As a kid in the sixties, one of my first favorite bands was The Music Machine led by Sean Bonniwell. He's passed away.
A former folk singer, Bonniwell was recognized as the chief force behind the band that honed its sound during a regular gig at Hollywood Legion Lanes bowling alley. The group's one big hit was "Talk Talk," a proto-punk single that broke into the Top 20 in 1966.
It was "the most radical single" then on Top 40 radio, "garage psychedelia at its most experimental and outrageous," Richie Unterberger wrote in his 1998 book "Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll."
"Rock and roll was a teenager in the '60s, and I used that climate to express my confusion, my anger, at the injustice of the world," Bonniwell said in the book.
Although Bonniwell did not regard himself as "the grandfather of punk," he recognized that others did, he told Unterberger.
"The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders" viewed the Music Machine as one of "the most loved" but "least played garage bands of the 1960s."
The band's success was largely due to Bonniwell, a gifted songwriter who penned "torturous but catchy, riff-driven songs," according to the All Music online database. The original five-man lineup included Keith Olsen, known for wielding a fuzz box, an electronic device that altered his bass guitar sound.
Here is The Music Machine doing Masculine Intuition.
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