Incense & Peppermints: Pass Time With the Strawberry Alarmclock

There are a few songs from the 60s and 70s that REALLY stuck with me from my childhood.  Songs that I associate with my father heavily in some sense or another, because of a random memory here or there, or something.

The Zombies' Time of the Season is one such song.  I know it was my mom and dad's "special" song.  It's a trippy tune and I dig it,  Another is House of the Rising Sun by the Animals and there's I Saw Her Standing There.  Most people think immediately of the Beatles, but for me the Pink Fairies' take on the song comes to mind instead. There is one song I really have a strong memory of, and its just me, dad, his old car, and a very cool song driving somewhere down the Florida coast.  Since Father's day is just past and yesterday, June 21st, 2016, marked the one-year anniversary of the last day I saw my father alive, I thought I'd share that memory and the song.

Its actually one of the earliest songs I can recall ever hearing come on over the radio in my dad's old Dodge Charger and digging and it belongs to the psychedelic then sextet band Strawberry Alarm Clock and its off their 1967 album of the same name, Incense and Peppermints.  Of course, by this time, 1976ish, the group had broken up long before in the year of my birth (1971) and the song was already slipping into "oldie" status, but it was new to me.

In recent days I've added the LP to my record collection, as well as the group's sophomore effort Wake Up... It's Tomorrow.  While I love the debut album and have a special attachment to the title track, Wake Up... It's Tomorrow is the better album in spite of the fact it did not produce a follow up hit single nor did it match the sales of the debut 12".

Incense and Peppermints leads off with the excellent eight and half minute epic The World's On Fire, but the remainder of side one, while solid, does not stand out.  Side Two opens with the killer psychedelic romp Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow, a bonafide classic.  That's followed with a couple tunes that feel like filler bits - Paxton's Back Street Carnival and Hummin' Happy - before the album reaches its crescendo with its three outstanding closing tracks Pass Time With The SAC, Incense and Peppermints and Unwind With the Clock.  The biggest lament here is Japanese bonus track Birdman of Alkatrash is left off the main album because it also is a great track.

Wake Up jumps right in with an avant garde number, Nightmare of Percussion, one of my favorites on the album, with drummer Randy Seol taking a turn up front on vocals and at the fore with some killer percussion.  Soft Skies, No Lies is a lighthearted romp that gets us to the meat of side one.  Tomorrow, with Randy's drumming and Mark Weitz' keys featured really pops, then... oh my, we have the most amazing track this band ever produced - They Saw The Fat One Coming!  This song is too surreal to describe.  It must be heard to be appreciated.  Ed King, Lee Freeman and Group provide the haunting vocals.  The bongos are great, the guitar solo chilling, the brush strokes with the drums by Randy are awesome, the sitar perfect.  "They gathered at the church on Sunday and turned the House of God into a place of violence."  That line will always stick with me, and then, it bleeds into the next killer, chilling, haunting song, Curse of the Witches.  Delivered in a stilted vocal style, it still works, and this songs sends chills down my spine, and there's a xylophone.

Then you flip the record over.  And the damn thing is just as good, almost.  It leads off with Sit With the Guru, a psychedelic classic.  Go Back (You're Going the Wrong Way) is a fun group vocal tune.  Pretty Song From Psych-Out, a tune that originally appeared in the Dick Clark Produced, American International motion picture "Psych-Out" the year prior to the album's release, is up next. followed by a low point, Sitting on a Star.

The record closes with the Black Butter trilogy - Black Butter, Past, Black Butter, Present, Black Butter, Future - primarily a concoction of guitarist, sitarist, vocalist Lee Freeman.  In all, the three pieces combined last around six minutes and close out the record nicely.

The third Strawberry Alarmclock record isn't one that interested me much.  While five of the original six members were still playing in the group, with Gary Lovetro having left after the debut, the record label had handcuffed the group to an extent and refused to let them write all their own material after the did not produce a hit with their second album.  (To me this is a stunner because at least four of the songs should have been huge hits, especially They Saw the Fat One Coming.)  The group had only been allowed to contribute one original song to side one, Lee Freeman and Ed King's A Million Smiles Away.  The remainder of the groups original material was relegated to side two.

The rhythm section, Randy Seol and George Bunnell, departed before the group's fourth album,   Ed King moved to bass, Jimmy Pittman was brought in to sing and play guitar and Gene Gunnels joined on drums.

In 2010 Lee Freeman passed away.

In 2012 most of the original group, including original band leader Mark Weitz, drummer Randy Seol and bassist George Bunnell, along with Gene Gunnels, and newcomer (since 1986) Howie Anderson on guitar reunited and recorded and released a new album, titled Wake Up Where You Are.

The Strawberry Alarmclock's Officical Website can be found here.