Everybody is aware of psychedelic rock started in San Francisco with bands like Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Useless, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Few individuals, nevertheless, recall an excellent earlier group that grew to become a significant attraction within the Bay Space in 1966: the CHOCOLATE WATCH BAND.
Though the WATCH BAND by no means had a success file, by no means achieved nationwide recognition, and by no means received invited to Woodstock, they spawned a loyal cult following that grows bigger annually (regardless of a notable lack of publicity or file firm hype.) The band launched solely three albums, but 15 years after their launch, two of the information proceed being re-issued, with unique copies buying and selling fingers for as a lot as $75.
Why does this group refuse to die?
To seek out out, I made a decision to find the WATCH BAND’S lead singer, DAVID AGUILAR, who so far as I knew, had by no means been interviewed earlier than. I hardly knew the place to start out. My solely lead was a rumor he was educating astronomy at a Colorado College.
The rumor turned out to be true—form of. After a number of telephone calls, I found somebody named Aguilar had previously been accountable for a Colorado planetarium, however had left the educational world for a extra profitable publish elsewhere. After just a few blind calls, I ultimately tracked down a David Aguilar working for an aerospace agency.
“Is that this the identical David Aguilar that used to sing with the Chocolate Watch Band?” I requested tentatively.
There was a quick pause, adopted by an amused chuckle. “Sure, it’s,” answered the voice.
Aguilar appeared genuinely stunned anybody remembered his former life as a rock star. I requested if he was conscious of the Watch Band’s rising reputation—evidenced by the discharge of a number of new compilation albums. “Yeah, I noticed a few of the re-issues in a file retailer,” he replied. “However till I noticed them, I didn’t know they existed. I by no means acquired a penny from any of our information.”
I subsequent requested if Aguilar had any sixties memoribilia, mentioning I used to be significantly fascinated by a legendary field the band had at all times carried with them, a field reportedly full of each conceivable number of mind-altering substance. (Their producer Ed Cobb described the field on the again of a biggest hits album launched in 1983: “[It] was extremely hand-tooled, hand-carved, inlaid wooden, like a large fisherman’s field. In it have been sticks of cannabis near a half-inch in diameter, LSD, and all of the capsules you might think about! … The smoke was so heavy coming beneath the [studio] door that I had a contact excessive for 3 days!”)
“I don’t know what occurred to the field,” laughed Aguilar. “Possibly it beamed immediately into area after a recording session.”
In a later dialog, Aguilar confessed he was the one member of the group who wasn’t into medicine. He additionally defined why he’d gotten rid of many vestiges from his previous. “I threw every part away from the sixties, even my information,” he stated. “I nonetheless have numerous dangerous emotions over what occurred to us throughout these years. The flower youngster period was a magical time, however most individuals don’t understand how transient it actually was.”
In these darkish days of MTV-style shlock rock, it’s arduous to consider there was a time when nearly each child in America felt he had a shot at turning into a rock star. The legal professionals, accountants and picture makers have been round, however hadn’t fairly found out learn how to run the system. Consequently, phony posturing, rock star cliches, and designer haircuts have been stored to a minimal.
The American storage band motion started within the mid-sixties largely as a response to the British invasion.
By the early sixties, America-made rock had already been undermined by a procession of baby-faced Fabians and Frankies, and the British had no bother taking up the scene once they reverted to the unique spirit of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, and so on. Most American storage bands shaped as copy bands imitating the British sound. It was a bizarre time—what with the Brits imitating the Blacks and the Yankee youngsters imitating the Brits. The emphasis was on three-chord dance songs anybody might play, and the motion centered round highschool hops and fraternity events. Some teams have been pop oriented (that means they sounded just like the Beatles), whereas others pursued a extra demented sensibility (that means they sounded just like the Rolling Stones).
Not like right this moment, the teenagers of the sixties have been actively rebelling in opposition to a hypocritical society whose worth methods had collapsed. Consequently, storage bands and drags have been a pure mixture. The earliest bands in all probability ranked alcohol highest on the popular listing of mind-altering chemical substances, however others have been into extra unique highs, equivalent to smoking paregoric, sniffing glue, or popping the occasional weight loss plan capsule stolen from mommy’s purse. Marijuana was simply coming into vogue in 1964, but it surely was the arrival of LSD that actually pushed the storage band sensibility to sudden realms.
Acid, because it turned out, didn’t combine effectively together with your typical teenage rock ’n’ curler. Acid heads tended to be light, introspective creatures, whereas storage bands have been violent and harmful. Not many bands might mix the 2 sensibilities, and people who did, didn’t final lengthy. In actual fact, the fusion of punk and psychedelia is so unstable that the Watch Band have remained one of many few teams to efficiently pull it off.
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When Mark Loomis shaped his band in 1964, he should have been conscious of the nation’s rising curiosity in LSD. Why else decide such a surrealistic title for the group? In its earliest incarnation, nevertheless, the Watch Band was little greater than a replica band for the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, and Kinks. The band went by means of a number of personnel adjustments earlier than the ultimate lineup was solidified in 1965: LOOMIS (lead guitar), AGUILAR (vocals), GARY ANDRUASEVICH (drums), SEAN TOLBY (guitar), and BILL FLORES (bass).
All 5 members lived in San Jose, a mannequin suburban neighborhood curled across the backside rim of the San Francisco Bay. The native excessive colleges overflowed with bands, the preferred of which was the Syndicate of Sound, a driving dance band that carried out immaculate covers of present hits. Steadily showing in matching blue fits and Beatle boots, Syndicate members scored their greatest hit in 1966 with “Little Woman,” a re-vamped model of the five-chord traditional “Hey Joe.” That very same yr one other younger San Jose group, the Depend 5, capitalized on the rising acid scene with a Prime Ten ditty titled “Psychotic Response.”
Regardless of the competitors, the Chocolate Watch Band created a right away sensation in San Jose, a improvement no less than partly on account of Aguilar’s unbridled vocals, a few of which bore greater than a passing resemblance to Mick Jagger’s. Though music writers have criticized Aguilar’s lack of originality, it’s essential to notice his performances on vinyl stay convincing, highly effective and stuffed with sharp, emotional edges. There are some, the truth is, who assume he’s higher than Jagger (who, it ought to be admitted, copped his fashion from American bluesmen anyway).
“I used to be influenced by Jagger,” admitted Aguilar, “however I used to be additionally influenced by Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, and Bo Diddley. Mark was the thinker of the group. He offered the psychedelic contact. I used to be extra into rock ’n’ roll. To me, rock was like a lumber truck barreling downhill uncontrolled.”
Since Aguilar had a relative dwelling in England, he acquired all the newest British hits earlier than they arrived in American file shops. The group additionally made frequent forays to Los Angeles to purchase British imports. “I bear in mind the primary week we received collectively,” stated Aguilar. “We went to Sausalito to get our image taken and stopped at an area membership that featured a bunch who regarded just like the Beatles. We requested if we might play a tune whereas the band was taking a break. They stated okay. We barely knew one another, however we blew the rafters off that place. It was our first stay look and women have been already crying and working after us.”
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than the band was approached by a possible supervisor named Ron Rube, who organized an audition with a producer/songwriter named Ed Cobb. Cobb was invited to see the Watch Band at a small membership in San Jose. “He was in his mid-30’s, tall and skinny,” stated Aguilar. “He form of jogged my memory of Roger Moore.”
A former member of the squeaky-clean vocal group the 4 Preps, Cobb had some connections with Tower information, and was within the strategy of pitching a number of acts to the label. After the Preps had damaged up in ’64, Cobb had shaped a manufacturing firm referred to as Inexperienced Grass with an outdated good friend, Ray Harris. The duo was decided to mine the brand new rising youth market. (Cobb’s remaining recording with the Preps had been titled “A Letter To The Beatles.”) Cobb had already written a tune titled “Soiled Water” and was in search of a bunch to file it. His first alternative was an LA storage band referred to as The Standells.
“The Standells have been a great studio band,” stated Aguilar, “however they have been horrible on stage. I’m nonetheless upset we didn’t get ‘Soiled Water’ as a result of we might have had enjoyable with that tune. Cobb gave it to The Standells as a result of that they had a Farfisa organ.”
Whereas “Soiled Water” was climbing the charts on its method to turning into a large nationwide hit, Cobb went to work on one other tune for the Watch Band titled “Candy Younger Factor.” First, nevertheless, the band was requested to signal a multipage contract with Inexperienced Grass. “Our supervisor instructed us it was a extremely whole lot,” stated Sean Tolby in 1983. “Nevertheless it was terrible! They owned our identify, they owned every part! On Rube’s phrase, we signed it with out realizing what would occur.” “We have been solely 17 and 18 years outdated,” added Aguilar. “Cobb stated he’d make us stars. We didn’t know what we have been doing.” (Inside a matter of months, the group would get a lot better gives, together with one from Filmore proprietor Invoice Graham, however by that point it was too late. They have been locked right into a five-year contract.)
Launched in ’65, “Candy Younger Factor” promptly went nowhere, which is unusual because the tune is taken into account one thing of a traditional right this moment. Aguilar blames Tower. “I don’t know why they put us on that label,” he stated, referring to the very fact Tower handed the tape to Uptown, a Black R&B subsidiary. Clearly, the file’s promotion was botched.
“It was a fabulous starting,” writes archivist Brian Hogg of the tune, “considerably modeled on The Standells, however with a distinguished Rolling Stones affect in Aguilar’s Jaggeresque phrasing, the Brian Jones harmonica and the guitar riff, which in some way at all times appears to be hinting on the tune of ‘Paint It Black.’ ‘Candy Younger Factor’ is, nevertheless, greater than mere cloning, there’s an environment that’s purely Californian that makes it particular.”
Cobb was dividing his time amongst many initiatives and with the success of The Standells, he had much less and fewer time for the Watch Band. “We noticed little or no of him,” stated Aguilar. “We have been on tour on a regular basis.” Cobb started to view the Watch Band extra as an outlet for cashing-in on the psychedelic subculture. Sadly, his efforts to comprehend this purpose would normally be made on the band’s expense.
“Someday Cobb referred to as us and instructed us to fly all the way down to LA to be in a film,” stated Aguilar. The end result, Riot on Sundown Strip, gives the one identified footage of the Watch Band performing. Sadly, they have been pressured to lip-sync, performing two extremely spinoff originals that have been in all probability written on the spot: “Don’t Want Your Lovin’” and “Sitting Right here Standing.” So far as Aguilar is worried, the true sound of the band was by no means captured on movie or vinyl. The movie, nevertheless, does provide a pattern of the band’s spectacular stage presence.
The Watch Band was particularly appreciated at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium, the place they shared the invoice with such acts as The Yardbirds, The Moms of Invention, and Jefferson Airplane. Additionally they carried out as a gap act for The Seeds, a band they thought of their musical inferiors. To indicate their disdain, they opened with 25 minutes of Seed covers, together with the hit “Pushin’ Too Laborious.” “The Seeds have been so mad they didn’t wish to come out and play,” laughed Aguilar.
In the meantime, based on Aguilar, Loomis and Tolby have been sinking right into a psychedelic haze. “I believe LSD actually messed them up,” he stated. “It opened just a few doorways that in all probability ought to have been stored closed. There have been nights when our tools supervisor must stand behind Sean and prop him up. I used to be afraid to take acid as a result of I noticed so many burn-outs.” On a visit to LA, Loomis purchased a cultured mahogany field with brass fittings and crammed it with medicine. “It grew to become his first assist package,” stated Aguilar.
Regardless of an absence of airplay or media consideration, the Watch Band had excessive hopes for his or her first album No Method Out, which was launched in September 1967. Half the album was given over to Cobb’s ideas, despite the fact that the band had already confirmed their songwriting talents. Cobb insisted on two covers, “Sizzling Dusty Highway” and “The Midnight Hour.” The third cowl, Chuck Berry’s “Come On,” was extra consultant of Aguilar’s style. The Watch Band contributed three originals, together with “Are You Gonna Be There (On the Love ln),” which stays one of many best anthems to emerge from San Francisco. Whereas different teams have been falling right into a quagmire of hippie idealism, the Watch Band have been translating the acid expertise into an us-versus-them teen drama.
“Too many individuals don’t know the place they belong,” sang Aguilar. “They want somebody to inform them proper from fallacious. You higher break free. Attempt to be your self. Don’t go away your future to another person.” Loomis’ mindwrenching guitar riffs are harking back to the perfect work performed by Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane. However then, the 2 have been associates and doubtless arrived on the sound concurrently. The opposite two Watch Band originals have been “No Method Out,” a masterpiece of early psychedelia, and “Gone and Passes By,” a sitar rave-up with a Bo Diddley beat.
Nonetheless, when the album was launched, the liner notes mysteriously failed to say the band members by identify. Even worse, the band had by no means even heard three of the songs, which have been carried out by studio musicians. Certainly one of these, “Gossamer Wings” was an apparent re-write of an earlier single written by Aguilar and Loomis titled “Free Lip Sync Ship.” “Gossamer Wings” was credited to Don Bennet and Ethan McElroy, and the vocal was carried out by Bennet. The opposite two Cobb creations, “Expo 2000” and “Darkish Facet of the Mushroom” tried to money in on the Watch Band’s druggy picture. “Expo 2000” was a great tune, however why didn’t Cobb inform the band about it or allow them to carry out it themselves?
“We submitted two album cowl designs,” stated Aguilar, “and so they stated they’d use one in all them. However the album got here out with a totally totally different cowl. I got here to the conclusion we have been going nowhere.” Aguilar was so upset he briefly left the group.
Cobb, nevertheless, satisfied everybody to get again collectively for a second album, promising issues could be totally different. He was proper. For the second album, issues received worse. All footage of the band and point out of names (apart from Cobb and his studio cronies) have been left off, and Cobb took over a complete facet for his personal psychedelic experiments.
“They have been making an attempt to persuade us they didn’t need anybody to see what we regarded like till they noticed our concert events,” stated Sean Tolby in a Goldmine interview in 1983. Apparently, Cobb had satisfied some members of the band this technique of not giving the band credit score would create a mystique across the group. A extra possible situation, nevertheless, was that Cobb was protecting his choices open, whereas holding the band within the worst doable bargaining place. Shortly after the file was launched, Aguilar left the group for good, taking a lot of the fireplace driving the band with him.
“The Chocolate Watch Band had damaged up and are available collectively a number of occasions,” Cobb instructed an interviewer in 1980. “I actually loved working with them, however that they had no guidelines binding themselves. Consequently, they might break up. It didn’t matter in the event that they have been profitable or not. Then I’d discuss to them, and they might conform to do one thing else. By the point of the third album, that they had developed to the purpose the place they have been so sturdy collectively, that I’d have been a idiot to have my affect be in there and screw up what they have been making an attempt to do.”
“Extra possible Cobb noticed a drained group,” wrote Brian Hogg. “The ensuing album One Step Past was an ideal disappointment. The group wrote many of the songs, the one cowl being ‘I Don’t Want No Physician’ which by no means lifts off, and the remaining are moderately bizarre. ‘Uncle Morris’ was good, ‘Flowers’ had its moments and ‘Satan’s Motorcyle’ was attention-grabbing if just for its guitar work, equipped by an incognitio Jerry Miller of Moby Grape.”
Nonetheless, by 1969 the underside was dropping out of the psychedelic exploitation market, and Cobb was predictably shedding curiosity within the style. He gave the band a free hand ultimately, but it surely was two years and two albums too late. With out Aguilar, the group wasn’t full, and Loomis was so excessive he couldn’t carry out his solos.
“Performing in entrance of 20,000 screaming followers is the best excessive on the planet,” stated Aguilar. “I used to be actually sorry to see that taken from us. I nonetheless miss it.”
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