The Sonics' sound is noticeably rougher, cruder, and more brutal than that of their musical peers, and among those in the know the band sometimes regarded as the first punk rock group, though well before the punk movement took off in the late 1970s. Although they had a fairly standard instrumental lineup for the time, The Sonics made their unique sound with wild arrangements, often disturbing lyrics, peppered with screaming and howling, and electric guitars played through amplifiers customized to render the harshest tones possible. Although their period of greatest success was coincident with the release of Gibson's first fuzzbox, The Sonics' fuzzy sound was their own creation.
The songs they played were a mixture of garage rock standards ("Louie, Louie", "Have Love, Will Travel"), early rock and roll ("Jenny, Jenny", "Skinny Minnie") and original compositions such as "Strychnine", "Psycho", and "The Witch", all based upon simple chord sequences, played hard and fast.
The lyrics of The Sonics' original material dealt with early '60s teenage culture: cars, guitars, surfing, and girls (in songs like "The Hustler", "Boss Hoss" and "Maintaining My Cool") alongside darker subject matter such as drinking strychnine for kicks, witches, psychopaths, and Satan (in the songs "Strychnine", "The Witch", "Psycho", and "He's Waitin'", respectively).
From Wikipedia
