The 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"/"I'm 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 band's 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.
–
Bruce Eder & Richie Unterberger, Rovi