Released: 1965
Asked some twenty five years later about any similarities, at least at a basic level, between his band and The Sonics, Kurt Cobain was obdurate, claiming “I hate The Sonics”.
The question came not just because the two bands were from the same rainswept, dank and bleak area north of Seattle. It was also posed because it was claimed The Sonics in their brief first incarnation invented garage and taking things one step further, punk rock, long before the notion of using music as a tool against the status quo had been considered.
From Tacoma, the teenage quintet debuted in 1965 with The Witch, a raw boned, bug-eyed conflation of the blues and nerve-throbbing rock n’ roll that ended up an unlikely regional hit. This gave them the impetus to line up Psycho, a song which turned the intensity down a parent frightening notch, with singer Gerry Roslie’s foghorn-like pipes and a hormonal guitar still conveying lust at what felt like a thousand beats an hour.
Talking about The Sonics a decade after Cobain, The White Stripes Jack White was much more effusive, saying just “Life becomes better after buying a Sonics record.” You can only please some of the people, some of the time.
The Voice Of Unreason 
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