Strawberry Alarm Clock

 

I have a soft spot for the Strawberry Alarm Clock. They were known as a psychedelic rock band formed in 1967 in California. They had 5 songs that charted but are best known for their 1967 hit single "Incense and Peppermints." The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the week ending November 25, 1967.

Though you will find them categorized as acid rock, psychedelic pop, and sunshine pop, their first album was decidedly POP. My 1967 friends considered them to be phony psychedelic.

A history of the band written by member George Bunnell stated that "The Strawberry Alarm Clock came about by parts of two bands, Thee Sixpence and Waterfyrd Traene, morphing into one."

“I know there’s been a lot of different stories about how we got our name, and I think I’ve heard them all,” said Bunnell explained in a 2012 interview. “The most popular one is, we were all sitting around, looking at Billboard, put a finger on a song, and picked ‘Strawberry Fields Forever," but that record wasn’t even released at the time we started calling ourselves the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Our record company kind of picked our name for us. They wanted to use ‘strawberry,’ because I guess it was just a sign of the times. Peace, love and strawberries! So, that was already picked out.”

The “alarm clock” part came later, he said. Members began to throw around names that would fit with “strawberry” until a fateful incident chose the name for them. “We were over at Mark Weitz’s house one day, and his alarm clock suddenly fell down and broke,” Bunnell said. “And we looked at that, and decided ‘alarm clock.’ So, we called up our record company, and told them we were going to use the name the Strawberry Alarm Clock.”

During the Strawberry Alarm Clock's short lifespan, it saw many lineup changes.

SAC also made two notable appearances in films. In the 1968 Jack Nicholson movie Psych-Out, they played several songs including "Incense and Peppermints", "Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow", and "The World's on Fire". "The Pretty Song from Psych-Out" was re-recorded by a San Fernando Valley garage band, the Storybook, for the film's soundtrack album, but the Strawberry Alarm Clock's version was heard in the film. 

In 1970, the band appeared in the Russ Meyer cult classic film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. By this time the band's popularity had waned considerably, but the band continued on for some time, touring the South in 1970 and 1971 with a then-unknown Florida band called Lynyrd Skynyrd opening for them. In the latter part of 1971, the group, now without a record label and with internal conflicts over musical direction, opted to disband. 

There are many compilation versions of their 4 studio albums, including all 4 albums on 2 CDs. and a vinyl Best Of album.

Their studio albums:

    Incense and Peppermints (1967, Uni Records)
    Wake Up...It's Tomorrow (1968, Uni Records)
    The World in a Sea Shell (1968, Uni Records)
    Good Morning Starshine (1969, Uni Records)
    Wake Up Where You Are (2012, Global Recording Artists)