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The Bonniwell Music Machine: S/T LP (1968, Warner Bros. Records)
My connection with the Music Machine begins with Rocket from the Crypt. I should write at length about my feelings on RFTC at some point. I loved them when I was a teenager, even though they never achieved the level of success many people think they deserved. They were such a great band, but their campy aesthetic and their James Brown-influenced, “hard working entertainers” schtick were just so out of sync with the times, the total opposite of the earnest slacker vibes that dominated the radio in the post-grunge era. RFTC’s songs were so damn great that to check them out was to fall in love with them, and every time I have revisited their music in the two and a half decades since (!!!), their greatness is confirmed. But that’s an argument for another day.
Camp Zama Records in Norfolk, Virginia was the first independent record store I frequented. There are a handful of records I remember seeing there, some of which I bought, and some I didn’t. One of them was a minty first pressing of the Teen Idles EP on the wall for $100. At the time I made $4.15 an hour, so $100 was an inconceivable amount to pay for a record… most new 7”s were about three bucks. But I think seeing that record on the wall planted a seed in me that’s still sprouting today. Other records I remember buying there include the Cap’n Jazz LP, Converge’s Halo in a Haystack, and Redemption 87’s self-titled LP, all of them seeming to my sheltered teenage brain like messages beamed from some kind of youth culture promised land. Another one I remember seeing on the wall was Rocket from the Crypt’s 1996 single featuring two cover songs by the Music Machine. The artwork for that 7” was a straight rip of the cover of the Music Machine album, and I remember being so intrigued by it. I can’t remember if I bought that single or not, but the tracks hit home with me when I (re?) discovered them on the CD version of RFTC’s 1995 10” EP, The State Of Art Is On Fire, which added the two Music Machine songs to the end of the original 10”. The State Of Art Is On Fire is kind of the ultimate RFTC record, catching them right on the bubble between their earlier, rawer records and the more anthemic material they moved toward during their major label period. I played that CD to death, and the two Music Machine covers were a big part of why I loved it, a perfect pop chaser after the heady psychedelia the band dips into on the EP.
(A short aside: RFTC connects to another significant moment in my life as a music lover / record collector. Their third album, 1995’s Hot Charity was only available on vinyl… I think I remember reading that the band promised the record would never appear on CD. Not only was one of one of my favorite bands repping for vinyl by refusing to release their new album on the dominant format of the day, but it also taught me an important lesson… a lot of great music only exists on vinyl.)
So, with the cover of the Music Machine’s album burned into my brain via seeing RFTC’s homage on the wall at Camp Zama, the next stop on my journey with the Music Machine is when I picked up their album for a dollar. Every year at Richmond’s Strawberry Festival, Plan 9 would have a giant outdoor booth filled with LPs, and everything cost a dollar. Every year I would spend $50-$75 and buy a giant armload of LPs, and I got loads of great stuff. My first copy of the Circle Jerks’ Group Sex came from one of these sales, a beater copy with split seams. The original 1966 pressing of Turn on the Music Machine I bought, however, didn’t have any major condition issues. I’m amazed the record ended up at the dollar sale, because Plan 9 was one of the few stores in the area that dealt in collectible records, and they knew their shit. Maybe someone was dropping a golden ticket in the pile of dross. However it ended up there, I was stoked.
Even though I didn’t know much about 60s garage, I played Turn on the Music Machine for years. It just ripped. It turns out that RFTC’s covers of “Trouble” and “Masculine Intuition” were faithful to the originals, and those weren’t the only killer tracks on the record. “Talk Talk” might be the band’s shining moment, and their cover of the Beatles’ “Taxman” is scorching. They hew pretty close to the Beatles’ arrangement, but it makes sense since the song is suited to the Music Machine’s strengths. There’s also a great version of ? and the Mysterians’ “96 Tears,” and as I don’t think I’d heard the original by that point, the Music Machine also pointed the way toward another 60s garage classic.
I think I was dimly aware there was a second Music Machine album under the name the Bonniwell Music Machine, but I’d never taken the time to check it out until I picked up Rhino’s 1984 Music Machine compilation Best Of The Music Machine. I picked up the LP hoping it would gather some cool non-album sides I wasn’t familiar with, and I found myself intrigued by the tracks “Double Yellow Line” and “The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly,” which are the two singles from the Bonniwell Music Machine album. The album went on my want list, but it’s not an easy grip… it sold poorly at the time, so original copies are scarce, and in the intervening decades, the Music Machine has been canonized as a titan of 60s garage, so the supply and demand see-saw slams down right on your wallet. Luckily, though, when I was in LA for the Lie Detector Fest in December 2021, I found an original pressing during my wanderings around LA’s record stores. It wasn’t a cheap copy, but it was reasonably priced and in nice shape.
So yeah, that’s the long story of how I discovered and acquired this record. As for the music… it’s pretty cool. Leaning more toward psychedelic rock than the more ferocious, punkier Turn On, The Bonniwell Music Machine is still full of great songs, though I think the band chose the strongest two as the singles. The production is somewhat baroque, and it reminds me of Love’s Forever Changes… actually, Love’s trajectory as a band resembles the Music Machine's, starting with searing garage rock and moving toward baroque pop. I even played this LP once when my family was visiting, and my dad and my brother-in-law commented on how much they liked the music. I don’t think they’ve EVER done that before or since.