The Electric Prunes were products of L.A.'s mid — '60s garage-rock scene, and, appropriately enough, got their big break while practicing in a garage. When a neighbor heard the Prunes' tremolo guitars and snarling vocals, she recommended the band to her friend Dave Hassinger, a hotshot recording engineer who'd cut the Rolling Stones' superhit “Satisfaction,” among others.
“Dave, believing we couldn't write our own stuff, brought in some material by Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, pro songwriters whose titles he really liked,” recalls Prunes founder and vocalist James Lowe. “Their demos were very straight and clean, but we arranged them our way. We were looking for something weird.”
One of those selections was “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” originally conceived as a slow piano ballad (and covered by crooner Jerry Vale, no less!). By the time the Prunes got through with it, though, “I Had Too Much to Dream” was a three-minute, echo-drenched fantasia jam-packed with shimmering guitars, fuzz leads, and Lowe's eerie double-tracked vocal. Skirting the Top 10 during the winter of 1967, “I Had Too Much to Dream” was immediately followed by another renovated Tucker-Mantz tune, “Get Me to the World on Time,” which reached No. 27. The Prunes tried their hand at arty rock (1968's Mass in F Minor from Reprise) — and then, as the song says, they were gone, gone, gone.
But in 1997, Prunes principals Lowe and Mark Tulin began recording anew — in a garage once again — and were soon joined by old mates Ken Williams and Michael Fortune. Last November, the refurbished band celebrated the release of Artifact (Prunetwang; available at www.electricprunes.net) by accepting an invitation from major fan Steven Van Zandt to headline New York's Cavestomp 2001 rock fest. After 30 years, it looks like the Prunes are ready to face the light once more.
“We never saw ourselves as being a part of any ‘movement’; we just did things the way we thought they should be done,” notes Lowe, who became a noted producer and engineer. “It feels great to be back at it again.”
