Northern California Spotlight: The Oxford Circle - Foolish Woman/Mind Destruction

Our final entrant in our Northern California region of the Battle of the Garage Bands takes us to Davis, California, the home town to both publishers of this fine music blog! Here we find Gary Lee Yoder, Dehner Patten, Jim Keylor and Paul Whaley. Collectively they were known as The Oxford Circle. The band only released this one single and it got a Fall release in 1966 on the micro-label, World United Records. That label was set up by and for The New Breed (click here for link to music), a Sacramento based band. They are the only other two releases on the label.

The A-side, Foolish Woman, was composed by Yoder and Patten (though no credit is given on the record) and is way ahead of its time. This doesn't sound too much like anything else from 1966! Sure, you can hear a little bit of Van Morrison and Them in Gary Lee Yoder's vocal approach. Sure, there is the Jeff Beck influenced guitar work performed with great dexterity by Jim Keylor. But the backwards tracking, the time changes, the feedback, the pounding drums of Paul Whaley make this a cut above most other records of it's day. There are rumors that Mac Rebennack (aka Dr. John) was the organ player on the session, but I can not confirm that.

The flip-side is a band composed instrumental called Mind Destruction. Thanks to Matt Brown of the lovely Nitro-Retro blog for loaning it to us.

The Oxford Circle played regularly in nearby San Francisco and a live recording from The Avalon Ballroom in 1966, shows Foolish Woman was not an anomaly, they were a solid band. The band went in for one more recording session but failed to get the number released, making this their lone output.

Whaley left the band to form Blue Cheer and was soon followed by Yoder who joined Randy Holden (The Other Half and The Sons of Adam - click for link) and Dickie Peterson (who sold me my first bass amp ever!) in what would become a revolving cast of musicians.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Hanna-Barbera Records Spotlight: The New Breed - Want Ad Reader

Day three of the Hanna-Barbera Spotlight has us spinning an HBR release from Sacramento, California based teen heart-throbs, The New Breed. The quartet of Encina High School students would record four singles for three labels in their two year existence and featured the musical stylings of George Hullin on drums, Tom Phillips and Ron Floegel on guitar and Tim Schmidt on bass on vocals.

Today's song of the week is called Want Ad Reader, the band's third of four singles. Want Ad Reader is a clear play off of some other band's song called Paperback Writer, both lyrically and musically. Want Ad Reader tells the sarcastic tale of a couple of lonely hearts who find each other in the classifieds. The woman is not quite what she had made herself out to be in her lonely hearts ad. Now the whole thing is a horrible fright for our poor protagonist. The single was originally released on the local label, World United, in September of '66 and must have received enough airplay locally that HBR swooped in (as they were prone to do) to give it a national release in November of 1966. Nothing came of it and the band went back to World United for their fourth and final single the next year. 

But our story doesn't end there. No. Ultimately The New Breed would unleash a devastating horror on the public. How? The bassist and lead singer of The New Breed was none other than one Mr. Timothy B. Schmidt (far left in the picture above) who would later go on to be a member of the two soft rock outfits, Poco and The Eagles. Two bands that can make a musicologist's stomach churn like few others could. Just ask Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski, man.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!