Raw & Alive (Deluxe Version)＜限定盤＞

As they unwittingly proved with their overly ambitious concept album Future, the Seeds were at their best when they kept things simple and to the point, and in 1968, uncertain where to go next after Future tanked, the band decided it would be a good idea to document their energetic live show with a concert album. However, in order to best control the audio, they ended up cutting a live set in a studio rather than taping an actual concert, laying in the sounds of cheering fans after the fact. The results were released as Raw and Alive: The Seeds in Concert at Merlin's Music Box, even though it was recorded at Western Recorders studio in Hollywood rather than the folk-oriented coffee house namechecked in the title, and the incongruous-sounding cheers and applause, which rise and fall at unpredictable moments, give away the game that this is that curious artifact of the era, The Fake Live Album. However, as such things go, this is one of the best Fake Live Albums ever, and a better-than-average Seeds set as well. The songs really were cut live to tape, with no overdubs and edits, and the Seeds sound plenty tight and enthusiastic here, with Sky Saxon's vocals reaching a near-feral intensity on "Satisfy You," "Night Time Girl," and "900 Million People Daily All Making Love," and Jan Savage's guitar work cutting significantly deeper than in the original recordings of these tunes. A few new tunes were played at the "live" sessions, and "Humble and Bumble" and "The Gypsy Plays His Drums" aren't milestones in the Seeds' catalog, but they attack the hits with force and commitment, and the almost-ten-minute rave-up on "Up in Her Room" is some sort of crazed triumph. Maybe not raw, but more alive than you think, and one of the Seeds' best offerings. ~ Mark Deming