Oedipus and the Mothers made one fine record, “(I Remember) How It Used to Be”, with a great combination of distorted lead guitar and tremolo rhythm.

Andrew Brown did a long interview with rhythm guitarist Joe Blinderman in “Brown Paper Sack” back in ’97. The interview is a great read, and I recommend it if you can find a copy. The facts about the group are as follows:

The band formed at the University of Texas, Austin in 1965. Don Passman was lead guitarist, Joseph Blinderman rhythm guitarist, Scott Davis played sax, Bob Hunt bass and Stuart Glass was the drummer.

Oedipus and the Mothers featured two African-American vocalists: first Alvin Easter, then Reuben Halton who sings on the record.

An early mention of the band in Jim Langdon’s Nightbeat column from February 25, 1966 lists Robi Bendorf on drums and Alvin Easter on vocals. The band played for 200 people at the opening of Ray Vines’ Orange Bull Club and continued to play there into March, alternating with the Baby Cakes.

Bob Burns was their equipment manager.

Oedipus and the Mothers traveled to Dallas to record the 45, probably at Sumet Sound Studio. Joe Blinderman wrote “(I Remember) How It Used to Be”. Don Passman wrote “Lonesome”, which is a very mellow song and nothing like the flip. There may be a few unreleased tracks still in existence.

Don chose the shocking band name. An announcement in the San Antonio Light lists them as the even more scandalous name, “Oedipus and the Mother-Lovers”! Joe recalled to Andrew Brown that it didn’t hurt their getting gigs, and their 45 even received some local airplay.

The band broke up in May of ’67 when Don Passman graduated and left for Harvard Law School.

An article in the Daily Texas for one of their last shows on May 13 at the Union Main Ballroom has some interesting information, but I don’t think they ever released a record named “I’m Gone”: that may be an error by the writer. I haven’t seen the Time article mentioned, but a national UPI item listed Oedipus and His Mothers along with other odd band names, like the Peanut Butter Conspiracy, Iron Butterfly, etc..

Oedipus and the Mothers appear very briefly at a frat party in the CBS special “If You’re Appalled at My Texas, I’m Bewildered by Your England” hosted by Dan Rather and David Dimbleby (called “Texas vs. England” in the news item at top). The English part of the special does have good footage of the Who, plus short interviews with Mary Quant, Margaret Forster, Jean Shrimpton and publisher Gareth Powell.

Bob Hunt wrote to me:

Alvin was our first singer; Ruben was the second. They both sounded a lot alike and had that high range. Needless to say, our set lists included a lot of James Brown, Sam & Dave, etc. material. We also covered the Stones, Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, etc. We were a rock & roll band with five UT students including a black vocalist and a Seminary student … me.

One more note on the recording of the Beacon material. I direct inputed to the board and I think now in retrospect that I may have overdriven the desk, but the engineer didn’t know that. He was impressed that I had a real Fender ’58 P-Bass with the sunburst and the gold anodized pick guard! Live, I played through a 60 watt Fender head into two Bassman cabs, each loaded with two 15″ JBL 140s. I could fill up a room and make your pant legs flap!

Bob Burns, the equipment guy actually built the sound system for us since there weren’t too many options out there at the time. We had a Bogen 100 watt, four channel amp and four mics which all plugged into two huge homebuilt speaker cabs containing four 12″s apiece. No monitors in that era! I don’t know what kept us from setting venues on fire with that set-up. Don occasionally played a Farfisa keyboard too.

If anyone has a photo of the group, please contact me

Scan courtesy of Mark Taylor. Thank you to Jonas Carlsson for pointing out the Austin Daily Texan article with the band photo.