Season of "The Witch"

The first time Jerry Roslie opened his mouth to sing on a stage, he knew he had something special. Roslie -- the demonic shredded-blues howler of Tacoma, Washington garage-rock legends the Sonics -- was sixteen, playing with a high-school combo, when the guitarist told Roslie to take a turn at "Louie, Louie." "They start playing, I start singing -- and everybody in the band turned around and walked toward their amplifiers, away from me," Roslie recalls, laughing, "I didn't make it halfway through the song before I got the picture."

Roslie was soon making history with that voice -- and the Sonics. Their 1964 debut single, a furious dirty-R&B stomp called "The Witch", launched a two-year run of classics such as "Psycho," "Strychnine" and "He's Waiting" that made the Sonics stars in the Pacific Northwest (the young Jimi Hendrix was a fan), defined the teenage-animal majesty of Sixties punk and influenced later generations of Northwest bands, including Nirvana and Soundgarden. However, few people east of the Rockies saw the Sonics live in their prime. In 1966, the group made it to Cleveland and Pittsburgh for a handful of appearances -- then broke up the next year.

But on November 2nd and 4th, the Sonics finally make their New York debut, headlining the first and third nights of the Cavestomp 2007 festival at Warsaw in Brookyn. (Strawberry Alarm Clock top the bill on November 3rd. Visit www.myspace.com/cavestomp and www.ticketmaster.com for information and tickets.) Roslie, guitarist Larry Parypa and saxophonist Rob Lind from the Sonics' classic lineup will be in the front line -- bassist Andy Parypa (Larry's brother) and drummer Bob Bennett will be replaced by Don Wilhelm and Ricky Lynn Johnson respectively -- and Larry, now 61, says the band has rehearsed twenty-two songs over six months for these shows: "When we're done, mistakes and all, we want people to say, 'Wow, they have a lot of power for old people who haven't played in forty years.' And I think they will."

Founded in the early Sixties by refugees from other Tacoma groups, the Sonics were newcomers to a fiercely competitive Northwest scene already ruled by more technically accomplished bands like the Wailers (not the Jamaican group) and Paul Revere and the Raiders. "There was no decision to play more aggressively than the other guys," Parypa says of the Sonics' first rehearsals and shows. "A lot of it was lack of ability. We couldn't play with technique. So we pounded on everything instead."