THE COMMON PEOPLE: 'bordering at times on the psychedelic'

I'm delighted to post what I suspect are the only two contemporary articles ever written about the enigmatic Common People. Both come from the reliably mindblowing World Countdown, and appeared in the summer of 1969, to coincide with their fascinating album. The first seems simply to be a reproduction of Capitol's press release, while the second is a gushing interview by Dodie Smith, the paper's latter-day editor (who came from Liverpool, and appears to have vanished without trace). It's interesting to learn how explicitly Christian their world view was, having gone through a biker / garage phase before a 'spiritual type sojourn in the desert', where they 'existed on bread and water for long periods of time'. Most intriguing is the fact that they tore down their rehearsal space and put everything in it 'in an immense box which they had constructed, and buried it in the ground'. Enjoy!

World Countdown 6:3 (June 27th 1969)

World Countdown 6:4 (July 10th 1969)

Incidentally, the portrait of Denny is credited to Nik Raceivic, who went on to make some interesting electronic albums in the 70s...

THE MILLENNIUM: transmitting general happiness

I think Begin by The Millennium is one of the greatest pop records ever made. It was notorious in its day for being the most expensive album Columbia had ever recorded, but - in the absence of a performing band to plug it - sales were low. The back cover promised it was 'TO BE CONTINUED', but the septet split soon after its July 1968 release, dooming it to retrospective cult worship. Here are some odds and ends I've found relating to it.

The first reference I've seen to them was in Record World of March 23rd 1968. It managed to misspell their name in two ways; many subsequent references limited themselves to omitting one of the Ns. Interesting to note that Curt Boettcher (pronounced 'Betcher', by the way) was already being called 'a true genius':

Here's the earliest contemporaneous interview with him that I'm aware of. It appeared as part of a feature about the occult in the April 1968 issue of the faux-hip and short-lived  Cheetah magazine, and would have been conducted at the time that Begin was being recorded:

Here's a snippet from TeenSet of June 1968:

Begin was released in July, trailed by a 45 coupling It's You and I Just Want To Be Your Friend. Here's the picture sleeve a few copies came with:

(Incidentally, a handful of copies of the picture sleeve show Joey Stec's middle finger extended, in the manner of Don Stevenson on the first Moby Grape sleeve; as with that LP, Columbia swiftly airbrushed it out.)

A launch party for the album was held on July 19th. Here's the invitation (and yes, the brownies did follow the Alice B. Toklas recipe):

Here are the (strangely drab) cover and the insert that a few copies came with. Originally it folded over the back cover, showing a tear-off 'Mee Moo' logo strip, as below. It contains thanks from the band on one side and a bad poem by one Brian Longe on the other:

It was also issued on 8-track cartridge:

Various ads appeared in the contemporary press:

To accompany its release, the band was interviewed by Bob Garcia for the July 26th edition of the weekly Los Angeles underground newspaper Open City:

On August 3rd, Cash Box reported that Columbia was 'sponsoring public hearings of the album' in various locations', and quoted Gary Usher claiming that the response was wildly enthusiastic: 

I haven't found many reviews, and the ones I have are mixed:


‘New group with a unique sound that should quickly establish them with the fans. With the flair and feel of The Mamas & The Papas and The Stone Poneys, they offer a diversified program that’s musically first-rate. ‘It’s You’ is a smooth rock ballad with singles potential, and ‘Anthem’ is outstanding’ – Billboard, 31/8/68

‘The vocal and instrumental arrangements and the harmonic textures this group achieves are surpassed only by the quality of the original material written by its members’ – Saturday Review, August 1968

'Soft-rock sounds are coming back into favor, although, of neccessity, they are now much more complex. Columhia’s new group, the Millennium, explores the intricacies of 'new rock' in a manner which could bring many new listeners into the fold. Strong points of this set are the vocal harmony (slight Association influence here) and the ultra-pretty songs. Exposure should move product' – Cash Box, 7/9/68


‘Soft, full, light – sometimes overdone arrangements, but generally excellent songs and vocals’ – TeenSet, October 1968


‘Despite certain pretensions (extraneous sounds, etc) incorporated into the music, what The Millennium offers is faultlessly-surfaced teeny-bopper fare. There is no denying the septet’s smoothness and professionalism, but equally there’s no denying the essential vacuity of its material. Production is absolutely first-rate, as befits an album of this type. Not much for serious listeners, however’ – Down Beat, 15/5/69


This article appeared in TeenSet of December 1968:

In the February 20th 1970 issue of Fusion, Clive Davis - head of Columbia at the time - had the following to say. (Both the interviewers and Davis seem to be conflating Begin and Present Tense by Sagittarius, which was released simultaneously.)


What do producers do at Columbia these days?
I think we allow a great deal of freedom to our producers. We allow them to do work and build up a track record upon which we can judge their creative standards. In the past I think this has been abused by a number of producers - certainly not by all, but there have been producers both in and outside of Columbia who have not held the highest standards for themselves and have perhaps lowered their sights and signed artists who they feel are competent but yet who don't have the degree of charisma to really step out above competition.


Gary Usher and the Millennium, for example? We understand they became pretty expensive.
I think the truth about that is Gary never really knew how much money he was spending, and that responsibility was entrusted to him. The progress reports showed a much lower amount than was actually being spent. We knew that it was going to be more expensive than the average album. We did not know that it was becoming as heavy an expense as it did. Listening to the quality of the tapes. I was quite impressed. Millennium had an exciting sound. But there are very few recording entities that have ever made it without building up charisma and a following. Also to make records sell, you have to perform and of course they never did appear around. There are basic principles as to why records sell and, number one, this group did not perform and appear around to create an underground following. We sold a fairly respectable number of the Millennium album — not enough to re­coup the recording cost — but they certainly created quite a stir among a number of people.


Did the group exist?
In the recording studio. They never appeared in person. Another principle is that if a group doesn't appear in person, the only way you can break the album is to get a single from the album. We couldn't break a single with them.


Where'd they come from?
This was Gary Usher's project that he worked on with Curt Boettcher. The two of them put together the art­ists for Millennium. It was a studio group that they just formed. They signed the group. Mostly everyone I know liked the Millennium album. There were hardly any negative comments. I know my friend Jac Holzman at Elektra once said that if he had to bring three albums to an island to live with over a period of years, the Millennium album would be one of them.


The cult reputation of Begin was well underway by December 1971, when the following paragraph appeared in Phonograph Record Magazine, in an article about Millennium member Michael Fennelly's new band Crabby Appleton:

In the autumn of 1974 Fennelly gave this revealing interview to the ever-great ZigZag magazine:

A detailed conversation with Curt Boettcher appeared in the December 1974 and January 1975 issues of ZigZag, but it's too long to reproduce here. Sorry! 

KAK: 'uneven but enormously promising'

From Davis, California (outside Sacramento), Kak consisted of Gary Lee Yoder (vocals / guitar), Dehner Patten (lead guitar), Joe-Dave Damrell (bass) and Chris Lockheed (drums). They made one of the best one-shot US psych LPs of the late 1960s, but - despite having clear commercial potential and being one of the truest early representations of the West Coast sound - it sank without trace. I thought I'd post the only contemporary references to the quartet that I've ever seen.

Their first release was a single pairing Everything's Changing and Rain, produced by John Neel and issued on September 20th 1968. This performance of Rain is different to that on the LP. Oddly, the promo copies were stereo and the stock copies were mono (with some stock copies being stickered as demonstration copies. to add to the confusion):

At the same time, Epic issued a second promo-only 45, with Everything's Changing on both sides, one being a truncated version:

Oddly, it was this non-commerically available disc that was reviewed in the trade magazines. Here's what Record World had to say in their October 5th issue:

Cash Box covered it the same day:

The first that most people saw of Kak was this image, which appeared as part of a larger Epic advert in Cash Box (and Billboard) on November 30th:

According to internal company documentation, the album was released on Tuesday, December 31st 1968:

However, it was counted as part of the label's January release schedule, as this sampler LP attests:

The band played famously few gigs, but one - an album launch of sorts, I guess - took place at a San Francisco car showroom on Sunday 19th January, as part of the local Mardi Gras:

The San Francisco Examiner, Tuesday January 14th 1969

I've only encountered three reviews of the LP. The first appeared in Billboard of February 1st:

The second appeared in the UK underground paper International Times on April 11th, and was written by Barry Miles (later to become Paul McCartney's official biographer). As if Miles weren't already hip enough, note how he casually refers to the 13th Floor Elevators, whom most critics in Texas had never even heard of at the time:

The third was in Stereo Review of June 1969:

As far as I know, two ads appeared - one in Rolling Stone and one in Go:

Somewhat amazingly, the album was also promoted via a film, which has surfaced on youtube, and from which the outstanding front cover was extracted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ43oz_qVxc

In addition, Epic included Disbelievin' on their January 1969 Rockbusters promo sampler LP:

Here's a larger version of the photo that appeared on its cover:

Go ran a very brief interview with their wah-wah wizard Dehner Patten that month:

Their third and final 45 was I've Got Time / Disbelievin' (Epic 5-10446), produced by Gary Grelecki and issued on February 21st 1969:

The album and singles were not issued abroad, but an EP appeared down in Mexico, coupling HCO 97658 and Everything's Changing with two tracks by Spirit, housed in a picture sleeve showing the latter band's debut LP cover. 

The appetite for Kak south of the border was evidently not sated by that: mind-bogglingly, a full EP also appeared in Mexico, offering Rain, Disbelievin', Electric Sailor and Mirage. At the time of writing, I am aware of only three copies:

Kak split almost as soon as their LP appeared, having played a meagre estimated total of five concerts. Only one poster / handbill seems to exist. It's for a gig at Freeborn Hall, the concert venue on the campus of UCD (University Of California, Davis). Being a hometown gig, it bills them as the Kak [Oxford Circle]... That name still meant something to the local longhairs, even if they were forgotten everywhere else. 

On April 26th, Record World ran a special Los Angeles issue, which featured this ad:

By then, they'd split up. A month later, well after the album's moment had passed, the seemingly oblivious Epic placed this advert in the May 17th 1969 issue of Rolling Stone: 

Following their split, leader Gary Yoder issued a so-so solo 45 before joining Blue Cheer, while drummer Chris Lockheed joined Randy Holden for his deafening Population II project. Kak hadn't been entirely forgotten, however - a couple of years later Lester Bangs praised them highly in his Rolling Stone review of Blue Cheer's Oh! Pleasant Hope (July 8th 1971):

In the decades since, many others have come around to Bangs' way of thinking.