The Renegades I’m writing about today were from Manchester, New Hampshire, about fifty miles NW of Boston. They have no connection to Richie’s Renegades who also released a record on Polaris.
Both ‘Waiting For You’ and ‘Tell Me What To Say’ were written by Lorin Ruggiero.
It was produced by Joe Melino and arranged by Harry Palmer. Polaris was a Boston-based label, Ray Fournier engineered many other sessions for the label.
This 8″, six song acetate of the Juveniles on Century Custom Records was found at the estate of a music teacher who had a small studio at his home in Palo Alto, California. 
“Let Me Tell You Girl” has a great opening fuzz riff and a fine solo. “Goodbye Girl” is also excellent garage.
The other four songs feature trumpet as the lead instrument. One of these is very good: “Don’t Kid Around”. The others are decent instrumentals, titled “Work Song”, “Bosa Nova” (sic), and “What Now My Love”, which is basically “Tequila”.
For years I didn’t know anything about the group or where exactly this was recorded, only that these kids sound young, like 14 or 15 maybe. As it turns out, most of them were even younger than that, ranging from 11 to 14. Geoffrey’s comment below about Ed Rod let me to search the San Mateo Times and I came up with the article seen below, something far beyond my expectations!
Members were:
Scott Beall (San Mateo) – guitar
David DeVee (San Mateo) – guitar
Don Schneider (Burlingame) – bass
Lester Lovitt (Hillsborough) – trumpet
Jim Sanchez (Redwood City) – drums
According to the article by Barbara Bladen, David and Scott took lessons from Eddie Rod in Redwood City, then found Don Schneider and eventually Jim and Lester joined. The group played the Cow Palace, the Burlingame Exchange Club, and the Circle Star Theatre among other venues.
Thanks to Derek for loan of the acetate.
The Juveniles – Let Me Tell You Girl
The Juveniles – Goodbye Girl
The Juveniles – Don’t Kid Around
The above article from October 1968 is interesting, – either the San Mateo Times mixed up the band names, or the Juveniles, now a couple years older, took on a new name, the Renaissance, and gave their Juveniles name to a new band of youngsters, consisting of Steve Grippi, Bill Weber, Mike Trantham and Pat Loeb.
The Far End formed at La Habra High School in Orange County, southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Lead singer and rhythm guitarist John Berg is generously sharing a few songs they recorded at home.
“Don’t Invite Me Over” has a great, crude quality to its sound. The chords and verse put me in mind of Simply Saucer, and the solos have all the intense fury of the Velvet Underground. Their version of “Gloria” is solid, with Tommy Broadfoot’s steady drumming and nice guitar trills by Joe Costa, and John doesn’t hold back on the vocals. “Please Don’t Say” shows the versatility of the band, and the harmonica solo isn’t as bad as John makes it out to be.
Other songs on the tape include versions of the Beatles’ I Feel Fine, It’s Only Love and That Boy; Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth and the Dave Clark Five’s Because.
John writes about the band:
I was lead singer/rhythm guitarist in “The Far End” between 1966-’68, based in La Habra, California (Orange County, between Fullerton and Whittier.)
Our music started off strongly influenced by a weird mixture of Beatles, Stones, Dave Clark Five, Them, the Standells, and some surf and wedding party music our guitarist Joe Costa insisted we play. Gradually we became more “psychedelic” though our actual musical talent never quite matched the sounds we heard in our heads.
We were a 4 piece “living room band”, i.e. we rarely made it even out to the garage — though we did play the Hollywood Teen Fair two Springs in a row, the second time (’67) as the “demo band” at the Sunn Amplifiers booth. We played a few other local “gigs” including the opening of a pizza parlor on Whittier Blvd – performing outside in the parking lot to hardly anybody beyond family members — and a few other similar occasions.
Our real passion was writing songs — more than 50, of which we only managed to record a couple onto a Sony reel to reel machine in my living room in the spring of ’67. Actually, we also cut two originals to tape at the JBL booth at the ’67 Hollywood Teen Fair, but the girlfriend of our lead guitarist Joe “borrowed” the tape to play for some friends and promptly lost (or perhaps destroyed?) it, so I never even got to hear it.
I have a whole 3 ring notebook full of sheets of paper containing the lyrics for the songs that I and Joe Costa co-wrote, none of which ever got recorded other than these two originals, “Don’t Invite Me Over” and “Please Don’t Say” (wretched harmonica “solo” by yours truly) and of course our take on “Gloria” since Van was my #1 fave singer of the era.
We were heading more and more into the “psych zone” but girlfriends, college classes, jobs and sundry other things got in the way of our actually getting to record this music. I did write down the chords alongside the lyrics, but can only recall how a few of the songs actually went. One song, “Joy Ride”, was heavily influenced by The Doors (who I first saw in early June 1966 when they opened for Them at The Whiskey A Go Go in Hollywood).
Please Don’t Say does indicate the part of our band persona that was pop/Beatles-influenced, whereas the other two songs show off our more blues/garage side. The unrecorded stuff covered all these veins and more, though certainly we were heading more in the “psych” direction — or at least as much as we were capable of in terms of “chops”. That photo is the only one that has survived the rages of 40 years.
I recently was able to reconnect with my old La Habra High School class of 1966 mate Mike Lewis, who was lead guitarist in the band The New Breed that has three tracks on the recent Big Beat label CD It Came From The Garage [including the great I Got Nothin’ To Say To You] .
Over the ensuing years I continued as a fan of all the musicians who played in the ranks of Them and was able to make contact with several of them, which led in the mid-1990s to me and my friend Neal Skok releasing a CD by the band “Truth” that compiled tracks cut in 1970 by three ex-Them members — same guys who were on the two “Them” albums on the Tower label that have more recently been reissued by Rev-Ola. The music of “Truth” is really much more well-realized than either of those two Tower albums — we only recently made the CD available in case you want to check it out.
The Far End – Don’t Invite Me Over
The Far End – Gloria
The Far End – Please Don’t Say
The Soul Twisters had two singles on Romat Records out of Greenville, North Carolina. Their first was “Swinging (On a Grape Vine)”, written by J.R. Daniels, Florence Farmer and E. Perkins, and “Soul Fever” by J.R. Daniels and J. Early.
It was recorded at Pitt Sound Studios in Greenville and produced by James Perkins. The Soul Twisters had a second 45 on Romat, #1004, “Doing Our Dance” / “If It Takes A Year”.
I didn’t anything about the group until James Early and Johnny Ray Williams left comments.
James Early wrote to me:
I joined the band after it started. James Perkins, Samuel Perkins, and Ernest Perkins can tell you more about its beginning.
James Perkins was manager during the time of these recordings….not drummer!
The members of the group on the 45s were:
Johnny Daniels – lead vocal on “Doin’ Our Dance”, background on “If It Takes a Year” and guitar player on all songs.
Fred Farmer – lead vocal on “If It Takes a Year” and background on “Doin’ Our Dance”. He is deceased.
Johnny Williams of Farmville, NC was drummer on all songs.
Joe Daniels was bass player on all songs.
I was on the two 45s as keyboard player.
We all called Roy Mathews (studio owner) “Zeke” jokingly.
I have a sleeve of the 45s with the picture of the group at that time.
We played beach, soul and could adapt to any audience. We played all surrounding areas. We had a female vocalist (Ella Daniels) that could take a dance crowd [off] their seats to pay attention.
The Soul Twisters was the first group I played in. I played an Olympia organ and a Fender Jazz bass. Chapter Three (later name used for our band) did not make any records or tapes.
I played in other groups Jazz Plus, Blues Plus and Poison. I have done and still doing studio sessions with other artist and groups.
James “Bro” Early
Romat was run by Roy Matthews, its first release was the Sound System, which I reviewed here a few months ago.
Not garage, but I like the demented sleeve and these rambling acoustic songs of this duo from Czechoslovakia. I can’t find much info on them in English, but for this, their first release, Saze consisted of Jiri Burian and Milan Vokrinek.
Keith Everett (real name Keith Gravenhorst) released this 45 in April, 1966. “Don’t You Know” is a fine ballad, while the flip is an outrageous indictment of conscientious objectors, with the lyrics:
They call themselves the conscientious objectors
But all they’re tryin’ to do is tryin’ to infect us
With their fear and their shame
They hide under the name of conscientious objectors
They might as well be defectors
The way they actWell keep it up boy the way you’ve been goin’
And who can tell son, you’ve got no way of knowin’
That tomorrow we might be the way
That Vietam is today
And you’ll be sorry you fools
For the things that you doYou’re conscientious objectors
You might as well be defectors
The way you act
“Don’t You Know” did well in Chicago, entering WCFL charts in March, and reaching as high as #10 two months later.
After “Conscientious Objector”, he released another on TMT-Ting, “She’s The One Who Loved You” / “Lookin’ So Fine”, then one more on Mercury with a Dunwich Productions credit, “The Chant” / “Light Bulb”. Everett wrote all six songs.
The Fabulous Depressions formed in New Ulm, Minnesota, a small town southwest of Minneapolis, in 1964. It took them until 1967 to release their only and excellent 45.
The band went through several lineup changes. By the time it came to record, it included original members Phil Groebner on lead guitar, Peter Kitzberger on organ and Jim Dauer on bass, plus third drummer John Ginkel and vocalist Randy Evans.
Tom Lindsay had been their vocalist, but he left to join the Royal Emperors of Owatonna. Original drummer John Tretault left in 1966, and was replaced for a short time by Greg DeBerry before John Ginkel joined. Ginkel had been in the Shags with his brother Tom, releasing one 45 on the Concert label “Louis Louis” / “Summertime News” (Summertime Blues).
“Can’t Tell You” is a very catchy original by Phil Groebner and Jim Dauer, and features a short but devastating solo by Groebner. The flip is a good version of one of the Blues Magoos’ lesser songs, “One By One”. It was recorded at Lynn Studios in Rochester, Minn.
This isn’t that good, honestly, so you may want to pass on this one. I liked the photo on the sleeve and picked it up, and thought I should include it so people can know what this sounds like.
The Steps were from Indonesia and did instrumental recordings and occasionally backed vocalists. They’re good players, but these two songs don’t have much going for them. There’s a theme they run through during the last twenty seconds of Kitjir Kitjir that’s pretty interesting, if they’d stuck to that I’d like this better.
The Catamorands were from Erie, Pennsylvania, not Nashville as I originally thought.
Guitarist and vocalist Rod Mellquist writes: “The Catamorands were from Erie, PA. and recorded this record and several other original pieces that didn’t make it to vinyl. The four members were Gary Gregor -drums, Mike Ditrick -guitar, Dick Burkett -bass and vocals and Rod Mellquist -guitar and vocals.”
The D.G.M.R. in the label are the initials of the band members first names. Both sides of this 45 are gentle, original compositions. The beautiful “Over You” was written by Rod Mellquist and produced with A. Mellquist. R. Burkett wrote “Never Say Goodbye”, which was produced by R. Burkett and M. Ditrich.
Originally called the Kentucky Rockers, the group formed in Wuppertal in western Germany in 1962. The first lineup was Peter Frohn, Rainer Schiffgen, Klaus-Dieter Prange and Siegfried Wagner.
In 1963 they shortened their name to the Kentuckys, and new members included two brothers, Manfred Weiler on rhythm guitar and Bernd Weiler on Hammond organ. Still later Peter Zadina came in on bass and Rocky Zimdars on drums and vocals. They became known for dyeing their hair odd colors and dressing up as women on stage.
They released two 45s on the Bellaphon label. Their first, “Uncle Willy” is a good if conventional German beat record.
Their second is another thing altogether. After the opening chant the fuzz cuts loose on “Old Hangman Is Dead”. “Stupid Generation” features Rocky Zimdars’ lyrics and madcap laughter, and makes for a timeless anthem.
Both were issued with picture sleeves, but the copy I tracked of their second down doesn’t have it. The band also cut a version of “Cadillac” that went unreleased at the time.
Peter Zadina left the group in ’67, but the Kentuckys continued into the ’70s with various lineups. Peter Frohn died in 1987, and Rocky Zimdars in 2006.
Special thanks to Bernd Rüttgers for sending in the sleeve to Uncle Willy!
