My band, The Basic Things, was locally popular in the late '60s in Port Arthur and the Golden Triangle. The Basic Things were: Tom Arrington on rhythm guitar (later David Neel would replace Tom), Charles Jayroe on lead guitar, Larry Quinn on Farfisa organ, Gerald Pierce on Hofner bass, Ronnie Cooper on drums, and me trying to sound as British as a Jewish Texan can.

The band name was suggested by a friend, Fred Allred (who has owned a record store in Houston for many years - Allrecords) based on the name of a 45 record out of Atlantic by the Top Notes. It is a wonderful doo wop song with amazing lyrics and vocals and we just thought that The Basic Things was apropos for a name.

We cut a 45 in 1967 at Jones Recording Studio in Houston, a cover of Wilson Pickett's "99 ½" b/w an original "You're Still Dreaming". Recording at Jones was funny, more than remarkable in any way -- we showed up late, not realizing that (duh) they charge by the hour and had a schedule for a reason, we weren't even prepared to do both sides. The guy was forgiving and precise -- I remember he buzzed in on the first take and said, "Guitar player, your fourth string is out of tune" and, because I was screaming a lot in those days, positioned Gerald (our bass player) to keep me away from the mic with an extended hand in front of me. He made a move as if to karate chop me in the Adam's apple, made me sort of laugh, and we decided to keep that take because it was an inside joke.

"99 ½ (Won't Do)" was The Basic Things piece 'de resistance. We were pretty sure that this song would put us on the map because of the reaction it got at gigs. I guess we ignored the fact that you can't do the song too badly because it's so wonderful and every band of that era had it on their playlist.

Tom and Larry wrote "You're Still Dreaming" on the spot in the recording studio because it hadn't occurred to us that we'd do more than one song that day. But, the engineer pointed out, "If you are going to release a record, you'll probably want something on the other side." It's a pretty good snapshot of what we were doing. I was screaming in public and they were playing excellent garage band rock and roll.

The whole thing cost us less than $200 bucks, I think, including pressing 100 copies, maybe more. Purple Can, if memory serves, was sort of a play on the notion that red might, but purple can ... following the Moby Grape and Strawberry Alarm Clock model ... thought provoking, but ultimately meaningless.

I think we sold all of ten records but somehow the rest of them disappeared over the years. Fortunately, Tom Arrington had the 1/4 inch master tape and thirty five years later a friend of mine discovered that there was actually a tape recorder in town that was the same model as the one the song was originally recorded on. I had it dubbed into a digital format for posterity. Neither song is exactly remastered but the sound is enhanced by virtue of the fact that the original 45 release version of "99 ½" was ramped down to shorten the song for radio play - too bad we didn't get any - and "Wish That You Were Here" ["You're Still Dreaming"] had some sort of tape anomaly on it at the very beginning that, for some reason, now sounds like it not only belongs there but leads you back, back, back in time.

I'd like to thank Ruth Hall, my friend gone but not forgotten, for ponying up the entire $180 to record and press those records.

Herman Bennett

Herman's site has much more information on the Basic Things and his music career, check it out at hermanbennett.com. Gerald Pierce has two other photos of the band and more at www.unclestick.com/music.

Enrique Martinez (Quique) - lead vocals
Juan (Jeannot) - lead guitar and vocals
Santiago Villaseñor - rhythm guitar, harmonica and vocals
Michel Minguez - bass guitar and vocals
Antonio Casado - drums

The band landed a contract with Columbia in November and cut four songs released in February of 1965. The EP included two fine original songs: the excellent "Sensacion" and more formulaic "Ritmo y movimiento", but failed to sell. The band was disappointed with the sound of the EP, which they though lacked proper reverb, as well as the lack of promotion on Columbia's part.

They lost their singer Quique to Los Continentales and for a time Santiago took over on lead vocals. By coincidence, they were soon able to recruit the former lead singer of Los Continentales, Boris (Salvador Benzo), who was born in Ceuta, the tip of North Africa across from Gibraltar. Calling themselves Boris y Los Buitres, they entered a band competition in León. They didn't make the finals, but Boris was a sensation due to his shoulder-length hair. Boris soon went solo and the group broke up, members scattering to other bands.

At the end of 1968, Santiago Villaseñor formed a new version of Los Buitres with the drummer Pancho from Los Comperos, but soon they dropped the name "Los Buitres" and had a working name of the "New Group":

Santiago Villaseñor - lead guitar, harmonica and lead vocals
Rafael Rios - rhythm guitar
Dani Portilla - piano and vocals
Pancho - drums
plus an unknown bassist who was a friend of Dani

They recorded two songs at Publivox studio (Estudio Publi/vox), both originals by Santiago and both sung in English. "Ella se come mi mente" ("She's Eating My Mind") has great freakbeat-style lead guitar, and you can't beat that title.

"Aqui, ahora, entonces" ("Here, Now, Then" would be a literal translation) has a breezier sound, but a cool guitar figure and good harmonies. The excellent lyrics fit in with the time and point to a more appropriate title for the song: "Nothing ever matters much, no one has a care, all that you could ever want, is love right then and there".

These songs went unreleased until 1985 when a Spanish LP Historia de la musica pop española no. 32 on Alligator Records included the New Group tracks along with the Los Buitres Columbia EP and two EPs released by Cefe y Los Gigantes.

The sound quality on the Alligator LP is OK for the time, but not as good as these songs deserve. For example, one channel drops out for a few seconds during "Aqui, ahora, entonces". I see there are mp3 downloads that can be purchased on the 'net. Maybe these have better sound quality, I haven't checked.

Thanks to Bård for the transfers of "Sensacion" and "Ritmo y moviemiento" and for pointing me to viejopickup.blogspot.com for a scan of the EP cover. Special thanks to Borja for turning me on to these songs by giving me a copy of the Cefe y Los Gigantes / Los Buitres split LP. This article is based on the liner notes to that LP - if anyone has more information or corrections please contact me.

All four songs they released seem to be originals. Their first 45 has a cool guitar instrumental on the A-side, "Florence Ave". The group yells an intro "Let's meet at Al's on Florence Avenue!". It was backed with a dirge-like ballad "My Girl" (not the Miracles song by a long shot). I don't own a copy of this one, but I have excerpts of the songs below so you can get an idea.

The second 45 has "High Class", the singer alternates between a menacing spoken mumble and an intense shouting, sometimes within the same line of verse. The band creates a gloomy background through a droning riff and rolling drums for most of the song's three minutes. The backing vocals are straight out of "Gloria" but the verse seems to have some awareness of "You're Gonna Miss Me", with the line "you're gonna wake up one morning, you're gonna start to cry, you're gonna wonder why".

The flip "You've Got Me" is another moody number, something similar to "My Girl" but it works better. I spent a lot of time with audio software taking out clicks from a bad scratch on the 45, but the result is excellent.

Russell RRC-43106:
The Nite Walkers - Florence Ave (excerpt)
The Nite Walkers - My Girl (excerpt)

Russell RRC-43107:
The Nite Walkers - High Class
The Nite Walkers - You've Got Me

While the Ibanez brand wasn't part of the garage world circa '66, some knockoffs of Eko and Hagstrom electrics made in those Japanese factories at that time probably made their way into the hands of young musicians around the U.S.

The song "Oh La La" is credited as Copyright Controlled, but there are scores of songs with this title and I have been unable to determine if this is a Phantoms’ original.

The better song in my opinion is "Love Love Love", which we are told in no uncertain terms was created by Paul Leung; it says so on the label and on both sides of the cover. Paul Leung, however, was not a member of the Phantoms, but rather a record producer and owner of the Amo label, on which this record was released. So it seems that Leung got the Phantoms to cut a record and provided them with the song. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I quite like "Love Love Love", which sounds much like the Nightcrawlers’ "Little Black Egg" with different lyrics. Oddly, although "Love Love Love" is listed as the A side on the cover, it appears as the B side on the record.

But who were the Phantoms? The only clue in the liner notes is that it mentions them having only been in Hong Kong for a certain time, so they weren’t a local group. My guess is they were from Singapore as there were many bands from there which tried their luck in Hong Kong in the second half of the 1960s. There was a band from Singapore called the Phantoms who supported the singer Valentine to produce a hit with the ballad Roselyn earlier in the sixties. Looking at the cover of the Valentine record, I think this could be the same band, but I could be totally wrong.

The Phantoms - Love Love Love
The Phantoms - Oh La La

Their first 45, released on United World #6947 in January '67 has a minor pop song "Too Many Times" on the A-side, written by 'Howie'.

Much cooler is the catchy, upbeat "Go!". The song writing credits list Axtell and Lacey, but as Mop Top Mike pointed out to me, it's really a very close version of the Dave Clark Five's "I'm Thinking", the b-side of a '65 single "Reelin' and Rockin'". On the DC5 original there's a great shout of "Oh!" before the first verse. The Young Men change this to a reverb-laden "Go!" and dub it in before each verse. They also speed up the tempo, drop the organ part and substitute an excellent dry guitar solo for the bridge in the DC5 original.

The Young Men had a second 45 United World #0001 in April of '67, a very competent rendition of the Hollies' "Baby That's All" backed with "Love's Time", an original I haven't heard yet written by Axtell, Lacey and Froste.

Thanks also to Mop Top Mike for the dates of the 45s.