Johnny Winter at Act III, Houston Post, Nov. 30, 1966
A story on a Texas group The Valens / The Outcasts (not the Askel group) mentions the band trying out for a Houston club The Act III a Go Go. However a member of the Interns remembers there being two different clubs, “What a Way to Go Go” and the “The Act III”.
Andrew Brown provided the scan above and says there was also a club called “What a Way to Go Go”. The clubs might have shared the same location, but that’s still speculative. Act III’s address was 6663 S. Main, it seems its been torn down for a strip mall.
Does anyone have posters, photos or material from either club that would clarify this minor point about the Houston music scene?
The Interns playing a dance at Spring Branch High School
Updated December 2009
The Interns have two 45s on the Paradise label, both have A-sides of straight up rock n’ roll. “Sally Met Molly” is a cool medley of Long Tall Sally and Good Golly Miss Molly. The flip is a a good version of Don Covay’s “Have Mercy”. What’s that someone shouts during the fadeout at the end of the song? Anyway, it’s like they were doing a song the Beatles covered on one side, and one the Stones cut on the other.
Their second 45 has “Don’t Make Me No Mind”, which sounds much like “Out of Sight”, backed with an original by Jack Durrett and Graham Hill, “Life With You”. With its harmonies and lighter sound “Life With You” is much different than their other material.
I knew nothing about the group until bassist and vocalist Graham Hill wrote in with info about the group (see comment below):
Lead singer- Jack Durrett, lead guitar- Reid Farrell, drummer- Rusty Dobson and I were the group’s main players. Ernie Graham from Kinkaid H.S. and Albert Dashiels from Lee H.S. played guitar and Tony Pryor and Johnny “The Rabbit” Bundrich [John Bundrick] from North Shore H.S. played organ at various times. We attended Memorial High School and graduated in 1967.
We primarily played private high school parties and after football game dances but we were the opening act for the Animals, Hermann’s Hermits, Neal Diamond, The Byrds, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs and other groups at concerts at the old Houston Colliseum. We also played the Houston Club scene. The other bands of our time were the Coastliners, Neal Ford and the Fanatics, Thursday’s Children, and Fever Tree. Roy Head and BJ Thomas were a few years older than us. Billy Gibbons was a little younger and he would hang out at our practices-Reid still stays in touch with him.
The recording you have was on a 4 track machine at Gold Star Studios. We double tracked the lead vocals on Have Mercy and added the hand clapping and back up singing on Sally Met Molly. We did hit the KILT radio top 10 list and were on the Larry Kane TV show several times.
Johnny has been playing with “The Who” since the mid-70s. Reid toured with Archie Bell and the Drells after graduating from high school. Jackie, Reid, Rusty and I still play once or twice a year in Houston.
Thanks to Graham Hill for info and photos of the band and for sending me their second 45 to transfer and scan.
Graham Hill and Reid Farrell of the Interns, opening for the Animals and Herman’s Hermits at the Houston Coliseum
The Baroque Brothers and the Six Pents were house bands at George Massey’s La Maison Au Go Go in Houston, Texas in 1965.
The Six Pents went on to cut a few 45s (including “She Lied” on the Kidd label) before changing into the Sixpentz and then the Fun and Games Commission.
The Baroque Brothers only released this one 45 on Back Beat 562 in June of 1966. “So Glad Was I” combines distinctive folk-rock harmonies with a more typical bridge. The band is so competent that I wonder if they didn’t cut more records under a different name.
Members were Kirk Patrick, Bo Allison, Roger Romano and Jim Robertson. Both songs here are by Kirk Patrick, listed in BMI’s database as Har. Kirkpatrick.
The flip “Baroque au Go Go” is a light instrumental with horns and overdubbed crowd noise.
Thank you to Nancy Kuehl for the scans of the news articles and La Maison flyer. Another source for info was the 1960’s Texas Music site (www.scarletdukes.com/st/tmhou_venues1.html) which is now defunct.
The Chancellors Ltd. were a Houston band with members David Singleton, Brian Evans, Clark Clem and Gary Bowen.
Somehow they connected with a local socialite, Dene Hofheinz Mann, who had written a book about her father Judge Roy Hofheinz titled You Be the Judge. Roy Hofheinz was a former mayor of Houston, Texas, owner of the Houston Colt 45s baseball team which became the Astros, and builder of the Astrodome.
Dene Hofheinz Mann wrote the song “You Be the Judge” and had the band record it for her own Dene label (dig the dome!) It was produced by Mann and Burchfield, and arranged by F. Beymer.
I’d say it was a tie-in to the book, except the lyrics are all centered on a love interest, not about politics (maybe indirectly – “who understands the rules that we live by!”)
In any case it’s a great moody rocker, catchy but completely uncommercial. The flip is a fine instrumental written by lead guitarist Clark Clem – its title, “From the Sublevels”, describes its sound perfectly.
Evans Music City, listed on the card, is still in business at a new address.
Clark Clem turns up in another bit of Houston music history, as the guitarist of the band Deuce Is Wild (or Deuces Wild).
The Misfits, 1966. from left: drummer possibly Micky Bishop, Jimmy Frost, Peter Black and James Harrell on bass. Scan courtesy of the Frost family.
The Lost and Found came out of Bellaire High School, 10 miles southwest of downtown Houston, and originally called themselves the Misfits.
Members were:
Peter Black – guitar and vocals Jimmy Frost – lead guitar James Harrell – bass
They went through a succession of drummers, first Norman Blythe, then Micky Bishop, his younger brother Stephen Bishop, and finally Steve Webb.
On March 11, 1966, the Baytown Sun ran the photo of the Misfits seen at top, with the caption:
Meet the Misfits. This band with the big beat will play at “Safari A Go Go” Friday night at a teenage dance in the Bayshore Rod, Reel and Gun Club, 3223 Minnesota. Hours will be from 8 p.m. to midnight. Admission will be $1.25 per person.
The Misfits played shows at Love Street and La Maison, where, according to Jimmy Frost, they met the 13th Floor Elevators for the first time. The Elevators would have a big influence on their sound, and their friendship with Roky Erickson and Stacy Sutherland would eventually lead to an introduction to the International Artists label. Frost stated that they did not make any records as the Misfits.
On November 29, 1966, at the start of a residency at the Living Eye in Houston, they became the first Texas group busted for LSD. Jimmy Frost remembered Peter, James and Mickey facing charges, and that one of the reasons the band signed with International Artists was because its owners, Bill Dillard and Noble Ginther, were lawyers who could help them with the bust. Actually it was Micky’s younger brother Stephen Bishop who was arrested with Black, Harrell and their friend George Banks.
The Houston Chronicle broke the news on November 30, 1966 in a front-page feature “Dope, LSD Raids Net 12 in City”!
Marijuana Found In a Black Hearse
A raid on two apartments at 2404 Yoakum Blvd. resulted in the arrest of four men on charges of possession of dangerous drugs and possession of marijuana. Those charged were George Baldwin Banks Jr., 22, James Lee Harrell, 19, Stephen Stafford Bishop, 21, and William Peter Black, 21. A 17-year-old girl and an 18-year-old youth were questioned but were not charged …
The article stated “Chemists are analyzing 49 white pills in possession of some of those arrested. The police narcotics squad has been told they are LSD tablets …” However, only one one person is listed as actually possessing LSD, “a 21-year-old man from San Francisco who said he brought 50 or 60 LSD tablets here from California five days ago. He gave police a bottle containing 34 pills he said were LSD. He was not charged.”
The Associated Press version confirms that the band was busted for LSD: “Those charged and liable to prosecution in an LSD test case include four members of a Rock ‘n’ roll group: George Glandwin Banks, Jr., 22; James Lee Harrell, 19; Steven Stafford Bishop, 21, and a 23-year-old service station attendant, Robert Bruce Kilpatrick”; and that it would be the first LSD prosecution in Texas: “… based on Texas ‘dangerous drug’ statues … Dist. Atty. Carol Vance said he knew of no other LSD charges filed in Texas to date.”
Frost told Not Fade Away that the charges were dismissed because, unlike marijuana, LSD was not yet illegal (which is correct: possession was not criminalized federally until 1968). Frost also said that Scott Holtzman of the Living Eye wanted the Misfits to change their name after the drug bust. However, the name change to the Lost and Found, seems to have come a few weeks before the bust, and in any case was a more appropriate band name given the increasingly psychedelic direction of their music.
George Banks with Misfits Peter Black, Stephen Bishop and James Harrell, plus Robert Kilpatrick who may not have been an associate of the band, November 30, 1966
George Banks, a friend of the band who took over management of the Misfits, wrote to me:
I spoke with James Harrell, just to confirm what I am about to list. First, the MISFITS was a name Micky Bishop came up with, as it was a group he played with in the Navy. He was the first drummer, and to James’ recollection, Kearney never played in the group. After Micky, his younger brother Steve also played drums in the band and as I recall then Webb. There may have been the other fella you mention [Norman Blythe], but I do not know him.
We all met the Elevators in Austin, before they played the infamous Jade Room gig, and all remain friends to this day. I was maybe a try-to-be manager with the original Misfits, after leaving the military; and then later the Lost and Found, but I also assisted (I’ll describe it that way) Euphoria, which you rarely see any info about.
La Maison, second location, 319 McGowan at Bagby
Euphoria did come into Houston about high times for the Elevators and others of the IA time frame. They were a sizzlin’ three piece group. Wesley Watt, David Potter, drums and Pat.. I forget his last name.. [Pat Connolly of the Surfaris] on bass (early on, in CA, Pat was with a surf group, pre-Beach Boys, and they were very successful in their locale.) Euphoria and the guys from the Misfits got along quite well and … through some differences .. all together left for LA, minus Frost, who having married early on and was with their first child, did not travel to CA with everyone else.
We played around out there got a recording contract. I brought the first release [Euphoria’s “Hungry Woman” / “No Me Tomorrow” 45 on the Mainstream label] back to Houston and presented it to Larry Kane. It didn’t really take off, Euphoria hadn’t stuck around town long enough to really develop any notoriety, or following.
The band in LA went through a lot of emotional changes in part due to the fact that Wesley and David were married (and drugs). The times got tough, to even feed ourselves. James, Pete and I headed back to Houston, the rest kind of picks up with the bust after we had been back a month or two. Micky was not included in the bust in ’66, it was his younger brother Steve and another fella, a writer, Roger Hamilton (deceased) aka William West, and James. Their arrests were dismissed, we each served 10 year probation sentences.
I don’t believe that the signing with International Artists had anything to do with there being attorneys in the head office. If I am mistaken, well, I don’t know every minute detail of all these guys lives, but we did live and recreate together often. It was not the notoriety that changed the bands name (I don’t think). But having returned from CA and playing with/as Euphoria the group was rejoined with Jimmy Frost. So I felt the absence from and the reunion, as it were, with the whole band, it was .. well .. Lost and Found.
The Lost and Found at Lake Travis Dam, from left: Jimmy Frost, James Harrell, Steve Webb and Peter Black. Photo courtesy of Tiffany and the Frost family.
“Lost and Found” at the Living Eye November 11 and 12, 1966, before the bust. Image from Not Fade Away #4
Scott Holtzman’s nowsounds column on June 19, 1966 mentioned Euphoria being “fresh from Hollywood’s Sunset Strip … playing at La Maison and recording at Houston’s Andrus Productions.” For his July 24 column, Scott wrote “Wesley Watt of Euphoria called Frank Davis from LA and asked him to come out there and engineer and play and sing on their sessions. Frank would rather stay at Andrus Productions though.”
October 9, 1966 nowsounds: “George Banks, manager of Euphoria, is in town promoting their new Mainstream single. Wesley and Dave have combined with two former Misfits, (James Harrell and Pete Black) and their sound is something else.”
November 6, 1966 nowsounds: “Euphoria broke up for good. George Banks is building a new group from the old Misfits into Lost & Found.”
The gist of this timeline is that the Misfits took a hiatus around late July or August of 1966 while James Harrell and Pete Black accompanied George Banks, Wesley Watt and Dave Potter to Los Angeles where James and Pete may have played on Euphoria’s Mainstream 7″, “Hungry Women” / “No Me Tomorrow”. By early November, 1966, that version of Euphoria had broken up, and James Harrell and Pete Black were back in Houston, reforming the Misfits as Lost and Found with Jim Frost back on lead guitar, and probably Stephen Bishop on drums, since he was arrested with James and Pete that month.
Certainly the group was trying out the new band name before the arrest. An ad for shows at the Living Eye lists the “Lost and Found” opening for Neal Ford and the Fanatics on November 11, and then the Coastliners on Saturday, November 12, 1966.
The signing with International Artists probably came months after the bust, sometime in 1967, as the copyright for most of the songs on the album were registered on August 30, 1967.
Their first 45, “Everybody’s Here” / “Forever Lasting Plastic Words” shows the lighter side of their repertoire, and the band complained that IA toned down their sound. Recorded at Andrus Studios, the engineer was Frank Davis who worked with other IA bands, like the Elevators and the Golden Dawn. Though at times sounding like the Elevators, their LP has many good songs such as “I Realize” and “There Would Be No Doubt”. George Banks did the cover art for their LP as well as the covers of the Elevators’ Easter Everywhere and Golden Dawn’s Power Plant.
Jim Frost wrote “Everybody’s Here“ and “Let Me Be”, while James Harrell wrote “Foreverlasting Plastic Words” and three songs on side two: “I Realize”, “2 Stroke Blues”, “I’m So Hip to Pain”. “Zig Zag Blues” and “Living Eye” was a collaboration between Harrell, Frost, Black and Webb.
Peter Black and William West wrote “There Would Be No Doubt”.
The back cover lists first names only, including Steve (this would be drummer Steve Webb), and Frank (Frank Davis). Producer Lelan Rogers praises Frank Davis in the back cover notes and calls him the fifth member of the band.
The Lost and Found at the Living Eye
The group recorded some more songs in February 1968 that went unreleased at the time. Lelan added “25 MPH” to the Epitaph for a Legend album he compiled in 1978. I haven’t yet heard “Girl with a One Track Mind”, written by William West according to George Banks.
Lost And Found at the New Orleans Club, Austin American, November 19, 1967By the time they recorded their second and last 45 in ’68, their sound was totally original and psychedelic. “Professor Black” is supposed to be about Pete Black, it was written by Black, James Harrell and George Banks. “When Will You Come Through” is just as good, with searing guitar work. This time they worked with Fred Carroll as producer, who perhaps did not restrain them in the studio as much as Lelan Rogers. Fred Carroll (real name Fred Courtney, Jr) founded International Artists in October of ’65, but sold it soon after, then returned as a producer after Lelan Rogers left. He also started the Solar label and managed the Coastliners. He passed away in late June, 2007.
Lost And Found with Shiva’s Head Band at Vulcan Gas Company, December 15 and 16, 1967The Lost and Found played at lead four weekends at the Vulcan Gas Company in Austin from December 15 and 16, 1967 to March 22 & 23, 1968, usually with Shiva’s Headband. They also played the New Orleans Club in Austin on at least one occasion. See the partial gig list at end of article. Strangely, I can find no gig listings for the Lost and Found from January through October 1967!
There were other songs recorded around this time for a second LP, but before that could come to pass, International Artists booked them on a tour of Texas, Louisiana and Alabama with the Music Machine, I believe in May or June 1968, though I would like to find some gig notices.
Jimmy Frost: “When we got back International Artists said we owed them money and that just finished the band off, we didn’t see any money from the tour, and we were all so broke that the band just split up.”
Still under contract from IA, Pete Black and James Harrell reluctantly played about a dozen dates with Stacy Sutherland and Danny Thomas in a ersatz version of the 13th Floor Elevators after the release of the fake “Live” album in July of ’68. This lineup of the Elevators may have included Steve Webb, who I’ve read was able to mimic Roky’s wailing vocals.
Pete Black joined Endle St. Cloud. I’ve read Steve Webb played drums with Potter St. Cloud and Euphoria, but that conflicts with David Potter’s account (and Potter certainly was the drummer on Potter St. Cloud’s album). Steve Webb passed away a few years ago.
George Banks continues on the connections between the Lost and Found, Endle St. Cloud and Euphoria:
Alan Mellinger (Endle St. Cloud) .. some how.. after we’d left LA.. wound up in LA playin’ around with Euphoria.. in fact they released an album – [A Gift From] Euphoria. James Harrell, after the bust here in Houston, returned to LA (he did studio work for a couple of years) and may have been on that album also (?). Euphoria later did an extensive tour with Blue Cheer. I visited Alan Mellinger in Morrison, CO some many years ago where he and his wife and two children were doing quite well, as Alan was a partner in a Clinical Drug and Alcohol Re-Hab Practice in Denver. While there we called David Potter, who at the time was living in I believe, Wisconsin or Minnesota, working construction as a masonry contractor. A couple of years later I heard that Alan died of a heart attack.. and so ends my immediate and intimate association with the ‘Music World’ of the 60’s. As a footnote I think that Frank Davis, besides being one of Texas’s true hidden jewels as a performer, did all he could with the available equipment of the times.
I read that John Kearney of the Spades played with the Misfits for a short while after the Spades had split up in 1965, but neither George Banks nor Jimmy Frost remembered him in the group.
Jimmy Frost with Gibson. Photo courtesy of Jim Frost’s family.
Update: James “Frosty” Frost passed away on July 2, 2025, at the age of 81 in Round Rock, Texas.
A couple quotes from Jimmy Frost’s interview in Not Fade Away:
“[The Catacombs], they were the competition, we never played over there. That was the rich kids [laughs] … we played a Foley’s fashion show one time and the management said we were too loud and wanted us to quit so we just turned it way up…!”
“Me and Stacy [Sutherland] were good friends, we used to trade licks alot. He was an excellent guitar player … boy when he’d start hitting the beat and stompin’ his feet on the state the dust would fly …”
Sources include: Interview with Jimmy Frost in Not Fade Away #4, Paul Drummond’s Eye Mind, and my correspondence with George Banks. Some photos were originally taken by their manager, Gary Iwers. Misfits business card from the collection of Andrew Brown. La Maison photo courtesy of Nancy Kuehl.
Special thanks to Jim Frost’s daughter, Tiffany for sharing her family’s photos. Her interest in her father’s music has led me to revise this article in July, 2026, with a fresh look at my old sources and a search for some new ones.
Very incomplete gig list:
Friday, March 11, 1966: The Misfits at Safari a Go Go in Baytown
Friday, November 11, 1966: Lost and Found, Neal Ford & the Fanatics at the Living Eye Saturday, November 12, 1966: Lost and Found, the Coastliners at the Living Eye Friday, November 18, 1966: Lost and Found, the Runaways at the Living Eye Saturday, November 19, 1966: Lost and Found, Neal Ford & the Fanatics at the Living Eye Friday, December 2, 1966: Lost and Found, the Moving Sidewalks at the Living Eye Saturday, December 3:, 1966: Lost and Found, Neal Ford & the Fanatics at the Living Eye
Sunday, November 19, 1967: Lost and Found at the New Orleans Club, Austin Friday & Saturday, December 1 & 2, 1967: Lost and Found, Starvation Army Band at Love Street Light Circus Friday & Saturday, December 15 & 16, 1967: Lost and Found, Shiva’s Head Band at the Vulcan Gas Company Sunday, December 17, 1967: 13th Floor Elevators, Lost and Found, Shades and Starvation Army Band at Love Street Light Circus
Friday & Saturday, January 12 & 13, 1968: Lost and Found, Shiva’s Head Band at the Vulcan Gas Company Saturday, February 3, 1968: Lost and Found, the Starvation Army Band at Taylor Hall, Pasadena Friday & Saturday, February 9 & 10, 1968: Lost and Found, Georgetown Medical Band at the Vulcan Gas Company Friday & Saturday, March 22 & 23, 1968: Lost and Found, Shiva’s Head Band at the Vulcan Gas Company
The Actioneers recorded these two songs in just two hours on November 15, 1965 at Huey Meaux’s Recording Service Studios in Pasadena, Texas. You can tell they went straight from the garage or rec room into the studio, this 45 is about as unpolished as garage gets.
“It’s You” is a great fast rocker, with a repetitive guitar line. I think it’s amazing that there’s no bridge or break, or change of chords for the chorus! The band gets the riff down and stays with it to the finish. The drum kit might be nothing more than a tom tom and a snare!
“No One Wants Me” is also simple, but has a tom tom and tambourine break. I’ll bet they didn’t do many takes of this one!
Both sides were written by Ray Gilburn. The band was probably from Houston, but they were pretty much unknown until boxes of unplayed copies of their 45 were found in Huey Meaux’s studio.
I did find a couple mentions of them in the Baytown Sun from 1965, but no lists of band members.
The only other 45 I know about on the Shane label was by the Eccentrics – “Baby I Need You” / “She’s Ugly” on Shane 60, both songs written by L.J. Swift.
Two non-lp sides by the Bubble Puppy, a Texas group based alternately in Austin and Houston, and recording on International Artists. To me this is probably their best work.
“Thinkin’ About Thinkin'” is intense guitar driven hard-rock, not garage. “Days of Our Time” is maybe too busy but still has a good momentum to it.
Members were:
Rod Prince – lead guitar and vocals Roy Cox – bass and vocals Todd Potter – lead guitar and vocals David “Fuzzy” Fore – drums
Rod Prince wrote a good history of the band on their official site, which is otherwise kinda clunky.
I should expand this entry on the band if anyone is interested in helping or writing it…
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
Updated December 2009
We primarily played private high school parties and after football game dances but we were the opening act for the Animals, Hermann’s Hermits, Neal Diamond, The Byrds, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs and other groups at concerts at the old Houston Colliseum. We also played the Houston Club scene. The other bands of our time were the Coastliners, Neal Ford and the Fanatics, Thursday’s Children, and Fever Tree. Roy Head and BJ Thomas were a few years older than us. Billy Gibbons was a little younger and he would hang out at our practices-Reid still stays in touch with him.
