(Turn On) The Music Machine

studio album by the American garage rock band The Music Machine, released on Original Sound Records on December 31, 1966. It arrived just months after the group's hit single, "Talk Talk", propelled to number 15 on the national charts. Although the album was hastily recorded to capitalize on the Music Machine's popularity, (Turn On) The Music Machine became a moderate hit on the Billboard Top LPs chart, and is hailed today as a classic garage rock album. Another single, "The People in Me

B-side "Come on In", was rigorously rehearsed by the group under the instruction of Bonniwell, who held a virtue to perfecting a uniquely hard-edged sound for the band.^[2] By the time The Music Machine entered RCA Studios to record the two songs, they were well-practiced and completed them in only a few takes. Hoping to capitalize on the band's sudden success, their record label Original Sound hastily summoned the members back into the studio to record for (Turn On) The Music Machine.^[3]

record producers insisted that the songs would improve record sales, a decision that Bonniwell recalled made him feel "artistically crest-fallen and infuriated".^[4] Still, Bonniwell regarded the Music Machine's arrangement of "Hey Joe" as innovative, invoking a slow, moody nuance that is strikingly similar to Jimi Hendrix's more well-known version.^[3] All of the remaining tracks were penned by Bonniwell, including the melodically complex "Trouble", the reflective ballad "Some Other Drum", which hinted at the musical direction the group would later take, and "Wrong", a song written in a similar style to "Talk Talk".^[5] Perhaps the most accomplished piece other than "Talk Talk" is "Masculine Intuition". Bonniwell explained the song is "very tricky for non-musicians. They really can't quite figure out what it is...I've had other musicians tell me, their bands have tried to play that song, and they can't. There's two sections—it's called a turnaround, and I invert two chords. And if you don't pick up on it, there's no way you can play the song".^[6]

Allmusic website, gathers that (Turn On) The Music Machine is highlighted by Bonniwell's original material, and "would have been a lot better if they'd let Sean Bonniwell write all of the songs".^[10] Critic Doug Sheppard praised Bonniwell's lyrical style, saying it "transcends the typical boy-girl theme of the day by instead favoring more introspective, psychological matter".^[11] In his article The Psychedelic Experience, Brian Hogg wrote the album "naturally features the group's hit single, as well as its flipside, the moody 'Come on In'. But alongside these tracks were five equally excellent Sean Bonniwell originals, as well as five covers" that the author goes on to conclude were "all rather offbeat and idiosyncratic choices".^[5] In 1983, Big Beat Records reissued the album, and in 2006 its material was released on the record label's compilation album The Ultimate Turn On.^[12]