Here Are the Sonics

wow covers and distortion. ground breaking.......

Fun enough. 3.

I really want to like it but truthfully the best bits are covers of other greats, their stuff is just kinda garage band stuff, and by garage band I mean the kind of band that every 16 year old formed in the 1960s after hearing the Beatles and wanting to be them- but very very few ever did. These guys are no exception. Plus 1 for nostalgia and the rawness of it all.

Yeah, it's mostly a bunch of covers, but these guys rock. Favorite Songs: The Witch, Strychnine

Forever immortalised as the LV advert song

Fantastic energy, you can hear the influence on bands like The Stooges and many others. Have Love Will Travel is the stand out but every track is great. Didn't realise they made them like this in 1965 3.5/5

I love modern music but when bands are this tight without quantization or a click track - it just feels different. They're very much in sync but there's also a looseness within it. This may be one of my favorite records from the mid 60's. I mean I love a lot of these records but this - well this is the most Beatles-esque. It's a direct precursor to rock music. It was normal for the time, so I don't wanna ding them for doing all covers - they do them great - but I'm curious if they ever wrote their own music. Definitely a great album - definitely worth the listen.

It's a solid album with lots of covers, but I appreciate the lead singer's voice on their original material. It's not quite as perfect. Little grainy and gritty. I'd be interested to see where they went after this.

Very nice album. Sad that there is no remastered one available.

Huh!! I didn’t know exactly what to make of it at first but i kinda got it by the end and it was a pretty cool time!

This is super upbeat noisy rock n' roll fun. Especially given the year of release, this is real cool. I love the dirty guitar and the rough and ready production. There's plenty of other driving instruments in there, including the manic rock n' roll keys and that filthy sax. I came into this album liking one of the songs already (Have Love Will Travel) so it was good to listen to the rest of the album. I really like their style, but you have to dock points for the sheer number of covers right? I know it was the thing at the time, but there are 8 (!) covers on here out of 12. Just 4 original songs. Regardless of the covers though I am DIGGING a lot of this. 3.5 rounded up - YAAAAAAOW!

Um… this needs to stay in the crate. Or get pulled by someone who is going to sample it for its useful bits if they’re there. The covers were done better by the original artists or someone else, and the originals just don’t get off the ground, for me. 2 - for garage effort, which hey, awesome, do it yourself. But really this is a 1. Boolean: FALSE

I love screaming in songs as much as the next person, but all the shouting with the distortion was just too much for me

I feel like I just listened to the same exact song on a loop. Very tiring.

Hard to get past the terrible distortion, I know it's a garage band thing, but it wasn't great to listen to in the car.

Big energy 60s garage rock. This was fun

Hear of the Sonics but now actually listened. Enjoyed this very much! 4/5

Favorite Track: Have Love Will Travel

Rating: 4.7/5 Short Review: This thing sounds fucking feral. Dirty guitars, screaming vocals, pounding drums. It barely feels like 1965. You can hear punk and garage rock waiting to happen. Short, raw, and ridiculously fun. Favorite Track: Strychnine

He loves that scream. Ahead of their time.

This is born of an era when there were so many covers of songs that you never were sure who did the original. And this album is full of possible covers. But they are done well, and the album as a piece of work is decent. I enjoyed listening this, though its not sn outstanding album. If this is your era or genre you'll love this album. For me its high 3, but not quite worth a 4.

!!!And the award for the most badly done cover versions goes to…..!!! Now I’ve always disliked any song that has a prescribed dance that absolutely must be done by everyone whilst grinning inanely, so this will be filed alongside Agadoo-doo-doo, Let’s to the time warp and YMCA.

The Sonics were highly influential in using groundbreaking techniques and style to create their garage sound. Cutting holes in your amplifiers to make that fuzzy gain effect = genius! The only problem is there are just too many cover versions of old songs that have dated badly 'Roll Over Beethoven' being a good example. But with their own material like 'The Witch' or 'Strychnine' things work better for me at least. Not bad. But not great either.

So much better than I expected, but it's still a bit annoying that it seems like the entirety of the 50s and most of the 60s is just people remaking the same 15-20 songs. Still, this is very scream-y and funny and pretty fun for a 60s album. 3.5

God I love this record. The energy, the bombast, the controlled chaos of the sound. Lineage of the music produced from this album is very much My Shit™

Good fun but too reliant on covers to be a great album.

If I wanted to listen to covers I would go to a karaoke bar

Real boss hoss

Day998 - garage rock with a little saxophone. yes please. i think every sixties band was contractually obligated to cover roll over beethoven. i hope chuck berry got his money

It’s kinda crazy how much rock in the 60s was just rip offs and covers of Motown. Points for the crusty g garage rock sound I guess, and it’s blissfully short- but why only 4 original songs out of 12? You’re not an artist at that point. Just a jukebox band. ⭐️⭐️.5

Rating: 4/10

Interesting cover versions. The singer is great at those rock 'n' roll shouts. Unfortunately, the songs do start blending together a bit halfway through

I think that if I had been around in Tacoma, Washington in 1965 then The Sonics may well have been one of my favourite bands. They’re scrappy, in your face, but most importantly of all it sounds like they’re just having a damn good time playing a bit of garage rock and roll. The recording is pretty basic, played live in the studio on a primitive two track recorder with every VU meter bouncing into the red. It’s mostly covers of old favourites but there are some original numbers that stand comparison with the classics, especially The Witch, with stomping drums and screaming vocals from front man Gerry Roslie. They may not have hit the big time, but by all accounts they had a solid local following in the Pacific north-west and a legendary reputation that persisted all the way up to Nirvana in the 90s and beyond.

These guys should have been a 90s band, not a 60s band. The lyrics for "Walkin' the Dog" are the verses from "Miss Mary Mack" so that's kinda fun! Wonder how that evolved!

Way ahead of its time

3/5

This is pretty fuckin raw. It's a band playing well and they're tich' (Scottish for tight). Played and recorded live or at least it sounds like that. Some great covers and Boss Hoss is a fantastic original cut. Not bad lads, not bad.

Straightforward early / garage rock.

Good old-fashioned 60s rock, sort of a combination of CCR and the Kinks. None of the tracks exceed 3 minutes in length, something pretty common in 1965 but still much appreciated by a modern listener. The singing is soulfully carefree, sporting plenty of rock screams and voice breaks that work pretty well with the song. The Witch picks out a riff and hammers it home across a variety of blues and blues-adjacent chords. Great fast bassline too, and I think I hear a sax way back in the mix. Then Do You Love Me bursts onto the scene – a standard yet bombastic call-and-response song with a surprisingly high level of distortion for the time. I can't imagine that was intentional. It could really do with a remaster. Those drums, especially, completely blow out the mix whenever Roll over Beethoven (yep, the "over" isn't capitalised for whatever reason) is very much in line with whichever version you've heard previously. Berry's original, the Beatles, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis... In the Sonics' version, the guitar intro, the solo, the melodies, the tempo – they're all what you're used to. (The key feature here is the addition of rock piano.) But because all those old versions are so iconic, this one inherits some of the star power, and I can't bring myself to dislike it. Who the bliddy is Boss Hoss? He ain't any boss I've ever heard of. Still, a fun fast-paced number that blends in with the crowd. Dirty Robber is much the same, closely following a blues progression and including plenty of distorted screams. Akin to I'm Down, Long Tall Sally, and probably thousands of other blues compositions prior to that point. Side 1 concludes with Have Love Will Travel, whose popularity is entirely justified by that fantastic guitar riff. Psycho reminds me of Uptight (Everything's Alright), if only because of that pesky melody. Great little tune. Tons of gusto in the vocal performance here. Very different to Muse's version of Psycho, which I think I like a little more. A key change near the end provides us a stereotypically exciting song ending. Next we get Money, another song the Beatles (among many others) also covered. This one I think I prefer over the Beatles' version, if only because the riff actually bothers to shift in accordance with 12-bar blues. Walkin' the Dog... yeah, standard blues. The only things that brings it barely above average are those backing vocals and the goofy whistling (at the dog) near the end. The version of Night Time Is the Right Time I'm most familiar with is CCR's version, so there's another resemblance factor in the books. Again the backing vocals carry the song. Strychnine, a word I had to look up, is both a toxic compound and a pretty solid song. There's an intriguing chord – I think it's IIIb – inserted into the standard I-IV-V progression that grants the sound a lot more oomph. Finally, Good Golly Miss Molly... well, you all know it. It's a great song, covered hundreds of times so as to dramatically diminish its value. 3/5 Key tracks: The Witch, Have Love Will Travel, Psycho

The Sonics are one of those bands that you have to evaluate in the context of their time. If a band sounded like that today, it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. But recording a song like “The Witch” in 1965 is certainly remarkable. At that time, popular music was still largely stuck in the folk genre, and bands like The Who sounded accordingly. Sure, “Here Are The Sonics” otherwise consists mainly of unspectacular cover versions, but I do see the disruptive power of their original songs as a key factor in how we evaluate them in retrospect.

YEAOWW!!

Classic diner music (I liked it)

As exciting as this album is, i just imagine this dude's voice hurt after performing.

Lots of covers but great sound, especially for the era. Love the following songs: The Witch, Do You Love Me, Have Love Will Travel.

Some pretty wild stuff here on a fun album I had never heard of. Sometimes the 1001 album list actually does what I hoped it might! A very raw-sounding garage band with very rudimentary song-writing skills but a great instinct for picking rock classics to cover. I'm guessing this is something like the Beatles sounded circa 1959.

Whenever I’m craving some raw, old-school garage rock with a proto-punk vibe, The Sonics are always a go-to for me, right alongside The Seeds. This album is as straightforward as garage rock gets, but it’s incredibly raw with awesome energy and angst. I can only imagine what it must’ve felt like to hear this when it first came out, especially within the context of the early to mid-60s culture.

Loud as fuck. I can hear how this must’ve influenced some of the more contemporary music I’ve listened to. Enjoyable stuff but it kind of all blends together after a while. 7/10

Lekker hysterisch en best wel leuk. Maar ook heel veel t zelfde dus puntje aftrek. Maar wel heel leuk.

8/,5010 Buen album, me hizo acordar mucho a Elvis. Movido, muy bueno

Never heard of these guys, pretty good for 1965. Solid influence of Jerry Lee Lewis, the scratchy screams, piano. Was that a kazoo in the band? Guitar and drums solid. Curious what they sounded like years later. Most of the songs were covers. 3 stars

Demasiadas versiones. Tienen energía pero no los considero geniales. Un grupo para el directo.

They manifest the spirit of rock and roll as well as any band. And given their importance to the continuum of the Seattle music scene, and its importance to the history of post-WWII music, they definitely belong on the list. But listening to them is exhausting. There's only so much screaming and compressor overload I can take.

Solid garage rock. Enjoyable.

This is the kind of album title that will always tickle me. (HA and now I see they’re almost all some variation of “hi hello it’s us the sonics”) WAIT THEYRE FROM TACOMA? This is probably too much for me but I do love a lot of these covers. This is so Tacoma. Grit City amirite? I also keep forgetting this is 1965. Proud. Can imagine them playing at all the venues I was too intimidated to go to.

281. ok

"I know, let's do a load of covers much worse than the originals and stick them on an album." Pointless.

If I had any military secrets, I'd talk.

It’s albums like this that make me not take this challenge seriously

Goed! echt unieke stijl, kan er niet te lang naar luisteren omdat het niet helemaal mijn smaak is.

Actually not my cup, there was some dude yelling in my ear every song, I can understand the cultural significance but I wouldn’t listen to this again

If you told someone to drink every time there was a “wooOOO” on this album, you could be arrested for murder. This album is good when you’re more focused on the instruments than the singer, but it’s hard to tune the vocals out when they’re breaking the microphone every ten seconds. Less wooing and better recording equipment probably would make this quite a good album, but I am experiencing it like this. My biggest revelation listening to this was who made the original song that would be remade for LV adverts. It’s quite catchy actually and better than the sanitised modern version.

Never heard of these guys before! Grungy, raw, lead singer's voice is so gravelly, he spits out pebbles! Obviously The Animals took inspo from these wackos. Fun covers, should have been bigger. Further reading, many big bands loved them; Nirvana, LCD Soundsystem, The Cramps, The White Stripes?!? This is why I love doing this list, finding gems like this I'm pissed that I didn't know about before. One of the few albums so far I want to go straight back to the beginning of the album and replay. WooooooAWWWWoooowww!! IS this really 1965? Crazy!

Wasn't sure I knew who this was, but I am familiar with a few songs. Entertaining rock, maybe even bordering on some punk

twist and shout vom bazar, but done well

Like how Garage rock this felt, even if it is mostly covers.

Sounds like early classic rock'n'roll plus the start of the grittier rock sound that would soon follow. Not spectacular, but a solid listen.

A low 3 stars, bordering on 2. I appreciate the influence, but too much of this feels like taking old songs, speeding them up, adding distortion and angst, and calling it a reinvention. Sometimes a cover transforms the original; sometimes it just gets louder. At least they kept it brief.

my problem isn’t with the screaming, it’s that it’s the same scream every time 2.5

Sounded dated, even for 1965 standards. Every song kinda sounded the same, and the "WAOAOAO" scream got annoying very quickly.

⭐️Do You Love Me

Love how punchy it is. My grandparents probably loved this

Just as good as I remember, if not better.

I'm shocked by how much i enjoyed Here Are the Sonics. This band was a very influential band for the garage rock scene with bands like Nirvana and The White Stripes citing them as influences but this album has enough of this rockabilly feel that it feels like an evolution from 50s rock and roll to the rock music we know today. Even without all of that, this album is still just insanely fun. The songs are fast, the vocals are very enjoyable and like i said, the album cut a very good pace. I see how the recording quality might turn some people away from this album but to me, it still sounded clear and gave the album that garage rock charm. This was a really good one that more than deserves it's spot on the list. Best Song: Good Golly Miss Molly Worst Song: Walkin' the Dog

Minus a few points for mostly covers and maybe going to the scream a little too often but this album is pretty badass for 1965. Can definitely see the influence on a lot of the albums in this list I’ve loved.

3.5 I mean it, it's 3/4 cover songs, and everything is pretty simple but it was a fun listen. Rounding up

Knark utan knark. Så fucking bänger. Älskar psykadelika. På ett lagligt sätt.

The whole album seems to be happening on the other side of a medium-sized room? This album is like surf rock, but played through a distorted amp via a frayed cable. This is not good.

it was alright

# Album Name: Here Are the Sonics # Artist: The Sonics # Rating: 4/5 # Comments: Cracking album. Love the punk rock feel. Some genuinely good songs on here too. Biggest detractor for me was the amount of covers. Have love will travel is a banger. # Top Tunes: The witch / do you love me / have love will travel # Would I listen to it again? Yes

I didnt finish it but it was like weird like wtv

Eh, I'm fine with low fi but this one sounds a bit crap. Like when there are production issues it actually hurts my ears a bit. Like some of the keys, horns, and screams are shrill and piercing and unpleasant. When they don't physically hurt, they still sound bad, there's a static buzz. It's fine I guess. I can see it being somewhat exciting in the 1960s, but it doesn't do a whole lot for me in 2026. OK instruments, rough vocals, shit production.

They sound like a good competent wedding band. Lots of covers which bring nothing new to the songs and a handful of pedestrian original tunes. A decent 60s sound it is true but I wish he’d stop going whaaaaaaooohhhh.

Cant belive i havent heard this album before. Amazing link between classic rocknroll and garage rock and even punk rock. Gonna listen much more to this.

60s garage rock. It sounds exactly like several other bands from the time period that I couldn’t name (wooly bully, Do you love me, etc), but for some reason I found these guys super annoying. Most of the songs featured a “WOOOOOOW!!“ scream, like R2D2 getting electrocuted open half of the songs on this album. We get it, you like to party. Stop forcing it.

It’s okay, non-offensive

I can dig a lo-fi, three-chord old timey rock band. It's mostly covers and pretty bog standard stuff, but there's an energy to it that's undeniable, sort of like early Beatles, Yardbirds, etc. Lead singer might be a little too in love with the classic rock scream, but he's got the pipes for it. Also, given its vintage, "Strychnine" had no right to go so hard. Goddamn. Had never heard of these dudes, dug it, will check out more. My algorithm shuffled over to The MC5, Yardbirds, 13th Floor Elevators, etc. That's an endorsement if I've ever heard on.

De compressor draait overuren bij deze opname. Tering Jantje, wat een bizar luide mix hebben ze er van gemaakt. Het clipt aan alle kanten. De muziek zachter zetten helpt dan ook niet meer, want je ervaart het nog steeds als luide herrie. Heel onprettig om naar te luisteren. Met name die saxofoon die ze af en toe van stal halen, dat slaat gewoon he-le-maal nergens op hoe die is opgenomen. Op track 6 bijvoorbeeld. En dan nog dat ge-WOOOOW heel de tijd. Verdomme zeg. Onderliggend is de muziek eigenlijk wel aardig. De covers hadden van mij gerust achterwege mogen blijven want die kennen we inmiddels wel, maar het eigen werk (The Witch en Strychnine bijvoorbeeld) is goed genoeg. Ik overdrijf niet: dit is voor mij qua ongemak alsof iemand met een waterpistooltje met ijswater met onregelmatige tussenpozen in je gezicht zit te schieten. Ongevraagd. Met om de 3 of 4 schoten zo'n spetter die in je oog komt. Heel ff denk je: Als ik het gewoon negeer heb ik er misschien geen last van, gewoon blijven ademen, maar dat valt tegen. En maar knipperen. Qua muziek in principe 3, misschien wel 4 sterren als ze nog wat meer eigen werk hadden vastgelegd. Dit heeft invloed gehad op vanalles wat ik wel tof vind, dus dat is mooi. Omdat ik moeite had met het geluid wilde ik eerst nog voor 2 sterren gaan, maar vanaf track 6 ga ik me er zo kapot aan ergeren dat ik een 1 ga geven. Kutherrie. Ik twijfel om hierna Eefje de Visser aan te zetten, zo erg is het.

I’m conflicted about this album, you can hear the garage rock influence on Stoogies, MC5 latterly the Hives et al but can an album with only 4 original tracks be essential? Is this a covers album with an original EP hidden within? It was decent, lively, I liked the singers voice but won’t go out my way to listen to it again. 2.8

Love The Sonics! 4.1/5.

Decent enough old garage rock album of mostly covers I think.

Really? This sounded like a bunch of high schoolers who know only 10 songs and played the spring dance. Some fun covers, but no.

A bit wilder than I'd expected from this era! Good stuff.

Gotta go fast! So only 4 of the songs are original and the rest are covers? That's so weird to me how common that was back then. It's like do I just judge it only on those 4 songs then? I dunno. Their interpretation is how they did it back then so ya pretty good.

Adding 1 star for Love Will Travel, made me want to go listen to different versions of these songs.

Feel like I've heard many of these before, in movies or commercials. Pretty far reaching for a band I've never heard of. A surprising punk edge for something made in the 60s - abrasive but tuneful. Have love will travel rocked.

Im left with ringing ears from the screams and wondering who the fuck the sonics were 🤣 Weve heard this brand of early 60s band that has a few originals and fills the rest of a 30 min album with the same 5 covers. Song wise, this is mid at best. Sound wise, this is impressive. Loud, occasionally overdriven and a total monkey hour experience. Loved reading how much influence they had over other bands. Lots of “oh wow, THEY thought that? I guess I hear it too”. Listen to how thick the drums sound in Have Love Will Travel. From Cobain: “ I, I have to admit...The Sonics recorded very, very cheaply on a two track you know, and they just used one microphone over the drums, and they got the most amazing drum sound I've ever heard. Still to this day, it's still my favorite drum sound. It sounds like he's hitting harder than anyone I've ever known."

I wish that there were half star ratings. This album fits in a genre of music I classify as "Six Flags White Water Music". I didn't particularly like any songs but there were some that were almost good to me. Also, count how many times these guys start the song with a scream holy hell

Not bad at all. Not something I would listen to all the time.

Good old fashioned rock and roll I guess.

So far ahead of its time-sounds like White Stripes