The Versatiles were from Mobile, Alabama. They played at The Happening and the Stork Club, among other venues. Members were:
Daryl Huffman – lead guitar, keyboards Jerry Smith – guitar David Smith – bass P.J. Johnston – drums
Darryl Huffman’s distorted tone and wailing lead distinguishes the top side of their first record, “Cyclothymia”. The title refers to a mild form of manic-depression, with lyrics to match.
If released as I’ve read in September 1967, then it was a heavy sound for its time. Of the four songs they released, this was the only one written by the group. The flip is a cover of Brian Wilson’s “Farmers Daughter”.
One unusual aspect about the band is that there seems to be no real lead singer, as they sing all four songs from their singles in unison, both verse and chorus.
Their second 45 on Rickarby, “Somethin’ Like A Man” starts out like “Cyclothymia” with intense drumming and riffing. Huffman plays leads behind the verses, while the lyrics (excerpted below) could be described as anti-war, but seem to me to be more ambiguous:
What is a man? Does he knows what’s happening when he sees, The world and all its atrocities? Yes he does. Now ain’t that something like a man? He only does what he has to, when he can.
What does he do when the world is tilting right? Picks up his gun and he runs to join the fight. Does he know which side he’s fighting for, Or is it just an excuse to join the war? Don’t you agree that he’s something like a man?
Does he know just what to say? Does he get down on his knees and pray? Is he aware of the life that he’ll have to take, To protect his home for his family’s sake? Yes he is. Now ain’t that something like a man? He only does what he has to, when he can.
“Warm In The Rain” has a lighter sound, with ringing guitar notes. Both of the songs on their second 45 were written by Clarence Previto (Tony Previto).
Tom Fortener, keyboard player for Tom and the Tempests sent me this incredible 45 and sleeve and a short bio on the group:
Tom and the Tempests were formed in 1963 by Tom Fortener. Original members were, Randy Debord, rhythm guitar and vocals, Frank Hall, lead guitar, Bill Muncy, drums, Fred Nagle, bass and Tom Fortener, piano, organ. The band was managed by Toms’ Dad, Ray Fortener.
They wrote and recorded “It’s Over Now” and “Play It Cool” in 1964. They sponsored Sunday afternoon dances at GBU hall in Dayton, Ohio. They hired disc jockeys from WING and WONE. A popular promotion there was the Battle of the Bands. In 1965, they played the New State Pavilion, New York World’s Fair in Flushing, New York. They played throughout Ohio and was considered by many the best band in the area.
Tom Fortener
This is a Rite pressing from 1964. Alco’s first two releases were by Sonny Flaharty and His Young Americans, so the Young American Productions credit on the labels of this indicate Flaharty’s involvement. Alco was owned by Arvey Webster on Springboro Ave in Dayton.
Probably best known for backing Mike Ibrahim, The Nitewalkers of Johore Bahru in Malaysia, also backed other singers, such as Milah Hussain and A. Ramlie. With Mike Ibrahim they recorded a number of EPs in the early 1970s that have more of a 1960s feel, one of the heavy variety!
The first three EPs they released all featured one song about Malaysian children’s games, such as “Chong Chong Nai” and “Chok Chok Kundong”. The song featured here, “Bangselebu”, is from there second EP, released in 1971. In 2007 Mike Ibrahim was reported to be preparing a new album.
The Aliens, 1966, from left: Bill Gaunce, Conrad Dedacatoria, John Davis, Robbie House and Rick Hudson
Original bassist Bill Gaunce sent me this early photo of the Aliens. I love the illustration painted on the organ. A couple years after this photo they recorded two 45s, “Love Someone” / “Tobacco Road” on the Telastar label, and “Come Fly with Me” / “Season of the Witch” on the Son of a Witch label. Hear “Love Someone” on the excellent CD, Aliens, Psychos & Wild Things vol. 1.
Here’s the first official band photo taken of The Aliens from Norfolk, Virginia. This picture appeared in Norfolk paper, The Ledger Star, when the Aliens became the house band at the Four Seasons club. We’re all 15-16 years in this pic.
The Aliens played in the 1967 WNOR battle of the bands. There was also an Aliens from Hampton, Virginia which prompted a battle of the bands challenge at Mercury Roller Rink in Norfolk to determine who would keep the name. The Aliens from Norfolk won the battle, but from then on were known as The Norfolk Aliens which had been originally adopted just for the battle of the bands.
The lineup changed in the next few years, this photo is of the original members. Pictured from left to right:
Bill Gaunce on bass Conrad Dedicatoria on drums John Davis guitar Robbie House (front with tambourine) Rick Hudson keyboards
Rick and Conrad asked me to join the band they were forming. Conrad and I “auditioned” Robby House (without his knowledge!) when he was in a band called The Royal Wellingtons. We asked him to join and he did. The Aliens were in a battle of the bands with the Corduroys; Steve Green was the singer/gutarist and really impressed us so we ask him to join. Byrd was a high school friend who basically hung around and sat in enough to eventually be “absorbed” into the band.
Rick Hudson was replaced by Steve Green (guitar/vocals) shortly after this picture and Bill/Claire Sechman (aka Byrd) was added shortly after that. We played at the Four Seasons with this lineup and then I left and formed a band called Quagmire (me on bass, Steve Wilson vocals, Nick Kepics guitar, and Russell Scarborough drums). In ’68-’69 we were a fixture in downtown Norfolk’s seedy bars, most notably The Jamaican Room where we were house band for a short time.
The Aliens expanded their lineup to include Nick Bonis (keys) and PooNeil [Gayle Hollowman] on vocals. With Doug Coward on bass they had their recording lineup. Doug has passed away, Nick Bonus still plays and is the bass player in a band called Big Fun, which coincidentally had Quagmire’s old drummer Russell Scarborough playing with them until just recently. Robbie House still gigs around town doing acoustic stuff, Steve Green is playing bass and guitar in Nashville.
I played live until 2004. Now I write and record my own stuff & I’ve put out a few CDS with my music. I’m getting ready to release a cd of Americana flavored music & the songs are scattered about on my site at www.billgaunce.com.
Bill Gaunce
Later photo of the Aliens, from left: John Davis (Spazz), Pooniel (Georgia Randall or Randell … not sure about spelling), Steve Greene behind Pooniel, Doug Cowert in back (not sure about spelling R.I.P), Morgan Hampton (previously Conrad), Byrd (William Sechman R.I.P), Nick Bonis, and Robbie House. Submitted by the estate of Joanne Tluchak, Virginia Beach
This photo was found with another by the East Coastmen – could there be any connection between the two?
JP suggested I feature this unreleased group from Columbus, Ohio, with the odd name King Clam and the Marine Band. The band recorded four tracks in 1969 that went unreleased at the time. JP said: “These four garage-psych-punk tunes are too hot to handle to just leave them die and rot in the dust!”
My two favorites are “High Strung Woman” and “Inertia” their six-minute tour de force.
I didn’t know anything else about the group until I heard from guitarist, songwriter and leader of the group, Terry Bell:
I am Terry Leigh Bell, the lead songwriter and singer of King Clam. I’m in white shirt. The photo was late 1968, however, in January of 1969, as lead singer and songwriter, I parted ways with the three fellows in the photo and formed a solid garage/rock band which included:
Terry Leigh Bell – rhythm/lead guitar and lead and harmony vocals Mike Wright – vocals and percussion Andy Kowalski – bass Danny ? – drums Mark ? – keyboards
The band got together as all Ohio State University students. All of us were “hippie” types by this time indulging in whatever. We played around a lot in 1969, particularly at and around Ohio State University.
The band played around Columbus and went in to Musicol Studios in Columbus in June of 1969 and laid down four original tracks. I remember when we laid down the four tracks at Musicol, the owner really liked the songs and said they were some of the best he ever recorded to that point, particularly in that style. Our four songs were never released except for some acetates. We never shopped them around to record companies and in hindsight, maybe we should have.
The band was together as a performing and recording band from January 1969 till December 1969 when we all graduated from OSU and went our separate ways.
In the 70s, I had a 4 piece folk group like Crosby Stills and Nash and we played around Cleveland quite a lot as Morningstone. In the 80s, I released two singles on my own label, Down The Road Records (published by Down The Road Music-BMI) sort of in an acoustic rock sound, “Heartburn” & “The Way That I Do”. I hired a music promoter out of Nashville to plug the songs to radio stations but they never hit critical mass. They got a lot of airplay down south and particularly Florida. We played out of Nashville for a while then back to Cleveland.
Currently, my partner and I are playing and recording under the name: The Sages, and our free music download site is www.thesages.net.
There are sadly no photos of the band. I have tried to contact some of the members but they seem to have disappeared or gone out of state.
Terry Bell
These songs are so good, they deserved a proper release on vinyl – and as of May 2014, three of them have been! Now Sound Records has pressed 300 copies on blue vinyl in a color sleeve with expanded notes on the back cover. Order them through nowsoundrecords.nl
The Factree, from left: Rick Gauthier, Chris Smith and Mike WeaverAs the Factory, 1967
Like the Sinners who I profiled last week, the Factree came from the Niagara region of southern Ontario.
Guitarist Chris Smith spoke to me about the group and shared his incredible collection of photos and memorabilia along with a CD collecting the band’s music.
There are some great unreleased songs. The early “Who I Am” was written by bassist Rick Gauthier and drummer Mike Weaver and recorded in Chris Smith’s garage. Chris lets loose three incredible buzzing guitar passages, one after each chorus. Rick’s bass lines lock in with Mike’s drumming for a solid backing rhythm. It must have been a great sound to hear live.
Another self-recorded song was Chris’s original “Blue Shades”. The vocals boom from a distance over rolling drums and a repetitive guitar and bass vamp to give an eerie effect. Chris provides another cutting solo.
There are two versions of another Chris Smith original, “Something Called Love”, and they make for a good comparison. The demo recorded at a Timmins, Ontario radio station has a cool bizarre ending not used on the Sparton 45 version, which is tighter and has good use of echo.
Mike Weaver and Rick Gauthier wrote the other side of the Sparton 45, “Kaleidoscope” which may be the culmination of their heavy sound, from Chris’ dissonant opening riff to the psychedelic lyrics and trippy middle section. After a great sludgy solo, Rick’s bass slows to a final Hendrix-inspired lick enveloped in echo. More than any Canadian or U.S. music of the time, “Kaleidoscope” reminds me of the hard-driving rock being cut by English groups like Tomorrow and the Pretty Things.
The Factree postcardThe Tree postcard
By 1969 the band was going by an abbreviated name, the Tree, and cut one last 45 for Michael Addario’s Canland Records label, a loose, catchy version of the Electric Flag’s “See to Your Neighbor” with Mike Weaver’s drums and the rough vocals standing out. It was backed with a Creedence-style version of Suzie Q.
Left to right: Rick Gauthier, Chris Smith and Mike Weaverfrom left: Mike, Chris and Rick
Chris Smith, RCA Studios, 1968Mike Weaver, RCA Studios, 1968Rick Gauthier, RCA Studios, 1968from left: Rick, Chris and Mike
McIntyre Arena, May 19, 1969
Chris Smith answered some of my questions about the group:
I started playing guitar at age 14 like most my age after seeing the Beatles, we figured that’s cool. There were several groups before the Factory. – the Mercy Beats (’64/’65 – there might have been a bigger band with this name, we were just kids in my garage singing Beatles songs); the Spyders (’65/’66 – British rock); the Executioners and the Silencers (’66 – both pop rock); the Moddels (’66/’67 all the cool mod songs and blues); & the 13th Floor (’67 – Doors, Vanilla Fudge etc).
Q. When you joined the Factree they were still known as the Sinners, is that correct? Or was it started as a completely new band?
The Sinners had nothing to do with Factory. Mike and Rick were playing with the Mood – they broke up. I was playing with the 13th Floor. We were looking for a singer and got ahold of Rick to jam. Rick came out but was really only interested in me as a guitar player and wanted to stay with his drummer Mike, so he asked me to jam on our own. This was around ’66 / ’67 – Hendrix, Cream, etc, three man was in, so we wanted to go in that direction.
We came up with the name The Factory. We later changed it to Factree, later our fans kinda shortened to the Tree. The joke was we decided to Fac off. We were about half original, the rest Cream, Hendrix, usual acid rock stuff of the era. We were friends with the Spartons, The Sinners, The Night Walkers, many others, also friendly rivals of everyone – that’s just the way it was.
I wrote “Something Called Love”. We were messing with our garage recordings on a bunch of stuff. The garage recordings were done using two Phillips stereo recorders, Shure PE58 mics one on bass amp, one on guitar, overhead and snare and kick mikes. Run through a Shure mixer, vocals added on during mix. The reverb is the hallway that led to my basement, no processors at that time. I ran 100 feet of cable from the garage, we sang into the PA in the garage, sent it to a speaker in the hall, mike at the other end back to the recorders in the garage. With such long cables no low impedance, no balanced feeds back then, it’s a wonder the noise isn’t too bad considering. That was my start as a engineer for sure.
Pete Borbolli was the DJ friend of the Mood who recorded them on their 45, “Who Do You Love” and “Train’s Late”. He moved to Timmins and asked us to come up. The radio station was old school had real nice full studio for big band era stuff. We recorded “Something Called Love” and some other stuff there. We played a couple of large dance concerts up there hosted by the radio station.
Pete really flogged the music and it was on the playlist and did #1 in the Top Ten. We had a loyal following there and lots of promo and hype to boot. The demo did lead to the RCA contract.
The RCA sessions were a big thing for us small town boys in a real big studio in the big city Toronto. Everything was done in a few hours, we got there around noon and the studio closed at 5:00 so out the door we went. We managed to get it down, so all was good.
The RCA Sparton 45 was promoted by the company and did get considerable airplay at the time so we were happy. The first single on Sparton was to be followed by the second two songs we recorded that day – yeah we did four. It was unfortunate the masters were damaged before the second release was pressed.
We had a falling out with the producer so we decided to [go with] Canland, a friend who had a small music store and some recording gear in a back room. The Canland recording was more home brew and didn’t get the distribution of the RCA 45. It did keep us current and we had product to promote so the live scene was very successful for us.
Q. Regarding the vocals, were you singing lead on your songs and Rick and Mike singing together on ‘Who I Am’ and ‘Kaleidoscope’? How about ‘See to Your Neighbor’, which sounds very different than any other vocal by the band?
Yes, you are right about the vocals. I mainly sing lead on my own and the same for them. “See to Your Neighbour” was sung by Mike.
Q. Can you recall your setup as far as your guitar sound on the recordings and for live shows? You get a great variety of distorted tones on your leads – were there particular combinations of pedals and amps that you preferred?
The Timmins set up was a ’64 Gibson SG and Kimberly Fuzz made in Rochester, NY plugged directly into an Ampex tube mixer then direct to recorder. The garage stuff was Telecaster/SG and Kimberly through a Bandmaster. My set up at RCA was a ’61 Telecaster and ’66 Bandmaster, Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face. The Canland Tree stuff was Ace Tone Wah, Fuzz Face and Marshall Plexi.
Live, my main Factory/Factree/Tree set up was the Ace Tone Wah, Fuzz Face gradually discontinued in lieu of straight over-driven guitar through the Marshall. For the arena rock and halls I used a Marshall and Bandmaster with Sykes cabinets and a Traynor Roto Master Leslie (“I’m a Man” kinda sound). The guitars ’61 Telecaster, ’64 Gibson SG, later ’66 Burns Nu Sonic, ’67 Rickenbacker. The fuzzes evolved from the Kimberly, Zonk [John Hornby Skewes’ Zonk Machine], Fuzz Face, to none. The Ace Tone Wah most of the way in fact I still have it but haven’t used it in years.
Q. Did the group end with Mike Weaver’s sudden death?
Mike was from the club era and wanted to go more commercial away from acid rock, high school & dance concert stuff, so by 1970 we started play more hotel circuit stuff. I wanted to carry on my concert style and didn’t like the club scene on the road – too many nights in the same spot doing stuff I didn’t like. So I left the band.
They continued for a few months when Mike had his first heart attack. He was off a few months then back at it, he became ill again and died a few months later. Either way that was end of the band. Rick finished with another drummer and guitarist but it was over quick.
With the Spencer Davis Group at the McIntyre Arena in Timmins, May 19, 1969. Back row: Spencer Davis, Chris Smith, Rick Gauthier, unidentified. Front: unidentified, Ray Fenwick (?), Mike Weaver. Can anyone help ID the other members of the Spencer Davis Group at this time? Are these still Pete York and Eddie Hardin, or Dee Murray and Nigel Olssen?
Q. In one of the clippings by Kevin Scanlon he writes that there was a deal with Island Records in the works – what happened with that?
The Island thing never went much beyond the rumor. Spencer Davis was talking about trying to set something up but they were pretty much defunct after our couple of gigs. We were hopeful to go to England and pursue the mission, but our own problems and lifestyles, change in direction and factors I discussed before – well it just didn’t happen. As a recap this inability to keep moving toward larger venues ultimately led me to leave my own group.
When I moved on I allowed Mike and Rick to continue as Factree again. Since the begining I was the leader and as such was paid double and had 50% control of any vote issues as well. Just because I was unhappy with direction, I felt I would let them carry on.
Q. What was your next project?
I was playing my thing with Padlok (heavy ’70s rock, half original) – see my web site www.kingoftheattic.com for details, samples and photos.
I haven’t got much to say about M. Yubi & Dizzy Inspiration because I don’t know much. By the look of the chaps on the cover I would say that this was recorded in the late 1960s.
The song “Dendang Seloka” invites all young men and women to dance and be happy and not worry about things too much, otherwise they will just bring themselves pain. The other songs on the EP are ballads.
“Dendang Seloka” is credited on the label for composition and lyrics to Dizzy Inspiration. I have no doubt that they wrote the words, but the music has more than a passing similarity to the Standell’s “Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White”. Female Malaysian singer Kamsiah M. Ali also recorded a song titled “Dendang Seloka”, but it is totally different lyrically and musically.
This site is a work in progress on 1960s garage rock bands. All entries can be updated, corrected and expanded. If you have information on a band featured here, please let me know and I will update the site and credit you accordingly.
I am dedicated to making this site a center for research about '60s music scenes. Please consider donating archival materials such as photos, records, news clippings, scrapbooks or other material from the '60s. Please contact me at rchrisbishop@gmail.com if you can loan or donate original materials
The Versatiles were from Mobile, Alabama. They played at The Happening and the Stork Club, among other venues. Members were:
