UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK BAND OF THE MONTH FOR SEPTEMBER 2011: ULTRA
The Outcasts is one of the truly legendary
garage rock bands from the fertile territory in
Texas; one of my early
Wikipedia articles was on this group. They always placed high in
Battle of the Bands contests and actually won the statewide competition in the seminal year of
1966. Their song “
I’m in Pittsburgh (and it’s Raining)” is the opening track on
Pebbles, Volume 1 , the second compilation album of
1960’s garage rock and
psychedelic rock music (after
Nuggets). In the original liner notes,
Greg Shaw calls the song “a blistering
punk-rocker, which has been compared to
the Pretty Things at their best”.
Galen Niles became the second lead guitarist in
the Outcasts when
Denny Turner joined the
U. S. Army in
1966, and he played gigs with the band throughout that summer. Their last single, “
1523 Blair” (released in
January 1967) took the band in a different direction and is a nearly unique
psychedelic rock song in that it is played at a furious pace. The song inspired the name of a future entry in the
Under-Appreciated Rock Bands, a marvelous
British band who released one album as
Blair 1523.
In
1967,
Galen Niles went back to college and met
Chet Himes, who was dating the roommate of his girlfriend. They started jamming together with drummer
Gary Crapster after
Himes had been bugging
Niles to start a band with him.
Himes brought in a friend of his,
Frank Coy. Much as
the Beatles had done before – when each new member brought in the next –
Frank added his friend
Pat Cosgrove. The band practiced throughout the summer and became a good cover band with a 12-song repertoire that included “
She’s Not There”, “
Hush”, and “
Land of 1,000 Dances”. After a while, the band dubbed themselves
Homer, though
Niles is not sure why.
Before long,
Columbia Records came calling and expressed interest in a national release. The A&R man’s request to know what was going to be on their next single caught
Homer flat-footed. After quickly cutting two more songs, “
On the Wall” and “
Texas Lights”,
Columbia blew them off and passed on the whole deal. They were released locally as the next two singles by the band but did not perform as well as
“I Never Cared for You”.
Homer was a popular band in the
San Antonio area and hung in there until
1974; by that time, the line-up was
Don Evans (vocals and drums),
Chet Himes (bass),
Van Wilks (guitar) and
Galen Niles (guitar).
Niles recalls: “Man, that was a smokin’ band then – the fact was, the only reason we had a vocalist was to take up some space between the guitar solos.”
ULTRA was formed out of the ashes of Homer when remaining members Galen Niles and Don Evans (who was strictly the vocalist in the new band) added Larry McGuffin (guitar), Scott Stephens (bass), and Tom Schleuning (drums). As a departure from the Homer sound, Ultra was an old-fashioned hard rock band with twin lead guitars trading solos and playing in harmony. Some might describe it as heavy metal, but I wouldn’t. Their sole release was a 5-song promotional EP with just 100 copies and a plain white cover.
Much as Homer had often done, Ultra was conceived as a touring band that would open for national acts, rather than playing in small clubs, and this was in keeping with their big sound. Galen Niles has mentioned as examples that they opened for Be-Bop Deluxe and Pat Travers. (Frequent touring was difficult financially though; often the roadies collected what little money remained after expenses were paid). Their sound was clashing with the growing popularity of disco and punk rock; and in fact, their most high-profile moment came when they opened for Sex Pistols at Randy’s Rodeo on January 8, 1978. Niles stated recently: “We most definitely had no business being on the same bill as
the Sex Pistols, as we were not in any musical sense of the word a ‘punk’ outfit”.
The Sex Pistols disintegrated just two weeks into their first
American tour. Less than a week after their
San Antonio date,
Johnny Rotten left the
Pistols and started a new band called
Public Image Limited (often shortened to
PiL); he also reverted to his real name
John Lydon. Interestingly, the most notorious member of
the Sex Pistols,
Sid Vicious was a relatively new addition to the band who was not involved in either of their outrageous singles, “
Anarchy in the U.K.” and “
God Save the Queen”. Their sole album,
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols came out in
1978 and, as they say, changed
rock and roll forever. For myself, however, I have always preferred
American punk rockers to their
Brit counterparts.
Although there is a decent write-up on Homer in Allmusic, there is nothing in Wikipedia on either that band or Ultra. Homer would have made a good choice for Under-Appreciated acolades, except that I don’t have any of their music yet. Ultra’s archived tracks though have been re-released twice – on Monster Records in 2000 and on Vintage Records in 2007. I picked up the latter collection last year; it features 16 fine tracks that were recorded in 1975-1977.
* * *
The
Honor Roll of the
Under Appreciated Rock Bands and Artists follows, in date order, including a link to the original
Facebook posts and the theme of the article.
Dec 2009 – BEAST; Lot to Learn Mar 2010 – BANG; Record Collecting I Jul 2010 – THE EYES; Los Angeles Punk Rock Mar 2011 – INDEX; Psychedelic Rock (1960’s) Nov 2013 – CHIMERA; Women in Rock II Jan 2014 – BOYSKOUT; (Lesbian) Women in Rock IV Apr 2014 – HOMER; Creating New Bands out of Old Ones Jul 2014 – MIKKI; Rock and Religion I (Early CCM Music) Sep 2014 – NICK FREUND; Rock and Religion III (The Beatles) Mar 2015 – PHIL GAMMAGE; Songwriting II (Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan) Dec 2016 – THE IGUANAS; Iggy and the Stooges; Proto-Punk Rock Jun 2017 – THE LOONS; Punk Revival and Other New Bands Dec 2017 – SS-20; The Iguana Chronicles