The Lollipop Shoppe

Fred Cole, who had previously played in the Northwest punk band the Weeds, fronted the Lollipop Shoppe. Their lone 1968 album stands among the stronger psych-punk LPs and counts as one of the finer one-off rock releases from the tail end of the 1960s. Driven by Cole’s strangled, acrid vocal style, the group carved space between the Seeds—who shared their manager—and Love, while folding in touches of fellow Los Angeles psych-punk act the Music Machine. Their sound sat closer to Love than to the Seeds, mixing raw drive with inward moments in the manner of Arthur Lee. Cole remained one of the rare psychedelic figures to reappear in the punk years, turning up in Portland’s Rats during the late 1970s. He later started Dead Moon and the Pierced Arrows together with his wife, Toody Cole.