaven is layers upon layers of interwoven harmonic resplendence, for all who are in Heaven sing an unending song, giving praise to He who "made the earth, whose hands stretched out the heavens, and all their host has He commanded." (Is.45:12)
Lucifer was one of three archangels (Michael and Gabriel being the other two), and no cherub or seraph was allowed closer proximity to the throne of God than these. As Heaven's choir director, it was Lucifer's responsibility to lead the angelic host in worship. Created with instruments of music fashioned into his being: "The workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou was created..." (Ezek.28:13) He not only conducted the orchestra, he WAS the orchestra.
And he was very wise and extremely beautiful: "Every precious stone was thy covering, the Sardis, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold." Then in the midst of Heaven's order and harmony, "When the morning stars [angels] sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" (Job 38:7), Lucifer sees his own beauty and brilliance and declares, "I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars [angels] of God; ...I will be like the most High." (Isa.14:13-14).
When Lucifer was cast to the earth "as lightning fall from heaven" with a third of the heavenly host (who by their free will chose to worship him as god), he brought his talent for music with him. It follows that a contamination of sorts has infected the music on earth, for we have songs that glorify Satanic deception, rebellion, and the occult, driven into the mind and soul by instruments and amplifiers pushed to torturous sound levels; and thousands have given themselves in worship to "the god of this age." I can hear the Lord God now:
At this writing a resurgence of sixties music and ideology is designing much of the present. But our contemporary youth culture wants little to do with the desperate hedonism of modern survival. The burned-out drug-induced aspirations of the sixties do not make for a bright future: Not with AIDS a world-wide epidemic, legal abortion slaughtering millions of the unborn, divorce, unwed motherhood, illegal aliens and drug addiction subsidized by welfare programs; gangs, murder, cocaine and violence on the streets of America everywhere, a criminal justice system criminally lenient and pendulous by inequity; a liberal agenda propagandizing the media with socialist dogma, indoctrinating 3rd graders with homosexuality and proselytizing moral authority while sanctioning chauffeur-driven "fat cat" swindlers with the legislative power to plunder the American dream.
The following comes from a Catholic elementary school. Kids were asked questions about the Old and New Testaments. The following statements about the Bible were written by children. They have not been retouched or corrected (i.e., incorrect spelling has been retained).
1. In the first book of the bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating the world, so he took the Sabbath off
2. Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. Noah's wife was called Joan of Ark. Noah built an ark which the animals come on to in pears. 3. Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.
4. The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with the unsympathetic Genitals.
5. Samson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like Delilah.
6. Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the Apostles.
7. Moses led the Hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.
8. The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten amendments.
9. The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.
10. The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.
11. Moses died before he ever reached Canada. Then Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol.
12. The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.
13. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Finklesteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.
14. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.
15. When Mary heard that she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.
16. When the three wise guys from the east side arrived, they found Jesus in the manager.
17. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.
18. St. John the blacksmith dumped water on his head.
19. Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to others before they do one to you. He also explained, "a man doth not live by sweat alone."
20. It was a miracle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.
21. The people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels.
22. The epistles were the wives of the apostles.
23. One of the opossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.
24. St. Paul cavorted to Christianity. He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage.
25. Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.
As under the omen star
The New Age movement was initiated by sixties legends as they gloried in the counter culture's rite of passage; willful contempt for God’s authority. But they never said as much. The vitality and naivete of fifties music yielded to the given that rock was growing up, and the tenets of secular humanism, though couched in feel good rhyme and rhythm, were cloaked in the subtle persuasion of duty to ego. Any number of titles from the era conform to what is recognized as New Age sacraments, and were ornamented in themes now honored as the maturing of rock'n'roll, which — at the time — didn’t vilify Christianity so much as it tried to ignore it.
Those of the ilk, such as John Lennon, Donovan, Cat Stevens etc., thought themselves to be enlightened, the word most wrong for what it means. The kingdom of darkness is for those who go one before the other as if led by their own light. The conceit that we've arrived at the next frontier of evolutionary consciousness originated in the culture of sixties idolatry, and began as oneness with the power of ourselves. I was guilty of this, and take now a moment to apologize for my portion of its emergence. Those of us blessed with a blue thumb are to the manor born; having planted that which prospered under the omen star, we negotiated blame in our rhyme and were proud to be blameless in our songs. Occultism marches to a drum beaten by a cloven hoof. It pretends to wear a sandal stained with blood from a crown of thorns, and the beat goes on.
The mystical enchantment of music can envelop the soul with a coma-like malaise, overpowering the prevalent mood of the moment so completely as to give us the sum total of our lives. We experience the full force of integrated longings for love, security, and social significance. These needs are so compelling we remember them in a time and place that never was, and so they "sleep" in the words and melody of a song remembered only by blameless expectations. As "captured" emotions, these feelings are so enshrined in subtle disappointments of anticipated fulfillment they can virtually obliterate the immediate continuity of life. It is a spell, it is escape, it is renewal of stranded dreams, and sometimes it's a denial of a disintegrating future we the collective feel powerless to amend; tomorrow is now.
On the whole this phenomenon is therapeutic. The songs that commemorate enduring expectations can rejuvenate the human spirit for romance, idealism, the beginning of relationships, careers, youth — the whole spectrum of future events and expectant fulfillment. An aspect of healing and released anxiety is associated, one that could be said to have properties significant for the treatment of ills common to an eclectic society. The recapture of youthful idealism softens the heart for tolerance. Introspection allows us to reflect on life's resolutions; the time it takes to appreciate the full design of lessons learned and bridges burned. We mistakenly assume youth is not receptive to experience as the final authority, that perseverance receives no rewards. While it's true contemporary culture demands immediate gratification while divorcing itself from values obtained by the patience required for living life one day at a time, music can revive the immediacy of hope — perpetually conceive it — so that the joy of its discovery is relived again and again.
The timeless vitality of this mystical rejuvenation remarries the present with the past, thus music endures as a "living" reward for faith in the future. Each time we hear a song that "lives" in what we are experiencing today, we are more of ourselves, more of who we were, and more of who we will be.
As we enter the 21st century, music encompasses a wide variety of styles and crossbreeds: The big band era gave way to the pop song. What was once known as country & western led to the folk era. Folk was overwhelmed by rock'n'roll, conceived by the blues, which was fathered by the progenitor of most American-born music, gospel.
These and a host of other music categories have found a universal audience. Whereas in times past there was really only one audience, now there are as many musical delineations as there are factions of the public to support them. While it's true that contemporary rock continues to express the obstinate relevance of its seniority, technology is contaminating the market place with artificial sentiment; cloned rhythms, and a redundant library of contrived chants with puerile themes. So much of what is heard obscures the magical power of music by degenerating its "quality of heart," but the real danger in the unspecified diversity of cause and effect is the exploitation of hopelessness.
As for rap, it's a form of urban folk music. With little or no enduring melodic structure, and lyrics enunciating social crises, rap's longevity as a musical expression evoking societal communion degenerates almost as quickly as its problematic themes. If we can't understand the words, and we can't whistle the tune, what's the point? The point is, we need music that reaches into our worth as intelligent beings, to remind us that we're more than just dancing bones and a haircut.
By way of nihilism and technological evolution, our feelings for the human condition have no value. Now bereft of inspiration by vulgar phrases and obscenity, the richness of compliant, emotional continuity so vital to the health of our nation, is vanishing. I don't mean to suggest we can turn back the clock, or that the mystical enchantment of music is reserved for, or limited to, a particular era — or that we should expect to hear gangster rap as hummed by the mailman. But we need to be reminded of simpler times. Of melodies whistled and songs cherished.
It is almost a sacrilege when the continuing treasure of songs that renew us comes floating as background music into elevators and shopping malls, or is relegated to commercials selling beer and pantyhose. This would be incidental to reality were it not for the fact that mainstream American music glorifies sex, drugs, and Satanism. Each generation hears the feudalism of its own voice. All other voices are impotent. Punk reflected the banishment of futility with its discordant noise, mindless tempos, and grinding ferocity. The fashion was body chains, black leather, and dark, masculine eyeshadow; the after the bomb look. With no trace of melodies that linger, the next generation will have no heart for the memory of its youth, but it may be too well-remembered, in a future world of obliterated reminders. We need to be reminded not to rejoice in the death of our dreams, that music lives through and for the nurturing of triumphant hope.
Youth is glorified by a culture of greed. But being young offers little to sing about, laugh at, or be led by. The best the next generation can hope for is a song commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts titled, "It's OK to Pick Your Nose." Dehumanized music, scantily melodic, underscores lyrics exalting Godless humanism. The influence of mysticism on music is now only slightly evident, having moved on to cartoons and toys with supernatural power.
I don't mean to suggest the artists of the sixties (with the exception of the Rolling Stones) made celebrating depravity a lifestyle, nor do I contend paramount obedience to New Age doctrine was the norm. "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was the poetry we never wrote, the song that made everyone who didn't write songs wished they did. It was the sound of a distant train coming from a strange world and going to another. But many songs of the sixties were guilty of insinuating what others went so far as to endorse: Man is a physical being — evolved and evolving through many lifetimes, on his way to a bold awakening — on the threshold of becoming God.
Physical and spiritual evolution through reincarnation? Bull feathers.
We are spiritual beings housed in a physical body, and our pilgrimage for one lifetime is created specifically to optimize reunification with a loving Creator who died for us — that we may inherit eternal life. The issue was clarified by Norman Greenbaum; "Spirit in the Sky" was so refreshing by virtue of its wholesome enlightenment it cried shame upon all other songs heard on the radio — for the rest of the day — then and now.
What I'm about to propose goes beyond the truth as it is conspicuously revealed in the Word of God, the handbook for survival on earth. I've never heard this hypothesis — I've never read it — and it's never been insinuated to me by theological inference except in the context of certain Biblical passages. It evolved from a revelation inspired by the question why; why are we here.
The ego will not easily acquit that which it considers confrontational to its self-image, but the opportunity to redefine yourself is at hand — if for a moment you can instruct it to stop dictating exclusivity, personal uniqueness, and all distinctions of personality that set you apart from humanity. Haven't you said to yourself I don't deserve this. I didn't choose to be alive, and if there is an all-loving Creator, why would He make me who I am and then condemn me for it? Wasn't I born innocent? The world is the way it is. I do the best I can. It's dog eat dog down here. There's only one rule: Do unto others before they do it to you... Close your eyes for a moment. Take a deep breath. Open your mind.
As humans on earth we can by no means experience now. Try it. Snap your fingers and say "NOW." Try it again. Every time you do, now has passed into then! The concept of now is always "then" to we who live in this dimension of time. About the only thing we can be sure of is that time moves forward, and does so I might add with such design as to pass into the future by way of the past. This is why now exists only in non-time. This is where God is.
He created time, and so is transcendent — apart from all dimensions of time. Everything blessed with life "lives" on a time line within a time dimension, and all that does designates a perception of now. God may intervene on any time line, or all time lines — any time dimension or all time dimensions — simultaneously. He can be with all of us in the past, in the present, and in the future; only God exists in now.
The choice of preparing for tomorrow is in the miracle of each morning, the hope of each new day we are privileged to live, and it's in choosing to require of ourselves that we make our decisions according to God's will that gives birth to faith. Confidence in God's love for us — in the unwavering certitude of it to redeem the time and integrate our personal history with the history of all mankind — is how we glorify His name. This brings us full circle to the one great mystery of all mysteries; the passing of time into a future that for God, has already occurred.
If we could travel beyond the speed of light toward a star whose radiance had ceased to be, would we come to the time when the star died? Would we then go passed it into the future? So what is the future if the light we see in the galaxies no longer shines and we see it, the past?
All the cosmos has been propelled away from Now; the moment when Christ spoke as the Word, and it became. In that sense the universe is the same age as earth. From our point of view it's older than the earth, but if it took billions of light years for the earth to become, then it's older from the point measured when the universe was born. That's not the whole of the problem, the definitive brain-twister is that all time ceases at the speed of light.
Our understanding of time is so finite as to be of no use for scientific research faithless to God's creation. This is exactly why we have not been given the relevant data on the moon samples collected decades ago; they don't conform to the evolutionary scale. Nothing in the universe conforms to the model. Ultimately, what they're asking — insisting we believe, is that the perfect order of the cosmos came from non-intelligence, and that life came from nonexistence: Nothing. The question they should be trying to answer is where did time come from, and why did it begin.
Consider that which the science of astrophysics has verified as fact by way of the Hubble telescope: if the universe, with its intricate design and balance of proportional vastness had been created just slightly smaller, or just slightly larger, the starship earth could not provide a stable habitat for life as we know it to be; a singular wonder — but there is more. The Hubble found stars 15 billion years old, and a universe only 12 billion. Supernova activity and the red dwarfs not found in predicted numbers, are just two of many new realities diametric to a scientific model constructed by theory relying on an infinite universe. The new computations attend a model that measures atomic elements as younger than infinity. Calculated from the point at which the universe was three and a half minutes old, astrophysicists now have irrefutable proof from which they acknowledge an astonishing discovery; the universe had a beginning, but by the first and second laws of thermodynamics (everything's in a state of sequential decay) it should be lifeless, having run its course: this means that even the speed of light has decayed, and so the universe is younger by billions of years.
All we see and measure, the galaxies, the stars, the immensity of the cosmos, was created by the Word: He who spoke and the universe was: "In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made." He is the Alpha and the Omega: The beginning and the end. Man has numbered the ages at Christ's first coming from the point of zero. Our calendar of History has been predesignated B.C. and A.D. because the time has been redeemed. The decision to accept Him is made by the heart, not by the mind, and you can make it in the time it takes to snap your finger.
The accounts of creation found in John 1, and Genesis 1, are no longer at odds with astrophysics, and time relativity — in conjunction with what the Hubble measured — portends a model of the universe that necessitates an interrelationship designed by transcendence. "I am the Light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness". (John 8:12) If He made the heavens and the earth in His time of non-time ("A day is as a 1000 years, and a 1000 years as a day"), then the Bible only hints at the relativity of Now, when He spoke and the universe became. For the age of the earth is not the same as the universe, and by looking into time for its past we find a future that "was" created by a Savior who lives in now:
All of it was spoken when the Word of life was heard.
All of it was said and done before it did occur...
All of it by perfect love for time to save the lost:
]]>SAN DIEGO & BEYOND
http://www.bonniwellmusicmachine.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080418-160133
CONVERSATIONS WITH... a Web series
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
]]>COLLECTOR'S 4 CD BOOK OFFER
http://www.bonniwellmusicmachine.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080418-101512
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]]>EURO TOUR CD ALBUM
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GUERILLA GARAGE
]]>Edgar/Bonniwell @ Cavestomp DVD
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]]>GARAGE SALE
http://www.bonniwellmusicmachine.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080413-090519
]]>UK Observer
http://www.bonniwellmusicmachine.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080204-104247
I am a writer for The Observer newspaper in the UK. I recently became acquainted with your music. The more I heard, the more I got sucked into the world view of The Music Machine.
I just wrote a little piece on you for the Observer website and thought I would send it to you – just as an excuse to get in contact really and tell you how much enjoyment I have got from listening to your work.
Chris.= -------------------- Unsung Heroes No.3 - The Music Machine Chris Campion's occasional guide to the world's forgotten recording artists October 11, 2007 11:44 AM
A single black leather glove. A clenched fist. The Music Machine were five unruly-looking mop-tops dressed in black who struck a note of discord in the hippie era.
In 1966, America's fear of long hairs had been softened by its embrace of four loveable Liverpudlian shags. But little would prepare it for the arrival of The Music Machine.
Their debut single and only chart hit, 'Talk Talk', was a surly diatribe about alienated youth that barely lasted two minutes but staked out its territory right from the start:
'I got me a complication and it's an only child. Concernin' my reputation as something more than wild'
These opening couplets were delivered over a primal down-tuned rock stomp by The Music Machine's charismatic leader Sean Bonniwell, whose commanding vocal style vacillated between a croon and a growl. The 'Summer of Love' hadn't yet happened, but The Music Machine were already rapping about the fall.
They were certainly out of step with time, prefiguring punk rock by a good few years. The Music Machine incorporated squalls of noise and controlled chaos into their songs three years before The Stooges; they adopted a street tough uniform close to a decade before the Ramones, and they played the kind of riff-driven heavy rock that would later be popularised by bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Butterfly. While Bonniwell played up to the troglodyte punk stereotype, his songs displayed a literary bent that was clearly the product of a keen intellect. Like the proverbial velvet glove cast in iron, he was a poet masquerading as a thug, an aesthete posing as a vulgarian.
He started out in the folk scene with a group called The Wayfarers, whose biggest album was recorded at the 1964 World's Fair. Frustrated with the innate conservatism of the folk scene and sensing cataclysmic change afoot in the culture, Bonniwell quit the group. "It was time for something sleek and fierce, something with fuzz and fangs," he noted in his autobiography Beyond the Garage. The look he came up with for The Music Machine was intended to signify "unified rebellion": dyed black hair, black turtlenecks and, to top it off, a single black, leather glove worn on the right hand.
Their sound was similarly meticulously-defined. Bonniwell later described it as 'a power-punk slam to the brain', but The Music Machine's chops were the product of intense rehearsal in the garage of Bonniwell's San Pedro, California home. Behind the dystopian image and visceral thrill of their music were complex and finely-tuned arrangements, all cut live and recorded using an array of home-made fuzz boxes, Vox electronics and a revolutionary 10-track tape system built by studio whiz, engineer and Frank Zappa associatePaul Buff.
Apart from the angst of songs like 'Talk Talk', Bonniwell's innate sensitivity came to the fore in tortured and obsessive love songs. 'No Girl Gonna Cry' and 'You'll Love Me Again' bristled with menace precisely because they sounded so eminently reasonable. He also did a neat line in obtuse but prophetic social commentary with 'The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly' (about Government surveillance) and 'Mother Nature, Father Earth' (an ecological protest song). A fascination with mysticism and metaphysics resulted in a zodiac-themed single, 'Astrologically Incompatible'.
Unfortunately, the stars were also misaligned for The Music Machine's career. The band toured incessantly for a year on the back of 'Talk Talk' and their debut album, (Turn On) The Music Machine. But mismanagement and a misappropriation of funds contributed to the break-up of the original group within a year. Bonniwell assembled a new crew of black-clad ruffians, re-named them Bonniwell Music Machine and put out a second album in 1968.
Three members of the original lineup - Ron Edgar, Gary Rhodes and Keith Olsen - went on to join The Millennium, the pop supergroup formed around songwriter-producer Curt Boettcher. Olsen later forged his own career as a producer, manning the desk for Fleetwood Mac's self-titled 1975 breakthrough album.
Bonniwell recast himself as a doomed romantic for a beautifully conceived 1969 solo album Close (recorded with Vic Briggs of The New Animals), which is as sombre and brooding as any of Scott Walker's 60s solo albums. Then he all but disappeared from view until reissue label Sundazed put together two collections of lost recordings by The Bonniwell Music Machine, and Ace Records released a re-tuned version of The Music Machine's seminal debut, The Ultimate Turn On.
Now a committed Christian, Bonniwell lives in Porterville, California, and maintains his own website. In 2004, he toured Europe with a new lineup of The Bonniwell Music Machine. His influence can still be felt today in bands like Southend goth-garage reprobates The Horrors, who at least readily acknowledge the debt. The Music Machine still turns.
Greetings all. The time has come for all good men to say ‘Hey, it’s Thursday.’ That being the case it’s also time for another bowl of groove juice, this fine day coming to you in the form of one of my favorite songs by the Music Machine. If’n you aren’t familiar with the Music Machine and the wonderful sounds they made, you should back away from the interwebs and find yourself a copy of their greatest hits. I say this because back in the day, when I picked up the original Rhino reissue of their best stuff (1985-ish), having only previously heard their biggest hit, the manic ‘Talk Talk’, I was – as the kids say – blown away.
When you’re fan of garage punk and psychedelia you are more often than not adrift in a sea of never-had-a-hit-wonders, who in their day managed to crawl into a recording studio and crank out one genuinely interesting 45 before dropping off the face of the earth. There are certainly exceptions to the rule, as every once in a while band managed to keep it going for several 45s, or in rare instances even an LP. However, in most of these cases, despite a somewhat more substantial discography, they really only ever had one song that was worth listening to, so it’s a wash. While listening to that Music Machine compilation, it occurred to me immediately that they really had a “voice” (literally in their leader Sean Bonniwell, and figuratively as well). Their mix of garage punk and moody psychedelia and – this above all other considerations – Bonniwell’s songwriting talent took them to an entirely new level.
This was no one-off Nuggets act from Bumfuck, Pennsyltucky. The Music Machine was a truly interesting band. Though my fave Music Machine song, ‘Masculine Intuition’ was already posted here as part of Iron Leg Digital Trip #2 the Freaked Out Mind Blowing Scene of Right Now (click on Podcasr Archive link in the sidebar for details), today’s selection comes in a close second.
‘Come On In’ is a fantastic vehicle for Bonniwell’s deep, Morrison-esque voice, and the production on the single is deep with reverb. The Jim Morrison comparison is apt because if you didn’t know any better you might mistake ‘Come On In’ for a lost Doors track. The version of the Music Machine that recorded ‘Come On In’ broke up in 1967, with Bonniwell continuing on as the Bonniwell Music Machine for one more LP.
Bonniwell is still at it today, having written an autobiography (which I’d love to read) and reformed a version of the Music Machine. I hope you dig the track.
Peace Larry
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Eagle out of lip-sync with beard
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(CIRCA 1967).. A BARELY AUDIBLE SOUND TRACK MADE THIS CLIP RE-FRIED LIP-SYNCHING..
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"DOUBLE YELLOW LINE"
"Dark White"
"THE PEOPLE IN ME"
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Acid Archives: "Well-known cult band that needn't be explained here. Often referred to as "garage" although they were perhaps more of a cutting edge LA band like the Doors and Love, with music so unusual and ambitious that it sometimes sounds more like late 1970s post-punk than "60s".
The first LP is a mixed bag and can be avoided if you get the 45s instead; the second LP is a more consistent affair allowing you a peek inside the unusual creativity of Sean Bonniwell.
Still, I'm not a great fan of the band whose music often strikes me as overly intellectual and elaborate, but when they get it right the intensity is truly remarkable. Apart from the early 45s I think the tormented "I've Loved You" on the second LP and the rare non-LP 45 "You'll Love Me Again" are musts.
The wlp mono contains a unique rough mix of "Eagle Never Hunts The Fly" not available anywhere else; probably included by mistake instead of "Double Yellow Line", which is listed but not included. The old Rhino "Best Of" sampler has some rare tracks, but these are unfortunately mastered slightly off-speed. There is a more recent Sundazed sampler titled "Ignition" which has much of the same rarities. [PL]"
THE ABOVE REVIEW REFERS PRIMARILY TO THE WARNERS BROS. RELEASE (The Bonniwell Music Machine/1968), with additional comments referring to the so-called 'Very Best Of' CD issued by Original Sound/Collectables (1999).
Re-titled 'RESTORATION', the Warners Bros. album has been digitally re-mastered, and is available by Special Order only; contact seanb@mindspring.com for details.
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Most famous for "Talk Talk", a Top 20 single from 1966 that was one of the most manic '60s garage-punk hits, the Music Machine had much more depth and songwriting talent than the typical one-hit wonders of the day. Lead singer and songwriter Sean Bonniwell's strangled lyrics and dark, verbose vision paced the group's wiry psychedelic guitar lines and ominous, minor-key Farfisa organ.
The San Jose, California-born Bonniwell had been inspired to form his first group in high school in the late 1950's, after hearing "Only You" by the Platters. He later moved into folk music, and was a guitarist with such early 1960's folk outfits as the Noblemen and the Wayfarers (who'd enjoyed a recording contract with RCA Victor). But by the mid-1960's, with the folk revival boom over (along with the Wayfarers}, the British invasion cresting, and folk-rock on the edge of exploding around him, Bonniwell formed the Ragemuffins, in tandem with bassist Keith Olsen, and drummer Ron Edgar (late of the folk-pop combo the Goldebriars). The trio later expanded to a quintet with organist/pianist Doug Rhodes, and second guitarist Mark Landon joining. By 1966, they'd taken on the somewhat more extreme versions of the requisite Beatles haircut, topping an image dominated by black outfits (and Bonniwell's trademarked single black leather glove), and renamed themselves far more distinctively as the Music Machine.
Bonniwell was the dominant personality in the group, as a songwriter of exceptional ability and also a serious taskmaster -- he'd been very serious about his playing, and also about the recording process, coming off of three LPs with the Wayfarers, and in contrast to most of their rivals of the period, pushed the group into many hours of rehearsals. Even more important, he got them to perfect their sound without going stale in the process, and the playing by all of the members was first-rate; Rhodes' farfisa organ and Olsen's attack on the bass were perfectly matched to Bonniwell's intense, brooding vocals. The result was a sound -- as demonstrated on their best singles and the best moments of their debut LP -- that combined an edgy garage-punk attack with playing that was studio-friendly and radio-friendly.
They were signed up by producer Brian Ross, who got their debut single, "Talk Talk", released on Original Sound. That record, a piercing one minute-and-fifty-six second garage-punk explosion released at the end of 1966, made it to number 15 on the charts and propelled the Music Machine to national prominence (including upward of a dozen appearances on American Bandstand).
Despite chalking up only one more minor hit single ("The People in Me"), the Music Machine recorded quite a few excellent, imaginatively produced singles and album tracks that found them exploring the darker side of psychedelia with compelling intensity and imagination. Poor management and some incredibly bad decision-making led to their dissolution at the time, but Bonniwell is still something of a musical legend in the twenty-first century, and "Talk Talk" is regarded as a garage-punk classic. Richie Unterberger & Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
"CHANCES":1965/THE RAGAMUFFINS ['Ignition']
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