The band’s keyboardist, Paul Cervanek, provided the rare photo and biography:

My first band was Echoes from a Broken Mirror, which quickly changed to Good Tuesday, due to the name’s length. [The band photo] was taken in my basement, around 1966 to 1968, with the band Good Tuesday. I am the blond guy slouching against the wall, third from left.

We played the various Detroit teen nightclubs that prevailed at that time, primarily those operated by Ed “Punch” Andrews, in partnership with Suzi Quatro’s brother, Mike, such as the Crows Nest—both east and west—and the Silverbell, which was a former ski lodge near Oakland University, and the Birmingham Palladium. We also appeared twice at the infamous Grande Ballroom, along with Something Different located on Northwestern Highway, Wamplers Pavilion, and a few H.S. dances.

I left Good Tuesday in 1968 when I started my first year at Oakland University, but fell into a small music clique that included Tom Weschler and we became friends. I had a short stint with Bob Seger’s band—in between Tom Schultz and Dan Watson—before joining Madrigal.

When Madrigal’s music moved more toward the theatrical rather than rock ’n’ roll—and became more non-danceable, concert-type songs—I left. In retrospect, it seemed odd that a band with that type of product would have been hired to play at the Roostertail, a popular Detroit nightclub, on one of its “Sunday Night at the Roostertail” events, which were non-alcoholic, 18 to 21 years old only. Madrigal performed at all of the same clubs that my previous band, Good Tuesday, played.

Ironically, that was on a warm, late-summer-like evening in September during that Madrigal gig at the Roostertail when I met my future wife [and still married 50 years later]. For that, I am grateful. I recall that may have been one of my last gigs with Madrigal, as my “priorities” changed shortly afterward. At the very end, Ted Pearson, who fronted Madrigal, out of the blue decided the band’s new name was now Walpurgis, this on the eve of our first Grande Ballroom show. They, of course, eventually recorded what became the Phantom’s Divine Comedy project. As for me: my last professional band was Fancy Colors, in the early ’70s.

As it turns out, I gave keyboard lessons to Russ Klatt, a saxophone player. He got a gig in a band called Downtown Clergy as result—and eventually played the Hammond on Phantom’s Divine Comedy.

Good Tuesday, Madrigal and Fancy Colors recorded no singles (though Madrigal, at some point and not during Cervanek’s tenure, it’s rumored, did; but they were never released).

Article written by R.D Francis.

According to guitarist Jerry Zubal, the Kwintels started out as the Quintels, eventually dropping the “Qu” for a “Kw” for the sound-the-same-but-spelled-differently, more “rocking” handle. Jim Baranowsky, who also managed Tom Carson’s the Lazy Eggs, served as their manager.

The Kwintels were regulars at the Punch Andrews-managed the Silver Bell Hideout, the Clawson Hideout, and the Birmingham Palladium. Their major gigs were the Southfield Pop Festival in July 1967 alongside SRC, Bob Seger and the Last Heard, the Rationals, and the Mushrooms featuring Glenn Frey. The Kwintels also opened for, and loaned out equipment to, according to Jerry Zubal, Paul Revere and the Raiders during their Detroit stop in 1965. Around that same time, the Kwintels, when Jerry Zubal was only 15, served as Freddie Cannon’s backing band during a Detroit stop in Lake Orion. Impressed with the teens, Cannon offered the Kwintels the slot as his permanent band; they turned him down to concentrate on original tunes. As was the course of bands in those days, they recorded covers of popular songs as singles, but those acetates were never pressed for release.

Later, Zubal joined the harder-rocking Tea, which was known for a time as Poetic Justice when Joe Aramini (Bob Seger’s later road manager) managed the band. Signed to Punch Andrews’s Palladium Records, which issued Seger’s early albums, Andrews felt “Tea” carried a detrimental “drug image,” so the band became 1776. Those 1971 sessions, overseen by Pampa Studios’ Jim Bruzzese and Greg Miller, who also engineered Bob Seger’s early catalog, resulted in the band’s lone, self-titled album. Featuring the Andrews-chosen singles: covers of Dave Mason’s “Only You Know and I Know” and the Bryds’s rearrangement of the Art Reynolds’ Singers’ “Jesus Is Just Alright,” only the latter charted on Detroit radio: the limited success of 1776 was usurped by the Doobie Brothers’ version, released a year later.

After the Kwintels, and prior to Tea, Jerry Zubal and Glenn Frey, he of the recently disbanded the Mushrooms and a co-writer on Bob Seger’s early songs, formed a creatively unsuccessful band. Frey, of course, relocated to the west coast and joined the Eagles. Jerry Zubal also relocated to Los Angeles.

Upon meeting guitarist Brian Naughton, formerly of Rock Candy (who issued one, Montrose-inspired, heavy-metal progenitor on MCA Records in 1970), the Peanut Butter Conspiracy, and the Grass Roots, the duo formed the hard-rock concern Rockits. Renamed by their new management, The Toby Organization (also handled Quiet Riot and Angel), in 1974, Rockicks issued the album, Inside, on RSO Records in 1977. That album, along with later demos and unreleased RSO and MCA-era recordings, were compiled in the 2018 release: Keep on Rockin’: A Retrospective Anthology.

The Kwintel’s core members (who later became Tea):
Jerry Zubal
Mike Roush
Bryan Barnes

Other members:
Greg Ballard
Bob Hinshaw

In 2010, members of the Quintels/Kwintels held a reunion show in Detroit. You can enjoy a 12-song playlist of that show on You Tube.

Through the ’90s and 2000s, Jerry Zubal and Johnny Heaton, the latter of the West End, would later form the bands Roxius, Catching Fire, Seize, and Rock Anthem. You can enjoy an 18-song playlist of those bands on You Tube.

You can learn more about Jerry Zubal’s Rockicks and his band Brian Naughton’s early years with Rock Candy with the Medium-posted article, “Sometimes you’re Kiss . . . and sometimes you’re Rockicks: Phantoms from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Oblivion.”

There are more photos of Jerry Zubal’s bands Tea, 1776, Rockicks, and Powerplay to be enjoyed on Facebook.

Article written by R.D Francis.