First Band
Charles’ and Ted’s excellent adventure ended for me with my having to return from Europe to home base in September for my senior year in Marin County, San Anselmo at Drake High School. Because of what Sir Francis did, they ain’t calling it that no more. Not wanting to stand out too much, I shaved off the fine beard I had grown during the summer, and I was delighted to find myself in classrooms with real actual, living, smiling girls, after four years with no such distracting luxury at a small all boys private school. A couple of months into my return to public education I met another new senior in gym class by the name of Jim Remington. He asked me if I could sing harmony, and having had a couple of years of chorus under the tutelage of the formidable Mr. Bryant at Midland, I told him I could. His father was a full Colonel in the army, and like many army brats Jim had known a migratory existence, the last base on which he’d lived on being in Japan.
Those were relatively early days for Rock and Roll, especially in Japan, and the cover band he’d put together there had been in great demand, and even on TV a couple of times. And now he wanted to get a band going here. In their apartment overlooking Fairfax, Jim had an electric guitar, an amp and, if I’m not mistaken, a Farfisa organ. He’d just penned a song of romantic longing called “Can You Hear?” and he played it for me to see what I thought, and showing me the harmony part I was to sing. It was pretty easy to nail, and we tried a few harmony parts for some covers. In the next week or so he rounded up another guitar player, Bruce Teborek, and drummer Rob Martinez from Terra Linda High School. For a bass player he found Jim Hill, also from Terra Linda, who was just out of the Air force, and taking classes at College of Marin on the G.I bill me, He told me G.I bill stands for gastrointestinal, for all the illness caused by two years of military food.
We started practicing in Jim’s and his nice wife Pam’s garage, trying to put together a presentable set. The opportunity to play at Drake High School’s assembly and Basketball Rally in the gym materialized, and we needed three songs to do the gig. Eventually we settled on Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow,” a Remmington choice, and my two suggestions, “Jefferson Airplane’s It’s No Secret,” and the Kinks’ “Where Have All The Good Times Gone.” I bolstered Rob’s back beat with a sparkly blue tambourine I’d just bought and added some harmonica in spots.
The big day came, the gym was packed, the speeches intoned, the football team cheerleaders did their flashy pompom thing, and our moment arrived, as The Glass Slaughter House was introduced over the echoing P.A. I think Jim R thought up that name, and socially conscious Rob shortly after came up with the more accessible name, The Vast Minority. Rob, with an Hispanic last name and dark curly hair, was the only remotely minoric band member amidst pure WASPage. All these years later our first name would fit in well with the many distopic names one hears. Well anyhow, I was petrified when I walked up to my mike, seeing a couple of THOUSAND faces looking down from the bleachers at us expectantly, and I thought, “Holy shit! I think I’ve bitten off a little too much here.” A total stomach butterflies moment. But our mini set went fine, we were cheered on to play some more after the rally ended, and we were comfortable playing to the small crowd that then gathered on the gym floor. I don’t know how it went for the Terra Lindians, but there was a noticeable bump of respect for Jim R and me on the Drake campus, and the girls were throwing their panties at us in the halls when we passed. Well, not exactly, but some were more interested, and we were dating! OMG actual dates for Mr. Ted after four years of considerable paucity thereof.
Rolling Stone magazine was not exactly hounding us for a cover shot and interview, but thereafter we got money gigs here and there, at places like Hamilton Air Force Base, The Warehouse, in industrial San Rafael, some battles of the bands, the Inverness Yacht club etc. Most gigs paid about $100 to $150, and our top take away of $500 was for playing the Terra Linda High Prom. We didn’t get the San Rafael High Prom gig, probably because at our audition we played “Signed DC” by Love, with its dark heroine addict lyrics. It’s a cool song with a haunting harmonica solo, but jeez, what were we thinking?
One of the most interesting gigs was a three-week stint on an old funky ferryboat turned night club in North Sausalito called The Ark. On weekends they had bands like ours that played practically all night. I don’t know if they observed the no alcohol after 2:00 AM, or if it was just the drugs, but during our brutal 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM shift, many pass outs were dragged out of the dingy interior. Recently, I’ve played a few times at Sausalito Cruising Club’s open mike nights, on another aging ferry boat like vessel near where the Ark was. A couple of the old timers working there fondly remember The Ark, so it’s not just a dream.
Our claim to fame gig was, ironically an audition as the opening band at a concert held in San Rafael’s military building, The Armory. I don’t remember the promoter, but we were opening for The Grateful Dead, and the headliners, The Jefferson Airplane, who shortly thereafter came out with their iconic album ”Surrealistic Pillow.” In planning our set, we of course had to scrap the two songs of theirs we normally did. During our set my tambourine broke, and then my maraca head flew off into the audience, but we were appreciated, especially for our tight harmonies, now enriched by the recent addition of a female co-front person, the attractive Kris, who would soon be singing a killer ‘White Rabbit.” Jim Remington had left the band, so Kris and I were now the front, and our new lead guitarist John Profit was a good fit.
Probably feeling unworthy, we didn’t take advantage of hanging out with those famous musicians afterwards, but dug both sets in the intimate setting. Lots of concrete and echo. Decades later, Rolling Stone magazine included The Vast Minority in their list of best known SF rock bands of the sixties, even though we only played a couple of private party gigs in town. We were basically a cover band, strong in Beatle songs and blues, and we did do a few originals. We coulda been contenders if we’d stayed together, but September of ’67 rolled around and all of us but Jim H headed off to colleges. I think I should have been headed off to a performing arts school instead of to the west coast ivy league University Of Pacific, but that’s another story.