This edition of Doomology features a band from Lewiston, Idaho who went by the name Stone Garden. Featuring many different members and lineup changes, the group existed from 1967 to early 1972 and took inspiration from artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Stones, Cream, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The band was initially formed by three siblings in the early sixties. The Three Dimensions, as they were called at the time, consisted of Paul and Gary Speer on guitars, with brother Neal playing the skins. They landed their first gig while barely even teenagers performing at a city pool for a “Swim and Dance Party,” which earned them some minor exposure and $65 in cash. While in junior high the brothers added on Dan Merrell who contributed his bass playing abilities to the band. A name change was in order as well and they became The Knights Of Sound. Around this time (1965) the Knights were given a chance to record their first song.
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“The World Is Coming To An End”, was recorded in a basement facility owned by a Doug Smith, in Clarkston, Washington. By this point the band was frequently playing live venues and this helped attract the attention of a potential manager, Don Tunnell. Seeing this as a chance at super-stardom (and for the fact that he only lived a block away and was old enough to buy beer), the band hooked up with Tunnell, who also gave them their newest moniker, Stone Garden; borrowed from a psychedelic poster Don had seen amidst the then blossoming flower power revolution. For the next few years the band was able to build up a solid reputation playing all over the Pacific Northwest with sets containing both originals and typical cover songs by groups such as The Doors, Hendrix, The Beatles, etc. In 1969 they were once again invited by sound engineer Doug Smith to record material in his new and improved basement recording studio.
With the help of multi-instrumentalist John Purviance playing the sax and harmonica, the group pressed 300 copies of a single containing the songs Oceans Inside Me and Stop My Thinking. Following this a disc jockey and big supporter of the band going by the name Chris Adams, set them up at a professional 8-track recording facility to record some more songs, including a second version of Oceans Inside Me. These recordings were never released at the time, but eventually made their way onto a compilation CD of the band’s work released in 1998 by the label Rockadelic. In the fall of 1969 Gary decided to part with the band and pursue a college education and was replaced by Russ Pratt, a singer/songwriter and organ player from a fellow band in a nearby town. More personnel shifts occurred after Russ, Dan, and Paul graduated high school in 1970. Russ and Dan left the group and were replaced with Charles Weisgerber for bass duties and Rand Harrison for his vocal and keyboard talents. Unfortunately Rand did not fit quite right with the band. Luckily though, Gary Speer was able to return and took over for Harrison. Eventually they set their sights on bigger and better things by relocating to Seattle where fellow Lewistonian, David Lee, joined the group playing the electric piano and handling additional vocals.
This lineup was short lived though and Charles Weisgerber returned to Lewiston and was replaced with John Helton. This final incarnation of Stone Garden (now calling themselves The Speer Brothers Band, but according to Paul Speer it was really the continuing legacy of Stone Garden) lasted until early 1972 when the group finally decided to throw in the towel. Following the disbanding all the members continued to play music either part of full time. Bandleader, Paul Speer went on to enjoy a successful career in producing and has over 250 albums to his name, in addition to a Grammy nomination for a video collaboration with Queensryche drummer Scott Rockenfield. Sadly Dan Merrell was killed by a hit and run driver in 1972 and Gary Speer passed away in 1994. The band went through many members throughout its history and was unfortunately never able to release any proper albums or recordings minus the one single, but luckily many of their fantastic recordings survived and were able to find their way to a much larger audience thanks to the Rockadelic compilation and the reissues that followed.
Other than the single containing the tracks Oceans Inside Me and Stop My Thinking, the band never officially released any material during their active years. Fortunately Rockadelic was kind enough to remaster and put together a good collection of ten of the band’s cuts which Paul Speer felt were good representations of their overall sound. These guys have a fairly heavy reputation among fans of the genre and the opening cut of the album definitely shows why. It’s full on proto doom and totally fuzzed out. Just the way heavy psych ought to be. Following this we have It’s A Beautiful Day. You may be expecting a mellow, flower power type folk song, but despite the title it continues the heavy fuzz tradition started with Oceans Inside Me. There are softer cuts yet to come, but they’re still quite listenable. The band’s very first recorded song comes next and while nowhere near as heavy as the previous songs, it’s still a nice little ditty. It’s especially impressive for the fact that the oldest person in the band was around 15 or 16 at the time of recording. The following track brings us back to the heaviness and is bestial fuzz onslaught. Six minutes of delicious psychedelic jamming. For my ears this is the stand-out track on the album. The blandly titled Da Da Da Da Da is a bit of a weaker song, but it’s nothing insulting.
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Halfway through the compilation and we have heard two softer songs and three heavy ones. Not a bad ratio, and it basically continues on like this for the remainder. Stop My Thinking is a fairly uninteresting blues song, and may be a turn off for the heavy heads. But once again it’s not a total waste of sound and even at their worst this band can still entertain. Track number seven returns the heavy fuzz to our ears and gets us ready for the big grand finale. Well not actually the finale, but Woodstick would definitely be an appropriate closer. It’s long, drenched in blistering hot psychedelic vibrations, and overloaded with the groovy fuzz this band excels at. Definitely a highlight and probably the heaviest track here. Now unfortunately the last two songs kind of...don’t do much. First there’s the (in my opinion) pointless and inferior 45 version of Oceans Inside Me which is bogged down by unattractive saxophone noise. Stick with the other version of the song, it’s much better. And then there’s the infamous SF (San Francisco) Policeman Blues track. After several listens the song might grow on you like it did me - it’s pretty fun, lighthearted and harmless - but I can definitely see others absolutely hating it. It’s totally out of place and if you didn’t know better you’d have know idea it’s the same band performing it. Like I said, I can dig it somewhat, but still be on guard for it. Now I just found out while doing research for this band that a reissue of the album was released in 2008 containing five additional bonus cuts. I searched YouTube (not very thoroughly mind you ha ha) and was unable to find them to listen to so I had to rely on short previews of the songs found on AllMusic.com. But from what I’ve heard I can say that they keep the same level of consistency found on the original ten songs; some heavy fuzz monsters and some mellow, bluesey type songs. Overall this one is a great listen and if there’s one thing to take from this review it’s the word fuzz which there is plenty to go around on this record.
8/10
These guys won’t destroy your speakers every time, but when they do, they really fucking do. You’re not going to find many other flower power bands this heavy and fuzzed out. Also consider the fact that the majority of the their recordings were done while the band was in high school. So enough reading this, go out there and make purchase of their sole compilation and DIG ON THE FUZZ!
Recommended tracks:
-Oceans Inside Me (not the 45 version)
-It’s A Beautiful Day
-The World Is Coming To An End
-Bastard
-Woodstick
Words: Brian
“The World Is Coming To An End”, was recorded in a basement facility owned by a Doug Smith, in Clarkston, Washington. By this point the band was frequently playing live venues and this helped attract the attention of a potential manager, Don Tunnell. Seeing this as a chance at super-stardom (and for the fact that he only lived a block away and was old enough to buy beer), the band hooked up with Tunnell, who also gave them their newest moniker, Stone Garden; borrowed from a psychedelic poster Don had seen amidst the then blossoming flower power revolution. For the next few years the band was able to build up a solid reputation playing all over the Pacific Northwest with sets containing both originals and typical cover songs by groups such as The Doors, Hendrix, The Beatles, etc. In 1969 they were once again invited by sound engineer Doug Smith to record material in his new and improved basement recording studio.
With the help of multi-instrumentalist John Purviance playing the sax and harmonica, the group pressed 300 copies of a single containing the songs Oceans Inside Me and Stop My Thinking. Following this a disc jockey and big supporter of the band going by the name Chris Adams, set them up at a professional 8-track recording facility to record some more songs, including a second version of Oceans Inside Me. These recordings were never released at the time, but eventually made their way onto a compilation CD of the band’s work released in 1998 by the label Rockadelic. In the fall of 1969 Gary decided to part with the band and pursue a college education and was replaced by Russ Pratt, a singer/songwriter and organ player from a fellow band in a nearby town. More personnel shifts occurred after Russ, Dan, and Paul graduated high school in 1970. Russ and Dan left the group and were replaced with Charles Weisgerber for bass duties and Rand Harrison for his vocal and keyboard talents. Unfortunately Rand did not fit quite right with the band. Luckily though, Gary Speer was able to return and took over for Harrison. Eventually they set their sights on bigger and better things by relocating to Seattle where fellow Lewistonian, David Lee, joined the group playing the electric piano and handling additional vocals.
This lineup was short lived though and Charles Weisgerber returned to Lewiston and was replaced with John Helton. This final incarnation of Stone Garden (now calling themselves The Speer Brothers Band, but according to Paul Speer it was really the continuing legacy of Stone Garden) lasted until early 1972 when the group finally decided to throw in the towel. Following the disbanding all the members continued to play music either part of full time. Bandleader, Paul Speer went on to enjoy a successful career in producing and has over 250 albums to his name, in addition to a Grammy nomination for a video collaboration with Queensryche drummer Scott Rockenfield. Sadly Dan Merrell was killed by a hit and run driver in 1972 and Gary Speer passed away in 1994. The band went through many members throughout its history and was unfortunately never able to release any proper albums or recordings minus the one single, but luckily many of their fantastic recordings survived and were able to find their way to a much larger audience thanks to the Rockadelic compilation and the reissues that followed.
Other than the single containing the tracks Oceans Inside Me and Stop My Thinking, the band never officially released any material during their active years. Fortunately Rockadelic was kind enough to remaster and put together a good collection of ten of the band’s cuts which Paul Speer felt were good representations of their overall sound. These guys have a fairly heavy reputation among fans of the genre and the opening cut of the album definitely shows why. It’s full on proto doom and totally fuzzed out. Just the way heavy psych ought to be. Following this we have It’s A Beautiful Day. You may be expecting a mellow, flower power type folk song, but despite the title it continues the heavy fuzz tradition started with Oceans Inside Me. There are softer cuts yet to come, but they’re still quite listenable. The band’s very first recorded song comes next and while nowhere near as heavy as the previous songs, it’s still a nice little ditty. It’s especially impressive for the fact that the oldest person in the band was around 15 or 16 at the time of recording. The following track brings us back to the heaviness and is bestial fuzz onslaught. Six minutes of delicious psychedelic jamming. For my ears this is the stand-out track on the album. The blandly titled Da Da Da Da Da is a bit of a weaker song, but it’s nothing insulting.
Halfway through the compilation and we have heard two softer songs and three heavy ones. Not a bad ratio, and it basically continues on like this for the remainder. Stop My Thinking is a fairly uninteresting blues song, and may be a turn off for the heavy heads. But once again it’s not a total waste of sound and even at their worst this band can still entertain. Track number seven returns the heavy fuzz to our ears and gets us ready for the big grand finale. Well not actually the finale, but Woodstick would definitely be an appropriate closer. It’s long, drenched in blistering hot psychedelic vibrations, and overloaded with the groovy fuzz this band excels at. Definitely a highlight and probably the heaviest track here. Now unfortunately the last two songs kind of...don’t do much. First there’s the (in my opinion) pointless and inferior 45 version of Oceans Inside Me which is bogged down by unattractive saxophone noise. Stick with the other version of the song, it’s much better. And then there’s the infamous SF (San Francisco) Policeman Blues track. After several listens the song might grow on you like it did me - it’s pretty fun, lighthearted and harmless - but I can definitely see others absolutely hating it. It’s totally out of place and if you didn’t know better you’d have know idea it’s the same band performing it. Like I said, I can dig it somewhat, but still be on guard for it. Now I just found out while doing research for this band that a reissue of the album was released in 2008 containing five additional bonus cuts. I searched YouTube (not very thoroughly mind you ha ha) and was unable to find them to listen to so I had to rely on short previews of the songs found on AllMusic.com. But from what I’ve heard I can say that they keep the same level of consistency found on the original ten songs; some heavy fuzz monsters and some mellow, bluesey type songs. Overall this one is a great listen and if there’s one thing to take from this review it’s the word fuzz which there is plenty to go around on this record.
8/10
These guys won’t destroy your speakers every time, but when they do, they really fucking do. You’re not going to find many other flower power bands this heavy and fuzzed out. Also consider the fact that the majority of the their recordings were done while the band was in high school. So enough reading this, go out there and make purchase of their sole compilation and DIG ON THE FUZZ!
Recommended tracks:
-Oceans Inside Me (not the 45 version)
-It’s A Beautiful Day
-The World Is Coming To An End
-Bastard
-Woodstick
Words: Brian