Strawberry Alarm Clock
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Strawberry Alarm Clock was a one-hit wonder psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles, known for their 1967 hit "Incense and Peppermints".
The group originally consisted of Ed King (lead guitar), Mark Weitz (keyboards), Lee Freeman (rhythm guitar), Gary Lovetro (bass), and Justin Burke (drums). On their first and most famous single, "Incense and Peppermints", lead vocals were sung by Greg Munford, a 16-year-old friend of the band. The song reached #1 on the Billboard pop singles chart in late 1967. After that success the band added George Bunnell (bass and rhythm guitar) before making their first LP in 1967, also titled Incense and Peppermints. Bunnell would also become their main songwriter. Some early Strawberry Alarm Clock songs were penned by George Bunnell and Steve Bartek (who would much later join Oingo Boingo). Bartek played flute on the debut album, but could not join the band because of school.
During the band's short life, it saw many lineup changes. Gary Lovetro left the band before the second album, Wake Up It's Tomorrow, (also 1967). The single "Tomorrow" from this album was a minor hit and their only other top 40 appearance, reaching #23 in early 1968. George and Randy left the band in 1968 and original "Incense and Peppermints" drummer, Gene Gunnels, rejoined along with new lead singer, Jim Pitman. In 1969, Pitman left, and was replaced by Paul Marshall. Although the group followed up with more LPs in 1968 (The World in a Seashell) and 1969 (Good Morning Starshine) the band had begun to fall apart and the audience was mostly gone. In various forms the group managed to keep performing until 1971, when it finally broke up.
The Strawberry Alarm Clock made two notable appearances in films, first in the 1968 Jack Nicholson movie Psych-Out, where they played several songs, including "Incense and Peppermints", "Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow", and "The Pretty Song From Psych-Out", and then in the 1970 Russ Meyer camp classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
Ed King went on to join Lynyrd Skynyrd. Several members of Strawberry Alarm Clock reunited in the 1980s to perform on oldies concert tours. The first reunion occurred when guitarist Lee Freeman spotted a newspaper ad promoting an appearance by the Strawberry Alarm Clock at a Los Angeles music club. Original member Freeman knew nothing about this gig, and went to the club to investigate. There, he discovered that the advertisement had actually been a ploy by the club's owners, to get the real band to reunite.
The Strawberry Alarm Clock is scheduled to perform at the Virginia Theater in Champaign, IL, on April 29, 2007, the last day of the ninth annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival after the screening of the cult movie "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" at Noon.
