The Druids of Stonehenge

Emerging amid the late-'60s East Coast garage-psych surge as minor figures, the New York-based Druids of Stonehenge formed in 1965 under their original name, the Druids, with members averaging just 17 years old. That November a five-piece lineup featuring Budge alongside guitarists Carl Hauser and Billy Tracy, bassist Tim Workman, and drummer Steve Tindall recorded at Manhattan's Nola Studios, laying down versions of "Who Do You Love," "Baby Please Don't Go," "Pretty Thing," and "I Put a Spell on You." Additional sessions over the ensuing year captured similarly intense takes on Bo Diddley's "I (Who Have Nothing)" and "Bald Headed Woman," all of which later appeared on a self-titled Sundazed mini-album whose raw energy situated the group squarely alongside the Rolling Stones and Pretty Things in the realm of high-octane R&B.

By 1968 the band had adopted its full moniker, shifted toward a psychedelic direction, and moved to the West Coast, where a deal with Uni yielded both the single "A Garden Where Nothing Grows" and the album Creation. The LP, tracked partly at TTG in Los Angeles and partly back at Nola in New York, spotlighted further stylized readings of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," Love's "Signed D.C.," and a renewed assault on "I Put a Spell on You." Long recognized primarily through the pair of tracks—"Six Feet Down" and "Pale Dream"—that surfaced on the Baubles, Vol. 1 compilation, Creation itself eventually received a Sundazed reissue.

Around the album's release the group performed "Paint It Black" on television's Joe Franklin Show; by then Elliott Randall, later known for his work with Seatrain and Randall's Island, had replaced Tracy after the California relocation. No additional recordings followed, and the Druids of Stonehenge disbanded in 1969. Sporadic partial reunions have occurred in subsequent decades, among them a warmly received New York appearance in late April 2008.