https://exchange.prx.org/p/508506
This week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era includes a tune called Gloria that has nothing to do with Van Morrison, a live Doors track that has everything to do with Jim Morrison, a studio group that many are still convinced were the incognito Beatles, and a track from the very first Tangerine Dream album. And that's all in the first half hour. As the show progresses you'll hear a set from the Animals, a suite from Jefferson Airplane, a Rolling Stones set that starts with a track from their first recording session and some tunes from the Cyrkle's Red Rubber Ball album.
Artist: Association
Title: Along Comes Mary
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Tandyn Almer
Label: Warner Brothers (original label: Valiant)
Year: 1966
The Association are best known for a series of love ballads and light pop songs such as Cherish, Never My Love and Windy. Many of these records were a product of the L.A. studio scene and featured several members of the Wrecking Crew, the studio musicians who played on dozens of records in the late 60s and early 70s. The first major Association hit, however, featured the band members playing all the instruments themselves. Produced (and possibly co-written) by Curt Boettcher, who would soon join Gary Usher's studio project Sagittarius, Along Comes Mary shows that the Association was quite capable of recording a classic without any help from studio musicians.
Artist: Byrds
Title: My Back Pages (alternate version)
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday (bonus track)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1996
The last Byrds cover of a Bob Dylan song to make the top 40 (in fact the last Byrds song to make the US top 40) was My Back Pages, from the 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday. This alternate version of the song, recorded the same day, features an organ as its most prominent instrument, with Roger McGuinn providing a guitar solo played through a Leslie rotating horn speaker, and may have been the original version intended for single release. So far I've been unable, however, to track down who actually played the organ part, as nobody seems to want to take credit for it.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Gloria
Source: CD: Mass In F Minor
Writer(s): David Axelrod
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
After the second Electric Prunes album failed to provide any hit singles, the band's manager, producer and record label itself decided that the third Prunes album would be a "religious-based rock-opera concept album" written entirely by David Axelrod. Since the band's manager was the actual owner of the name Electric Prunes, the band members had no choice but to go along with the idea. Unfortunately, the classically-trained Axelrod's music score was too complex for what was essentially a garage-rock band with only member that could actually read music to learn quickly enough to meet the recording deadline, and after getting the first three tracks on the album recorded by the band itself it was decided that other musicians would be brought in to finish Mass In F Minor. The longest of the three tracks recorded by the band itself was Gloria, the second tune on the album itself. All the vocals were multi-tracked by James Lowe.
Artist: Fut
Title: Have You Heard The Word
Source: Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Kipner/Lawrie/Groves
Label: Grapefruit (original label: Beacon)
Year: 1970
Have You Heard The Word was the result of a drunken 1969 recording session attended by Steve Groves and Steve Kipner (known collectively as Tin Tin), Maurice Gibb (of the Bee Gees) and Gibbs's brother-in-law (and singer Lulu's brother) Billy Lawrie, using pre-existing instrumental backing. Unbeknownst to any of the participants, a tape of the session was leaked to Beacon Records, who issued it as a single credited to the Fut in 1970. The song has been repeatedly mistaken for a lost Beatles track; in fact, Yoko One even tried to copyright the piece as a lost John Lennon composition in 1985.
Artist: Doors
Title: Universal Mind
Source: LP: Absolutely Live
Writer(s): Morrison/Krieger
Label: Elektra
Year: 1970
The Doors deliberately did not include any of their hit singles on Absolutely Live, their first and only live album released before the death of vocalist Jim Morrison. Instead, about half of the 4-sided LP set is made up of songs that had not appeared on any of their studio albums. Among those "new" tracks was Universal Mind, a collaboration between Morrison and
guitarist Robby Krieger. Morrison later called Absolutely Live "a true document of an above average evening." Perhaps because of the lack of known material, the album only sold about half as many copies as its predecessor, Morrison Hotel.
Artist: Tangerine Dream
Title: Ashes To Ashes
Source: British import CD: Electronic Meditation (originally released in Germany)
Writer(s): Schnitzler/Froese/Schultze
Label: Reactive/Esoteric (original German label: Ohr)
Year: 1970
Tangerine Dream is generally acknowledged to be the band that started the entire electronic rock genre. Although they became famous for their use of multi-tracked synthesizers, their first LP, Electronic Meditation, was recorded in a rented factory in Berlin in October 1969, using just a two-track Revox tape recorder. It was the only album recorded by the group's original lineup of Edgar Froese, Klaus Schulze, and Conrad Schnitzler. As you would expect from an album by Tangerine Dream, Electronic Meditation is highly experimental, with the most accessible piece being Ashes To Ashes.
Artist: Animals
Title: Don't Bring Me Down
Source: Mono LP: Animalization
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
I originally bought the Animals Animalization album in early 1967 and immediately fell in love with the first song, Don't Bring Me Down. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked.
Artist: Animals
Title: It's My Life
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Atkins/D'Errico
Label: Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1965
The Animals had a string of solid hits throughout the mid-60s, many of which were written by professional songwriters working out of Don Kirschner's Brill Building in New York. Although vocalist Eric Burdon expressed disdain for most of these songs at the time (preferring to perform the blues/R&B covers that the group had built up its following with), he now sings every one of them, including It's My Life, on the oldies circuit.
Artist: Animals
Title: She'll Return It
Source: Mono LP: Animalization
Writer(s): Jenkins/Rowberry/Burdon/Chandler/Valentine
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
As a general rule the Animals, in their original incarnation, recorded two kinds of songs: hit singles from professional songwriters such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and covers of blues and R&B tunes, the more obscure the better. What they did not record a lot of was original tunes from the band members themselves. This started to change in 1966 when the band began to experience a series of personnel changes that would ultimately lead to what amounted to an entirely new group, Eric Burdon And The Animals, in 1967. One of the earliest songs to be credited to the entire band was She'll Return It, released as the B side of See See Rider in August of 1966 and included on the Animalization album. In retrospect, it is one of the strongest tracks on one of their strongest LPs.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Streetmasse
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s): Kantner/Dryden/Blackman/Thompson/Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
After Bathing At Baxter's is generally considered the most pyschedelic of all the Jefferson Airplane albums. For one thing, the members were reportedly all on LSD through most of the creative process and were involved in the entire package, right down to the decision to divide the album up into five suites and press the vinyl in such a way that the spaces normally found between songs were only present between the suites themselves, making it almost impossible to set the needle down at the beginning of the second or third song of a suite (there is a slight overlap between most of the songs as well). The first suite on After Bathing At Baxter's is called Streetmasse. It consists of three compositions: Paul Kantner's The Ballad of You and Me and Pooniel; A Small Package of Value Will Come To You Shortly (a free-form jazz piece led by drummer Spencer Dryden); and the Paul Kantner/Marty Balin composition Young Girl Sunday Blues.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Person Without A Care
Source: Mono LP: Happy Together
Writer(s): Al Nichol
Label: White Whale
Year: 1967
Al Nichol never seems to get the credit he deserves. Along with Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, he was the only original member of the Turtles to remain with the group for its entire existence; in fact, he was the lead guitarist for the Nightriders, the instrumental surf group led by Kaylan that eventually became the Turtles. Starting with their second LP, You Baby, Nichol wrote or co-wrote at least one song on each of the band's albums, and those songs were usually among the most original-sounding tracks on the album. A perfect example of this is Person Without A Care. While not particularly commercial, the song has a catchy hook and, for 1967, an innovative chord structure. Not much is known of Nichol's post-Turtles adventures, other than a short note on the Turtles' web site saying that he "lives in Nevada".
Artist: Who
Title: I Can See For Miles
Source: LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
I Can See For Miles continued a string of top 10 singles in the UK and was the Who's biggest US hit ever. Pete Townshend, however, was disappointed with the song's performance on the UK charts. He said that the song was the ultimate Who song and as such it should have charted even higher than it did. It certainly was one of the heaviest songs of its time and there is some evidence that it prompted Paul McCartney to come up with Helter Skelter in an effort to take the heaviest song ever title back for the Beatles. What makes the story even more bizarre is that at the time McCartney reportedly had never actually heard I Can See For Miles and was going purely by what he read in a record review. I Can See For Miles was also used as the closing track of side one of The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967. Some of the commercials and jingles heard at the beginning of the track were recorded by the band itself. Others were lifted (without permission) from Wonderful Radio London, a pirate radio station that had been operating off the English coast before being shut down by the passage of the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act a few months before The Who Sell Out was released.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: If You Want This Love
Source: CD: Part One
Writer: Baker Knight
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The first West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album, Volume One, had a limited print run on Fifa, a small independent label based in Los Angeles. After landing a contract with Reprise, the band recut many of the songs (most of which were cover tunes) from Volume One and called the new album Part One. If You Want This Love, a song written and originally recorded by local L.A. legend Baker Knight, is one of those recut tracks.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: The Birdman Of Alkatrash
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Mark Weitz
Label: Uni (original label: All-American)
Year: 1967
Thee Sixpence was a Los Angeles band that consisted of Ed King (lead guitar, vocals), Michael Luciano (vocals), Lee Freeman (rhythm guitar, harmonica, vocals), Gary Lovetro (bass), Steve Rabe (guitar, vocals), and Gene Gunnels (drums). The band released four singles on the local All-American label in 1966. In early 1967 Gunnels, Rabe, and Luciano all left the band, to be replaced by keyboardist Mark Weitz and drummer Randy Seol. At the same time, they decided to change their name to Strawberry Alarm Clock. Their first single under their new name was a Weitz composition called The Birdman Of Alkatrash. For some reason local radio stations instead began playing the other side of the record and, after being re-released on MCA's Uni label, it became one of the biggest hits of 1967, going all the way to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. That other side? Incense and Peppermints.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: I Want To Be Loved
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Abkco (original UK label: Decca)
Year: 1963
In their early days, the Rolling Stones almost exclusively played cover versions of American blues and R&B tunes. One of these was I Want To Be Loved, a Willie Dixon composition originally recorded by Muddy Waters in 1955. The Stones recorded the song during their first recording session in 1963, releasing it as the B side of their debut single for the british Decca label in June of that year.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Tell Me
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1964
The first song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to be recorded by the Rolling Stones, Tell Me was only available as an LP cut in the UK. In the US it became a hit single, establishing the Stones as serious competition to the Beatles themselves. Jagger and Richards would continue to write songs together, eventually outlasting the John Lennon/Paul McCartney team by several decades (and still counting).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Get Off My Cloud
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1965
Early British Invasion bands generally fell into one of two camps. On the one hand there were the relatively clean-cut Merseybeat bands such as Gerry and the Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits and of course the Beatles themselves, who were the overwhelming favorites of teenage girls all across America. Then there were the so-called "bad boy" bands such as Them and the Animals who tended to favor a raunchier interpretation of rock and roll than their Merseybeat counterparts and had more male than female fans. Chief among these were London's Rolling Stones. While the Beatles were still cranking out love songs through most of 1965, the Stones were shouting their defiance at the world with tunes like Get Off My Cloud, which may well qualify as the ultimate Rolling Stones song.
Artist: Lyrics
Title: So What!!
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Chris Gaylord
Label: Rhino (original label: Era)
Year: 1965
In some ways the story of the Lyrics is fairly typical for the mid-1960s. The Carlsbad, California group had already established itself as a competent if somewhat bland cover band when in 1964 they recruited the local cool kid, Chris Gaylord (who was so cool that he had his own beat up old limo, plastered on the inside with Rolling Stones memorabilia, of course), to be their frontman. Gaylord provided the band with a healthy dose of attitude, as demonstrated by their 1965 single So What!! The song was written by Gaylord after he had a brief fling with a local rich girl. Gaylord's tenure lasted until mid-1966. Although the band continued without him, they never again saw the inside of a recording studio.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Wake Me, Shake Me
Source: LP: Projections
Writer(s): arr. Al Kooper
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1967
After losing their original lead vocalist, Tommy Flanders, in early 1966, the remaining members of the Blues Project decided to concentrate on their improvisational and songwriting skills, splitting vocal duties between them. Rather than trying to rework the same songs they had been performing with Flanders, they instead began to work up new material, including keyboardist Al Kooper's rock and roll arrangement of an old gospel song, Wake Me, Shake Me. It was this arrangement that appeared on the group's next LP, Projections.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Getting Better
Source: Mono LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: 1967
Following their 1966 North American tour, the Beatles announced that they were giving up live performances to concentrate on their songwriting and studio work. Freed of the responsibilities of the road (and under the influence of mind-expanding substances), the band members found themselves discovering new sonic possibilities as never before (or since), hitting a creative peak with their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, often cited as the greatest album ever recorded. The individual Beatles were about to move in separate musical directions, but as of Sgt. Pepper's were still functioning mostly as a single unit, as is heard on the chorus of Getting Better, in which Paul McCartney's opening line, "I have to admit it's getting better", is immediately answered by John Lennon's playfully cynical "can't get no worse". The members continued to experiment with their instrumentation as well, such as George Harrison's use of sitar on the song's bridge, accompanied by Ringo Starr's bongos.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title: Piece Of My Heart
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer: Ragovoy/Burns
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
By 1968 Big Brother and the Holding Company, with their charismatic vocalist from Texas, Janis Joplin, had become as popular as fellow San Francisco bands Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Somehow, though, they were still without a major label record deal. That all changed with the release of Cheap Thrills, with cover art by the legendary underground comix artist R. Crumb. The album itself was a curious mixture of live performances and studio tracks, the latter being led by the band's powerful cover of the 1966 Barbara Lynn tune Piece Of My Heart. The song propelled the band, and Joplin, to stardom. That stardom would be short-lived for most of the band members, however, as well-meaning but ultimately wrong-headed advice-givers convinced Joplin that Big Brother was holding her back. The reality was that Joplin was far more integrated with Big Brother And The Holding Company than anyone she would ever work with again.
Artist: Cyrkle
Title: Why Can't You Give Me What I Want
Source: LP: Red Rubber Ball
Writer(s): Dawes/Friedland
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The Cyrkle was originally a frat-rock band from Easton, Pennsylvania called the Rhondells consisting of Don Danneman on guitar, Tom Dawes on bass, Marty Freid on drums and Earl Pickens on keyboards. In 1965, while playing gigs in Atlantic City they hooked up with a new manager, Brian Epstein, who promptly renamed them the Cyrkle (the odd spelling provided by John Lennon, a member of another band managed by Epstein). Under the new name and management, the band soon found themselves opening for the Beatles (on their last North American tour) and scoring a top 5 hit with Red Rubber Ball in the summer of 1966. The hit single was soon followed by an album of the same name that included a mix of cover tunes and Cyrkle originals such as Why Can't You Give Me What I Want. It was a volatile time in the pop music world, however, and the Cyrkle soon found themselves sounding a bit dated, and by 1968, after one more LP and a series of singles, each of which did successively worse on the charts than the previous one, the band decided to throw in the towel and become commercial jingle writers. Well, a couple of them (Danneman and Dawes) did, at any rate. Remember "pop pop fizz fizz"? How about the original 7-Up theme? Both came from former members of the Cyrkle.
Artist: Cyrkle
Title: Red Rubber Ball (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Red Rubber Ball)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets
Writer: Simon/Woodley
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
Paul Simon moved to London in early 1965, after his latest album with Art Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning 3 AM, had been deleted from the Columbia Records catalog after just a few weeks due to poor sales. While in the UK Simon found himself performing on the same bill as the Seekers, an Australian band that had achieved some international success with folky pop songs like A World Of Our Own. Needing cash, Simon wrote (with Seekers guitarist/vocalist Bruce Woodley) Red Rubber Ball, selling the song to the group for about 100 pounds. After returning to the US and reuniting with Garfunkel, Simon offered the song to the Cyrkle, who took the song all the way to the #4 spot on the charts.
Artist: Cyrkle
Title: Bony Moronie
Source: LP: Red Rubber Ball
Writer(s): Larry Williams
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The history of rock and roll is filled with one-hit wonders. Less common, however, are groups than managed to crack the upper reaches of the charts a second time, only to suffer diminishing returns with each subsequent effort. Such was the case with the Cyrkle, who burst on the scene with Red Rubber Ball and Turn Down Day in 1966. Originally a frat-rock band called the Rhondells, the group's fortunes turned in a big way on Labor Day of 1965, when New York attorney Nathan Weiss caught their gig in Atlantic City. Weiss in turn recommended the band to his business partner, Brian Epstein, who was looking for an American band to manage (I guess the Beatles weren't enough for him). Epstein renamed the band the Cyrkle (John Lennon providing the variant spelling) and set them up as the opening band for the Beatles' last US tour, including their final gig at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966. Along the way, the group signed with Columbia Records, recording two LPs and several singles for the label before disbanding in early 1968. The first album, Red Rubber Ball, was a solid example of sunshine pop, as evidenced by the band's unique arrangement of Larry Williams's Bony Moronie. Two of the band's members, Don Dannemann and Tom Dawes, went on to become successful jingle writers (Dannemann wrote the original Un-Cola song while Dawes came up with "Plop plop fizz fizz" for Alka-Seltzer. The other two members became successful in other fields; one, Marty Fried is a bankruptcy attorney and the other, Earl Pickens, is a surgeon.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Bass Strings (original EP version)
Source: Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
A lot of songs released in 1966 and 1967 got labeled as drug songs by influential people in the music industry. In many cases, those labels were inaccurate, at least according to the artists who recorded those songs. On the other hand, you have songs like Bass Strings by Country Joe and the Fish that really can't be about anything else.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Dark Side
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Rogers/Sohns
Label: Dunwich
Year: 1966
Dark Side, written by guitarist Warren Rogers and singer Jim Sohns, is probably the quintessential Shadows of Knight song. It has all the classic elements of a garage rock song: three chords, a blues beat and lots of attitude. Oh, and the lyrics "I love you baby more than birds love the sky". What more can you ask for?
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Sweet Young Thing
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Uptown)
Year: 1967
There is actually very little on vinyl that captures the flavor of how the Chocolate Watchband actually sounded when left to their own devices, as most of their recorded work was heavily influenced by producer Ed Cobb. One of the few recordings that does accurately represent the Watchband sound is Sweet Young Thing, the first single released under the band's real name (Blues Theme, an instrumental Watchband recording credited to the Hoggs, had been released in 1966 by Hanna-Barbera records).
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: 45 RPM single (simulated stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Ellner/Atkinson/Byrne/Chaney/Michalski
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1966
In late 1966 five guys from San Jose California managed to sound more like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds that the Yardbirds themselves (a task probably made easier by the fact that by late 1966 Jeff Beck was no longer a member of the Yardbirds). One interesting note about this record is that as late as the mid-1980s the 45 RPM single on the original label was still available in record stores, complete with the original B side. Normally (in the US at least) songs more than a year or two old were only available on anthology LPs or on reissue singles with "back-to-back hits" on them. The complete takeover of the record racks by CDs in the late 1980s changed all that, as all 45s (except for indy releases) soon went the way of the 78 RPM record. The resurgence of vinyl in the 2010s has been almost exclusively limited to LP releases, making it look increasingly unlikely that we'll ever see (with the exception of Record Store Day special releases) 45 RPM singles on the racks ever again.
Artist: Bluestars
Title: Social End Product
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in New Zealand as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John Harris
Label: Rhino (original label: Allied Int'l)
Year: 1966
The Bluestars were formed in Auckland, New Zealand in 1964. Led by John Harris, a reporter for the Auckland Star, the band was known for its anti-establishment stance, with lines such as "I don't stand for the Queen" (which refers to the usual practice of standing up any time God Save The Queen was played, even in a movie theater) being somewhat the norm for them. Despite their rebel cred, the group signed a deal with the British Decca label, releasing their first single in December of 1965 in the UK, but not until several months later in their own country. After a falling out with Decca, the Bluestars went with locally-based Allied International Records, releasing Social End Product in September of 1966. The band even opened their own teen club, the Gallows, shortly after the record's release, but were forced to shut down following complaints from the neighbors. After one more single the group disbanded in early 1967.
Artist: Euphoria
Title: No Me Tomorrow
Source: British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Lincoln/Watt
Label: Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1966
No Me Tomorrow, the B side of the only single issued on the Mainstream label by the Los Angeles based Euphoria, can best be described as the dark side of folk rock. Most of the song is in a minor key, with the lyrics taking the point of view of someone contemplating suicide. About 3/4 of the way through, though, it becomes a high energy instrumental that sounds like a cross between Dick Dale and Ginger Baker. Euphoria itself was the creation of multi-instrumentalists Wesley Watt and Bill Lincoln, who wrote No Me Tomorrow. At the time Ne Me Tomorrow was recorded, Euphoria also included drummer David Potter (who had been with the group right from the start) and Texans James Harrell (guitar) and Peter Black (bass), both of which had been members of the Houston-based Misfits. Lincoln had already left the group (temporarily it turns out) to get married and move to England. A Euphoria LP appeared in 1969 on the Capitol label that included both Watt and Lincoln, along with several studio musicians.
Artist: Harbinger Complex
Title: Time To Kill
Source: British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers
Writer(s): Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label: Big Beat (original US label: Mainstream)
Year: 1967
Harbinger Complex was formed as the Norsemen in 1963 by two guitarists, Ron Rotarius and Bob Hoyle III, who had been playing together since eighth grade in Fremont, California, a city located about five miles north of San Jose along the east side of San Francisco Bay. In 1965 Hoyle was called to active duty as a reservist in Vietnam; when he returned the following year he rejoined the band, which, led by Rotarius, had changed its name to Harbinger Complex. In addition to Rotarius, the group at that time included Gary Clark on bass, Jim Redding on drums and Chuck Tedford (who would leave the group before they made any recordings) on organ. And then there was the band's new frontman: Jim Hockstaff. Hockstaff was, by all accounts, a "chick magnet". In fact, Hockstaff had been banned from the campus of Freemont's Washington High School after several local girls had gotten pregnant. Hockstaff was also a talented songwriter who, together with Hoyle, wrote all of the band's original songs. In April of 1966, Harbinger Complex made its first trip to Golden State Recorders, where they recorded their first single, Sometimes I Wonder, which was released locally on the Amber label, paired with Tomorrow's Soul Sound. The band returned to Golden State a couple months later to cut some demos, at the same time that Mainstream Records owner Bob Shad was visiting the studio in search of local talent to sign to his Brent subsidiary label. Shad liked what he heard, and on August 12, 1966 he booked studio time for Harbinger Complex at L.A.'s United Studios. The band recorded four songs that day, two of which, I Think I'm Down and My Dear And Kind Sir, were released as a single on Brent that same month. The other two songs, including Time To Kill, were held back for release on a 1967 Mainstream sampler album called With Love-A Pot Of Flowers. The album included all four of the songs recorded at United, along with tracks from three other California bands that Shad had signed, two of which were also from the San Francisco Bay area. Following a drug bust, Hockstaff was asked to leave the band in early 1967. Although the group attempted to carry on with a new lead vocalist, by the end of the year Harbinger Complex had permanently disbanded.
