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Tell your story: How did you discover Strawberry Alarm Clock?

How did you first learn of Strawberry Alarm Clock? What led you to become a fan of the band?

Were you lucky enough to first know of them during their 1960s existence? Did you find them during the 80s as a younger person looking back? Are you young enough to have found them in the internet age?

This page is a collection of stories about how SAC's listeners became SAC's listeners. What introduced you to one of the weirdest, most eclectic, and grooviest bands of all time? Add your story below!

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User comments for Tell your story: How did you discover Strawberry Alarm Clock?

1. Jeremy [site admin]
Jun 30, 2010

And I'll go first.

In the late 1980s I was in high school, and had (thanks to a Steppenwolf cassette I got at K-Mart) given up almost totally on then-current Top 40 music and was looking to the 1960s.

Somehow I focused in on psychedelic music in addition to other things. In my high school library, there was an illustrated book about rock history. I went through it and wrote down all the bands described as "Psychedelic". This is how I learned about Blue Cheer, Love, Iron Butterfly... and Strawberry Alarm Clock, who obviously had one of the best names of the bunch.

On a subsequent trip to my favorite record store (Radioactive in Augusta, GA), with my parents driving because I didn't have a license yet, I took $50 I'd saved from my job at the mall and bought three records: Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by Pink Floyd, a bootleg Led Zeppelin disc on white vinyl of a 1969 BBC session, and Incense And Peppermints.

IaP became one of my most-listened to albums for quite a while, and I soon got Wake Up...It's Tomorrow too. I also got a VHS copy of the Psych-Out movie and watched it over and over.

But the band's first album, though released twenty years prior, was also my first SAC album, and its weird, dense quality and playful looniness lodged themselves permanently in my brain. Strange to think that other people at my school were listening to Bon Jovi and whomever else at the time while I was being instructed about some other far-away but fascinating world through the magic of Strawberry Alarm Clock!

2. Billy
Jul 3, 2010

My friend had been into Psychedelic music for a while, so i decided to isten to it it too, because he loved it. So i first started listening to Jefferson Airplane and i loved the music. So i was looking through some Pschedelic bands, and i found Strawberry Alarm Clock, and i thought it was an awesome name.

So i listened to Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow and Sit With The Guru, because they were really trippy names. And when i listened to them they blew my mind. And then of course i listned to Incense And Peppermints, because it kept showing up when i was looking through their songs, and i remembered it off the Simpsons. And ever since i listened to those songs and more Strawberry Alarm Clock has been my favourite band, and i have all their songs, and three of their albums on CD which took me a year to find. I just can't find Incense And Peppermints on CD, even though it's their main album and a true 60's classic.

3. Joey
Jul 9, 2010

A few years ago I saw the Incense and peppermints compilation (NOT the original album) on cassette in a thrift store for 10 cents. I bought it because I liked the name but didn't know the band.

I put it in my car's player and didn't get it at first, but I listened to it some more and fell in love with the SAC! I got all the other albums I could find and still iisten to them. Awesome band!!!

That's how I got into this band. I was glad I found that tape!

4. Joey
Jul 9, 2010

Whoops, no edit — sorry, it wasn't a thrift store, it was a K-mart that was going out of business and had a big box of cassettes for 10 cents each. B-)

5. Jason Chesney
Jul 25, 2010

It was 1986 and I was 14 years old, searching through a bin of psychedelic oddities and assorted wonderment at Poo-Bah Records in Pasadena, CA. (they actually had a section for such records!)

I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just something weird, psychedelic and affordable. What I found was "Incense and Peppermints" (the orig. album on UNI) and "The Psychedelic Sounds of Kaleidoscope, Feat. David Lindley" (a comp. on Edsel.) I bought them both based on the names and the covers. Needless to say, I was not disappointed by either purchase.

My wig was certainly flipped that day. I instantly fell in love with SAC. Fantastic harmony vocals, fuzz guitar, groovy organ and clavinet, jazzy instrumentals with hip drum solos, vibraphone, and weird tunes. What could be better?

Like Jeremy, most kids I went to school with were into the music of the day and had no interest in 60's psychedelia. I was able to turn on more than a few of my pals, though. It was a magical time discovering music from that era (20 years after the fact.)I'm still listening to it with the same love and intensity today.

6. ANDY
Jul 27, 2010

I am 27 years old and SAC is one of my all time favorite bands, i have heard incense for years and years listening to oldies channels, but never really got into the band until about 8 years ago. Very odd and misled way of finding them, but well worth it. There is a song called lier lier by the castaways, i did not know who it was by, so on napster, i was searching bands i knew had a different sound to them, so i put in strawberry alarmclock and came up with the song itchycoo park (artist said to be SAC) it was not, i later found it was the small faces. But i liked that song so i listend to other SAC songs, first being Tomorrow and from there every song they did has become a favorite. Hummin' Happy is my all time favorite though,then Tomorrow. Thanks to the SAC for all the great sounds.

7. Phil
Aug 18, 2010

Just discovered this site. And sad to see Lee Freeman had passed on. I saw SAC in late 80\'s at Marin Civic Center Summer of Love show. Keeping the vibe alive, I play in two bands, one we do Incense(www.thebackpages.net), the other a tribute to Cream/Clapton, (www.justcream.net). So much great music from the 60\'s / 70\'s. Hope to see some SAC stuff coming out, and/or performing somewhere again. I still have all the vinyl LPS. So much great music especially in 1967. AM Radio. Keep it going, Cheers,

8. Robert
Aug 27, 2010

I was a high scool senior when I first heard "Incense & Peppermints" on the radio & got hooked right away - terrific minor key, tight SAC vocal harmonies, the guitar solos, the fading "sha-la-las". Liked the SAC's follow-up singles just as much.
I was at Keesler AFB, Biloxi MS when I heard "California Day" on the radio, but no retailer had it in stock; after a 40 year hunt, I finally bought a promo-45 this week.