From my perspective;
As songwriters Steve Bartek and I were in somewhat of a groove as teenagers writing every day after school. We lived next-door to each other. We just made up songs. We had nothing to say really. No protests and no love songs. Mainly we were tying chords and melodies together that we thought were cool. It was a constant search for cool sounding transitions and changes to solo over.
We could have kept on that way for years to come but the success of the SAC got in the way. Don't get me wrong. It was a great thing to have happen to our songs, but because of Steve's age (only 15 at the time) we left on tour and he stayed behind. That marked the end of our songwriting partnership until well after the SAC's demise.
Then it came time to write new material for the second album. Randy Seol wanted me to write music for his words. It was nothing like the way Steve and I wrote together. It didn't come from the same kind of place. Randy is more overt and blunt. Not subtle! I felt I had lost my inspiration and was stuck in a mis-match.
At the same time Lee Freeman and Ed King were able to write songs together everyday and the both had some rock sensibilities.They became the more prolific writers in the band. At the same time you have Mark Weitz who was ripped off for the music of Incense and Peppermints and Bill Holmes who was largely responsible, trying to make up for it by having Mark and Ed write the singles. This made sense on Tomorrow, but in doing so they abandoned the first album to prematurely release it. It wasn't on the first album so they rushed us to make the second album. Tomorrow was getting airplay and climbing the charts but had no album to support it. DUMB!
They should have released a couple more songs from the first album as singles (they later did as B sides?) while we took some time to record the new album.
hindsight is 20/20 but the band knew all this back then....it was just out of our control.
--Previous Message--
: there has always been a consistency in the
: marketing of the 60's. I guess some company
: owns the way the story is told.
: "Woodstock" doling out endless
: reissues with a few bonus tracks here and
: there is a corporate business model,
: reselling virtually the same thing an
: endless number of times - and there are
: still at least 6 hours worth of unreleased
: audio and video that will be inched out on
: the 45th, 50th and 60th anniversary
: re-sells. (I won't be buying it, I've
: collected it all on my own )
:
: Tim Leary has no relevance these days, but
: there will always be bands interested in
: listening to the later Beatles albums, cover
: bands the pour over Stones and Tom Petty
: music.
:
: Current legends even have their past careers
: exaggerated. Jimi may appear to be the
: guitar icon of the 60's, but his records
: weren't really major sellers in their day -
: nowhere near the level of say Creedence
: Clearwater. Historical revisionism has made
: him, the Byrds, Grateful Dead, Cream appear
: "bigger" than they actually were.
: The Dead are said to define the 60's, yet
: their first four albums didn't even make the
: top 40 and they hardly played anywhere but
: CA and NY. As long as the characters
: involved are around to tell and sell the
: same old stories, they can perpetuate their
: own myths.The keyboard player from the Doors
: has been telling the same 6 Doors stories
: about Jim for exactly 40 years-every
: interview, every time.
: Every female country signer claims Patsy
: Cline is their biggest influence, but how
: likely is it that those people have ever
: heard more than 2 songs from her? Its just
: sort of the standard thing to say in an
: interview, because they've heard it said so
: many times by others.
:
: I'm not sure why SAC would resent other
: bands for being the more defining bands of
: their era. A 1 hit wonder doesn't hold much
: clout compared to major bands. Seems to me
: they resent their label for not promoting
: them and for giving them lame outsider
: material to record (perhaps the band should
: have shown better original material to begin
: with and the label wouldn't have forced
: other songs on them). If they wanted a
: bigger audience, doing silly generic hippy
: dippy (trying to hard to sound overly
: trippy) stuff like Black Butter wasn't the
: way to go. A 6-minute heavy jam in its place
: would have rocked and put SAC in a more
: legitimate place in music. And of course,
: if they wanted more songs on the radio, you
: all knew how to play the payola game , just
: didn't really get the chance to get out
: there and play it. But with CCR, Mountain
: and Steppenwolf jamming out in 68/69, SAC
: were already out of touch with what was
: really going down in music. Ed probably saw
: the future in Skynard, and the other guys
: fell by the wayside, when they could have
: just changed the bands name to something
: more marketable, and moved into a different
: style/phase in their music.
: - a producer's perspective -
:
: --Previous Message--
: Did you ever resent the press for virtually
: trying to coerce you into accepting social
: figureheads like the Beatles or Tim Leary as
: your generational leaders,Gurus,and mentors?
:
:
:
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