Port Arthur, Texas group the Basic Things made their only 45 at Jones Recording in Houston. The A-side is a good version of “Ninety-Nine and a Half”, but the original on the flip, “You’re Still Dreaming”, gets more attention nowadays. The group puts in a great performance with a marching rhythm, sharp guitar solo, organ flourishes and strong bass runs towards the end of the song.
Vocalist Herman Bennett describes his role as “screaming in public”! Herman sent me his CD Pay Attention, which included both Basic Things songs transferred from the original master tape!
My band, The Basic Things, was locally popular in the late ’60s in Port Arthur and the Golden Triangle. The Basic Things were: Tom Arrington on rhythm guitar (later David Neel would replace Tom), Charles Jayroe on lead guitar, Larry Quinn on Farfisa organ, Gerald Pierce on Hofner bass, Ronnie Cooper on drums, and me trying to sound as British as a Jewish Texan can.
We cut a 45 in 1967 at Jones Recording Studio in Houston, a cover of Wilson Pickett’s “99 ½” b/w an original “You’re Still Dreaming”. Recording at Jones was funny, more than remarkable in any way — we showed up late, not realizing that (duh) they charge by the hour and had a schedule for a reason, we weren’t even prepared to do both sides. The guy was forgiving and precise — I remember he buzzed in on the first take and said, “Guitar player, your fourth string is out of tune” and, because I was screaming a lot in those days, positioned Gerald (our bass player) to keep me away from the mic with an extended hand in front of me. He made a move as if to karate chop me in the Adam’s apple, made me sort of laugh, and we decided to keep that take because it was an inside joke.
“99 ½ (Won’t Do)” was The Basic Things piece ‘de resistance. We were pretty sure that this song would put us on the map because of the reaction it got at gigs. I guess we ignored the fact that you can’t do the song too badly because it’s so wonderful and every band of that era had it on their playlist.
Tom and Larry wrote “You’re Still Dreaming” on the spot in the recording studio because it hadn’t occurred to us that we’d do more than one song that day. But, the engineer pointed out, “If you are going to release a record, you’ll probably want something on the other side.” It’s a pretty good snapshot of what we were doing. I was screaming in public and they were playing excellent garage band rock and roll.
The whole thing cost us less than $200 bucks, I think, including pressing 100 copies, maybe more. Purple Can, if memory serves, was sort of a play on the notion that red might, but purple can … following the Moby Grape and Strawberry Alarm Clock model … thought provoking, but ultimately meaningless.
I think we sold all of ten records but somehow the rest of them disappeared over the years. Fortunately, Tom Arrington had the 1/4 inch master tape and thirty five years later a friend of mine discovered that there was actually a tape recorder in town that was the same model as the one the song was originally recorded on. I had it dubbed into a digital format for posterity. Neither song is exactly remastered but the sound is enhanced by virtue of the fact that the original 45 release version of “99 ½” was ramped down to shorten the song for radio play – too bad we didn’t get any – and “Wish That You Were Here” [“You’re Still Dreaming”] had some sort of tape anomaly on it at the very beginning that, for some reason, now sounds like it not only belongs there but leads you back, back, back in time.
I’d like to thank Ruth Hall, my friend gone but not forgotten, for ponying up the entire $180 to record and press those records.
Herman Bennett
Herman’s site has much more information on the Basic Things and his music career, check it out at hermanbennett.com. Gerald Pierce has two other photos of the band and more at www.unclestick.com/music (site defunct).
