It was only last year that I first became aware of Travis Pike. The excellent State Records label sent me a promo copy of their latest release, the single ‘Watch Out Woman’ / ‘The Way That I Need You’ by Travis Pike and the Brattle Street East. I was suitably impressed by the two tracks, the first being a raucous slice of frat rock while the flipside was more in an early rock’n’roll style, and wrote a review saying so. A short time later, I was contacted by Travis himself who, after seeing the review, wanted to send me some more of his music. His obvious enthusiasm was rather infectious and I said I’d be happy to review his recent releases. What I didn’t expect was the box-load of material that arrived several weeks later. Two books, a DVD and eight CD albums ! Evidently, Mr Pike was rather prolific in his documentation of past creative endeavors.
Faced with this large amount of material, I began to research Travis Pike’s story. Having grown up in the Boston area during the late-Fifties / early-Sixties, he had developed a healthy interest in rock’n’roll, fronting a High School band called The Jesters. His singing career was put on hold when he joined the US Navy and posted to Germany but a series of events led to him singing in local bars and clubs, eventually forming a band called The Five Beats. They were building a strong reputation and beginning to garner record company interest when a serious road accident resulted in Travis being returned to the States for medical treatment and convalescence. But an unexpected invitation from the younger brother of his former drummer in The Jesters led to a surprise return to the stage which, in turn, inspired his father (a film producer) to create the cult-movie ‘Feelin’ Good’, which would also feature Travis and eight of his original songs.
As he continued to recover from his injuries, Travis continued to write new material and, once able, started performing solo in the flourishing ‘Coffeeshop’ music scene around Boston. He performed his own songs together with older folk material, but it was the call of rock’n’roll that proved the strongest and he eventually started putting a new band together. Initially called The Boston Massacre, before converting to The Tea Party, their local reputation steadily built across the New England area, resulting in an invitation to be house band on a new WBZ-TV show, ‘Here and Now’. Coinciding with this, the band signed with Alma Records to release their single, ‘If I Didn’t Love You Girl’. But fate proved unkind - the TV show was cancelled after only three episodes and local radio station rivalry led to poor promotion. The single didn’t do as well as expected , even though it was destined to become a genuine collectors’ item. Faced with a negative situation in their home town, the band relocated to Los Angeles but initial high-hopes failed to pan-out and the band eventually called it a day.
However, that’s not where the story ends. Travis began working in the film-industry, but still found time to pursue his own work, such as his esoteric rock opera, ‘Changeling’s Return’, and his more whimsical projects, ‘Grumpuss’ and ‘Long Grin’. In more recent years, he has also created his own ‘Otherworld Cottage Industries’ as a means of documenting and making available the creative-efforts from his past. He began by making available the surviving musical clips from 'Feelin' Good' and since then has reissued albums of original material as well as new recordings of songs that were never properly-documented at the time.
With so much activity, it’s no surprise that Travis has come to the attention of a whole new audience amongst the many fans of Sixties Garage music. Large articles and interviews have appeared in magazines such as Ugly Things, Shindig ! and Goldmine, with further coverage to be found on numerous blogs and websites. As for myself, I soon realised that, rather than just review the individual releases, it would be much more productive to conduct an interview and hopefully put everything in context. Unfortunately, a face-to-face interview was impossible at present, but that wasn’t going to stop us. The following is the result of intensive internet activity !
Faced with this large amount of material, I began to research Travis Pike’s story. Having grown up in the Boston area during the late-Fifties / early-Sixties, he had developed a healthy interest in rock’n’roll, fronting a High School band called The Jesters. His singing career was put on hold when he joined the US Navy and posted to Germany but a series of events led to him singing in local bars and clubs, eventually forming a band called The Five Beats. They were building a strong reputation and beginning to garner record company interest when a serious road accident resulted in Travis being returned to the States for medical treatment and convalescence. But an unexpected invitation from the younger brother of his former drummer in The Jesters led to a surprise return to the stage which, in turn, inspired his father (a film producer) to create the cult-movie ‘Feelin’ Good’, which would also feature Travis and eight of his original songs.
As he continued to recover from his injuries, Travis continued to write new material and, once able, started performing solo in the flourishing ‘Coffeeshop’ music scene around Boston. He performed his own songs together with older folk material, but it was the call of rock’n’roll that proved the strongest and he eventually started putting a new band together. Initially called The Boston Massacre, before converting to The Tea Party, their local reputation steadily built across the New England area, resulting in an invitation to be house band on a new WBZ-TV show, ‘Here and Now’. Coinciding with this, the band signed with Alma Records to release their single, ‘If I Didn’t Love You Girl’. But fate proved unkind - the TV show was cancelled after only three episodes and local radio station rivalry led to poor promotion. The single didn’t do as well as expected , even though it was destined to become a genuine collectors’ item. Faced with a negative situation in their home town, the band relocated to Los Angeles but initial high-hopes failed to pan-out and the band eventually called it a day.
However, that’s not where the story ends. Travis began working in the film-industry, but still found time to pursue his own work, such as his esoteric rock opera, ‘Changeling’s Return’, and his more whimsical projects, ‘Grumpuss’ and ‘Long Grin’. In more recent years, he has also created his own ‘Otherworld Cottage Industries’ as a means of documenting and making available the creative-efforts from his past. He began by making available the surviving musical clips from 'Feelin' Good' and since then has reissued albums of original material as well as new recordings of songs that were never properly-documented at the time.
With so much activity, it’s no surprise that Travis has come to the attention of a whole new audience amongst the many fans of Sixties Garage music. Large articles and interviews have appeared in magazines such as Ugly Things, Shindig ! and Goldmine, with further coverage to be found on numerous blogs and websites. As for myself, I soon realised that, rather than just review the individual releases, it would be much more productive to conduct an interview and hopefully put everything in context. Unfortunately, a face-to-face interview was impossible at present, but that wasn’t going to stop us. The following is the result of intensive internet activity !
To begin with, after reading his book, it was apparent that Travis became interested in creative pursuits from a very early age. Was this something that was inherent in his family ?
‘It probably was. My mother and grandmother used to read to me when I was just a toddler. I’d sit in a lap and look at the pictures, and would sometimes ask them to point out the words they were reading (probably just to make sure they weren’t making them up.) By the time I got to school, I didn’t have to wait for the teacher or the class but devoured the Dick & Jane books end to end, sounding out the words for myself on the first day. One of my early favourites was ‘My Father’s Dragon’ by Ruth Stiles Gannett. ‘Krimms’, featured on the ‘Odd Tales and Wonders, Stories in Rhyme’ CD, was inspired by A.A.Milne’s ‘Goops’, while ‘The Twaddle and the Gurck’ from the same CD was inspired by Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’. Also, at the same time, illustrations by Arthur Rackham on one hand and Walt Disney on the other led me to become fascinated with both illustration and animation.’
How did you first become interested in music ?
‘The earliest musical memories I have would be of popular songs associated with Christmas, as that was every childs’ favourite time of year. But I think the music that actually influenced me came from movie scores and the songs that I really remember from that time would be from musicals. The advent of transistor radios in the mid-Fifties led me to discover the whole new world of pop music… I had grown-up with orchestral scores and Big Band sounds, especially as my father had worked for WNAC-TV, but after Bill Haley and the Comets introduced me to rock’n’roll, in no time I was singing along to the likes of Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, The Everly Brothers, Bobby Darin, Roy Orbison and Ray Charles.’
You first started singing to audiences as part of a short-lived High School band, The Jesters. But your first ‘professional’ music-work was when you wrote the title song for the movie ‘Demo Derby’, which was produced by your father. How did the movie and the song come about ?
‘It goes back to when I bought my first car, a beautiful Studebaker Commander V8 Coupe, when I was 18 years old. It cost $50.00 because the Bearcat engine had seized, but some of my older, hot-rodding friends promised to help me rebuild it. I was still living at home but I only had a job driving a truck for a grocery store, so it didn’t pay enough to cover the cost of the parts I needed. My mechanic friends started taking me to clubs at the weekend, even though I was underage, where I could pick-up money singing for tips. My friends would be chatting-up the girls who made and paid for the requests !
I was eager to get the car built so one Friday night, even though the gauges weren’t yet hooked-up, I decided to drive myself to the club. It felt glorious to be able to arrive in my own custom coupe ! The night went well and eventually I drove home with one of my friends. We came to a traffic light on the way, at the same time as a Ford 406 and a Chevy 409, both revving their engines and preparing to drag-race when the lights changed. My companion and I exchanged gleefully evil glances as I slid into the lane next to them. As the light changed, my under-the-hood Paxton-McCullagh supercharger howled like a banshee and, although they got off the line faster than I did, I quickly overtook both of them and left them choking in my exhaust.
I enjoyed my several seconds of triumph until I blew my engine ! To add insult to injury, a cop also wrote me a ticket for street-racing. I lost my beautiful coupe to a towing company, my driving license to the Registrar of Motor Vehicles and with it, my job driving the delivery truck. With nothing left before me but shame and misery, I did the only honourable thing a lad from Boston could do. I ran away to sea ! (Well, I joined the U.S.Navy, even if I never did get sea duty…)
About a week later, as my father drove me in silence to the Boston Naval Shipyard for the swearing-in ceremony, my mind drifted to the good times I’d had with my mechanically-inclined friends and how it had all led to the dismal state of affairs in which I found myself. I’ve always been able to escape into my imagination and this was definitely a time for it. The deathly silence in the car was becoming unbearable.
I decided to try to start a conversation with my father, explaining that my friends weren’t really bad company. I told him that if he ever went to a legitimate drag strip, or went to a Demolition Derby, he’d get a better idea of what I was on about. I told him about Norwood Arena, about the size of the crowds and their reactions to the mayhem on the track. As a matter of fact, I suggested, Demo Derby competitions would probably make a good subject for a movie. But he continued to drive in silence, so I shut up. He may have wished me good luck as he drove away, but I really don’t remember much except feeling that I must have been a terrible disappointment to him.
‘It probably was. My mother and grandmother used to read to me when I was just a toddler. I’d sit in a lap and look at the pictures, and would sometimes ask them to point out the words they were reading (probably just to make sure they weren’t making them up.) By the time I got to school, I didn’t have to wait for the teacher or the class but devoured the Dick & Jane books end to end, sounding out the words for myself on the first day. One of my early favourites was ‘My Father’s Dragon’ by Ruth Stiles Gannett. ‘Krimms’, featured on the ‘Odd Tales and Wonders, Stories in Rhyme’ CD, was inspired by A.A.Milne’s ‘Goops’, while ‘The Twaddle and the Gurck’ from the same CD was inspired by Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’. Also, at the same time, illustrations by Arthur Rackham on one hand and Walt Disney on the other led me to become fascinated with both illustration and animation.’
How did you first become interested in music ?
‘The earliest musical memories I have would be of popular songs associated with Christmas, as that was every childs’ favourite time of year. But I think the music that actually influenced me came from movie scores and the songs that I really remember from that time would be from musicals. The advent of transistor radios in the mid-Fifties led me to discover the whole new world of pop music… I had grown-up with orchestral scores and Big Band sounds, especially as my father had worked for WNAC-TV, but after Bill Haley and the Comets introduced me to rock’n’roll, in no time I was singing along to the likes of Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, The Everly Brothers, Bobby Darin, Roy Orbison and Ray Charles.’
You first started singing to audiences as part of a short-lived High School band, The Jesters. But your first ‘professional’ music-work was when you wrote the title song for the movie ‘Demo Derby’, which was produced by your father. How did the movie and the song come about ?
‘It goes back to when I bought my first car, a beautiful Studebaker Commander V8 Coupe, when I was 18 years old. It cost $50.00 because the Bearcat engine had seized, but some of my older, hot-rodding friends promised to help me rebuild it. I was still living at home but I only had a job driving a truck for a grocery store, so it didn’t pay enough to cover the cost of the parts I needed. My mechanic friends started taking me to clubs at the weekend, even though I was underage, where I could pick-up money singing for tips. My friends would be chatting-up the girls who made and paid for the requests !
I was eager to get the car built so one Friday night, even though the gauges weren’t yet hooked-up, I decided to drive myself to the club. It felt glorious to be able to arrive in my own custom coupe ! The night went well and eventually I drove home with one of my friends. We came to a traffic light on the way, at the same time as a Ford 406 and a Chevy 409, both revving their engines and preparing to drag-race when the lights changed. My companion and I exchanged gleefully evil glances as I slid into the lane next to them. As the light changed, my under-the-hood Paxton-McCullagh supercharger howled like a banshee and, although they got off the line faster than I did, I quickly overtook both of them and left them choking in my exhaust.
I enjoyed my several seconds of triumph until I blew my engine ! To add insult to injury, a cop also wrote me a ticket for street-racing. I lost my beautiful coupe to a towing company, my driving license to the Registrar of Motor Vehicles and with it, my job driving the delivery truck. With nothing left before me but shame and misery, I did the only honourable thing a lad from Boston could do. I ran away to sea ! (Well, I joined the U.S.Navy, even if I never did get sea duty…)
About a week later, as my father drove me in silence to the Boston Naval Shipyard for the swearing-in ceremony, my mind drifted to the good times I’d had with my mechanically-inclined friends and how it had all led to the dismal state of affairs in which I found myself. I’ve always been able to escape into my imagination and this was definitely a time for it. The deathly silence in the car was becoming unbearable.
I decided to try to start a conversation with my father, explaining that my friends weren’t really bad company. I told him that if he ever went to a legitimate drag strip, or went to a Demolition Derby, he’d get a better idea of what I was on about. I told him about Norwood Arena, about the size of the crowds and their reactions to the mayhem on the track. As a matter of fact, I suggested, Demo Derby competitions would probably make a good subject for a movie. But he continued to drive in silence, so I shut up. He may have wished me good luck as he drove away, but I really don’t remember much except feeling that I must have been a terrible disappointment to him.
However, when I came back home on leave, several months later, he showed me the silent ‘dailies’ of the footage he and his crew had since shot at Norwood Arena in my absence. By this point, he was running his own film company, Pike Productions, and they had really managed to capture the excitement on film. When he told me that they’d recorded all the sound, too, I said that it needed a rock’n’roll score to go with it. He suggested that, if I wanted to take a crack at it, I should go and get my guitar. By the time I returned with it, he’d set-up a Nagra tape recorder, so he showed me how to turn it on and off and then left me alone. I began improvising, singing and strumming into the tape recorder but after some time, I began repeating myself and grew bored with the whole process, so I turned off the tape recorder.
It wasn’t until I was in Germany some time later that I received a flyer in the mail, saying that the film, ‘Demo Derby’, had opened at the Paramount Theatre in Boston with ‘Robin and the Seven Hoods’ and also in three other theatres with ‘Viva Las Vegas’. It was subsequently booked into 64 other theatres and Drive-ins all across New England ! The flyer also said that the title track, ‘Demo Derby’, was performed by a band called The Rondels, but had been written by Travis Pike and Arthur Korb ! It turned out that Arthur had done all the arranging for the track and recorded it for the soundtrack. By the time I got back home and saw the movie in my fathers’ screening room, it had actually been run on thousands of screens across the USA, even alongside the Beatles ‘Hard Day’s Night’.’
It was while you were stationed in Germany during 1964 that you returned to singing. You enjoyed some success and popularity as well, but it actually came about, indirectly, from another car accident…
‘That’s true ! It all came about while I was approaching my first Christmas abroad, in Lutjenburg. I was sitting in a restaurant, poring through a menu and trying to translate everything as best I could, when a Nun entered. She worked her way through the bar, holding a can which I assumed was for a collection. As she came near me, I went to my wallet and pulled out Five DM, but she passed me by. I called out to her that I wished to help, but she seemed flustered. When I tried to put the money in the can, she explained that she wasn’t taking donations, she was offering the customers a chance to draw a slip of paper from the can which would have the name and age of an orphan, for whom they could pledge to buy a gift. When I understood her mission, I asked if I could draw two slips. I got two girls names, one around three years old, I think, and the other around six.
As it was nearly time for the shops to close, I left immediately and went to a nearby store where toys were sold. The two teenage sales clerks helped me choose appropriate gifts for the orphans and wrapped them beautifully. I left, bursting with good will, climbed into my Sunbeam Alpine and drove to the gatehouse of the Bundeswehr Kamp, where the gifts were to be dropped-off. I then turned the car around and started back down the hill.
The falling snow in the little town looked like something on a Christmas card, but it had also turned the cobblestone street into a slippery decline and I lost control of the car. I skidded sideways down the hill and crashed, albeit ever-so-gently, into a Gasthaus (tavern.) As gentle as the impact had been, it had still smashed the right headlight and bent the fender against the right wheel, which I had turned hard-over in the hope of correcting the skid. I had become used to thinking in German but as I sat there, my head was just full of remonstrations in English, so when a crowd of locals gathered, I couldn’t understand a word they said. Fortunately, just then the two girls from the shop approached and when they saw me, explained that I was the American who had just been in their shop, buying gifts for orphans. Suddenly, everyone became concerned for my well-being. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt and while I was trying to explain, a big man lifted me aside and began pounding the fender away from the pinned wheel. Before long, I was able to get in and start the car, to see if I could get home. The steering was working again, so with just one functional headlight, I was able to wave goodbye and go on my way.
Early the next day, I drove to a Mercedes workshop and arranged for the car to be repaired and re-painted. It would take about a week so I rented a car and went on my way. They called me when the repairs were done, so I could inspect their work before the painting was done. This was when I met Frank Dieter Andres, the autoschlosser (car mechanic) who had been assigned to my car. He was younger than me and something of an auto-freak. When he realised that we could converse in German, he decided to accompany me on the test drive so he could admire the car. He also asked what I did and I told him that I was in the U.S.Navy, but before that I had briefly been a rock’n’roll singer.
It wasn’t until I was in Germany some time later that I received a flyer in the mail, saying that the film, ‘Demo Derby’, had opened at the Paramount Theatre in Boston with ‘Robin and the Seven Hoods’ and also in three other theatres with ‘Viva Las Vegas’. It was subsequently booked into 64 other theatres and Drive-ins all across New England ! The flyer also said that the title track, ‘Demo Derby’, was performed by a band called The Rondels, but had been written by Travis Pike and Arthur Korb ! It turned out that Arthur had done all the arranging for the track and recorded it for the soundtrack. By the time I got back home and saw the movie in my fathers’ screening room, it had actually been run on thousands of screens across the USA, even alongside the Beatles ‘Hard Day’s Night’.’
It was while you were stationed in Germany during 1964 that you returned to singing. You enjoyed some success and popularity as well, but it actually came about, indirectly, from another car accident…
‘That’s true ! It all came about while I was approaching my first Christmas abroad, in Lutjenburg. I was sitting in a restaurant, poring through a menu and trying to translate everything as best I could, when a Nun entered. She worked her way through the bar, holding a can which I assumed was for a collection. As she came near me, I went to my wallet and pulled out Five DM, but she passed me by. I called out to her that I wished to help, but she seemed flustered. When I tried to put the money in the can, she explained that she wasn’t taking donations, she was offering the customers a chance to draw a slip of paper from the can which would have the name and age of an orphan, for whom they could pledge to buy a gift. When I understood her mission, I asked if I could draw two slips. I got two girls names, one around three years old, I think, and the other around six.
As it was nearly time for the shops to close, I left immediately and went to a nearby store where toys were sold. The two teenage sales clerks helped me choose appropriate gifts for the orphans and wrapped them beautifully. I left, bursting with good will, climbed into my Sunbeam Alpine and drove to the gatehouse of the Bundeswehr Kamp, where the gifts were to be dropped-off. I then turned the car around and started back down the hill.
The falling snow in the little town looked like something on a Christmas card, but it had also turned the cobblestone street into a slippery decline and I lost control of the car. I skidded sideways down the hill and crashed, albeit ever-so-gently, into a Gasthaus (tavern.) As gentle as the impact had been, it had still smashed the right headlight and bent the fender against the right wheel, which I had turned hard-over in the hope of correcting the skid. I had become used to thinking in German but as I sat there, my head was just full of remonstrations in English, so when a crowd of locals gathered, I couldn’t understand a word they said. Fortunately, just then the two girls from the shop approached and when they saw me, explained that I was the American who had just been in their shop, buying gifts for orphans. Suddenly, everyone became concerned for my well-being. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt and while I was trying to explain, a big man lifted me aside and began pounding the fender away from the pinned wheel. Before long, I was able to get in and start the car, to see if I could get home. The steering was working again, so with just one functional headlight, I was able to wave goodbye and go on my way.
Early the next day, I drove to a Mercedes workshop and arranged for the car to be repaired and re-painted. It would take about a week so I rented a car and went on my way. They called me when the repairs were done, so I could inspect their work before the painting was done. This was when I met Frank Dieter Andres, the autoschlosser (car mechanic) who had been assigned to my car. He was younger than me and something of an auto-freak. When he realised that we could converse in German, he decided to accompany me on the test drive so he could admire the car. He also asked what I did and I told him that I was in the U.S.Navy, but before that I had briefly been a rock’n’roll singer.
It turned out that automobiles and rock’n’roll were his passions, so the next time I saw him, I gave him a stack of American Hot-Rod magazines. He was fascinated by the rail jobs and custom cars so, when it was time for him to knock-off work for the day, we went to a nearby ice-cream parlour where we could sit and talk and I could explain what he was seeing in the magazines. As we were talking in German, our conversation soon attracted a small crowd of younger kids who gathered to look at the photos.
Frank was living with his grandparents and invited me to have dinner with them. He wanted to show me his electric guitar and introduced me to the most awful rendition of ‘My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean’ that I had ever heard ! Apparently, it had recently been recorded by The Beatles. As I had been in the Navy since April 1963, they had not yet appeared on my horizon and, if Franks’ version of ‘My Bonnie’ was an example, I could only hope that they never would ! (I must add that I did finally hear the Beatles on German Radio, singing ‘Sie Liebe Dich’ (‘She Loves You’) and 'Komm gib Mir Deine Hand’ (‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.) The track that Frank had played really hadn’t done them justice !) Frank handed me his guitar and I sang a few songs from my American repertoire. After that, I’d join him and his friends on weekends and we’d make the rounds of the dance bars, where Frank would talk the house band into letting me sing a few songs with them. I fell into a familiar routine, except that in Germany, the tips were drinks and, having never been much of a drinker, I became even more popular by sharing the drinks !
You ended up singing with two different German bands, The Vampiros and the The Nightstars, which later morphed into The Five Beats…
‘True, but to understand what happened, we’ll have to back-up a bit. By May 1964, I’d earned a bit of a reputation in my little corner of Germany and somehow found myself booked at two different dance hall venues on the same night ! Fortunately, the owners of the Gasthaus Schroeder in Behrensdorf, a popular resort on the coast of the Baltic Sea, were able to come-up with an amicable solution with the owners of the Koralle in Plon, which was some 30 minutes away by car. I’d open the evening with The Vampiros at 8 o’clock in Behrensdorf, end there at 8.40 and be delivered to Plon to open the show with The Nightstars at 9:10. When they took their break at 9:50, I’d be taken back to Behrensdorf to rejoin The Vampiros between 10:20-11:00, and then back to Plon to close out their 11:00 show by 12:00. After this, I was back to Behrensdorf for their Midnight show, one more time in Plon for their 1:00 performance and then back to Behrensdorf one final time for their final set, which closed the club at 3:00am. In hindsight, I’m not sure if all these details are entirely accurate or even if we managed to keep to all of it, but the promoter, Werner Hingst, who went back and forth with me that night, decided that he never wanted to do it again and proposed that I pick the best musicians from each band and he’d persuade them to come together to form a new supergroup with me.
On the Sunday, after I recovered from all the back and forth madness, I quietly evaluated the players in both bands with an eye to Werner’s proposition. Enriko Lombardi of The Nightstars was a talented singer and bass player while their drummer ‘Ringo’ (aka Norbert Wechselbaum) also sang and kept a strong, steady beat. As for The Vampiros, their singer and lead singer ‘Eddie Christers’ was excellent (until I appeared, he had been fronting the band.) Their saxophone player, ‘Charly Ross’ and their rhythm guitarist, ‘Chorty West’, rounded out my selection. Werner made all the arrangements and the newly-formed band decided to call themselves The Five Beats.’
Frank was living with his grandparents and invited me to have dinner with them. He wanted to show me his electric guitar and introduced me to the most awful rendition of ‘My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean’ that I had ever heard ! Apparently, it had recently been recorded by The Beatles. As I had been in the Navy since April 1963, they had not yet appeared on my horizon and, if Franks’ version of ‘My Bonnie’ was an example, I could only hope that they never would ! (I must add that I did finally hear the Beatles on German Radio, singing ‘Sie Liebe Dich’ (‘She Loves You’) and 'Komm gib Mir Deine Hand’ (‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.) The track that Frank had played really hadn’t done them justice !) Frank handed me his guitar and I sang a few songs from my American repertoire. After that, I’d join him and his friends on weekends and we’d make the rounds of the dance bars, where Frank would talk the house band into letting me sing a few songs with them. I fell into a familiar routine, except that in Germany, the tips were drinks and, having never been much of a drinker, I became even more popular by sharing the drinks !
You ended up singing with two different German bands, The Vampiros and the The Nightstars, which later morphed into The Five Beats…
‘True, but to understand what happened, we’ll have to back-up a bit. By May 1964, I’d earned a bit of a reputation in my little corner of Germany and somehow found myself booked at two different dance hall venues on the same night ! Fortunately, the owners of the Gasthaus Schroeder in Behrensdorf, a popular resort on the coast of the Baltic Sea, were able to come-up with an amicable solution with the owners of the Koralle in Plon, which was some 30 minutes away by car. I’d open the evening with The Vampiros at 8 o’clock in Behrensdorf, end there at 8.40 and be delivered to Plon to open the show with The Nightstars at 9:10. When they took their break at 9:50, I’d be taken back to Behrensdorf to rejoin The Vampiros between 10:20-11:00, and then back to Plon to close out their 11:00 show by 12:00. After this, I was back to Behrensdorf for their Midnight show, one more time in Plon for their 1:00 performance and then back to Behrensdorf one final time for their final set, which closed the club at 3:00am. In hindsight, I’m not sure if all these details are entirely accurate or even if we managed to keep to all of it, but the promoter, Werner Hingst, who went back and forth with me that night, decided that he never wanted to do it again and proposed that I pick the best musicians from each band and he’d persuade them to come together to form a new supergroup with me.
On the Sunday, after I recovered from all the back and forth madness, I quietly evaluated the players in both bands with an eye to Werner’s proposition. Enriko Lombardi of The Nightstars was a talented singer and bass player while their drummer ‘Ringo’ (aka Norbert Wechselbaum) also sang and kept a strong, steady beat. As for The Vampiros, their singer and lead singer ‘Eddie Christers’ was excellent (until I appeared, he had been fronting the band.) Their saxophone player, ‘Charly Ross’ and their rhythm guitarist, ‘Chorty West’, rounded out my selection. Werner made all the arrangements and the newly-formed band decided to call themselves The Five Beats.’
You started to develop theatrical skits as part of the new show, adding a more elaborate dimension to the performances…
‘Well, The Vampiros had sometimes worn top hats and bat-winged capes onstage, although it was nothing to do with their actual repertoire. They also sometimes played ‘Jungle’ shows, where they’d dress up in wigs and leopard skins, or ‘Bedouin’ shows, where they’d don turbans and robes. I suggested that we continue the costuming but that the music should relate to it. I taught them Lieber & Stoller’s ‘Love Potion No.9’ to go with the vampire costuming. While it wasn’t actually about a vampire, it still sounded spooky and I expected the German audiences would be reacting more to the sound of the music than the lyrics, anyway.’
Unfortunately, another car-accident in Germany, this time more serious, cut short your career with The Five Beats and led to you being returned to Massachusetts.
‘Things were going splendidly well and I was told that Werner was talking to interested parties at both Polydor and Phillips Records. I was concerned that the US Navy might refuse to let me sign a contract while I was still in the service, but before this issue was even raised, I was involved in another automobile accident. On a quiet rural road being resurfaced with fresh tar, a Bundeswehr armoured vehicle skidded into my little sportscar. I saw the hood (bonnet, you’d say) start to crumple, quickly turned away and never felt the impact. I never even heard the crash !The next thing I knew, some men pulled me out of the car. Commotion ensued and I withdrew into my own thoughts. When a German ambulance arrived, there was some sort of to-do that I gather had something to do with the fact that, being an American Navy Soldat, they were uncertain about whether they were authorized to cart me off to a German hospital. Anyway, after treatment my recovery was slow and some weeks later I was flown Stateside for bone graft surgery on the ankle broken in the crash.
But instead of allowing this setback to curtail your ambitions, you continued writing new material and also took advantage of new opportunities that opened-up once you were back in Boston…
‘I like your version ! Clearly, I would never be the ‘Twistsensation aus USA’ again, but there were others on the Naval hospital’s orthopedic ward far worse-off than me and, at least, being just across the river from Boston, my family could visit me regularly and, as my recovery progressed, I was given liberty to go home on weekends. I still spent weekdays in the hospital, but one of the elderly Red Cross volunteers loaned me a guitar to give me something to occupy my mind. I began writing new songs, taught myself an untrained and awkward finger-picking technique and eventually, they started wheeling me around the wards to entertain the other patients with parodies of popular songs and some original songs that I had composed for The Five Beats, in anticipation of an eventual return to Germany.
My first composition was ‘End of Summer’, a wistful ballad with verses in both German and English, followed by ‘Till The End’, a vampire song to go along with the top hats and capes. I had considered using Ray Stevens’ song ‘Ahab the Arab’ for the Bedouin show, but instead wrote my own song, ‘Ali Baba Ben Jones’. All three songs were well-received on the hospital wards and later on, in 1967, both ‘End of Summer’ and ‘Ali Baba Ben Jones’ would became staples in the repertoire of Travis Pike’s Tea Party and we even performed ‘Till The End’ on special occasions, complete with a coffin and a pretty female victim in a suitably diaphanous dress onstage !’
‘Well, The Vampiros had sometimes worn top hats and bat-winged capes onstage, although it was nothing to do with their actual repertoire. They also sometimes played ‘Jungle’ shows, where they’d dress up in wigs and leopard skins, or ‘Bedouin’ shows, where they’d don turbans and robes. I suggested that we continue the costuming but that the music should relate to it. I taught them Lieber & Stoller’s ‘Love Potion No.9’ to go with the vampire costuming. While it wasn’t actually about a vampire, it still sounded spooky and I expected the German audiences would be reacting more to the sound of the music than the lyrics, anyway.’
Unfortunately, another car-accident in Germany, this time more serious, cut short your career with The Five Beats and led to you being returned to Massachusetts.
‘Things were going splendidly well and I was told that Werner was talking to interested parties at both Polydor and Phillips Records. I was concerned that the US Navy might refuse to let me sign a contract while I was still in the service, but before this issue was even raised, I was involved in another automobile accident. On a quiet rural road being resurfaced with fresh tar, a Bundeswehr armoured vehicle skidded into my little sportscar. I saw the hood (bonnet, you’d say) start to crumple, quickly turned away and never felt the impact. I never even heard the crash !The next thing I knew, some men pulled me out of the car. Commotion ensued and I withdrew into my own thoughts. When a German ambulance arrived, there was some sort of to-do that I gather had something to do with the fact that, being an American Navy Soldat, they were uncertain about whether they were authorized to cart me off to a German hospital. Anyway, after treatment my recovery was slow and some weeks later I was flown Stateside for bone graft surgery on the ankle broken in the crash.
But instead of allowing this setback to curtail your ambitions, you continued writing new material and also took advantage of new opportunities that opened-up once you were back in Boston…
‘I like your version ! Clearly, I would never be the ‘Twistsensation aus USA’ again, but there were others on the Naval hospital’s orthopedic ward far worse-off than me and, at least, being just across the river from Boston, my family could visit me regularly and, as my recovery progressed, I was given liberty to go home on weekends. I still spent weekdays in the hospital, but one of the elderly Red Cross volunteers loaned me a guitar to give me something to occupy my mind. I began writing new songs, taught myself an untrained and awkward finger-picking technique and eventually, they started wheeling me around the wards to entertain the other patients with parodies of popular songs and some original songs that I had composed for The Five Beats, in anticipation of an eventual return to Germany.
My first composition was ‘End of Summer’, a wistful ballad with verses in both German and English, followed by ‘Till The End’, a vampire song to go along with the top hats and capes. I had considered using Ray Stevens’ song ‘Ahab the Arab’ for the Bedouin show, but instead wrote my own song, ‘Ali Baba Ben Jones’. All three songs were well-received on the hospital wards and later on, in 1967, both ‘End of Summer’ and ‘Ali Baba Ben Jones’ would became staples in the repertoire of Travis Pike’s Tea Party and we even performed ‘Till The End’ on special occasions, complete with a coffin and a pretty female victim in a suitably diaphanous dress onstage !’
Whilst still recuperating, you were approached by a band called The New Jesters, who included the younger brother of your former drummer in The Jesters. They asked if you would make an appearance as guest vocalist at one of their upcoming shows. This must have come as a surprise for you…
‘You got that right ! The visit from The New Jesters came as a complete surprise. I hadn’t known that any of The Jesters had any siblings, much less that one had inherited the drum set and carried on. My immediate reaction was a polite refusal as I was still on crutches and barely ambulatory, but while they pleaded their case, my father came in and offered to drive me there and back if I wanted to do it. That, for all practical purpose, decided the issue. We talked about the songs I would sing and I even sang them accompanied by their guitarist, who’d had the foresight to bring along an acoustic guitar. They agreed to rehearse the songs in my key and gave me the details for the show. As I was still a patient at the Naval Hospital during the week, I didn’t see them again until the night of the show. I think we went on last and it was the first time my father had ever seen me sing with a band and experience the incredible audience reaction.’
In fact, it was this event that inspired him to produce the movie ‘Feelin’ Good’, which remains a cult-favourite to this day. The film featured eight of your songs and you fronted a band called the Brattle Street East.
‘One minor correction… I actually wrote ten songs for the movie, but only performed eight of them on screen. The other two included the title song and were both performed by The Montclairs. It’s a pet peeve of mine that all the publicity releases at the time claimed I wrote eight songs for the movie, but in fact I wrote ten, two for The Montclairs and eight that I performed with the Brattle Street East.’
Outside of the movie, they were a real band called ‘Oedipus and His Mothers’. Why was their name changed for the movie, and was there ever any thoughts of you continuing to perform with them after the film was released ?
‘I didn’t know the band before then so when I saw ‘The Brattle Street East’ on the marquee, I assumed that was their name. Only when they asked me why their name had been changed did I learn that they were actually called ‘Oedupis and His Mothers’. I suspect that the name change was a storyline invention, an attempt to make a connection with Harvard University (three of the band attended Harvard and the University admissions office is on Brattle Street…) As for fronting the band after the movie, I was still in the navy at the time and had been flying up to Boston on weekends to do my scenes so, frankly, it never came up. I never considered them to be my band and they were already a complete unit, so I doubt they ever considered asking me to join them.’
After being discharged from the Navy, your next musical outings were playing solo in the ‘coffeehouse’ scene around Boston. What were your impressions of this new scene and how well do you think you fitted-in with the other singer-songwriters around you at the time ?
‘The entire coffeehouse scene was a revelation to me. I first became aware of it in September 1966 when I attended a hootenanny in The Loft, in Boston’s Back Bay. I was still walking with a cane, so it was a joy to discover a venue where I could sit on a stool to pick, strum and sing painlessly, even late into the night. It was also a great confidence builder to be back onstage in front of appreciative audiences. I got along well with all the other folksingers but what set me apart was that, having served in the military, I wasn’t afraid to take a gig in bars like King Arthurs, which was frequented by service men and women. When I performed folksongs, they tended to be novelties such as ‘The Cat Came Back’, a late 19th century composition that always went over particularly well. On top of that, I played my own compositions and tended to be apolitical, whereas many of the other folksingers played anti-War or anti-establishment protest songs. Not that their opposition to the war and the draft was at all surprising, and it wasn’t just the young men who protested. The ladies were at least as vociferous, perhaps fearing that their fathers, brothers, husbands or lovers might suddenly be called up, go off to war and never return.’
‘You got that right ! The visit from The New Jesters came as a complete surprise. I hadn’t known that any of The Jesters had any siblings, much less that one had inherited the drum set and carried on. My immediate reaction was a polite refusal as I was still on crutches and barely ambulatory, but while they pleaded their case, my father came in and offered to drive me there and back if I wanted to do it. That, for all practical purpose, decided the issue. We talked about the songs I would sing and I even sang them accompanied by their guitarist, who’d had the foresight to bring along an acoustic guitar. They agreed to rehearse the songs in my key and gave me the details for the show. As I was still a patient at the Naval Hospital during the week, I didn’t see them again until the night of the show. I think we went on last and it was the first time my father had ever seen me sing with a band and experience the incredible audience reaction.’
In fact, it was this event that inspired him to produce the movie ‘Feelin’ Good’, which remains a cult-favourite to this day. The film featured eight of your songs and you fronted a band called the Brattle Street East.
‘One minor correction… I actually wrote ten songs for the movie, but only performed eight of them on screen. The other two included the title song and were both performed by The Montclairs. It’s a pet peeve of mine that all the publicity releases at the time claimed I wrote eight songs for the movie, but in fact I wrote ten, two for The Montclairs and eight that I performed with the Brattle Street East.’
Outside of the movie, they were a real band called ‘Oedipus and His Mothers’. Why was their name changed for the movie, and was there ever any thoughts of you continuing to perform with them after the film was released ?
‘I didn’t know the band before then so when I saw ‘The Brattle Street East’ on the marquee, I assumed that was their name. Only when they asked me why their name had been changed did I learn that they were actually called ‘Oedupis and His Mothers’. I suspect that the name change was a storyline invention, an attempt to make a connection with Harvard University (three of the band attended Harvard and the University admissions office is on Brattle Street…) As for fronting the band after the movie, I was still in the navy at the time and had been flying up to Boston on weekends to do my scenes so, frankly, it never came up. I never considered them to be my band and they were already a complete unit, so I doubt they ever considered asking me to join them.’
After being discharged from the Navy, your next musical outings were playing solo in the ‘coffeehouse’ scene around Boston. What were your impressions of this new scene and how well do you think you fitted-in with the other singer-songwriters around you at the time ?
‘The entire coffeehouse scene was a revelation to me. I first became aware of it in September 1966 when I attended a hootenanny in The Loft, in Boston’s Back Bay. I was still walking with a cane, so it was a joy to discover a venue where I could sit on a stool to pick, strum and sing painlessly, even late into the night. It was also a great confidence builder to be back onstage in front of appreciative audiences. I got along well with all the other folksingers but what set me apart was that, having served in the military, I wasn’t afraid to take a gig in bars like King Arthurs, which was frequented by service men and women. When I performed folksongs, they tended to be novelties such as ‘The Cat Came Back’, a late 19th century composition that always went over particularly well. On top of that, I played my own compositions and tended to be apolitical, whereas many of the other folksingers played anti-War or anti-establishment protest songs. Not that their opposition to the war and the draft was at all surprising, and it wasn’t just the young men who protested. The ladies were at least as vociferous, perhaps fearing that their fathers, brothers, husbands or lovers might suddenly be called up, go off to war and never return.’
Although you enjoyed playing solo and also enjoyed success in doing so, you next decided to form a new band, The Boston Massacre. Had you been missing being a part of a band ?
‘Yes. Most of the songs I sang in the ‘Feelin’ Good’ movie had been written for The Five Beats, in anticipation of one day returning to Germany to pick-up where I’d let off. I had tried a few out just with a guitar while I was entertaining on the hospital wards but I couldn’t really do them justice. So I concentrated on ballads and novelty songs, combined with some genuine folk songs, for my coffeeshop repertoire. However, the press releases and interviews leading up to the premiere of ‘Feelin’ Good’ had played big in the local newspapers and, while I was not a rock star, I did enjoy significant name recognition in much of New England. I included ‘Don’t Hurt Me Again’ and ‘I Beg Your Pardon’ to my set, but even then I would sometimes get requests for one of the rock songs from the movie. It left me wishing I had a band !
I was still limping and was not convinced I could make a come-back in rock’n’roll, but I got the nudge I needed to go for it when Ray Fornier, a recording engineer from Nashville, came to Boston to record a live performance in a nightclub. He came by the studios where I was working to test our Ampex 4-track system and, to that extent, he asked me to play a few songs so he could check the equipment. Before the session ended, he’d called Roy Acuff (famed Country singer) and told him that he’d found the next Marty Robbins ! This resulted in an invitation to go to Nashville but, much as I liked Hank Williams and Marty Robbins, Country & Western music just wasn’t my genre. Rather than offend Ray by turning down the offer, I asked for a few days to think it over. When he came back to the studio a few days later, I played a parody of the then-popular song ‘Long Tall Texan’ and I think he realised that I wouldn’t be going to Nashville, but laughed at my line about a ten gallon hat, when people called out, ‘Yo, Trav ! What the Hell is that ?’
Afterwards, my friends couldn’t believe I’d turned down the offer, but my conclusion was that, if I was good enough for Nashville, I was probably good enough for New York. I wanted to assemble a group specifically to perform and, ultimately, record my own growing catalogue of songs.
The Boston Massacre were one of the bands who played at the WRKO Harbor Happening event in 1967.
‘Yes, we played on one cruise ship and the Rockin’ Ramrods played on the other.
What do you particularly remember about this event ?
‘We were set-up on the deck, out in the middle of the harbor. It was cold and windy which caused us to have to have to retune about every second or third song ! And the sound balance was terrible – the sound engineer said it sounded good out on the deck but it was hard for the band to hear themselves. The promotion leading up to the event was excellent but I can’t really say how well it went for the audience – I assume they must have been as cold as we were ! Unfortunately for us, the most memorable thing was when we returned to the dock and I discovered that my car had been stolen, along with my four-track recorder and several sets of stage costumes that I carried in the trunk. Neither the car or its’ contents were ever recovered.’
‘Yes. Most of the songs I sang in the ‘Feelin’ Good’ movie had been written for The Five Beats, in anticipation of one day returning to Germany to pick-up where I’d let off. I had tried a few out just with a guitar while I was entertaining on the hospital wards but I couldn’t really do them justice. So I concentrated on ballads and novelty songs, combined with some genuine folk songs, for my coffeeshop repertoire. However, the press releases and interviews leading up to the premiere of ‘Feelin’ Good’ had played big in the local newspapers and, while I was not a rock star, I did enjoy significant name recognition in much of New England. I included ‘Don’t Hurt Me Again’ and ‘I Beg Your Pardon’ to my set, but even then I would sometimes get requests for one of the rock songs from the movie. It left me wishing I had a band !
I was still limping and was not convinced I could make a come-back in rock’n’roll, but I got the nudge I needed to go for it when Ray Fornier, a recording engineer from Nashville, came to Boston to record a live performance in a nightclub. He came by the studios where I was working to test our Ampex 4-track system and, to that extent, he asked me to play a few songs so he could check the equipment. Before the session ended, he’d called Roy Acuff (famed Country singer) and told him that he’d found the next Marty Robbins ! This resulted in an invitation to go to Nashville but, much as I liked Hank Williams and Marty Robbins, Country & Western music just wasn’t my genre. Rather than offend Ray by turning down the offer, I asked for a few days to think it over. When he came back to the studio a few days later, I played a parody of the then-popular song ‘Long Tall Texan’ and I think he realised that I wouldn’t be going to Nashville, but laughed at my line about a ten gallon hat, when people called out, ‘Yo, Trav ! What the Hell is that ?’
Afterwards, my friends couldn’t believe I’d turned down the offer, but my conclusion was that, if I was good enough for Nashville, I was probably good enough for New York. I wanted to assemble a group specifically to perform and, ultimately, record my own growing catalogue of songs.
The Boston Massacre were one of the bands who played at the WRKO Harbor Happening event in 1967.
‘Yes, we played on one cruise ship and the Rockin’ Ramrods played on the other.
What do you particularly remember about this event ?
‘We were set-up on the deck, out in the middle of the harbor. It was cold and windy which caused us to have to have to retune about every second or third song ! And the sound balance was terrible – the sound engineer said it sounded good out on the deck but it was hard for the band to hear themselves. The promotion leading up to the event was excellent but I can’t really say how well it went for the audience – I assume they must have been as cold as we were ! Unfortunately for us, the most memorable thing was when we returned to the dock and I discovered that my car had been stolen, along with my four-track recorder and several sets of stage costumes that I carried in the trunk. Neither the car or its’ contents were ever recovered.’
You mention in your book that there was a ‘demo-album’ by The Boston Massacre. Do any of these original recordings still exist ?
‘Not to my knowledge, although my brother, Adam, managed to recover five songs from a reel of half-inch tape. These were recordings made during rehearsals at Lightfoot studios. Four of these songs made it onto our demo-album. The other song, ‘Bad Week’, was viable but it never made it into our regular repertoire. It wasn’t until Adam and I began recording my back catalogue more recently that he suggested I reconsider it. I agreed, but wrote fresh lyrics and renamed it ‘Cold, Cold Morning’, and it now opens the ‘Feelin’ Better’ CD, which also includes ‘End of Summer’. Also, thinking at the time that the movie ‘Feelin’ Good’ and its’ soundtrack had been lost, I recorded new versions of ‘Watch Out Woman’, re-titled ‘Things Aren’t Always What They Seem’, ‘The Way That I Need You’ and five other songs from the soundtrack for the ‘Feelin’ Better’ CD. Since then, I’ve also released new versions of the songs ‘Okay’ and ‘One Ten Blues’ on the ‘Tea Party Snack Platter’ CD, while ‘End of Summer’ is the opening track on the ‘Odd Tales and Wonders, Stories in Song’ CD, which also features ‘Ali Baba Ben Jones’ and ‘The Dragon Song’.’
Shortly after the Harbor Happening event, you decided to change the name of the band to The Tea Party, for the good of the band as a whole, but you also declined a chance to sign a solo deal for your song ‘End of Summer’ and, on a separate occasion, you and guitarist Karl Garrett turned down an offer to work with Kama Sutra / Buddha Records, as it would not have included the other band members. Do you think this kind of integrity within bands was common in bands around that time ?
‘No, but I made an agreement with the other band members when I recruited them. We were pledged to play only original material, which meant my songs, and since they had to rehearse and record without any pay, I promised that I wouldn’t ‘leave them behind’ if a record deal was only offered to me (as was common for vocalists at the time.) For me, that also included not signing separate publishing deals for songs that would never have been heard by the publisher had the band not recorded them with me.’
Around this time, the so-called ‘Boston Sound’ was being touted in the regional press. Do you think that being included in such a category was actually damaging towards the band, especially as your musical output was so varied ?
‘The only thing that limited us was the paucity of imagination at the record companies. We didn’t fit into any of their pre-conceived niches, so they didn’t know how to market us. I was ‘Outside The Box’ to them, which they translated as non-commercial. For an industry that purported to offer new songs, new artists and the big new sounds, they really didn’t want to hear anything new. But apart from not being able to land a recording contract, to ourselves and our fans, being non- commercial was actually a good thing.’
‘Not to my knowledge, although my brother, Adam, managed to recover five songs from a reel of half-inch tape. These were recordings made during rehearsals at Lightfoot studios. Four of these songs made it onto our demo-album. The other song, ‘Bad Week’, was viable but it never made it into our regular repertoire. It wasn’t until Adam and I began recording my back catalogue more recently that he suggested I reconsider it. I agreed, but wrote fresh lyrics and renamed it ‘Cold, Cold Morning’, and it now opens the ‘Feelin’ Better’ CD, which also includes ‘End of Summer’. Also, thinking at the time that the movie ‘Feelin’ Good’ and its’ soundtrack had been lost, I recorded new versions of ‘Watch Out Woman’, re-titled ‘Things Aren’t Always What They Seem’, ‘The Way That I Need You’ and five other songs from the soundtrack for the ‘Feelin’ Better’ CD. Since then, I’ve also released new versions of the songs ‘Okay’ and ‘One Ten Blues’ on the ‘Tea Party Snack Platter’ CD, while ‘End of Summer’ is the opening track on the ‘Odd Tales and Wonders, Stories in Song’ CD, which also features ‘Ali Baba Ben Jones’ and ‘The Dragon Song’.’
Shortly after the Harbor Happening event, you decided to change the name of the band to The Tea Party, for the good of the band as a whole, but you also declined a chance to sign a solo deal for your song ‘End of Summer’ and, on a separate occasion, you and guitarist Karl Garrett turned down an offer to work with Kama Sutra / Buddha Records, as it would not have included the other band members. Do you think this kind of integrity within bands was common in bands around that time ?
‘No, but I made an agreement with the other band members when I recruited them. We were pledged to play only original material, which meant my songs, and since they had to rehearse and record without any pay, I promised that I wouldn’t ‘leave them behind’ if a record deal was only offered to me (as was common for vocalists at the time.) For me, that also included not signing separate publishing deals for songs that would never have been heard by the publisher had the band not recorded them with me.’
Around this time, the so-called ‘Boston Sound’ was being touted in the regional press. Do you think that being included in such a category was actually damaging towards the band, especially as your musical output was so varied ?
‘The only thing that limited us was the paucity of imagination at the record companies. We didn’t fit into any of their pre-conceived niches, so they didn’t know how to market us. I was ‘Outside The Box’ to them, which they translated as non-commercial. For an industry that purported to offer new songs, new artists and the big new sounds, they really didn’t want to hear anything new. But apart from not being able to land a recording contract, to ourselves and our fans, being non- commercial was actually a good thing.’
The band did eventually get a deal with Alma Records and released the single ‘If I Didn’t Love You Girl’ / ‘The Likes of You’, which coincided with your involvement in a new TV show on WBZ, ‘Here and Now’. But despite this exposure and the band being a very-popular live act at the time, the single didn’t sell as well as expected (since becoming a sought-after collector’s item !) Was there no talk of the band releasing further records with Alma ?
‘We were hired by Boston’s WBZ-TV to provide music for their new comedy-variety show ‘Here and Now’ so we hadn’t lined-up any gigs for the Summer of 1968. But ‘Here and Now’ proved to be too controversial for the station and it was cancelled after only the third episode was completed. We were suddenly out of work and, with all the local venues already booked-up over the Summer, we were unlikely to get any gigs before the students returned to their colleges in the fall. As for our record, WRKO Radio refused to play it because we had been working with their rivals, WBZ, so anticipated revenue from the release of the single didn’t materialize and an advance for anything else became out of the question. As the TV show had been cancelled and with WRKO against us, we were like road kill in Boston. We decided to relocate to Los Angeles and I went to see Joe Saia, who was one of the partners in Alma Records. He was a reasonable man so he gave us a release from our recording contract, shook my hand and wished me luck.’
As you said, the band decided to relocate to Los Angeles, which came after you were given a chance to visit California. It must have seemed like the ideal answer to the problems you were having in Boston, but the (literal !) loss of rhythm guitarist George Brox set things back which resulted in a slow-start to your plans. Do you think it was this loss of impetus that eventually led to the demise of the band ?
‘The loss of George was the beginning of the end. As we had no work lined-up, and before the idea of relocating even occurred, George had decided to go to Cape Cod for the Summer. But when the rest of us decided to move to Los Angeles, we simply couldn’t find him ! We’d all been together for more than a year at this time and prided ourselves on only playing original material, but without George we were unable to play anything the way it had been previously arranged. While I was back East, Karl and Mikey Joe found a new rhythm guitarist but in the two weeks I was away, hadn’t even begun to teach him any of our songs. It meant we would not be up to speed for a pending gig at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go, which I subsequently had to cancel. In California, we found we were on our own, with few friends, no fans and no family members who might have been able to help us through the transition. Our new rhythm guitarist had to learn our songs but was either slow or deliberately procrastinating. Either way, his failure to get up to speed led to the band having to play Top 40 tunes, which he already new and which the rest of us could pick up quickly. Even so, we did still get offers from a few record companies. Sidewalk Records, owned by Mike Curb before he merged with MGM, made an offer based on our demo-album. I presented the offer to the group without comment, and they poo-pooed it. They argued that they hadn’t moved all the way across the country to live in the shadow of the Capital Records building, only to sign-up with a no-name independent. It was probably a big mistake, but I had never heard of Sidewalk Records or Mike Curb at the time, either, so I agreed with them to look elsewhere. We did get further interest from other independent record producers, but the band always turned them down for the lack of a deal with a major record company logo on the letterhead.’
‘We were hired by Boston’s WBZ-TV to provide music for their new comedy-variety show ‘Here and Now’ so we hadn’t lined-up any gigs for the Summer of 1968. But ‘Here and Now’ proved to be too controversial for the station and it was cancelled after only the third episode was completed. We were suddenly out of work and, with all the local venues already booked-up over the Summer, we were unlikely to get any gigs before the students returned to their colleges in the fall. As for our record, WRKO Radio refused to play it because we had been working with their rivals, WBZ, so anticipated revenue from the release of the single didn’t materialize and an advance for anything else became out of the question. As the TV show had been cancelled and with WRKO against us, we were like road kill in Boston. We decided to relocate to Los Angeles and I went to see Joe Saia, who was one of the partners in Alma Records. He was a reasonable man so he gave us a release from our recording contract, shook my hand and wished me luck.’
As you said, the band decided to relocate to Los Angeles, which came after you were given a chance to visit California. It must have seemed like the ideal answer to the problems you were having in Boston, but the (literal !) loss of rhythm guitarist George Brox set things back which resulted in a slow-start to your plans. Do you think it was this loss of impetus that eventually led to the demise of the band ?
‘The loss of George was the beginning of the end. As we had no work lined-up, and before the idea of relocating even occurred, George had decided to go to Cape Cod for the Summer. But when the rest of us decided to move to Los Angeles, we simply couldn’t find him ! We’d all been together for more than a year at this time and prided ourselves on only playing original material, but without George we were unable to play anything the way it had been previously arranged. While I was back East, Karl and Mikey Joe found a new rhythm guitarist but in the two weeks I was away, hadn’t even begun to teach him any of our songs. It meant we would not be up to speed for a pending gig at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go, which I subsequently had to cancel. In California, we found we were on our own, with few friends, no fans and no family members who might have been able to help us through the transition. Our new rhythm guitarist had to learn our songs but was either slow or deliberately procrastinating. Either way, his failure to get up to speed led to the band having to play Top 40 tunes, which he already new and which the rest of us could pick up quickly. Even so, we did still get offers from a few record companies. Sidewalk Records, owned by Mike Curb before he merged with MGM, made an offer based on our demo-album. I presented the offer to the group without comment, and they poo-pooed it. They argued that they hadn’t moved all the way across the country to live in the shadow of the Capital Records building, only to sign-up with a no-name independent. It was probably a big mistake, but I had never heard of Sidewalk Records or Mike Curb at the time, either, so I agreed with them to look elsewhere. We did get further interest from other independent record producers, but the band always turned them down for the lack of a deal with a major record company logo on the letterhead.’
After The Tea Party came to an end, you became more involved with script-writing and film-scores. Do you think that was a natural evolution, following your previous performance and story-telling experiences ?
‘Well, the only complete score to my credit was for the Golden Globe-nominated film ‘The Second Gun’. That came about when the producer, Gerard Alcan, heard me sing my song ‘End of Summer’ at a Christmas party in Hollywood. He said it captured the perfect Zeitgeist for his film, which was suggesting the possibility of another gunman being involved in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. I granted him the synchronisation rights for the music, but I wouldn’t let him use the lyrics as I didn’t want the song tainted by an association to the assassination. Keeping in mind that with such heavy material, less would be more, all I added to it for the score were ‘zingers’ played on electric guitar, single strident notes that underscored and emphasised whatever salient points the film made.
Before then, I had written the title song for ‘Demo Derby’ and I wrote ten songs for ‘Feelin’ Good’ which were arranged by Arthur Korb so he is credited for that score. I also wrote songs and themes for some of my original screenplays, including a complete score and all the songs for what is now ‘Changeling’s Return’, but since those films have yet to be made, I can’t really call them ‘film scores’, just yet…
Mostly, after The Tea Party ended, I became active in the post-production, audio side of the film industry, adapting foreign-language films for dubbing into English and developing production procedures for digital Automated Dialog Replacement, which makes it possible to offer a choice of languages on DVD and Blu-Ray releases.’
‘Well, the only complete score to my credit was for the Golden Globe-nominated film ‘The Second Gun’. That came about when the producer, Gerard Alcan, heard me sing my song ‘End of Summer’ at a Christmas party in Hollywood. He said it captured the perfect Zeitgeist for his film, which was suggesting the possibility of another gunman being involved in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. I granted him the synchronisation rights for the music, but I wouldn’t let him use the lyrics as I didn’t want the song tainted by an association to the assassination. Keeping in mind that with such heavy material, less would be more, all I added to it for the score were ‘zingers’ played on electric guitar, single strident notes that underscored and emphasised whatever salient points the film made.
Before then, I had written the title song for ‘Demo Derby’ and I wrote ten songs for ‘Feelin’ Good’ which were arranged by Arthur Korb so he is credited for that score. I also wrote songs and themes for some of my original screenplays, including a complete score and all the songs for what is now ‘Changeling’s Return’, but since those films have yet to be made, I can’t really call them ‘film scores’, just yet…
Mostly, after The Tea Party ended, I became active in the post-production, audio side of the film industry, adapting foreign-language films for dubbing into English and developing production procedures for digital Automated Dialog Replacement, which makes it possible to offer a choice of languages on DVD and Blu-Ray releases.’
You mention in your book that you were briefly involved in another band, ‘Majick’, in Hollywood during the mid-Seventies. From your comments, it didn’t seem to last that long. Do you think that, by then, you were just no longer really interested in being part of a band ?
‘Well, I was interested or I wouldn’t have tried to do it, but I quickly lost interest. I went through the whole putting-together-a-group thing and had been fortunate enough to have assembled a group of highly talented musicians. But a group is like a surrogate family, with the skills required for the task at hand and committed to the realization of certain goals. These musicians were certainly highly-skilled and talented but they were also more or less in demand and looking for paid-work. A great guitarist is only a great guitarist if he shows-up for rehearsals and that goes for everyone in the band. When the people you are trying to bring into the family are frequent no-shows, because they took paying-gigs elsewhere, the people who did show-up get discouraged and I, having always shown-up, grew the most discouraged. It takes a dedicated person, with the means to support their commitment, to be in a group. But when their talent is their principal source of income and someone is willing to pay them now for something that you can only hope you’ll be able to pay them for some day, then they’re likely to go where they are sure of being paid on that day. You can’t blame them for that. If you’re supporting yourself, it’s better to be paid in cash rather than hopes and promises.’
In 1974, you began work on a ‘rock opera’ called ‘Changeling’, which combined previously written songs with more esoteric subject matter and interests. Over time, this evolved into your ‘Morningstone’ project and most recently, you’ve published the complete screenplay for ‘Changeling’s Return’, which also includes lengthy text discussing the references and ideas behind the story. This is obviously a project very close to your heart…
‘When I gave up on putting together a band, I opted for assembling a cadre of talent to record ‘Changeling’. We called ourselves the Changeling Troupe and rehearsed when we could, sometimes just the musicians or with just the vocalists and my guitar, but rarely with the entire band. When we had a few of the songs down, I took them to a studio and recorded them. Then we’d repeat the process with the next batch. The idea was that I would always pay for the sessions and then, with the recordings in hand, seek funding for the project. However, I eventually ran out of money for recording sessions with no funding yet on the horizon. The musicians would call me regularly, but after a few months they either gave up on the music and joined a working group, or else gave up on me, so that was the end of it. The screenplay and recordings did get me work on other peoples’ projects, which brought in some income and added to my experience, but I was not doing what I set out to do.
In 1987, I was ready to give ‘Changeling’ another shot. My friend, David Pinto, who had played on ‘Witch’ during the original sessions, had put together a digital recording studio. With my daughter as co-producer, we recorded a demo of the entire work. David played almost all the parts on emulator keyboards and lined-up the female vocalists. The tracks were extraordinary and my youngest brother, Adam, mixed then in his new studio. Ultimately, I rewrote the screenplay, changing its’ name to ‘Morningstone’ and, armed with this and the recordings, once more set out to seek funding. Unfortunately, I still didn’t find any investors, although again, I did get more work as a screenwriter, production manager, assistant director and director of production. I ended up recording Orson Welles as the voice of Wagner for ‘Wagner e Venezia’ and I was also the technical director for the English language dub of Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Fanny and Alexander’, which went on to win four Academy Awards. But I still wasn’t doing what I set out to do !
Which brings me to now. I’ve published the evolved screenplay as ‘Changeling’s Return’, along with an in-depth examination of its’ sources and specific references to its’ style, and I’m planning to take it further. I’m already doing a revision of the book, adding to the references, all in the hope of attracting a production company or distributor so that the thing can finally be made into the motion picture I have always hoped to see.
‘Well, I was interested or I wouldn’t have tried to do it, but I quickly lost interest. I went through the whole putting-together-a-group thing and had been fortunate enough to have assembled a group of highly talented musicians. But a group is like a surrogate family, with the skills required for the task at hand and committed to the realization of certain goals. These musicians were certainly highly-skilled and talented but they were also more or less in demand and looking for paid-work. A great guitarist is only a great guitarist if he shows-up for rehearsals and that goes for everyone in the band. When the people you are trying to bring into the family are frequent no-shows, because they took paying-gigs elsewhere, the people who did show-up get discouraged and I, having always shown-up, grew the most discouraged. It takes a dedicated person, with the means to support their commitment, to be in a group. But when their talent is their principal source of income and someone is willing to pay them now for something that you can only hope you’ll be able to pay them for some day, then they’re likely to go where they are sure of being paid on that day. You can’t blame them for that. If you’re supporting yourself, it’s better to be paid in cash rather than hopes and promises.’
In 1974, you began work on a ‘rock opera’ called ‘Changeling’, which combined previously written songs with more esoteric subject matter and interests. Over time, this evolved into your ‘Morningstone’ project and most recently, you’ve published the complete screenplay for ‘Changeling’s Return’, which also includes lengthy text discussing the references and ideas behind the story. This is obviously a project very close to your heart…
‘When I gave up on putting together a band, I opted for assembling a cadre of talent to record ‘Changeling’. We called ourselves the Changeling Troupe and rehearsed when we could, sometimes just the musicians or with just the vocalists and my guitar, but rarely with the entire band. When we had a few of the songs down, I took them to a studio and recorded them. Then we’d repeat the process with the next batch. The idea was that I would always pay for the sessions and then, with the recordings in hand, seek funding for the project. However, I eventually ran out of money for recording sessions with no funding yet on the horizon. The musicians would call me regularly, but after a few months they either gave up on the music and joined a working group, or else gave up on me, so that was the end of it. The screenplay and recordings did get me work on other peoples’ projects, which brought in some income and added to my experience, but I was not doing what I set out to do.
In 1987, I was ready to give ‘Changeling’ another shot. My friend, David Pinto, who had played on ‘Witch’ during the original sessions, had put together a digital recording studio. With my daughter as co-producer, we recorded a demo of the entire work. David played almost all the parts on emulator keyboards and lined-up the female vocalists. The tracks were extraordinary and my youngest brother, Adam, mixed then in his new studio. Ultimately, I rewrote the screenplay, changing its’ name to ‘Morningstone’ and, armed with this and the recordings, once more set out to seek funding. Unfortunately, I still didn’t find any investors, although again, I did get more work as a screenwriter, production manager, assistant director and director of production. I ended up recording Orson Welles as the voice of Wagner for ‘Wagner e Venezia’ and I was also the technical director for the English language dub of Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Fanny and Alexander’, which went on to win four Academy Awards. But I still wasn’t doing what I set out to do !
Which brings me to now. I’ve published the evolved screenplay as ‘Changeling’s Return’, along with an in-depth examination of its’ sources and specific references to its’ style, and I’m planning to take it further. I’m already doing a revision of the book, adding to the references, all in the hope of attracting a production company or distributor so that the thing can finally be made into the motion picture I have always hoped to see.
It’s interesting that it’s a car accident in the screenplay that acts catalyst for the experiences that befall the lead character, Morgan, in ‘Changeling’s Return’. As someone for whom car accidents played a major role in the path of your life, did you deliberately include this ?
‘It isn’t a coincidence, nor are Morgan’s specific injuries. As a singer-songwriter who’d experienced the injuries, I describe his difficulties getting around on crutches and the excitement of the new songs he creates during his recovery. It provides verisimilitude to those sequences which is intended to pull the audience back to the present, in the Midlands, in the real world.
In 1997, another of your projects, the stage production of ‘Grumpuss’, was premiered at Blenheim Palace in the UK. How did that come about ?
‘I put together a three-picture package of my fantasy adventures, including what is now ‘Changeling’s Return’, ‘Grumpuss’ and ‘Long-Grin’ (the latter being a story about a red-backed, scaly, black-bellied, tusked, bat-winged dragon that plays an important role in the Arthurian saga.) A three picture package is a staple in Hollywood, providing cross-collateralization should one of the movies fare poorly at the box office. I came close to getting the funding, but never close enough to close the deal. However, as part of the package I had recorded the entire epic narrative rhyme, ‘Grumpuss’, and when a copy of it was used by a professor at Bridgewater State College, she wrote that my performance began to haunt her mental landscape and invigorate her thinking about the relationship between myth, creativity and modern poetry. She had used it in her introduction to oral poetry in her ‘Homer and Greek Tragedy Seminar’ to stimulate discussion of the way fragments of culture can be re-integrated. She also asked for permission to use it with her English majors in her ‘Myth and Modern Poetry Seminar’.
I was happy to grant her permission and, based on her letter, I was able to interest investors in raising enough money to fund a live-to-TV production of ‘Grumpuss’, with myself performing the rhyme. Given that the tale concerns a medieval knight sent by his king to slay a beast, I decided that it would be appropriate to try to stage the performance in England, where the traditions once flourished and, to some extent, still do. But assuming that I could find an appropriate venue, how would I, unknown in the UK, attract an audience for the event ? An English friend suggested that I offer to perform it as a charity event and, when I asked him what charity he thought would attract the sort of audience I required, he said that since the story was family-friendly, I should propose it to the Save The Children Fund. I found that we could rent Blenheim Palace for the event and arranged it to include a multi-course dinner and exclusive souvenirs. The $300,000 I had already raised would pay for the production and post-production, so by selling tickets we were able to cover all expenses and also raise £40,000 for the Save The Children Fund.’
‘It isn’t a coincidence, nor are Morgan’s specific injuries. As a singer-songwriter who’d experienced the injuries, I describe his difficulties getting around on crutches and the excitement of the new songs he creates during his recovery. It provides verisimilitude to those sequences which is intended to pull the audience back to the present, in the Midlands, in the real world.
In 1997, another of your projects, the stage production of ‘Grumpuss’, was premiered at Blenheim Palace in the UK. How did that come about ?
‘I put together a three-picture package of my fantasy adventures, including what is now ‘Changeling’s Return’, ‘Grumpuss’ and ‘Long-Grin’ (the latter being a story about a red-backed, scaly, black-bellied, tusked, bat-winged dragon that plays an important role in the Arthurian saga.) A three picture package is a staple in Hollywood, providing cross-collateralization should one of the movies fare poorly at the box office. I came close to getting the funding, but never close enough to close the deal. However, as part of the package I had recorded the entire epic narrative rhyme, ‘Grumpuss’, and when a copy of it was used by a professor at Bridgewater State College, she wrote that my performance began to haunt her mental landscape and invigorate her thinking about the relationship between myth, creativity and modern poetry. She had used it in her introduction to oral poetry in her ‘Homer and Greek Tragedy Seminar’ to stimulate discussion of the way fragments of culture can be re-integrated. She also asked for permission to use it with her English majors in her ‘Myth and Modern Poetry Seminar’.
I was happy to grant her permission and, based on her letter, I was able to interest investors in raising enough money to fund a live-to-TV production of ‘Grumpuss’, with myself performing the rhyme. Given that the tale concerns a medieval knight sent by his king to slay a beast, I decided that it would be appropriate to try to stage the performance in England, where the traditions once flourished and, to some extent, still do. But assuming that I could find an appropriate venue, how would I, unknown in the UK, attract an audience for the event ? An English friend suggested that I offer to perform it as a charity event and, when I asked him what charity he thought would attract the sort of audience I required, he said that since the story was family-friendly, I should propose it to the Save The Children Fund. I found that we could rent Blenheim Palace for the event and arranged it to include a multi-course dinner and exclusive souvenirs. The $300,000 I had already raised would pay for the production and post-production, so by selling tickets we were able to cover all expenses and also raise £40,000 for the Save The Children Fund.’
In recent years, you seem to have been re-visiting your past creative endeavours, either making them available again (in the case of ‘Demo Derby’ and the remaining material from ‘Feelin’ Good’) or by recording and releasing new versions of songs you originally performed in the Sixties. Have you been happy with the results and have you been pleased with the response they’ve received ?
‘I was gobsmacked by the wonderful response to the clips from ‘Feelin’ Good’. Tim Perlich, on his ‘Perlich Post’ blog, wrote that the best rock video of 2016 was ‘Watch Out Woman’ even though it had been made 50 years ago ! Shindig! magazine listed the ‘Watch Out Woman’ / ‘The Way That I Need You’ single on State Records at number three on their list of best singles of 2017. And the original 1968 Alma Records single by Travis Pikes Tea Party, ‘If I Didn’t Love You Girl’ / ‘The Likes of You’ is also being made available again soon, after having already appeared on several compilation albums in Germany and the UK. And I’ve been extremely pleased with my new releases. The DVD’s look great, the CD’s sound great and I’m also hoping to revise and expand both of my books. I must admit, sales have been a little sluggish, but I’m an old-timer still learning how to operate in this brave new world. Certainly, articles and reviews like this and the ones in Goldmine, Shindig! and Ugly Things magazines help to create more interest.’
To make all of these recent projects possible, you created the aptly-titled ‘Otherworld Cottage Industries’. Do you think you are more content to be able to oversee these projects yourself, rather than signing them over to other labels or publishers ?
‘I’ve always enjoyed the creative process and I am pleased with my productions to date, but the business of advertising, marketing, distribution and book-keeping, for both here and abroad, is mind-numbing. I am quietly sounding-out potential partners and if I come across a managerial distribution deal that makes sense for my boutique operation, I will happily divest myself of those responsibilities so that I can concentrate on the things I do best, the development and production of original intellectual properties.’
With so many titles already available through Otherworld, you must be keeping yourself very busy. But as most of the releases to date have been ‘archival’, do you have any brand-new projects planed for the near future ?
‘I do, and at my age, they damn-well better be in the near-future ! I hoped to get to ‘Long Grin’ this year, but with all the revisions to my previous books, the new book about The Doors by Harvey Kubernik that I’ll be publishing and my own ‘Odd Tales and Wonders, Volume Two’, I doubt that I’ll get back into ‘Long Grin’ before next year. But I’m certainly expecting to record new songs, tell more stories and have plenty more adventures before the curtain runs down !’
‘I was gobsmacked by the wonderful response to the clips from ‘Feelin’ Good’. Tim Perlich, on his ‘Perlich Post’ blog, wrote that the best rock video of 2016 was ‘Watch Out Woman’ even though it had been made 50 years ago ! Shindig! magazine listed the ‘Watch Out Woman’ / ‘The Way That I Need You’ single on State Records at number three on their list of best singles of 2017. And the original 1968 Alma Records single by Travis Pikes Tea Party, ‘If I Didn’t Love You Girl’ / ‘The Likes of You’ is also being made available again soon, after having already appeared on several compilation albums in Germany and the UK. And I’ve been extremely pleased with my new releases. The DVD’s look great, the CD’s sound great and I’m also hoping to revise and expand both of my books. I must admit, sales have been a little sluggish, but I’m an old-timer still learning how to operate in this brave new world. Certainly, articles and reviews like this and the ones in Goldmine, Shindig! and Ugly Things magazines help to create more interest.’
To make all of these recent projects possible, you created the aptly-titled ‘Otherworld Cottage Industries’. Do you think you are more content to be able to oversee these projects yourself, rather than signing them over to other labels or publishers ?
‘I’ve always enjoyed the creative process and I am pleased with my productions to date, but the business of advertising, marketing, distribution and book-keeping, for both here and abroad, is mind-numbing. I am quietly sounding-out potential partners and if I come across a managerial distribution deal that makes sense for my boutique operation, I will happily divest myself of those responsibilities so that I can concentrate on the things I do best, the development and production of original intellectual properties.’
With so many titles already available through Otherworld, you must be keeping yourself very busy. But as most of the releases to date have been ‘archival’, do you have any brand-new projects planed for the near future ?
‘I do, and at my age, they damn-well better be in the near-future ! I hoped to get to ‘Long Grin’ this year, but with all the revisions to my previous books, the new book about The Doors by Harvey Kubernik that I’ll be publishing and my own ‘Odd Tales and Wonders, Volume Two’, I doubt that I’ll get back into ‘Long Grin’ before next year. But I’m certainly expecting to record new songs, tell more stories and have plenty more adventures before the curtain runs down !’
As I said right at the beginning, Travis has been quite prolific in recent years, documenting his past endeavors and making much of it available for the first time. Where no original recordings exist, he’s even returned to the studio to record many songs that would otherwise have never been heard by potential fans. While the new versions may not capture the authenticity of the original and how they actually sounded at the time, these albums give you a great indication of just how much fun bands like The Tea Party and Brattle Street East must have been. Below, I’m going to list the CD’s that are currently available from Travis and also add a few notes so you’ll know where they tie-in with the interview ;
FEELIN’ BETTER CD. Ten songs originally written for The Five Beats. However, when a car crash brought an early end to their career, many of these would end up on the soundtrack to the movie, ‘Feelin’ Good’. The title track here is a new song inspired by the film, while ‘Rock’n’Roll’ is a stomping track dating back to 1965. The final track, ‘End of Summer’, is the quietest moment on the album and, as discussed above, featured as the instrumental theme to the 1975 movie, ‘The Second Gun’.
RECONSTRUCTED COFFEEHOUSE BLUES CD. This is a selection of songs written while Travis was recovering in the Naval hospital and were first performed either for his fellow patients or when he began playing in local bars and coffeeshops. The songs range from Bluesy moments through to upbeat, playful melodies and will be of more-interest to fans of singer-songwriters and Sixties folk music. While there’s more instrumentation added to these versions, it works really well and gives a good indication of how effective Travis would have been as a solo performer.
TEA PARTY SNACK PLATTER CD. This album gathers together new versions of songs from the time Travis spent fronting The Tea Party (previously The Boston Massacre) and I suspect it’s probably the CD that will prove of most interest to Fear & Loathing readers. Opening with a new recording of ‘If I Didn’t Love You Girl’, the a-side of their only single, this collection provides a great insight into how exciting and entertaining the band must have been in their heyday. Ranging from soulful crooners through to Frat rock stompers, it even veers into psychedelic territory at times. ‘Okay’ and ‘What’s the Matter With Your Mind’ are particularly effective, while ‘I’ll Do Anything I Can’ features some great fuzz guitar and ‘You Got What I Need’ is a raw Garage classic with a suitably sleazy groove. When you hear this album, you’ll just be wishing that the original band had succeeded in releasing an album back in the day – it surely would have been a classic !
MYSTICAL ENCOUNTER CD. Songs written for the ‘Changeling’ project, which most readers would probably refer to as a ‘rock opera’, although this actually has much more depth than most of those productions. Veering from psychedelia through to narrative melodies, and incorporating supernatural and esoteric themes, it’s an interesting work that gains even further depth when combined with a reading of the ‘Changeling’s Return’ book. Not necessarily something that fans of The Tea Party will immediately embrace, but I would certainly encourage further investigation.
OUTSIDE THE BOX CD. A selection of songs written in more recent times, with only a couple dating back as far as the Seventies. They really cover a whole spectrum of styles and themes, from the soundtrack-like ‘Andalusian Bride Suite’ and ‘Otherworld March’ through to the wonderfully bizarre ‘Psychedelic Meltdown’ and the hard-rocking ‘’Gotta Be A Better Way’.
ODD TALES & WONDERS –STORIES IN SONG CD. A selection of songs originally written between 1964-74, including a different version of ‘End of Summer’, ‘Ali Baba Ben Jones’ and ‘Till The End (The Vampire Song)’ which date back to The Five Beats and Tea Party days. There’s also a great slice of hard rock in ‘Oh Mama’ and a new, solo version of ‘The Likes of You’, which first appeared on the b-side of the Tea Party 7”.
ODD TALES & WONDERS – STORIES IN RHYME CD. As it says, this is a collection of Travis’ spoken pieces, mostly written in a style reminiscent of Lewis Carroll and quite removed from his music. A completely different but no less accomplished creative output, although you may find that these selection of tales will appeal more to your kids !
GRUMPUSS CD. Travis Pike’s epic spoken rhyme, comparable to Lewis Carroll and CS Lewis. Again, quite a separate entity from his music but certainly something that ought to appeal to the more curious among you as well as those pesky kids, again !) For the more intrigued among you, there’s also a full-length DVD capturing the entire, debut performance from Blenheim Palace.