Psychedelic Lunch

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series, “Spooktober Edition” where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

THE SONICS: The Witch 1965

“The Witch” is a song by the American garage rock band The Sonics, written by vocalist Gerry Roslie, and first released as the group’s debut single in November 1964 (see 1964 in music). It also appears on the Sonics’ debut album Here Are the Sonics!!!. Arguably among the most frantic and heaviest recordings of the era, “The Witch” is regarded as being a quintessential stepping stone in the development of punk rock.

This may be blasphemy, but if not for this one song, The Sonics would probably be considered a fairly tame, forgettable early-’60s garage band. So thank god for this primitive, staccato wonderment which predated all those witch songs that would come along a decade later with it’s cautionary tale of the new girl in town, the one with the long black hair and long black car who may or may not be a witch or.