The Bad Seeds

by Bruce Eder & Richie UnterbergerThe Bad Seeds were the first rock group of note to come out of Corpus Christi, Texas, itself a hotbed of garage-rock activity during the middle/late 1960s. They started when guitarist/singer Mike Taylor and bassist Herb Edgeington, then member of a local band called the Four Winds, met up with lead guitarist Rod Prince and drummer Robert Donahoe, who had been playing in a rival band called the Titans until its demise. Prince wanted to form a new group, and he, Taylor and Edgeington became the core of the Bad Seeds, who were signed to the local J-Beck label in 1966. They stayed together long enough to record three singles during 1966, of which two, A Taste of the Same/Im a King Bee and All Night Long/Sick and Tired, are unabashed classics of blues-based garage-punk, three of them originals by Taylor (who wrote most of their originals) or Prince. Even their normally maligned second single, Zilch Part 1/Zilch Part 2, has some worth as a pretty hot pair of throwaway tracks. The bands sound was the raunchy Rolling Stones-influenced garage-punk typical of Texas rock groups in the mid-60s. Following the breakup of the group after the summer of 1966, Mike Taylor became a writer and producer for the the Zakary Thaks, another Corpus Christi-based band (who were signed to J-Beck after being spotted playing on a bill with the Bad Seeds), and also recorded singles in a folk-like mode as The Fabulous Michael. Rod Prince went on to become a key member of the legendary band Bubble Puppy, who were signed to Leland Rogers International Artists label, and the post-psychedelic group Demian.