ICE #179
February 2002
Digital Dish
Rhino Handmade offers a hidden, 'Net-only bonus track for its re-release of Sonny Bono's solo album, INNER VIEWS. The only place to get the Web address to access the track is the disc itself, and who are we to spoil the secret?
- Ric Dube

Record Collector #247
March 2000
SONNY BONO
INNER VIEWS
US Import: Rhino RHM2 7704
(1,500 Copies) (69:05)
In autumn 1999, Rhino launched Rhino Handmade, a new label dedicated to issuing CDs via the internet (www. Rhinohandmade.com). All Rhino Handmade CDs are limited, numbered editions.
Sonny Bono's "INNER VIEWS" was a flop when released in 1967 and is sought-after because of its unrestrained psychedelic approach.
On the back of Sonny & Cher's success, Bono managed to score a hit single with "Laugh At Me", in August 1965. With no vocal talent to speak of, he'd obviously noticed that this hadn't proved a problem for the similarly challenged Bob Dylan. Hence, "Laugh At Me", a Spectorised folk-rocker that stuck up for the individual. Once that muse was spent it took two years for Bono's solo album to hit the racks.
"INNER VIEWS" is unique. The opener, "I Just Sit There", is a twelve-and-a-half minute psychedelic magnum opus that sounds as if it was made up on the spot. A "Sister Ray" rhythm underpins sitar, tabla and every other 'now sound' that Bono could think of. He intones "Inside outside upside down / Everything is turning 'round / Backwards forwards which is right / Black is day and white is night". Later he quotes "A Day In The Life". It's a heady mixture. "Pammie's On A Bummer" tells the tragic story of a girl led astray by the psychedelic scene. The album is enhanced by the inclusion of every solo Bono track and copious sleeve-notes.
- Kieron Tyler

MOJO #75
February 2000
£££ Sonny Bono
INNER VIEWS
Rhino Handmade
Sonny Bono wasn't exactly boss of the mind melters and this, his big psychedelic move, is what you would expect from a future Republican politician, if not a narc: it's obnoxious, tasteless, bathetic, bitter, and inept. I think it's great: history told from the losing side. The first two songs add up to a killer 16-minute suite that rips off The Beatles in general - those raga vocal melismas and, in Sonny's case, cat-strangled sitar - and [A] Day In The Life in particular: 'I heard the news today oh boy' is quoted in the epic 'I Just Sit There' (sample lyric: 'Your mother's cooking sturgeon/Your sister's still a virgin') and forms the complete melody for the utterly spazz 'I Told My Girl To Go Away'. The next two cuts are blah but 'Pammie's On A Bummer' is Sonny in full effect: two minutes of extra bad freak-out scrapings leading into a cautionary tale of teenage LSD frenzy (later used as the soundtrack for an anti-drug public service ad). Fleshed out with Sonny's 1965 solo breakthrough, 'Laugh At Me', the neo-con follow-up, 'The Revolution Kind', and sundry other follies, this limited edition (1500) internet-only package justifies in itself the whole Rhino Handmade concept.
- Jon Savage

Roctober #28
August 2000
Sonny Bono
"INNER VIEWS"
(Rhino Handmade, internet mail order only www.rhinohandmade.com)
Sure, the out-of-touch social commentary of "Pammie's On A Bummer" and the misdirected, one-take-only psychedelia of "I Just Sit There" are pretty goofy, but the undeniable truth is that Sonny was capable of writing and producing better records than one-time mentor Phil Spector, and often did. Maybe the high art is in greater evidence on his records with Cher (see Sundazed's overhaul of their Atco catalog!) but dig "Laugh At Me" (later covered by Mott The Hoople) which unwittingly foreshadowed Sonny's ultimate public persona as a punch line, or the inexplicably-unreleased one-two punch single of "Misty Roses" (which rings a whole lot more believable than composer Tim Hardin's original) and "Cheryl's Goin' Home" written by Bob "Elusive Butterfly" Lind. Unfortunately conventional wisdom prevailed even on this obvious labor-of-love reissue (ltd. edition of 1,500!), with the liner notes taking particular care to bust Sonny's chops. Some people just don't get no respect. Perverse and wonderful.

Spectator Online
December 11, 1999
Sonny Bono
INNER VIEWS
(Rhino Handmade)
Go ahead and laugh at me - I paid over twenty bucks for this limited edition pressing (#1285 of 1500) from Rhino's internet-only record store. 1965's "Laugh At Me" was Sonny's only hit as a solo artist. That's on here along with several tasty and trashy instrumental B-sides, alternate takes and Sonny's own Neapolitan reading of Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound. "Just Sit There" is the former Congressman's stream-of-consciousness take on 1960s society. An enclosed booklet is richly annotated and even includes a rant against Bono's poorly disguised, neo-conservative machismo. Me? I've been relishing this disc, it sounds more like the Rat Pack On Acid, sitars and all. What's next for Rhino Handmade? Would you believe the ENTIRE recording session tapes for Iggy & The Stooges' Funhouse elpee digitally burned onto 7 CD's?
- Tony Madejczyk

All Music Guide
One of the strangest and undeservedly obscure pop-psychedelic albums of the 1960s got even better with the release of this expanded reissue. Clocking in at over 60 minutes of music, the Rhino Handmade CD edition contains not only a flawless transfer of the original Atco INNER VIEWS LP, but also 11 additional tracks, among them the Sonny Bono singles "Laugh at Me" and "The Revolution Kind," the single edits of four of the five songs off the original LP (one of which, "Pammie's on a Bummer," is an improvement as a shorter pop record), and various odd B-sides, a pair of unreleased single sides ("Misty Roses" and "Cheryl's Goin' Home"), plus the backing tracks to "Pammie's on a Bummer." The sound, coupled with its beat and the arrangement, makes "I Just Sit There" about as intense a listening experience as "Goin' Home" by the Rolling Stones, and a better record than Iron Butterfly's "In a Gadda Da Vida," while the rest has never seemed more inviting. The bonus tracks add a more folk-rock and pop (and pop-psychedelic) element to the mix of sounds, but those fit in well with the original. The packaging is done up just right, too, with superb essays by Ward Lamb and Serene Dominic and an excellent track-by-track analysis by Harry Young. Available only online as of 2001, in a limited edition, and worth every cent and then some - EMI should only treat the Beatles' records this well.
- Bruce Eder

Weekly Wire
January 24, 2000
By Michael Henningsen
Sonny INNER VIEWS
(Rhino Handmade)
Yes, Sonny Bono. As in Sonny and Cher. As in not the best skier in the world. His only solo album, 1967's INNER VIEWS, is finally available on CD, and with its 11 bonus tracks -- most from singles, three previously unreleased -- it's also a handy collection of Sonny's entire solo career. However, it's the album itself that's the most fascinating.
Long considered one of the most incomprehensible and bizarre albums by any major artist of the '60s, INNER VIEWS is utterly unlike anything else Sonny ever did in his entire career. In a bid to gain the acceptance of the newly-burgeoning underground audience which looked askance at Sonny and Cher's enormously successful singles, INNER VIEWS positively screams "Look, I'm an artist!" in pure 1967 style. There's only five lengthy tracks, with the 13-minute dronefest "I Just Sit There" starting the album off in grand sitar-and-orchestra fashion, like a low-budget Phil Spector on acid. The only possible response to lyrics like "Your mother's cooking sturgeon/Your sister's still a virgin" is a heartfelt "Oh, wow."
After that, the interracial love affair of "I Told My Girl To Go Away," the sweet "I Would Marry You Today" and the already-anachronistic-at-the-time "My Best Friend's Girl Is Out Of Sight" sound positively normal, but nothing can prepare the listener for the onslaught of the legendary "Pammie's On A Bummer." It's eight minutes of classic anti-drug hysteria, with Sonny voyeuristically detailing Pammie's downward spiral into drugs and prostitution in a moralistic but creepily salacious manner over pretty much the same arrangement as "I Just Sit There." It's a mindboggling classic.
The singles which follow are comparatively straightforward, including two versions and a studio outtake of his solo hit "Laugh At Me," and less over-the-top remixes of several album tracks. And some, like an excellent version of Bob Lind's classic "Cheryl's Goin' Home," are actually really good. As always with Rhino, the liner notes and packaging are superlative, and the entire CD is a necessity for any fan of the stranger side of '60s pop.
INNER VIEWS is only available over the Internet through www.rhinohandmade.com, Rhino's new imprint specializing in limited editions of rare and obscure releases. Only 1,500 copies are available, so act quickly, and be sure to check out the other amazing releases on the web site, including a seven-CD (!) boxed set of the Stooges' entire 1970 Fun House sessions.

BSN
October 19, 1999
September 30, 1999

Sonny:
28662 I'm Not Small Enough (Unreleased)
Recorded August 16, 1967

SONNY:
Side 1
13030 I Just Sit There
Copyright November 2, 1967
12:15 (Atlantic Masters book) or 13:12 (Mono LP)
13031 I Told My Girl To Go Away
Copyright September 6, 1967
4:15 (Atlantic Masters book) or 3:32 (LP)
Side 2
13032 I Would Marry You Today
Copyright September 22, 1967 4:21 (LP)
13033 My Best Friend's Girl Is Out Of Sight
Copyright September 22, 1967 4:13 (LP)
13034 Pammie's On A Bummer
Copyright September 22, 1967
7:45 (LP)
Masters Assigned September 6, 1967
~ LP SD 33-229 Sonny: INNER VIEWS
C-12625 / C-12626
ST-C-671091 / ST-C-671092
Written, Composed And Produced by Sonny Bono
Arranged by Donald Peake

Recording Engineer: Stan Ross
Billboard And Cash Box Ads October 7, 1967

Ad on p. 17,
Rolling Stone
Issue #1,
November 9, 1967

Variety Review October 18, 1967
Billboard And Cash Box Reviews Oct 21, 1967
First listed in the Schwann Long Playing
Record Catalog December 1967

Sonny:
13188 I Told My Girl To Go Away [Edit]
13189 (may be wrong - see Atco 45-6531 below)
I Would Marry You Today [Edit]

Sonny:
13187 Pammie's On A Bummer
Copyright September 22, 1967 4:56
13190 (Atlantic Masters book) or
13189 (Atco 45-6531 label)
My Best Friend's Girl Is Out Of Sight
Copyright September 22, 1967 2:37
~ Atco 45-6531
Monarch Pressing
Delta Numbers
68885 / 68886
B/S Produced by Sonny Bono
Arranged by Donald Peake
Cash Box Review November 4, 1967
Billboard Chart Spotlite November 4, 1967

INNER VIEWS
Atco EP
SP-4517-A:
Pammie's On A Bummer 4:56
SP-4517-B:
I Would Marry You Today 3:03
My Best Friend's Girl Is Out Of Sight 2:37

3614 Jackson Highway

Trippers Strippers Hips Or Squares
Divide The Line And Tell Me Where

July 2007
Riot On Sunset Strip:
Rock'N'Roll's Last Stand In Hollywood
by Domenic Priore

Sonny & Cher
Saturday 10 December 1966
Sonny wears a CAFF armband
(Community Action for
Facts and Freedom)

"Where are the kids gonna go?
Hang out on the streets, go home
and get drunk or something with their parents?
No. But they've got to show
some form of expression,
something that they can say, well,
this is what's happening now."

"It's history.
Because like, maybe forty years ago
kids would have never done this, you know?
They would have never started rebelling for their own rights.
Because they are people and they are right."

"Beautiful. It was beautiful. It was . . . great.
I mean, you know, if there's nothing good
on the Saturday night movies, you can't beat it.
Nothing like a good clean cut riot."

PEOPLE OF THE SUNSET STRIP:
11250 Sunset Symphony 3:18
(The actual occurrence of the demonstration
on the Sunset Strip November 1966)
Produced by Sonny Bono & Bill Friedkin
No Publisher(s) Credited
SONNY'S GROUP:
11251 Trippin' 2:55
(Bono)
Instrumental
Produced by Sonny Bono
Arranged by Harold Battiste
Chris - Marc - Cotillion BMI
Masters assigned Thursday, 1 December 1966
Recorded Gold Star, Hollywood
~ Atco single 45-6458
Monarch Pressing
Delta Numbers
64700 / 64700 - X

THE BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD:
11252 For What It's Worth
(Stop, Hey What's That Sound) 2:37
Words And Music Registered With
The Library Of Congress Copyright Office
5 December 1966
11253 Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It 3:00
Masters assigned Monday, 5 December 1966
Recorded Columbia Studios, LA
~ Atco single 45-6459
Billboard review 31 December 1966
Monarch Pressing
Delta Numbers
64813 / 64814

Cash Box
Week ending 17 December 1966

"There's no way of stifling it.
It's just a new generation.
This is the way they want to live, you know?
They think we're all a bunch of squares
and we just have to realize it.
They want to be together.
That's the whole point.
They want to be together."

"You just can't stand on the street for no reason, you know.
I mean, if you do, then you have this mess.
What are you gonna do, let this go on and on?
This is ridiculous.
Are you gonna spank their hands
or take away their library cards away from them?"

TRIPPIN'
on back cover of
1967 Dutch sheet music folio

Front cover of
1967 Dutch sheet music folio

Los Angeles Times
Thursday 15 December 1966
OUT OF PARADE
SONNY, CHER GET THE AIR --
NO FLOAT FOR LONG HAIR PAIR

The Monterey Park City Council wants to make it crystal clear:
Pasadena's famed Colorado Blvd is no Sunset Strip.
The council has voted 3 to 2 to recommend removal of folk-rock singers Sonny and Cher from the Monterey Park [Golden Trails] float in the New Year's Day Rose Parade.
Councilman Rod Irvine said he introduced the motion after seeing a newspaper photo of the long-haired team attending a Sunset Blvd demonstration Saturday night [10 December 1966]. 'I didn't want this sort of image representing Monterey Park,' explained Irvine, a grocery store manager.
Apparently the Monterey Park parade committee didn't either. They quickly acted on the council's request and hired someone who would present a better Monterey Park image - cowboy singer Buck Owens.
Owens reportedly did not attend the Sunset Blvd demonstration.

Los Angeles Times
Friday 16 December 1966
'NOT MAD' OVER FLOAT BAN
SONNY AND CHER GIVE THEIR SIDE OF STORY

The flip side of Monterey Park's Rose Parade float controversy was aired Thursday when folk-rock singers Sonny and Cher, banned from the float earlier this week, held a press conference at the Beverly Wilshire.
'I'm not mad because this is not a thing to get mad about,' said Sonny. 'I admit at first we were somewhat hurt, shocked and a little upset. They never even gave us the courtesy of notifying us personally. I heard it on the news.'
'Apparently they didn't think we had clean hands or something,' said Sonny. 'They must be very insecure men to feel it necessary to reject us and clean their own hands.'
Although the wildly dressed couple have been snubbed before. 'We've been accepted by The Pope, Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Margaret,' he added. 'We dress neat and clean. We take great pains in our dress,' he said. Sonny, like his wife beside him, wore a wine colored suede suit with orange flowered vest.
Sonny and Cher denied taking part in a demonstration at Pandora's Box Saturday night.
'They saw I was there and I told them to be peaceful, that's all. There were ministers there and other adults,' Sonny said.

Los Angeles Times
Friday 16 December 1966
HOW PAIR WON, LOST FLOAT RIDE
SONNY AND CHER CHOSEN FROM OFFICIAL LIST, OUSTED FOR IMAGE
by Bob Diebold, Staff Writer

NME 24 December 1966
HOLLYWOOD
by Tracy Thomas

Sonny and Cher, who have done nothing but preach love for everyone, are the latest victims of the Sunset Strip unrest. They had been set as the first pop performers to ride on a float in the world-famous, nationally televised annual New Year's Day Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, California.
Then a photo of the two taken Saturday night on the Strip (where there was first a meeting, then later another gory holocaust) appeared here describing them as 'on hand and observing the action.'
The city on whose float they were to ride later voted them off as 'not the proper type of people to participate in the event.'
Sonny told me, 'I only feel sorry for those who voted against us. We had heard about the Strip situation and just wanted to see for ourselves before we formed any conclusions.'

Los Angeles Times
Tuesday 3 January 1967
STARS' ABSENCE FAILS TO DIM PARADE LUSTER
by Ronald Einstoss, Staff Writer

Many television and movie personalities rode floats Monday in the Rose Parade but two of the brightest stars expected to ride the five and a half mile route were missing.
Comedian Jerry Lewis was to have been on the Farmers Insurance Group's 'Around The World In 80 Days' float but a last minute professional commitment forced him to cancel.
However that entry was not without its celebrities; it still carried recording artists Sonny and Cher and actor Allan Hale of the Gilligan's Island series. Sonny and Cher were to have ridden on the city of Monterey Park's float but were cancelled out after their pictures appeared in newspapers during a Sunset Strip demonstration.

Los Angeles Times
August 5, 2007
Club's Closing Ignited 'Riots' on the Sunset Strip

Young rock fans take to the streets after the shuttering of Pandora's Box in 1966.
The unrest inspired Stephen Stills' landmark anthem.
by Cecilia Rasmussen, Times Staff Writer

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Ñ "For What It's Worth" - Stephen Stills

Gangsters, nightclubs and rock 'n' roll make up much of the Sunset Strip's colorful history Ñ along with a little-remembered tussle in 1966 that became known as "the Sunset Strip riots."

The melee erupted as young rock fans were protesting efforts to enforce a 10 p.m. curfew and to close nightclubs that catered to them Ñ including Pandora's Box, at the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights boulevards.

The confrontation with police also inspired musician Stephen Stills to write "For What It's Worth," released two months later by Stills and the band he was in, Buffalo Springfield.

"Riot is a ridiculous name," he said in an interview. "It was a funeral for Pandora's Box. But it looked like a revolution."

The club, painted purple and gold, was perched on a triangular traffic island in the middle of the Strip. It drew a crowd of mostly clean-cut teenagers and twenty somethings wearing pullover sweaters and miniskirts.

Ensuing traffic jams annoyed residents and business owners, who pressured the city and county to get rid of the kids, the clubs and the congestion.

It's unclear from Times files whether Pandora's Box or other clubs had been closed by the time the protests began. But young rock fans interpreted efforts to enforce curfew and loitering laws as an infringement on their civil rights.

On Nov. 12, 1966, fliers were distributed along the Strip inviting people to demonstrate. And hours before the protest, "One of L.A's rock 'n' roll radio stations made an announcement that there would be a rally at Pandora's Box and cautioned people to tread carefully," wrote Domenic Priore, author of the 2007 book "Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock 'n' Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood."

As many as 1,000 people turned out, along with such celebrities as Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda.

"[Nicholson] just showed up to see what was happening," said lifelong Sunset Strip denizen and Hollywood historian Marc Wanamaker. Wanamaker played drums in a band called Mike and the Mad Men, which sometimes performed at Pandora's Box, and was there that night as an observer.

"Everyone called them hippies just because some had long hair," Wanamaker said. "But they weren't the flower-power types from San Francisco, just rock 'n' roll fans, mostly students."

The event began peacefully. Protesters sat on the Strip blocking traffic, holding hands and singing. Trouble began when a car full of off-duty Marines got into a fender-bender. The Marines got out of their car and at least one punched the driver of the other car, The Times reported. Fighting spread.

Police and sheriffs' deputies closed off part of the Strip and ordered everyone to leave, but some protesters ran amok.

They rocked a city bus until passengers and the driver got out. Then they knocked out the windows, dented the roof with an uprooted street sign and let the air out of the tires.

One youth tried unsuccessfully to drop lighted matches into the fuel tank, The Times reported. He was booked for attempted arson.

Protesters hurled rocks and bottles and smashed storefront windows and car windshields. Fonda, son of actor Henry Fonda, was handcuffed.

But when he said he was merely filming the melee, he was released without charges.

The unrest continued the next night and off and on throughout November and December. Some clubs shut down within weeks.

"These kids weren't looking for trouble; they were simply going out to see their favorite bands and hang out with friends," Priore wrote.

Demonstrators carried signs that read, "We're Your Children! Don't Destroy Us" and "Ban the Billyclub." Mayor Sam Yorty showed up and invited the protesters to City Hall. Los Angeles County Supervisor Ernest Debs called the youths "misguided hoodlums."

Sonny and Cher, who got their start on the Strip as Caesar and Cleo, made an appearance in front of Pandora's Box in December.

The ensuing publicity got them kicked off the Rose Parade float they were supposed to ride two weeks later. The float sponsor, the City of Monterey Park, figured this was not the image it wanted to show the world.

"I admit at first we were somewhat hurt, shocked and a little upset," Sonny Bono said at a news conference after the duo was bumped. "They never even gave us the courtesy of notifying us personally. I heard it on the news."

Bono denied being part of the protest. "[The demonstrators] saw I was there and I told them to be peaceful, that's all," he said.

On Christmas Day, Pandora's Box reopened for one night only, according to Priore. There, Stills first publicly performed "For What It's Worth."

The Los Angeles City Council condemned Pandora's Box, claiming that it had to be demolished to realign the streets.

On Aug. 3, 1967, a wrecking ball turned Pandora's into rubble. "Hippies Pout, Politicians Cheer," The Times reported.

No sign of the triangle occupied by Pandora's remains today; it was eliminated by the street rerouting.

As for Stills' song, many fans saw it as an antiwar anthem, but he says that was only part of the equation.

"It was really four different things intertwined, including the war and the absurdity of what was happening on the Strip," he said in the interview. "But I knew I had to skedaddle and headed back to Topanga, where I wrote my song in about 15 minutes. For me, there was no riot. It was basically a cop dance."

Highs In The Mid-Sixties
Volume Two - L.A. '66
Riot On Sunset Strip
(A.I.P. AIP 10004) 1983

01. People Of [The] Sunset Strip
Sunset Symphony
02. Terry Randall - S.O.S.
03. The Sandals
Tell Us Dylan
04. The Chymes
He's Not There Anymore
05. The Bees
Trip To New Orleans
06. The Roosters
One Of These Days
07. Tangents:
Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go?
08. Ken & The Fourth Dimension:
Rovin' Heart
(or 'See If I Care')
09. The W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band:
I'm Not Your Stepping Stone
10. The Satans
Lines And Squares
11. The Dirty Shames
I Don't Care
12. The No-Na-Mees
Gotta Hold On
13. Opus 1
Back Seat '38 Dodge
14. The Second Helping
Let Me In
15. The Grim Reepers
Two Souls
16. The Nite Walkers
High Class

Previously (October 2009)