New music

SAC readies ‘One’ album, one single

A new album for the new year: The Strawberry Alarm Clock will debut its neo-psychedelic “Where’s One?” in mid-2026.

It’s the follow-up to to 2012’s acclaimed comeback album, “Wake Up Where You Are.” While “Wake Up” mixed new band originals with several rerecordings of band classics, “Where’s One?” consists of all-new originals, topped off with a pair of Beatles covers.

The band plans to celebrate the long-awaited album with a combo preview party and concert at L.A.’s Whisky a Go Go on Feb. 28.

The psychedelic rock pioneers recently signed with the L.A.-area label Big Stir Records, which will release the single “Monsters” on Oct. 3 (digital and CD formats). A limited-edition vinyl single will follow.

“Monsters” and its virtual B-side “White Light” are now up for preorders and pre-saving.

The “Monsters” track will appear on Big Stir’s Halloween comp “Chilling, Thrilling Hooks and Haunted Harmonies” a week later (vinyl and CD). The virtual B-side is “White Light.”

Bassist George Bunnell takes the lead vocal on “Monsters,” a tale of primal fear the band has been previewing in concert. SAC also is working up a video to promote the track.

“The lyrics explore the lingering impact of fear, trauma or anxiety — both in childhood and and adulthood,” says the band’s longtime lyricist David Glück.

Planned “Where’s One?” formats are digital, CD and vinyl.

Bunnell says all of the album’s songs have been recorded, most of them produced by longtime band member Steve Bartek (Oingo Boingo). Mixing is under way.

Among the dozen tracks on “Where’s One?” are “Blow Your Mind,” “Primordial Soup,” “I’m Not the One” and “Live Water.” The Beatles covers are the instrumental “Day Tripper” (already an SAC concert favorite) and the psychedelic touchstone “Within You and Without You.”

The Strawberry Alarm Clock are Bunnell, keyboardist Mark Weitz, drummer Randy Seol, guitarist Howie Anderson, drummer and percussionist Gene Gunnels, and multi-instrumentalist Bartek.

Photos by Laura Calcaterra

> Help support production of SAC’s new album via a GoFundMe page.

> Read the press release about the upcoming “Monsters” single:

SAC preps album, seeks fan support

New music, News/blog

new strawberry alarm clock album — SAC’s George Bunnell, left, and Howie Anderson, right, with producer Michael Stern.

Creators of five studio albums, the Strawberry Alarm Clock are looking to make it an even half dozen. And they need fans’ help to do it.

The longtime psychedelic rockers are in the studio and are “about halfway through the recording process,” bassist George Bunnell says on the band’s new GoFundMe page. “It’s coming out great.”

The first track to emerge from the sessions at Rock Cellar Studios is the heavyweight “Monsters,” written and sang by Bunnell.

The previous Strawberry Alarm Clock studio album was released a decade ago: “Wake Up Where You Are” (2012) was the first new album from the Strawberry Alarm Clock in over 40 years. The album was a mix of new SAC songs and reinterpretations of their psychedelic rock classics.

Five of the six members playing on the new project were featured on the first Strawberry Alarm Clock album, Bunnell points out. SAC today consists of Bunnell, Mark Weitz, Randy Seol, Steve Bartek, Gene Gunnels and Howie Anderson.

The new album is being engineered and produced by Michael Jon Stern.

“We’ve been self-funding to this point but need help to finish and package for release,” Bunnell says on the GoFundMe page.

> Contribute to the new Strawberry Alarm Clock album.

SAC nets Elvis’ ‘Crawfish’ for charity

Audio, New music, News/blog

The Strawberry Alarm Clock cooking with Elvis? You read that right.

The veteran L.A. psychedelic rockers recently tackled an Elvis Presley movie number for a charity album. Sitting in with the band on vocals was Brendan McKian of the current Oingo Boingo band.

“We had done ‘Crawfish’ and a few other Elvis songs for an Elvis birthday bash back in 2009,” bassist George Bunnell said. “For that show we had invited our friend Brendan McKian to sing lead on that one and ‘King Creole.’ I thought it would be fun to have him back to sing ‘Crawfish.'”

The song appears on an album dedicated to the Victoria’s Voice charity. Victoria Siegel died from a prescription drug overdose. Her parents started the charity to raise awareness of the issue.

“The album will consist of various artists doing an Elvis song of their choice,” Bunnell said. “The concept is the brainchild of our friend Kevin Wachs.”

The track was recorded at Wachs’ studio, Rock Cellar. It was produced and engineered by Michael Stern, guitarist with Wachs’ band the Tribe.

Top photo: Howie Anderson, left, George Bunnell and Randy Seol lay down background vocals for Elvis charity album.

Listen to “Crawfish” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock with Brendan McKian

“Crawfish” credits

Steve Bartek: lead and rhythm guitar
Howie Anderson: lead and rhythm guitar, harmonies
Mark Stephen Weitz: keyboard
Gene Gunnels: percussion
Randy Seol: drums, harmonies
George Bunnell: bass, harmonies, percussion
Brendan McKian: lead vocals

In the studio, from left: Gene Gunnels, producer Michael Stern, Mark Weitz, George Bunnell, Steve Bartek, singer Brendan McKian, Howie Anderson.

Fan review: ‘Wake Up Where You Are’

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Longtime fan David Chirko wrote this online review of the Strawberry Alarm Clock’s new CD “Wake Up Where You Are.” It’s reposted here with his permission.

The Strawberry Alarm Clock’s 2012 “Wake Up Where You Are” CD sports a front cover with the slogan “Its (sic) About Time” and the band’s moniker, in big green/blue/red shagadelic lettering, with small, coloured flowers atop and (of course) centrepiece alarm clock with black Roman numerals encircling a large strawberry in its face, and outside of it left and right, more, smaller berries, all over an orange background.

It conjures the blissful musing of a sultry summer day. The also orange back cover showcases a top-right-corner photo — interestingly, the album’s name above it — of our minstrels gazing down, but somehow back, into a time tunnel. It, as well, under the group name, lists down the left side the album’s 14 songs; all but a handful penned by Clock alumni and most being rerecorded numbers from their earlier albums.

Listening to this new SAC CD I mentally ensconced myself back in the 1960s, when I first heard them. I asked myself: Would the same sound landscape I found so captivating then, recrudesce now, crafting an ariose déjà vu?

Whether SAC does psychedelic, sunshine pop, jazz oriented pop or rock, there is always something irresistibly arcane reflected in the cogency of their poetic/musical renderings. Their lush, often gossamer, vocal meshes are adroitly combined with taut harmonizing of a plethora of florid instruments, delivering a flower power orchestra. Like scintillating keyboards and warm, inviting, fuzz tone guitars that evoke what has become de rigueur in the Clock’s oeuvre: calm confidence.

Some of the disc’s works have a heavier, but pleasant, grittiness to them, while some pieces are served with aplomb, in cocktail lounge phraseology. Let the listener delve this mature band’s derring-do by comparing the originals with the redone tracks, whose altered tempi and newly inflected lyricism are yours to discover. To absorb the total impact of this more delicately performed album — with a hitherto unrealized dynamic range — it must be played LOUD.

Let me now exemplify, what I’ve asseverated thus far, with a few of my favourite opuses on this disc:

“Charlotte’s Remains”: Can’t you just envision go-go dancers in shimmering short shorts, gyrating in their cages? Okay, the captivating tale of a femme fatale; her “remains ” being the aftereffect upon the men she jilted. And where did Charlotte disappear to? For the answer, we’re taken into the psychedelic wonderland of ghosts.

“Drifting Away”: Commences with calescent tintinnabulation. The melody echoes, like a condor sailing over a bluff. The elocution, well timed. “Drifting away and taking my chances … ” — ah … dreaming leads the smitten awry. Drift away at the end as the volume decreases with strumming akin to a slowed clock or metronome.

“Hummin’ Happy”: The chorus opens this chestnut ballad of a “sadist” (long “a” this time) visually transforming the felicitous sights of an impetuous downtown into devastation: “Evil things make me laugh so … ” Compared with the old version, this offering is more liquid, without sacrificing SAC’s ebullient sardonicism.

“World Citizen”: Behemoth songwriting effort. A paean to the wonderment of camaraderie. Its enchanting flute is like the serpentine rising of a hand, there to sonically seduce us. The redolent percussion escorting us to a tribal culture.

I’ll stop here, leaving the rest up to you, curious listeners.

Yes, “It’s About Time,” as this comeback album’s subtitle announces, we, as SAC aficionados, “Wake Up Where We Are” and savour this fresh Strawberry treasure; praying there is a follow-up in the offing.

David Chirko is an abstract artist from Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. He has published three poetry books and is an international affiliate member of the American Psychological Association.

More about the Strawberry Alarm Clock CD:

New Strawberry Alarm Clock CD is out

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“Wake Up Where You Are,” the first new album from the Strawberry Alarm Clock in over 40 years, is now available.

The CD can be purchased via the “Wake Up Where You Are” product page (Global Recording Artists web site). Or via Amazon..

The album is a mix of new SAC songs and reinterpretations of their psychedelic rock classics. “Wake Up Where You Are” kicks off with the Strawberry Alarm Clock’s blistering cover of the Seeds’ “Mr. Farmer.” The album was produced by longtime Strawberry Alarm Clock collaborator Steve Bartek.

Ed King, the Strawberry Alarm Clock guitarist who went on to fame in Lynyrd Skynyrd, had this to say about the album: “The album is a labor of love. I wish I lived closer so I could take part. The guys play better than ever and the addition of Steve Bartek makes it now the way it should’ve been. I think his parents wouldn’t let him join the band! ‘Mr. Farmer’ is my favorite track. Mark Weitz NAILED it.”

The band — currently Mark Weitz, George Bunnell, Randy Seol, Howie Anderson and Gene Gunnels — will perform a rare L.A. concert on April 25 in support of the CD. The Strawberry Alarm Clock last performed publicly in November 2010.

More about the Strawberry Alarm Clock CD:

New Strawberry Alarm Clock CD

Highlights, New music, News/blog

The Strawberry Alarm Clock has a message for fans: New music is on the way.

Under the guidance of producer Steve Bartek, the band has been busy laying down tracks for a new CD.

(Update: “Wake Up Where You Are,” the first new album from the Strawberry Alarm Clock in over 40 years, is now available. It was released in March 2012.)

The album includes brand-new songs, a killer cover song and rerecordings (or reinterpretations) of some tunes from the band’s classic period — the late 1960s. (Read a track-by-track breakdown of the CD songs.)

Unlike some other ’60s rock acts, however, the SAC has no intention of leaning on songs from their younger days on future releases.

“These new songs were done to test the waters,” says SAC keyboardist Mark Weitz. “It’s a springboard to a second new album of all-new original material. We now are dedicated to recording new music.”

(Photos: Top of page, from left: Mark Weitz, Randy Seol, George Bunnell and Howie Anderson. Below: Weitz takes a break in the studio.)

SAC bass player George Bunnell says the original plan “was to embark on a recording project by revisiting and recording some of the old material ‘just to see if we could work together’ — and also to see what we sound like this many years later. Like, do we still sound like the SAC?

“Our real intention was to write and record new songs. We just wanted to get back to our roots a bit, establish a method and move on from there.”

Weitz says of the producer: “Steve (Bartek) had a tremendous role in the new recordings (for the CD). Without his patience, knowledge, vision and experience — not to mention his studio and the massive amount of donated studio time — this project never would have happened.”

Bartek (Oingo Boingo) has a long history with the band, dating back to before they hit the charts in 1966. He last played as a member of the Strawberry Alarm Clock during 2007-2010, but left due to his insanely demanding schedule scoring films with Danny Elfman (his Oingo Boingo bandmate).

The core band members — Bunnell, , Weitz, Howie Anderson, Randy Seol and Gene Gunnels — played live in the studio, just like in the old days. “We try to record together,” Weitz says. “Everything is mic’d, and we play and sing as a group. We try to musically overdub as little as possible.”

Bunnell recently answered a fan’s question about “Incense and Peppermints,” which is MIA on the CD: “The song is a difficult act to follow. There are so many serendipitous reasons for that original track coming together as it did, as well as a healthy amount of disdain over the mishandled writer’s credits and the possibility of us adding more revenue to that handbag.

“I think the track was doomed from the get go. We did have a nice (new) arrangement for it, but the original version is is what it is, because it is what it is. So we let that be.”

There are two alternate tracks on the CD. Both are extended versions of songs on the disc. One is the surprisingly psychedelic Seeds cover “Mr. Farmer.” (Appearing on an upcoming Sky Saxon memorial tribute CD set.) The other is the SAC classic “Sit With the Guru” revisited with a long drum solo.

Here are the songs on the upcoming CD in the projected running order:

1. Mr. Farmer (single version)*
2. Strawberries Mean Love
3. Hummin’ Happy
4. Birds in My Tree
5. World Citizen*
6. Drifting Away*
7. Lose to Live
8. Barefoot in Baltimore
9. Charlotte’s Remains*
10. Sit with the Guru (classic version)
11. Tomorrow
12. Wake up*
13. Mr. Farmer (extended with psychedelic jam)*
14. Sit with the Guru (extended with drum solo)

* = New