THEE MIDNITERS 
Only last year did I discover that the Premiers were a Chicano band; there was a show on PBS that explained how this band and so many other Latin bands had been chased off the charts by the British Invasion. They are hardly the only ones; Question Mark and the Mysterians are a dynamite Latino garage rock band with a big hit to their credit, “96 Tears”. Their bandleader legally had his name changed to ? (though it was usually spelled out) decades before Prince did something similar – at least ?’s was a pronounceable symbol. Thee Midniters is yet a third one familiar to those in the know; generally bands who use “Thee” are Latino bands. (January 2011) * * * The liner notes by Nigel Strange on Pebbles, Volume 1 (the CD that is) says of Kim Fowley: “What more can be said about this writer/singer/producer/hustler who’s had his hand in everything from ‘Alley Oop’ by the Hollywood Argyles, to Helen Reddy, to the Dead Boys, to Guns N’ Roses. . . . This song [“The Trip”], released at the onset of teenage freakout mania, was something of a sensation in L.A. at the time and was covered by others including Thee Midniters and disc jockey Godfrey. A real classic.”
(January 2015/1)
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Regarding the title of the EP 5 x 4 by the Crawdaddys, I was thinking of the 1964 Rolling Stones album 12 x 5 myself, but the Stones had previously released a British-only EP called 5 x 5 in August 1964. One of the cuts on the Stones EP is a group-penned instrumental called “2120 South Michigan Avenue” – the street address of Chess Records in Chicago – and the Chicano garage rock band Thee Midniters used it as the basis for their popular track “Whittier Boulevard”.
(January 2015/2)
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