It’s time for the first LOUIE post for 2021! It’s a new year, as we hit the “restart” with a new operating system in the USA, which will hopefully be a better year than the other year!
Today is 1-23-21, or 12321….backwards or forwards… a Palindrome Day!
Exciting, huh?
Anyways, the first noteworthy LOUIE news for 2021 was a record-setting sale for a vintage LOUIE LOUIE record!
On January 3rd, someone paid $4,850 for an ultra-rare 45 single recording of “LOUIE LOUIE” with “Johnny B. Goode” on the flipside. The band was the Sonics, but it had no relationship to the more popular band from Tacoma, Washington with the same name.
MopTopMike shared a short history of this particular band called the Sonics on the g45central webpage:
The guys all attended school in Thailand, as their parents all had government or government related jobs which relocated them overseas for a certain amount of time. The group was not from Florida.
Each of the members came from a different state in the USA. And the group started long before the Beatles / Brit Invasion era. There were many members during the course of the group’s existence.
All of the recordings were done in Thailand, and all three came with picture sleeves. There were other recordings but none were issued as singles.
Neither of these Sonics knew of the other band with the same name. The Tacoma Sonics were signed to Etiquette Records, a label operated by the (Fabulous) Wailers, with some national distribution by Imperial Records. The Thailand Sonics aka “Sonics Inc.”, released 3 singles on their own Sonics Music Ltd. record label with considerably smaller distribution.
Both Sonics released their version of LOUIE LOUIE in 1966.
You can hear the (Thailand) Sonics’ recording of LOUIE LOUIE and other songs on their official ReverbNation webpage.
Big thanks once again to our pal Clay Stabler for finding this one!
REFERENCE LINKS:
eBay listing – “SONICS INC louie louie 45 + PICTURE SLEEVE KILLER CRUDE GARAGE PUNK HEAR”
ReverbNation – Sonics Music Ltd. official webpage
G45central.com- Sonics Inc. Info
45Cat.com – Sonics Inc. Discography
Discogs – The Sonics Inc Discography
After I posted this, I was reminded today was the 24th anniversary of Richard Berry’s passing..