Ok, so the band had great local and regional success and they are now recognised as the punk precursors but when it was time to move to a bigger record deal of more national proportions the pressure and limits put upon the band resulted in a "tamed down" sound with which the group was unsatisfied.
You could say the band arrived too soon on the scene, at a time when it was a lot more difficult to "do one's own thing" but on the other hand part of their charm is the fact that they were able to do so much so early.
In fact they were formed around something like 1963, released their two great albums "Here come the Sonics" and "Sonic Boom" respectively in 1965 and 1966 and disbanded in 1967.
The Sonics new the sound they wanted to achieve, it was a sound that faithfully reproduced the impression of their live sets. The singer, Gerry Roslie, wanted to "hear the sweat dripping from the tapes". In the studios in which they recorded, they were feared for their perfectly founded reputation of "taking things into their own hands". In those days groups were expected to be docile and malleable, the power resting with the producer and his technicians. With The Sonics this was not the case. They'd bust their speakers with ice picks to achieve a grungy buzziness, they'd overdrive all the amps and insist on recording at a level too high for the equipment thus creating further distortion. The idea was to create a "wall of sound", a thick wall of noise that gave great power and raunchiness to their recorded tracks. They detested the clean, clear-cut, pristine norms and on one occasion they tore away egg cartons that had been fixed to the studio walls to provide sonic insulation.
Aesthetically then, they strove for their personal sound. This sound was added to by the vocal power of Gerry Roslie, the singer, screaming dementedly on some of the tracks.
The Sonics' songs embodied what are now recognised as "garage" themes: a dark side, bordering on the supernatural world on the evil side and mental sickness.
There are several sides to The Sonics' songs. There are their furious reworkings of rock standards (Roll over Beethoven, Good Golly Miss Molly, Keep a knockin', Skinny Minny), their own classics, often bordering on the macabre or the insane (The Witch, Psycho, Cinderella, He's Waitin, Shot Down, Strychnine) and their extremely powerful, if very different reworkings of motown and soul classics that were a big thing at the time (Do you love me, Money (that's what I want), Walking the Dog, Hitch Hike...). Another aspect of the band was linked to their era, an era of surf songs about cars and school. There's not a lot of this in the Sonics' songs but it must be noted that the band had a sax player, which was perhaps the done thing at the time and although it fits in well with the crazy din the band created , we might have imagined everything to be guitar based. "Boss Hoss" is as close as the Sonics ever get to a surf song thematic mentioning a new car, school and parents "Just bought myself a new set of wheels, my folks helped me swing the deal, believe me buddy I'm no fool, I got the money working after school")
All this they were able to do successfully, convincingly and with a punch that's still surprising when you listen to it some 35 years later !
My personal favourite is "Psycho". The song's subject matter is the mental stress dealt the singer by his girlfriend. The song is extremely simple but gives you the feeling the singer is veritably possessed and going off the rails. It's a masterful example of the simple but efficient rock syntax: simple words, repetition, maximum effect.