Garage Band Hangover

Growing up in Cupertino (now home to Apple and ebay, in the 60's just a bedroom-community suburb of San Jose), I saw a LOT of Garage Bands. The stars of our scene (The Chocolate Watchband, The Syndicate of Sound, Stained Glass---originally The Trolls) were older college-aged guys who were already playing before The Beatles hit, and had previously been in "Frat" Bands, whose sound was that of The Kingsmen, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Chuck Berry, R&B, Surf guitarists and Combos, etc.

We younger guys started joining or forming Groups (the term "Band" was at that time used for non-R & R music's) after the British Invasion landed, learning not Beatles songs (no one could sing well enough!), but rather Kinks and Animals, then Yardbirds and Who, material. We used the local stars mentioned above as our yardstick for judging each other, not real stars. The drummer of The Chocolate Watchband (Gary Andrijesivich) actually went to my High School (a couple of years ahead of me), quitting the Frat Band he was in (The Squyers, named after leader Lee Squyers) to join The Watchband (as we called them, just as ya'll call Mick & Keith's Band The Stones), and played in both the Cupertino High School Orchestra and Marching Band. I would watch him play at a football game pep-rally on Friday afternoon, then go see him play at The Continental (a huge roller rink repurposed as a music hall) that night! I replaced Gary in The Squyers, The Watchband at the same time stealing the two college guys from my first Group (which had yet to play out), Faux Pas. Small world!

The Continental (and a few other joints in the valley, like The Bold Knight in Sunnyvale) played host to all the touring what-are-now-considered Garage Bands (though if you were touring and had a record out we didn't consider you a Garage Band). The Music Machine were awesome! I saw William Penn & His Pals, whose organist was Greg Rolie (Journey; but The Pals were great!) there, The Watchband, The Syndicate, and Stained Glass many, many times, as well as the hundreds of younger local bands no one will ever hear of, from '65-'67, when it was renamed The Continental Ballroom (well la de freakin' da). After that it was mostly national acts, like Big Brother & The Holding Company, who even we teenage Garage Band musicians knew stunk. Janis was okay, I guess, though I've heard far better (Jimmie Vaughan's pal Lou Ann Barton for one, who was the singer in an Austin Band whose guitarists was the then-unknown Stevie Ray. Her Jerry Wexler produced/Tom Dowd engineered album is a must own).

There is one post-60's dedicated, deliberately "garage-y" Band that everyone who is a fan of the genre should know of---The Lyres. I saw them in the 90's a buncha times, and they were the absolute best at it that I've ever seen/heard. There are a bunch of Lyres albums out there, none of which captured their live sound, unfortunately. The leader/songwriter/singer/organist Monoman(! Real name Jeff Conolly) played his Vox Continental Organ with his right hand, a tambourine with his left (pounding it on his left leg, which must have been very black & Blue), and just tearing it up vocally. The most out-of-my-mind I ever went seeing a Group/Band live was at a Lyres show, and I saw The Who with Keith Moon twice!

The undisputed expert on Garage Bands was Greg Shaw (R.I.P.), of Bomp Records and Magazine fame. He was waaay into Garage, and in the 80's started a club (which he named The Garage!) in L.A. to put on shows featuring nothing but. At the time of his death his collection of Garage Band 45 RPM 7" singles numbered over 100,000!

I do realize my opinion of Janis is a minority one. Same with Hendrix. That's okay, they get a lot of love from others. A singers voice is so personal, so intimate, isn't it? And so revealing of who he or she is, I sometimes feel like a voyeur while listening. By mentioning Lou Ann, I did not intend to compare her to Janis, it's just that they both come from Austin, and till the same soil, so to speak. Lou Ann is just so cool to me, and, for whatever reason, Janis is not. I am sometimes mystified at the popularity of a given singer or musician, just not hearing the why. That is the case with Janis. Taste, too, is very personal. Or maybe I just don't get her. That happens!

I've been thinking about the why, Tostadosunidos. Janis strikes me as trying pretty hard to sound "bluesy", to sound Black, ya know? And the fact that it doesn't come naturally seems evident. Her voice sounds a little "pinched" to me, and kinda shrieky. Again, not comparing them (singing is too personal for that to be appropriate), with Lou Ann it just seems to pour out of her effortlessly, as it does from the best. They make it look so easy!

I didn't say she was born there! ;-)

Last time I was in Austin (I was planning on moving there to resume playing with a good guitarist I had been in a Band with in L.A., who was now in Cornell Hurd's Band, but he was dying of lung cancer by the time I got there) I went to Antone's and Threadgill's, to see where that whole crowd that came out of Austin had appeared live. Tiny stages! Wasn't Janis a waitress at Threadgill's? Had a pretty good steak there.