1964 saw a huge musical change occur in american music when in february 1964 the 'beatles' played on the ed sullivan show to an audience of around 23 million households (audience figures of over 70 million...) and kids everywhere suddenly wanted to be in a band...folk-rock was on the horizon with the 'byrds/bob dylan', surf music was on the wane along with songs about hotrods and surfing...yeah a whole new form of music was developing and a bunch of school kids from glen park/the mission district of san francisco decided that they too should form a band so 'tom lazaneo/jim dotson/steve rascon and fellow school friend jorge santana became 'jim & the gents'...
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| early days for jim and the gents |
playing a heavy mix of beatles and invasion sounds they frequented local school halls/ymca's/school talent shows/charity events wearing all black suits with their last show being a big battle of bands at the cow palace in '66...at this time they added tom's brother robert on guitar and vocals... they were all still at high school but san francisco was going through cultural and musical changes and the band decided to update their sound/image and so by early '67 had become 'sounds unlimited blues band'....
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| 1968 line-up of the band. | |
Again playing covers but this time by paul butterfiled blues band/yardbirds/cream and john mayall plus one or two original songs...they as a band moved to capp st in the mission district & rehearsing in one of the bedrooms...suddenly steve rascon left and was replaced on bass by fred platt and at a local festival show they met and befriended david lonie who offered to manage them...he immediately gave them a more professional approach having flyers printed for upcoming shows/business cards/and more inportantly better gigs..they too started to explore longer jams of guitar and drums with more original songs being introduced into show sets...Lonie was a good manager and got them gigs at the straight theatre/fillmore/city colleges with lots of photo shoot's ...he also took some 8mm film footage at two venues but again i haven't seen them or even know if they still exist.
Their biggest show to date was played in '68 at 'the aquarian family festival' a free festival that was held in santa clara and put on by the university school community programme on the school football field in opposition to the 'northern california folk-rock festival' that was being held on the same day!
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| both festivals on the same day... |
This was done because the northern califonia festival the year before in '68 had been marred by a major problem of the drug 'pcb' which put 1000 concert goer's in hospital so an alternatives festival was arranged...one stipilation of the 'aqauarian festival' was that because it was on school grounds the music audience would have to leave after every band when there was no music! so the organizers decided that the music would be continuous for 52 hours! the line-up was great with 'ace of cups/big brother/the airplane who left the northern california festival after their spot and went over to the free festival and played.../quicksilver/moby grape/chocolate watchband/mad river/sons of champlin/joy of cooking/steve miller band/nymbus/linn countymt.rushmore/all men joy and many many more....
April 6th '69 had manager Lonie book the cities 'matrix club' for an afternoon of recording live on that venues stage where the band promptly played around 8 songs and four were recorded of which i'll include three here taken from my youtube channel.....
Hopefully robert will allow us to hear the final track recorded at the matrix one day soon ... the band were still playing lots of shows but by late '69 jorge santana gave in his notice and joined another local outfit 'the malibus' who's members included carlos gomez & richard bean who would later would morph into 'malo' and chart success....
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| photo's of the four piece line-up... |
By late '71 or early '72 the band were still plowing along when they lost another member and so changed name to 'whiffenpuff' and what they sounded like i have no idea or the type of music they played...
Its here my trail goes cold but i'll keep digging for information to increase my knowledge of the band and maybe more will come to light after this blog? if you can help out please contact me here or : sfscene@outlook.com
Great news is that i have been e.mailing robert lazaneo back and forward for some time now and he has furnished me with with much more information on the group ~ In addition to the places that you know about , here are some others. 1968- Soul & Blues Festival in Golden Gate Park. The host was a DJ Herman Henry from radio station KDIA- The Purple Perculator in Fairfax- this was a church hall where a middle aged hippie couple regularly threw dances for the teenagers in Fairfax as a meeting place for kids to hang out. We played there about once a week- The American Indian Center- City College- Hospitality House for runaways & people on the street- Recreation Center for the Handicapped- We played many dances at the army base at The Presidio for the service men & women- Avenue Theater- Open Mic at The Lions' Share Club in Sausalito- Lick- Wilmer Ding High School- 1969- Neighborhood Arts Benefit concert on Potrero Hill where Country Joe MacDonald & Barry Melton were the headliners-Precita Park street festival- & that's about the most I can recall.
rare poster for the four piece group after jorge santana had left ~
Robert has also said that he has a ''whiffenpuff '' tape he is currently working on so maybe we can get to hear how that group sounded after dropping most of the blues material and losing a group member along the way..here is more information directly from robert ~ The band formed in San Francisco when we were kids 13 to fifteen years old. I'd known Jim Dotson since I was 6 & after The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan he wanted to start a band & he would be the drummer. I couldn't play an instrument at that time but I could sing. He knew another kid at school, Steve Rascon, who played the guitar & then we became a trio. The band really didn't get going until Jim asked Jorge Santana if he wanted to join up. Jorge had performed in a talent show at James Lick Junior High where he played Louie Louie by The Kingsmen backed by just a drummer. I forget what that guys name was. That's where I saw him and it was obvious to even me that he was really good, more advanced for his age. I hadn't heard anybody, certainly not a kid a year older than me play that solo high up on the board. The band was called Jim & The Gents & we practiced in the garage across the street from Glen Park. We played a dance at the Mission Y, talent shows at Mission High School, party's at relatives houses where we got free food, stuff like that just kids having fun& in 1966 we did play in the city wide battle of the bands at The Cow Palace. Around 1967, we got my brother Tom in because we knew that we needed a bass player. Tom bought the bass amp & Steve had bought a bass guitar but for some reason Steve wanted to play bass & he and Tom switched with Tom playing rhythm guitar. That's when the name changed to Sounds Unlimited. Jorge brought in the music of Paul Butterfield, Blues breakers with Eric Clapton, & the first Cream album & we began learning & playing those songs. We then relocated to a flat on Capp Street that my sister Yvonne, and my brothers Tom & Mike were living & that was where we began to try to make up our own tunes that were all blues based like the covers we were doing. We added blues band to the name cause that's all we played. Steve left the band & was replaced on bass by Fred Pratt who was just learning to play bass but he was a fast learner & soon we were playing more gigs after Dave Lonie became our manager...
Again i thank robert for taking the time and trouble to help out with all the wonderful information and do please check out the links for the music tracks he has been so kind to furnish us with....
I shared the blog on my Facebook page.
ReplyDeleteI can fill in the blanks about what happened to the band going into the 70's. After Jorge left & joined the Malibus, my brother Tom switched to the lead guitar spot & I played rhythm guitar & we continued as a four some. We relocated to Daly City which is when drummer Jim Dotson left because we were starting from scratch with a new direction. Less jams, more vocals, folk/rock , some country & light jazz touches. Very different from Sounds Unlimited. The three of us rehearsed while looking for a drummer & on a lark we accepted a gig at a frat house party that our manager, Dave, had booked. We had Jim's kit so we said to Dave, " Hey! Why don't you play drums? You know, just keep the beat." And that's how the manager became the drummer/manager. Dave took lessons, bought his own set, practiced along with tapes and became a very good drummer. Whiffenpuf played at bars in San Francisco, Marin, Redwood City until 74- 75 when the band broke up.
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