Ok, so I'm skipping ahead a little but I got on a train of thought which led me to my own short-lived career. When 1975 rolled around I found myself in Los Angeles. Shaharazade and I had been in a small town on the Oregon coast and I had to go. I had ambition! We moved to San Francisco but I soon found that SF wasn't the place. I had to go to Hollywood.
I was impressed by Tom Petty, felt that what he was doing was more like what I wanted to do, so my buddy and I took our home tapes to Shelter Records (among other places). They liked us! We ended up not signing with them, which was probably not such a good move....anyway, here's early Tom Petty
And another group we liked was The Dwight Twilley Band. Petty is in this video (if I've called up the right one) playing bass, or at least pretending to be playing bass. We saw this group at the Roxy on Sunset Strip around this time.
For whatever reason, the other main guy in that Twilley group went off on his own. He was a real talent, Phil Seymour. Died way too young.
A group of guys I got to know a bit in the Los Angeles scene of the day was 20/20. They did a very memorable show at Madame Wong's where Phil Seymour came on for the encore, a solid version of the Beatles' Anytime at All. That was the night that I met Brian Wilson. Anyway, the fellows in 20/20 were trying to sound like Tom Petty but ended up sounding like 20/20!
My group rehearsed in North Hollywood, in the same studios as a group called the Nerves. One of those boys, Peter, started this group called the Plimsouls. I quit smoking for six months once until I saw them at Club 88 (I think it was called). There was a lot of drinking and smoking going on so I thought I'd have just one. I ended up quitting for good 8 years later. Here's a nice pop number for the Plimsouls.
And some English bands I liked...a couple are even famous today!
We saw them at Perkins Palace in Pasadena. Glenn Tilbrook amazed me by singing and playing lead guitar at the same time. This particular song is, naturally, sung by the other guy, Chris Difford.
Saw Elvis at the Whiskey on his first tour. It was pretty empty and he wasn't in a good mood. One guy in the crowd went up to the stage, really digging it. When the song ended he put his beer glass down on the edge of the stage so he could clap. Elvis acted like an angry young man is supposed to, kicking the glass off.
Another group I saw at the Whiskey, the Yachts. Anyone remember them? They were real poppy, which I liked. All of these groups are more rock and pop than the other trend, the punk scene, that was going on at the same time.
I was hoping to find a youtube or something of my own group. I found one place that claimed to have a video but it was taking forever to load and I don't think it was going to come in at all...or maybe they just didn't have one and said they did. Here's a photo of our single. While looking for a video I came across some funny stuff, like our being listed as a "one hit wonder of 1978". "One Hit", if you consider #90 in Billboard, #74 in Cashbox to be a "hit". It's an experience I'm glad I had. If I hadn't gone to LA I would have always wondered if I could make it. I went. I found out I couldn't! :-) No, but seriously we had a glorious year.
ooh, look! It's me with the black shirt and red tie! So it did happen! I wasn't sure if I'd dreamt it. Ok, next week I'm going to fill in the mid-70s.
