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Unusual Rock Trivia?

#2,621
  • Regarding the Carpenters hit, “We’ve Only Just Begun”

    This started out as a bank commercial. Songwriters Paul Williams and Roger Nichols were commissioned by an advertising agency to write it in 1968 for Crocker Bank, which was trying to attract young people and newlyweds to their institution.

    We wrote the first two verses of 'We've Only Just Begun.' We wrote a second version of the commercial that was a verse, and what became the bridge. We added a third verse just in case anybody would ever want to record it. And then I assumed that it would never, ever get cut again. Richard (Carpenter), I guess, heard me singing it on the TV commercial, and called and asked if there was a complete song. And we went, 'Well, funny you should ask.' And if there hadn't been a complete song, we would have lied and said, 'Well, of course there is,' and then sat down and written it. You know, songwriting in those days was like that, too. I remember finishing songs in the back seat of a publisher's car on the way to play it for a producer.
 
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#2,622
roccobass said:
  • Regarding the Carpenters hit, “We’ve Only Just Begun”

    This started out as a bank commercial. Songwriters Paul Williams and Roger Nichols were commissioned by an advertising agency to write it in 1968 for Crocker Bank, which was trying to attract young people and newlyweds to their institution.

    We wrote the first two verses of 'We've Only Just Begun.' We wrote a second version of the commercial that was a verse, and what became the bridge. We added a third verse just in case anybody would ever want to record it. And then I assumed that it would never, ever get cut again. Richard (Carpenter), I guess, heard me singing it on the TV commercial, and called and asked if there was a complete song. And we went, 'Well, funny you should ask.' And if there hadn't been a complete song, we would have lied and said, 'Well, of course there is,' and then sat down and written it. You know, songwriting in those days was like that, too. I remember finishing songs in the back seat of a publisher's car on the way to play it for a producer.
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That is a repeating theme. Most hits wrote themselves or came to their creator. Good stuff!
 
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#2,626
Ptolemaic Terrascope is a magazine covering old and new music, usually of a psychedelic nature. It has been published irregularly since 1989. Originally published by the Woronzow record label, it covers a wide variety of bands and artists from the 1960s to the present day. Issues typically come with a 7" vinyl record or latterly a CD, and sometimes also special inserts such as artwork, scrap books, and discount coupons.

In March 2005, editor Phil McMullen announced that the magazine would be coming under new management and relocating from Britain to North America. The terrascope.co.uk domain name has been retained by McMullen for the website Terrascope Online, featuring reviews, interviews, articles and artwork by the majority of the former Ptolemaic Terrascope staff.

The Terrascope Online website also acts as a focus for the semi-annual Terrastock indie rock festivals which, since 1997, Phil McMullen has curated.

According to the magazine, the name Ptolemaic Terrascope has no real meaning. Their official web page explains, "Ptolemy is a tortoise who lives at Terrascope Towers. Terrascope is a word Phil made up because (a) it matched the artwork we'd designed for the first issue, and (b) we like the Captain Beefheart song 'Tarotplane'."

Additionally to the online magazine, McMullen started a new letterpress-printed music magazine, the Terrascopædia in 2012.

Terrascope Archives
 
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#2,627
LTQzODIuanBlZw.jpeg

Bobby Doyle, a blind singer and pianist from Houston, who briefly played piano and sang with Blood Sweat and Tears in 1972, had also played in a jazz trio called the Bobby Doyle Trio which also included Kenny Rogers on stand up bass.
 
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#2,629
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was a bizarre combination of three well-heeled teenagers (brothers Dan and Shaun Harris and their school mate Michael Lloyd), and an even wealthier, thirty-something attorney called Bob Markley. Markley secured the group a recording deal with Reprise Records, where they made a series of strange records. While they scored no hits for the label, the band's most famous composition was 'Smell Of Incense', which was covered to great effect by Southwest F.O.B., among others.

The group created music that possessed an eerie, and at times sinister atmosphere, and contained material that was bluntly political, childlike, and bizarre. Representing different musical backgrounds among band members, the group, at times, resembled a traditional Byrds-esque folk rock ensemble, but the WCPAEB also, within the same body of work, recorded avant-garde music marked by multi-layered vocal harmonies.
The song was composed by Markley with a later addition to the band, guitarist Ron Morgan (who later played with The Electric Prunes and a very early edition of Three Dog Night).
 
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#2,638
In an interview with ? (Aka Rudy Martinez) of ? And the Mysterians on the Genesis of this song. Ol’ Rudy shouldn’t smoke so much spleef! :roflmao: Oh well, it was the 60s.

In our interview with ?, he talked about how this song came together: "Little Frank [keyboard player Frank Rodriguez] comes in singing a tune, and I said, 'I've heard that before. And I ain't going to do nothing until I've heard where that music and the title of it comes from.' He played it for like 45 minutes. Everybody's getting mad. And then all of a sudden it dawned on me, I said, 'Oh, I know where I heard that. I wrote that song a long time ago. :wacky:
 
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#2,640
roccobass said:
In an interview with ? (Aka Rudy Martinez) of ? And the Mysterians on the Genesis of this song. Ol’ Rudy shouldn’t smoke so much spleef! :roflmao: Oh well, it was the 60s.

In our interview with ?, he talked about how this song came together: "Little Frank [keyboard player Frank Rodriguez] comes in singing a tune, and I said, 'I've heard that before. And I ain't going to do nothing until I've heard where that music and the title of it comes from.' He played it for like 45 minutes. Everybody's getting mad. And then all of a sudden it dawned on me, I said, 'Oh, I know where I heard that. I wrote that song a long time ago. :wacky:
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The coolest 60’s bass and vox keyboards for a garage band in my opinion.
 
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