San Bernardino's The Good Feelins and The Pattens - Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Cassava"

This episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM had some more obscure stuff as I've been finding myself getting lost in some out-of-print compilations and oddball bootlegs. As a result, a lot of tracks that you heard on this episode aren't on Spotify but that's just how it goes.

Speaking of obscure, one of the first bands you heard on this episode was The Good Feelins from San Bernardino. The group only released a couple singles, one under the name The Genteels, before their career was cut short due to members being drafted into the Vietnam war. In fact, they began playing with bigger acts such as The Animals and Rolling Stones as they secured a recording contract through Liberty Records and were even predicted to reach the Hot Top 100 by Billboard. 

On various compilations the group's name has been slightly altered, which adds to the band's mystery. For example, the track you heard on this episode, I'm Captured, was found on the compilation Who Needs Tomorrow? American 60s Garage Bands, which lists the group as "Good Feeling". While that may not seem like a big deal, when you are dealing with garage rock bands, sometimes even a misplaced apostrophe can mark the difference between two bands. 

Additionally, I think it's important to point out that The Good Feelins official website mentions the band's San Bernardino roots. I've seen a few websites refer to The Good Feelins as a Riverside band and to some people that distinction, although minor, would probably be appreciated. Most of the members knew each other from San Bernardino Valley College with the exception being their drummer, Mike Kravitz, who was only 17 at the time and still attending Pacific High School. You can read some contemporaneous articles about the band on their website which was difficult to find due to some dead links. 

As the show continued you heard The Pattens song You Should Know and I mentioned that there are some arguments to be made over who actually wrote the song with a Chicago based band, The Escavels claiming to be the song's originators. The Escavels' version was recorded a year prior to The Pattens version but was never released to the public until 2012. As noted by the blog A Bit Like You and Me, The Pattens B-side Jump is a cover of The Toggery Five's I'm Gonna Jump with the song's credits listed as Ren Shawel instead of the actual name of the songwriter Frank Renshaw. Whether or not there was plagiarism involved or simply mishandled credits is hard to say and we'll probably never know the whole story. However, it's fairly obvious that The Pattens versions are produced fairly well and I'm sure they would have gotten into some legal trouble if their single was more successful.

Anywho, there wasn't a ton of talking on this episode so I'll wrap it up here. Thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm PST. You can also listen through KUCR.org, Radio Garden, or Tune-In. 

You can check out this week's playlist below:

 

The First Garrison - Mama Say Blue
The Leather Boy - Soulin'
The American Four - Soul Food
The MidKnights - Pain
The Muffets - Lost
The Pattens - You Should Know
Glory Rhodes - Stay Out Of My Way

The Dirt Merchants, Bradley's Barn and Other Obscure Garage Rock! - Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Seakale"

This episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM featured a bunch of bands that aren't on Spotify so I had to dig a little deeper than usual to provide a playlist but luckily there are plenty of fine people on YouTube that are willing to share some of their collections.

Towards the beginning of the show, you heard The Dirt Merchants perform their song Do What You Wanta Do which appears as a B-side on their only release from 1966. The A-side is a song named I Found Another Girl which shares a lot of similarities to The Nightcrawlers' song The Little Black Egg. And by saying it shares a lot of similarities I mean, it's practically the same song, even down to the basslines with the differences coming from the lyrics and the chords used in the refrain. Perhaps someone was banking on the popularity of The Little Black Egg to rub off on The Dirt Merchants single, however, I would argue that the B-side is the stronger song of the two and would have made a better A-side. Unfortunately, both of the songs suffer from fairly generic lyrics along the lines of the typical "you did me wrong" song. If you are having a little déjà vu it might be because I recently wrote about The Little Black Egg on the episode Mizuna.

There were at least two different bands with The Dirt Merchants name and because there's little information on either band, it's easy to get them mixed up. The Dirt Merchants from this post appear to have been from Yazoo City, MS and featured Jack Phillips, Ricky Pettigrew (mislabeled R. Pettigraw on the single), John Brister, Kenny Waldop, and Charles Jackson. Jack Phillips, the singer of The Dirt Merchants (MS), continued to play music in various groups over the years with his most recent band being The Remnants until his passing on May 3, 2021. 

More information can be gleamed from the comment section of a Garage Hangover blog post about the Florida based Dirt Merchants. A commenter that identifies himself as Ricky Pettigrew's son states that The Dirt Merchants (MS) won a Battle of the Bands in New Orleans which awarded them a recording session at what he believes to have been Bradley's Barn. This is mostly likely how the band recorded their only single since it appears that they never had a record contract. Besides that, I haven't been able to find any other information on the group.

The name Bradley's Barn may be familiar to you because it's also the title of The Beau Brummels' fifth album which takes its name from the studio. It's a bit different from the band's earlier releases but it's worth listening to if you want to hear early releases in the country rock genre. There were a ton of great albums recorded at Bradley's Barn before it burned down in 1982 due to a florescent light's faulty electrical connection. Unfortunately many irreplaceable masters were completely destroyed in the fire. Eventually, I'd like the dive deeper into the history of Bradley's Barn, however, until then you can check out the Barn's official Facebook page.

Now I'll quickly go over some of the other topics I covered on this episode!

Following The Dirt Merchants, you heard a track by The Satans named Makin' Deals. There's a post on a blog named On The Flip-Side that makes a pretty solid argument that the group was probably just another studio project and that The Satans probably never existed in the true sense of a band. On The Flip-Side also makes a connection to biker exploitation soundtracks and points out how the B-side, Lines And Squares, swipes lyrics from an A.A. Milne poem with the same name. The poem features "satanic" lines such as: 

The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, "Bears,
Just look how I'm walking in all the squares!"

Later in the show you heard The Interns track I've Got Something To Say and I spoke a little about how the single suffered from mistakes during its production. Additionally, I touched on a little history of the band's hometown Uniontown, OH that's just outside of Akron, OH and is known for its proximity to a Superfund site.

That's about it for this episode! Be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm PST. You can also listen through KUCR.org, Radio Garden, or Tune-In. 

You can check out this episode's playlist below:

 

The Catsanovas - I Want To Be Loved
The Dirt Merchants - Do What You Wanta Do
Half Pint And The Fifths - Orphan Boy
The Interns - I've Got Something To Say
The Madd, Inc. - I'll Be The One
Freedom Five - To Save My Soul
The Troyes - Rainbow Chaser
The Casuals Incorporated - I Realize
The Nite Watchmen - I'm Gonna Lose My Mind