Some
of the Story of Commander Cody
and His Lost Planet Airmen
In
the fall of 1963 John Tichy was studying engineering at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor, running the kitchen crew at the Phi Kappa
Psi fraternity and playing guitar in the only student band on campus,
the AMBLERS. I was washing pots in the kitchen and doing a pretty poor
job at it, when we became friends, and John found that I had played
some piano and had taken some lessons. He invited me to jam along, and
soon I was playing on their version of "You are my Sunshine" (in Aminor),
Frank Winchester was the lead singer, and a guy who was twenty years
ahead of his time. He was 6'4" and had bleached blonde hair. He wore
a black leather glove on his left hand when he played the Tambourine
and blew a mediocre harp with his right. Michigan heavy weight wrestling
champ Guy Curtiss played bass and Steve Conley was the drummer. When
Frank died in a flaming (Chevy 409) crash on the Penn. Turnpike the
following year, our hopes of recording went up in smoke. John had started
another band, the SSB (Schwaben Stage Band), named after the sleazy
bar he was playing that summer ('64). When I returned to school that
fall we started a new band, The Fantastic Surfing BEEVERS. The new band
featured Max Goldman (who owned the sound system) as "lead singer".
Actually his mic was always turned off and it was Tichy who actually
sang lead. At that time I had traded my Wurlitzer electric piano in
for a classic Farfisa Combo Compact (96 tears). We mounted a surfboard
on top of our old hearse, (EQ van) and did our first road gig, (at a
Mich. State fraternity in 1965). The highlight of that group was that
we discovered a U. of Mich. gymnast named Steve Davis, (a U. of Mich.
cheerleader, and the trampoline champ of W.Va.), who played bass.
When I graduated from Mich. that spring ('66) we didn't know if we were
going to continue, because I hadn't chosen a grad school yet, (John
was going to stay at Mich.). Then the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate
Studies offered me a scholarship to stay, and we decided to start a
new band in the fall of 1967, that I named Commander Cody and His Lost
Planet Airmen, after the 1950 movie of the same name, starring Kristen
Coffen as Kommando Kody (we later did a promo with the guy in LA., for
Paramount in 1973).
We had up to 36 members in that band including The Fabulous Tapdancing
Green Sisters, The Galactic Twist Queens, Pat the Hippy Strippy and
various assortments of honking, blowing and strumming neo radicals who
specialized in a form of quasi-social mayhem, including my version of
Charles Mingus "Please Don't Drop That A (H) Bomb On Me". The drummer,
Ralph Mallory quit in the middle of Tichy's first version of "Family
Bible". Steve Davis became the West Virginia Creeper, and began playing
steel guitar when he returned from the Peace Corps in Ecuador. Steve
Schwartz also played guitar, John Copley played drum (snare) and Billy
C. Farlow's brother John wound up playing standup bass. Billy C and
the Sunshine was a Detroit blues band that played at Midway Lunch in
Ann Arbor, on Wed. nites. After seeing him and playing with him, he
joined in the spring of 1968 and we featured him in our "Ripple Wine
Time " segment of the show, of which "What's the Matter Now?" is an
example we still play today. The band played in the basement of a coffee
shop (Mark's Basement), discovered mescaline and dreamt big. Bill Kirchen
at that time had his own band called the Seventh Seal. John and I heard
them at the 1967 Ann Arbor Film Festival and talked him into joining.
After graduating in the spring of 1968, I took a job as instructor of
art at Wisconsin State University in Oshkosh. I went back to Ann Arbor
every weekend, which kept the band going, but eventually got me fired.
Danny Erlewine took Tichy's place as 2nd guitar and Bill and Billy C
shared lead vocals, until Kirchen took of to San Francisco. Through
phone calls he told us the time was right in SF, and in June of '68
Creeper, Farlow and me jumped in my van and headed West. Our first gig
was with Kirchen's band, (the Ozones) at the Town Pump on Mission St.
Later the first Cody gig was playing on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley,
for Cody's Bookstore on July 4, with the Skiffle Bands "Pookie" on drum
(snare).That date was one of the famous Berkeley Riots and we all wound
up being gassed by the cops, (we grabbed our shit and split). Later
that month we all moved into a big house on the Emeryville border, called
it Ozone West and started practicing and going out on the street, (Telegraph
Ave.) to play, (I played a really bad accordion). Here we met our very
first "groupies" the fabulous Richmond Girls, (who were actually from
Portland Ore). We got audition dates with Bill Graham in the City, and
at Mandrakes in Berkeley.
That summer there were a lot of our old fans from Ann Arbor there, and
we packed the joint, thereby getting our first gig. There Barry Olivier
discovered us and booked us at the 1968 Berkeley Folk Festival, and
we were off and running. We stole bassist Buffalo Bruce Barlow and drummer
Lance Dickerson from Charlie Musselwhite, for a killer blues rhythm
section. It was here where we met our first stars (musicians who actually
made records), Kristofferson, Odetta, Janis Joplin, and the Cleanliness
and Godliness Skiffle Group, (headed by Dynamite Annie Johnson and Phil
Marsh). They gave us a lot of help and support, and we fit in with,
and met all the established Berkeley ACTS, (Sky Blue, Country Joe, and
the Joy of Cooking). We jammed, hung out, got high and generally LIVED
THE LIFE. Things were great, although we quit living together, - everyone
got a girlfriend who had a job, and we enjoyed a couple of years of
fun while we were looking for our first record deal. We made a tape
at Reggies Guerage Productions, which we sold to Paramount records,
and we went off to SF to record with Bob Cohen, (who actually hated
C&W).Hot Rod Lincoln was the second single off that first album
(Lost in the Ozone was the first). Somehow it got radio play, (thanks
to Dino Barbis, an exec that later went on to WB, and helped us get
our second record contract). We bought an old double decker Greyhound
bus and fixed it up with 12 bunks and hit the road.
Bobby Black was one of the best pedal Steel players in the world, when
we met him playing with his brother Larry, in a San Jose bar called
Cowtown. We found out they had a Wed. nite talent contest that paid
$100 to each weeks's winner. Bill kirchen went down and won, followed
by Andy Stein, (who had moved out from NY to play fiddle), Billy C,
and by the time John Tichy won, they had figured us out.
After firing the W .Va. Creeper for being too creepy, we hired Bobby
and recorded our second album, Hot Licks, Cold Steel and Trucker's Favorites,
in Larry Black's studio in San Mateo. This album bombed horribly, partially
because it was recorded on 8 tracks, and was too funky for the execs.
The third album "Country Casanova" featured "Smoke that Cigarette",
an old Tex Williams swing favorite that cracked the country charts.
We were invited to play at the 1973 C&W Convention, in Nashville,
and were literally booed off the stage with cries like "Get a Haircut",
"find a rock concert", and the term "Commie BUTTF---ER" was heard for
the first time from the crowd. Of course that year, 1973, we were the
headliners at the international communist party festival in Paris, (the
"Fete Du Humanitie") so they weren't exactly wrong. On the other hand
the Viet Nam veterans came back, mostly Cody fans who heard Hot Rod
Lincoln in the foxholes. That year the Indian Movement took control
of Alcatraz Island, and Russell Means invited us to visit them there,
when Fidel Castro invited us to come and play in Cuba. We didn't of
course, but we were protesting this unrighteous war, and wanted to bring
everybody home before anybody else got killed.
The fourth Paramount record was the best, and was featured by Rolling
Stone Magazine in their best 100 albums of all time. "Live from Deep
in the Heart of Texas" was recorded live at the infamous Armadillo World
Headquarters, (the coolest club that state has ever seen, then or now),
and stands as everybody's favorite. The crowd was so great that Wally
Heider, recording in SF, leaked out our crowd noise, to other live albums
they recorded, to make other bands sound better.
We signed with Warner Bros in 1974 and put out three albums on that
label. The first, (the Purple Dragons album), entitled CCHLPA, featured
our version of the classic rocker "Dont Let Go" Our single reached the
top 40 on the Billboard chart, before the payola scandal of that year
ended that idea. Hoyt Axton produced the second studio album for WB
called "Tales From The Ozone", which was not promoted or liked by them.
Consequently we opted to finish our commitment to them by recording
"Got a Live one Here" which ended CC&HLPA, the original cast, forever.
This album featured Norton Buffalo and our best live swing to date.
It was recorded at Hammersmith Odeon in London where some Beatles were
in attendance, (we were told).
After we returned from Europe in the winter of 1977 we all went in different
directions, except for Bobby and Bruce who joined me in the New Commander
Cody Band. We signed on to Arista records, and hired Nicolette Larson
and the Reno band Sutro Sympathy Orchestra and hit the road again. The
tune "Stealin' at the 7-11" was released as a single, (big mistake).
The second Arista album "Flying Dreams" really sucked, and put me in
a hole that I have been digging myself out of until this very day. The
song Lone Ranger was the only highlight of this piece, with Jeff Baxter
and Buzzy Fieten on guitars.
Nicolette got discovered and lured away by WB, and that band crumbled.
A band with Delaney Bramlett lasted 2 months and one tour in the spring
of '78.
Next I hired Bill Kirchens's band the "Moonlighters", and worked with
them on and off for eight years, with various big musicians including
the excellent steel player, (now Nashville producer), Steve Fishell,
saxman Steve Mckay and drummer Tony Johnson. We produced a good R&R
album called Lose it Tonite, for a German company, that was released
in the states by Peter Pan records. This included the song 2 Triple
Cheese, Side Order of Fries, (the only video I ever made, now in NYC's
Museum of Modern Art, in the permanent video collection). We also recorded
an album for Blind Pig Records, called Lets Rock, that featured the
fantastic Austin Delone. (played for Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello).
This band broke up after a long European tour in 1986. I was involved
in a horrible auto crash at the end of that year and sat out the majority
of 1987.
In the Moonlighters era, the backup band went off to London to record
a solo album with Nick. During that interlude I used various backup
personnel, the most outstanding of which were Glen Sciurba (Tex Burbank)
on guitar, Pete Siegel on steel and Doug Kilmer on bass. This was an
outrageous time and featured my 3 appearances on the David Letterman
Show, until I was 86'd for being drunk. I did a song called We're Drinkin,
We're Nuts. This included the time Hunter Thompson threw a bomb into
my Fla. hotel room after my interview with him (never released).
After a year off I started touring again in 1988 with various musicians,
(see Pete Frame's band family tree at his website). I remixed some of
the old Cody trax from Texas and released them and several other CD's
for Relix Records, of Brooklyn NY...Commander's Sleazy Roadside Stories,
Aces High, Commander Returns from Outer Space and the Best of CC. I
recorded some wild trax after these, but none were ever released, especially
my Mill Valley Anthem, (I Want it All Rite Now; featuring Tex Burbank).
This group wound up with saxist Keith Crossan, (who went to Tommy Castro),
guitarist Peter Walsh, (Hoodoo Rhythm Devils), and Dave Tolmie, (Maria
Muldaur), on bass. Along with songwriter Dave Erdmann, we recorded a
CD for an Australian label, called "Worst Case Scenario". MCA had taken
over the Paramount catalog in the early nineties and released all the
Paramount records on CD. The Very Best of CCHLPA was released by them
in 1994, and many chains (Borders/Circuit City etc.) feature them today.
In 1997 I was finally forced, by Political Correctness...(no one in
Marin County drank any more!), to leave my home in Stinson Beach, my
home in Ukiah Ca. by my ex-wife, and I moved back to NY State, where
I had grown up. I moved to Saratoga Springs NY, where I began to gather
the best local side men, and renew my friendship with John Tichy, who
by that time had become Chair of Aeronautical Engineering (Rocket Science)
and Mechanical Engineering, at RPI in Troy NY.
- George Frayne -
- These
days along with George, the band is, Mark Emerick on guitar, Rick
Mullen on bass and Steve Barbuto on drums.
