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.

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

Thanks to Frank and JP for their help.