THE VIEW FROM THE HAZE

Behind the door of the aging, cracker-box Hollywood apartment sits a velvet-covered table strewn with rose petals. Two white candles cast flickering shadows over plates laden with cheeses, crackers and exotic fruits. Champagne glasses wait. Colored lights flash. A stereo bathes the room with sound. And over in a corner sits Sky (Sunlight) Saxon, smiling enigmatically behind a pair of sunglasses.

It was almost 20 years ago today that Saxon led Los Angeles’ original “flower power” band the Seeds onto the national charts with “Pushin’ Too Hard.” Saxon and company followed this now-classic getoffamyback anthem with a half-dozen similar punkadelic mindbusts, which together with the Seeds’ reputation as a wild live act saw the quartet’s earning power increase to a reported $6,000 per night.

After a pair of fat years, reality set in. Eclipsed by the psychedelic sounds of San Francisco, Seeds records stopped selling and Saxon dropped off the edge of the pop world. He’s been living in Hawaii for the last several years.

But beginning in 1972 with the reappearance of “Pushin’ Too Hard” on “Nuggets,” a seminal compilation LP of garage-rock one-shots, the Seeds cult began to grow. Throughout the punk-rock revolution of the ‘70s until today, dozens of punkadelic torchbearers have risen like so many dragon’s teeth, each claiming Saxon as a hoodoo guru.

Nowhere has this been more pronounced than in Los Angeles, where a veritable plethora of budding young mynd-benders have coalesced around the Cavern Club in a scene right out of the “Riot on Sunset Strip” teen-exploitation films of the ‘60s.

Now the generations meet. The psychedelic survivor has teamed up with an all-star assortment of musicians culled from this so-called “paisley underground” for an album called “Fire Wall.”

Ignoring the large black rabbit wandering underfoot in the atmospheric apartment, the soft-spoken Saxon describes the genesis of the project.

“When I came back to L.A., Frank (Beeson, the LP’s co-producer and project organizer) told me there were all these bands doin’ my old songs. So I went down to the Cavern Club and jammed with different ones for a live album that’s gonna be released. After that, we decided to start a new band, using as many of the best people from all the bands we could. . . .”

Among those pooling their talents were members and former members of the Plimsouls, the Dream Syndicate, the Unclaimed, the Droogs, Redd Kross and Threw the Looking Glass, not to mention Mars Bonfire, the geezer who wrote “Born to Be Wild” for Steppenwolf back in dinosaur daze.

While time has been kind to Saxon’s inimitable nasal dog-whine, the results are strictly from Garageland. So much so that if an unsuspecting collector were to find this unjacketed disc in a future bargain bin, he’d probably think he’d discovered some great lost punkadelic classic--and would be asking $100 for it on record auction lists.

“Fire Wall” may be Saxon’s best recording since the Seeds disbanded in ‘68, but the gaunt vegetarian--who says he added “Sunlight” as his middle name “because Hitler had two S ‘s and he stood for war and killing people, so to me three S ‘s mean peace, love and tranquility”--seems more concerned about detailing his grandiose plans for himself, his girlfriend-of-the-moment and such future Saxon-led bands as S.S.S. Dragonslayer and Beast: “After I establish that I have three or four hit records, then I’ll do an 18-city tour like the Beatles. . . .”

Saxon, who plays the Troubadour on Friday, curbs his self-promotional tendencies, magical mystery flights of mysticism and legendary concern for the welfare of dogs long enough to offer some acid comments about current acts (“Ozzy Osbourne and all that terroristic metal is the polar opposite of my music; I support anybody playing music that brings light and happiness”) and his victimization by the music business (“The flower movement made what? Ten billion dollars? And I haven’t even been paid on my writer’s royalties”).

For all the purplish haze filtering through his view, Saxon is one of the few who straddles the eras, and he sees the difference between ‘60s and ‘80s audiences as minimal.

“If anything, this new generation is much gentler, more thoughtful and more kind, because they had the late ‘60s to lead them into it,” he observes.

“The musicianship is better today, but back then the words were better--because people didn’t have so much pressure on them. But the only reason people buy an album is to prevent suicide. So what we’re trying to do with ‘Fire Wall’ is to bring love back. . . .”