Sky Saxon, Stigs In Love and my big brother...

It was a pity that Sky Saxon left us 2 days after Michael Jackson, space in the music obituaries sections was at a premium and he didn't get anywhere near the column inches he deserved...But I'm kinda biased, you see, I wrote a song with him... well, technically it looks like I did.. the slightly less glamorous reality is that I sampled one of his records for a track of mine called Stigs In Love.
Sky Saxon was the lead singer of The Seeds an excellent LA based garage rock band from the late '60's. My eldest brother Christopher was a big fan and as a youngster I was always drawn to the artwork for their album 'Web Of Sound'. Sadly Christopher died some 15 years ago. A tiny, tiny crumb of comfort was that I got to have some of his brilliantly obscure record collection. And so this was how I came about 'A Faded Picture' a beautiful track off the album which I subsequently sampled. We sent off for permission which Sky granted very graciously and thus the songwriting credit became Harris/Saxon/Hooper. Something which I'm incredibly proud of.

A Faded Picture is available on i-Tunes and I thoroughly recommend checking out The Seeds. Up In Her Room, another track off the LP is particularly brilliant, it's 15 minutes of frantic building sexual tension/celebration, it's hard to believe it was made in 1967.

So here is a video of Stigs In Love that someone kindly put on You Tube, don't watch it expecting anything to happen though.. it's kinda minimal like that

And finally... Here is a picture of Christopher, It would have been his birthday today, 9th July.. he would have been 51, and he would have hated it, he never liked birthdays. Though he'd probably be missing the cricket..