{"id":15910,"date":"2019-01-15T05:30:36","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T10:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15910"},"modified":"2019-01-16T07:43:02","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T12:43:02","slug":"no-way-out-the-curious-case-of-the-chocolate-watchband-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/15\/no-way-out-the-curious-case-of-the-chocolate-watchband-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"No Way Out: The Curious Case of The Chocolate Watchband (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"The punky ethos of Watchband songs like \u201cAre You Gonna Be There (At the Love-in)\u201d and \u201cLet\u2019s Talk About Girls\u201d was no put-on; the band could be wild. Aguilar relates one of many tales from the era. \u201cWe played for Hollywood producers on this big ship. We emptied out the trophy room; we took the 5-foot model of the ship and tried to stick it in the back of our van while the party was going on, but our manager caught us and made us put it back. And then Mark dropped acid in the [punch]; we had a whole ship full of people on acid, with no idea who had done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of Hollywood, the Chocolate Watchband experienced some opportunities that looked as if they would lead to bigger things. One was being asked to take part in the film Riot on Sunset Strip<\/i>. The group turned in a fiery performance of \u201cDon\u2019t Need Your Lovin\u2019,\u201d a Stones-y rocker inexplicably not recorded for release. Aguilar says that the whole episode happened quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a call on a Wednesday that said, \u2018Hey, guys. Pack up your bags. You\u2019re leaving tomorrow morning. You\u2019re gonna do a Hollywood movie,\u2019\u201d he recalls. Next thing they knew, the band was on the set, \u201cwalking around with cameras, and actors, and starlets and producers. And then they said to us, \u2018Oh, yeah, by the way, you\u2019ll do two original songs. Can you write them really quick? We\u2019re recording them tomorrow.\u2019\u201d Music historian (and current Watchband bassist) Alec Palao still marvels at the performance captured on film. \u201cThey totally communicated the sort of band they were, in only two minutes of footage.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it came time to go into the studio, producer Cobb had his own ideas about what the music should sound like. Aguilar had begun to write (\u201cGone and Passes By\u201d made it onto the LP), and some songs from the band\u2019s live repertoire were recorded. But when presented with tunes from outside writers, the band members sometimes balked at Cobb\u2019s suggestions.<\/p>\n

Aguilar recalls, \u201cHe\u2019d say, \u2018Now, I want you to record this song, \u201cHot Dusty Roads.\u201d\u2019 We looked at it and said, \u2018That song\u2019s a piece of shit. That\u2019s not us; that\u2019s not who we are. We won\u2019t record it.\u2019\u201d So Cobb brought in studio players and cut the Stephen Stills tune without the Watchband\u2019s participation. \u201cHe wanted a band that was malleable and could live up to his<\/i> idea of what psychedelic rock was,\u201d Aguilar says. And Aguilar believes that Cobb\u2019s L.A. perspective was out of sync with what was happening in Haight-Ashbury, closer to the Chocolate Watchband\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had four days in the studio and that was it,\u201d Aguilar says. He notes that the early Beatles and Rolling Stones albums were recorded simply: \u201cStand up, turn the microphones on, and play the stuff you\u2019ve been playing on the road.\u201d He says that approach could have served the Watchband well. \u201cBut we were learning new songs that Ed Cobb was throwing our way, and that really slowed the process down. So, in four days, we might get two new Ed Cobb songs and three of ours. And then he\u2019d say, \u2018Okay, That\u2019s a wrap. That\u2019s an album.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But even Aguilar admits that sometimes Cobb\u2019s instincts were spot-on. \u201cHe gave it a good shot, and there are some great songs on our albums that are not ours,\u201d he says. Today the re-formed Watchband plays some of those tunes, including Richie Polodor\u2019s excellent instrumental, \u201cExpo 2000.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the face of what Aguilar considers mishandling and neglect, the \u201creal\u201d Watchband fell apart after about a year, shortly after the release of its debut LP, No Way Out<\/i>. \u201cI didn\u2019t leave the band,\u201d Aguilar insists. \u201cThe band left itself. By that time, Mark Loomis was really, heavily into drugs; there was some scary stuff that was out there at that time period.\u201d Aguilar says that Loomis had decided the group was over for him. \u201cMark wanted to form a new group, and I stayed on. We tried out two or three lead guitarists, but it just wasn\u2019t working. And that\u2019s when I just said, \u2018You know what? Why are we doing this? We have terrible management. We\u2019re not getting contracts to do any more albums. We\u2019re really not booking any big tours or performance dates anymore. Why am I wasting my time with this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Aguilar-era lineup\u2019s recordings would be spread \u2013 albeit thinly \u2013 across two more albums. February 1968\u2019s The Inner Mystique<\/i> featured anonymous studio musicians on its entire first side. The album\u2019s highlight, a reading of Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz\u2019s \u201cI Ain\u2019t No Miracle Worker,\u201d features Aguilar’s vocals, even though he had been gone from the Watchband for several months by the time of its release. In stores three months later, One Step Beyond<\/i> featured more tracks made by session musicians \u2013 including Moby Grape guitarist Jerry Miller (\u201cMark freaked out and they had to replace him with somebody\u201d) \u2013 and yet more leftover tracks featuring Aguilar\u2019s vocals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was pulling stuff out of the vaults,\u201d Aguilar says. \u201cThe label needed to fulfill one more album, but they had no more money for publicity or promotion. They really didn\u2019t care; you might as well have had five dogs barking in the studio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the dodgy circumstances surrounding their creation, original copies of the Watchband\u2019s three sixties-era albums are highly prized, changing hands for hundreds of pounds. If Aguilar had a few spare copies in his garage, he could easily sell them and make a tidy profit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could,\u201d he agrees with a laugh. \u201cBut we hated those albums so damn much. Absolute truth: we took two cartons of albums and went skeet shooting off our back deck up the Santa Cruz Mountains. We shot at them with a double barrel 12-gauge shotgun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… The punky ethos of Watchband songs like \u201cAre You Gonna Be There (At the Love-in)\u201d and \u201cLet\u2019s Talk About Girls\u201d was no put-on; the band could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,41,57,59,62],"tags":[516],"class_list":["post-15910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garage","category-interview","category-psych","category-punk","category-rawk","tag-chocolate-watchband","cat-33-id","cat-41-id","cat-57-id","cat-59-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15910"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15929,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15910\/revisions\/15929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}