The Bleu Forest

THE BLEU FOREST- A thousand trees deep (USA 1968)
http://www.goldenpavilion.org/

USA produced such a vast variety of garage bands, that were highly influenced by major known bands of the time like Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix & The Experience and The Grateful Dead. Every little town in the US has been over-flooded with teenagers full of enthusiasm and ideas reflecting the electrifying times, when everything suddenly seemed to be possible. One of the better local bands, that came and went with the '60s fading into plastic '70s were Ventura County’ Bleu Forest. So far only a handful of people heard these 1968 unreleased recordings, which were hidden in Caviness (only surviving member) basement and let me say this: What we have here is a lost psych-garage classic. A crossover between groovy melodies of Moby Grape mixed with Steppenwolf heaviness. Limited to 500 copies on vinyl in gatefold cover including a detailed story by only surviving member.

- Klemen Breznikar

The story behind one of Ventura County’s best local bands of the mid 1960’s and early 1970’s.

Back in about 1962 when I was 12 years old I lived in the small town of Moorpark, California in an area known as Home Acres which was on the outskirts of town. A real nice country setting at the time. I remember my first contact with playing music was influenced by my father who played guitar and sang on the radio at that time. My parents suggested that I join the school band and the music teacher, Mr. Weeks, showed up at our home with a trumpet. I really tried but could only make a sound similar to a barking dog come out of that thing so Mr. Weeks suggested that a different instrument might be appropriate in my case. That soon became the electric guitar. My father went to Sears and bought me one of those Silver-tone guitars that had the amp inside the guitar case. Wish I had that back, no telling what it’s worth now! I tried for a couple of months but guitar is very difficult with only an old “Mel Bay” book to learn from. It was decided that perhaps the drums were the answer and off we went to Adler Music in Simi Valley. That’s where I met the owner, Herb Wall. Herb was a huge influence on me and sold us a brand new set of Ludwig "Super Hollywood" drums and actually gave me a job in the store to work off the cost of the drums. I worked there part time for quite a while and met a lot of the local musicians through the store. That’s where I first met Ed Steele, the eventual bass player in the Bleu Forest. I also met, and became friends with Rick Coonse, the drummer in a band called The Grassroots who were beginning to play in LA at the time. I recall that Rick had a pretty good relationship with Herb and Herb would let Rick borrow amps and PA equipment for the Grassroots to use at gigs before they started building their name up locally. That kind of thing would be out of the question today. But Herb did it and just look where Rick and the guys went.  Rick was the drum teacher at Adler Music and when he played out with his band I would take over his lessons while he was gone. That was actually a pretty lucrative gig as each lesson paid about $10.00. In those days that was a lot considering gasoline only cost about .20 a gallon.  I played with some guys in Moorpark for a while, Jimmy Hunnicutt, Art Almaguer, Monk Almaguer and we placed 3rd at the battle of the bands at the old Pacific Ocean Park. I think that was the summer of 1964.  I ran into Ed Steele again as his band finished in 2nd place behind the winner, Three Kings and a Queen. Believe it or not, they still have some songs on UTUBE. When school started again the band just kind of folded up. Everyone was more into sports back then.

One day I was riding my Honda 160 back home from school and was followed home by two guys in a 1962 Ford Falcon who were several classes older than me. They both had fairly long hair which was odd at that time around Moorpark. These two, Mike Cullen and Gary Heuer, had heard that I played drums and wanted to start a band. We decided to start playing together that day and got together that night for our first practice. We set up in one of the back rooms at my house and that night changed everything I knew about music. Now, to clarify my house; we lived in a house in Home Acres that was more of a ranch than a house really. We had a couple of acres with horses, cows and ducks. Don’t ask why ducks, I have no idea. Anyway, the original house was very long and narrow and divided up into about ten separate areas. On the front of the property my father, being a builder, had added on about 2500 square feet including a three car garage. This garage was eventually converted into the permanent rehearsal studio for the band and many, many hours of rehearsal took place in that garage. My thoughts in the very beginning were that this certainly wasn’t surf music like I had been playing. We sequestered ourselves in that room at the back of the old part of the house learning to sing harmony to early Beatles songs for a couple of months before Mike brought out his original songs. That’s when we really got started. Shortly, Ed Steele came into Adler Music looking for a new band because his band was breaking up because their singer, Danny Leonardo had been drafted into the Army and I ask him to our next practice and we were off and running so to speak.

I remember the first song was “I Need Sunshine”, one of Mike’s best and it ended up eventually on our first album with Mike. We worked on the original material for several months until we felt comfortable that we were ready to play for people and my father set us up to play at the Troubadour in LA. We played there on a Wednesday night “open mic” night and it just happened that Jimmy Haskell was in the crowd that night. We didn’t know Jimmy Haskell from Eddie Haskell at the time but he invited us to his home studio to record a demo the next weekend. We had about a week to prepare for recording but we were still a bit nervous and Mike Cullen contacted a local club owner/promoter by the name of Jim Salzer who owned a coffee house in Santa Barbara. As it turned out Jim Salzer enjoyed helping local talent and gave us an opportunity to play at his club the following Friday night. We were so excited and the next Friday we loaded up our equipment and took off north to Santa Barbara. We arrived at Jims club about 6 PM and were told that there would be acoustic music until later and we were welcome to watch until we went on. So we sat and watched. Until 3 o’clock the next morning when Mr. Salzer finally got there after closing his other club, The Starlight Ballroom in Oxnard. Well, we finally took the stage to an audience of Jim Salzer, the bar manager and maybe 20 drunk customers who couldn’t stand up or drive home. We played for about an hour before we were ready to collapse and actually got a positive response from everyone there. As it ended up Jim Salzer helped us a little, later on.     

When we arrived at Jimmy Haskell’s house in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Blvd. it was the biggest house we had ever seen in our lives. The entire 2nd floor was converted into a recording studio with 2” Ampex recorders, mixers the size of a coffee table and outboard equipment we didn’t even know existed. We got set up and began recording the demo tapes. We spent at least 7 or 8 hours there with Jimmy until he was satisfied that we had made the best possible demo we could make with his “old and outdated” equipment. Jimmy then began shopping the demo around to the record companies there in LA. I must say that even though we didn’t really know who Jimmy was at the time we were excited. By the way, we learned that Jimmy Haskell was a well known music producer around Hollywood at that time and would go on to win Grammy’s, etc. A real musical genius and a valuable asset to the band.

It took a little while but before too long he had interest from several major record labels including Capitol and Universal among others. Universal seemed, at the time, to be the logical choice because they released more hard rock than the others. And we were definitely hard rock. I guess a good description of our music would be THE WHO meets STEPPENWOLF meets MOBY GRAPE! Loud music was our game. I remember we got a gig up in the Hollywood Hills from somewhere playing a private party. Now the band Steppenwolf had just released their first album and completely unknown to us this party was thrown by some friends of their manager to celebrate the album release. We set up by this beautiful swimming pool deck which overlooked Hollywood and did our stuff. When break time came we all kind of mingled around until this guy came outside onto the deck and asked us who the hell we were. We told him who we were and he just walked back into the house shaking his head. Later we found out that he was indeed the manager of Steppenwolf and we sounded so similar to them he actually thought they were there at the party and not out on tour as they were supposed to be. I always considered that to be the highest compliment he could have paid us.   

Jimmy then set out to set up the recording of a master album and recruited the services of Freddie Piro as engineer in Freddie’s studio which was located at the corner of Lankersheim  Blvd. and Roscoe Blvd. in North Hollywood. Freddie, ironically, had been involved in producing the early Grassroots albums and went on to discover and produce albums for Ambrosia as well as many others. Freddie was a real professional at what he did. The only disagreement we had with either Jimmy or Freddie was their lack of understanding of our normal playing volume which generated most of our tone live. The album tracks were recorded at very low volume and fuzz tones were used to create the natural distortion we were accustomed to creating ourselves live.

During the time that Jimmy was shopping the demo we underwent changes in the band. Mike Cullen left the band because he was drafted and took off to Canada. He blessed us with his songs but had to go. We then added Ron Barkley on lead guitar and vocals and soon thereafter Larry Weisman on keyboards. This would become the Bleu Forest. We rehearsed for about two months together before entering Valley Recording Studio to record what would become “A Thousand Trees Deep” with financing provided by Jimmy Haskel and Freddie Piro.

During the recording period which lasted about six months we headlined shows all over Ventura County playing with bands such as The Tim Buley Blues Band, California Grassfield, Children of the Mushroom and many others I can’t remember. We opened a lot of shows with Lee Michaels who had quite a few hits at that time.

Not to change the subject but during the recording sessions Freddie brought to the studio an unrelated tape and shared it with us. As it turned out he was working in some capacity on another project with another band and we were played the pre-master recording of Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys. Everyone knows where that went and we heard it before anyone did. I clearly remember Freddie asking us who was on the tape and we named everyone except The Beach Boys before he revealed it to us. A remarkable recording and far ahead of the curve. That was really an unexpected surprise and a gift from Freddie I still cherish today.    

After close to a year we finally heard the master recordings for the album and even though the finished sound was not necessarily to our liking, (I think they were trying to turn us from a hard rock/kick ass band into the Monkeys) we blessed the master to be submitted to the record companies anyway. After about a month, I got a call from Freddie Piro telling me they loved the music but wanted the snare drum re recorded with a “snappier” sounding snare.  I acquired a Rodgers “Dynasonic” snare drum from Adler music which was the best snare drum that money could buy at the time and went back into the studio to record.  That took about four 12 hour sessions to finish and was nearly impossible to do but with a lot of encouragement from both Freddie and Jimmy we managed to make it happen.  These sessions involving the drum tracks alone were one of the greatest accomplishments of my entire life because not even the rest of the band thought it could be done. Once the remix was done I guess those tapes went out to the record companies never to be seen, or heard again.

Shortly thereafter the band just fell apart. I remember a lot of arguments between the members about the direction of the band and that kind of thing going on. Not by everyone, but a lot of drug use took place which hastened the outcome. After we split up I got married and had a beautiful daughter with my wife, Sheila, got out of music for a while, but kept in touch with Ed, Larry  and Mike. Larry, who was a very talented keyboardist, eventually got a Hammond B-3 and Joined up with Children of the Mushroom (I played with them briefly) and later Lady in Thousand Oaks. He now lives in Florida. Ron Barkley just disappeared and I have not heard anything from him in years. The last I heard Larry Heuer was running a music store in Santa Barbara but that’s been years ago. Ed Steele and myself played in several bands later after we both separated from our wives. Larry Weisman joined us several times as well. Even though the talent in some of these bands far exceeded the talent in the original band we were just never able to duplicate the vibe of the original BLEU FOREST.

Sadly, Ed passed away this past February along with my old friend from Adler Music, Rick Coonse of the Grassroots. Honestly, Rick was one of the great drummers of all time! I kept in touch with both until the end.  Mike Cullen was last seen in Ojai, Ca. about 1975. As for me, I went on from playing music to racing very specialized speedway motorcycles professionally and became a General Contractor/Builder for 40 years. I am now retired.

In order to live up to promises we made back then to all the followers of the band I very proudly offer the original A Thousand Trees Deep album for the release we promised so many and were unable to deliver  until now thanks to Antonio at Golden Pavilion Records it is possible to fulfill the promises we made so many years ago. Many thanks for waiting.

By: Jack Caviness  Drummer

The real story behind H.P. Lovecraft ...

With the release of H.P. Lovecraft Live at the Fillmore coming out on audiophile vinyl this fall (Sundazed Records), I thought it would be a good time to answer some of the questions I've been asked over the years, and correct some misconceptions concerning the group. The following is the true story of H.P. Lovecraft.

The Beginning...H.P. Lovecraft (named after the author...more later) began in 1966. I had been on the road playing folk and blues venues for a number of years, had just gotten married, was newly settled in Chicago, and  pursuing a career as a singer and musician. Wanting to stay in town and looking for work, I auditioned for a locally known Chicago singer who was putting together a instrumental/vocal trio to play hotels and supper clubs. David Michaels (Miotke) and I met at the audition, were hired, and started rehearsing for what would become "The Will Mercier Trio". We really enjoyed working together and became good friends. He was attending Northwestern University studying music composition and theory, had perfect pitch, a vast classical background, and a four octave vocal range! I loved singing with him. David wasn't familiar with the music I was doing, or much in the way of Folk, Blues, R&B, Soul, Rock, or contemporary music at all. But that was part of why it was so cool. He was original, he was pure, a blank canvas with enormous talent! If he heard a tune once he could play it! In addition to all this, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of old standards, show tunes, light jazz, and baseball! As much as we enjoyed working together, there was considerable tension with Will. He was older, kind of rigid, had tons of rules, and was a lot more serious than David and I. We stuck it out for a couple of years because the money was good, but the handwriting was on the wall.  

Though I was playing with the trio,I hadn't stopped recording as a solo artist. I had begun writing songs a few years before, and was working with a management/production team to develop material for a solo LP. I had signed with a Chicago label (Dunwich), and had just released my first single. The record was starting to get airplay, and I was asked to record more sides. Bill Traut, one of the producers, suggested doing some covers, so we chose a few. Among them was "Any way that you want me" by Chip Taylor. After listening to the completed track, it was clear that something was missing, and that David singing harmony was it... a no brainer. By this time David and I had gotten very tight vocally and were operating on a different level than either of us had previously experienced. It's hard to describe, but I think we both recognized that something was happening. His vocal harmony part was the perfect thing, everybody loved it... the first H.P.Lovecraft record was in the can.

The Name...I've read a few tales concerning how the name was arrived at. Here's what happened. George Badonsky (my manager, later the band's as well) had a Yorkie terrier named Yuggoth. I thought it was a wild name and asked where it came from. George introduced me to the author H.P.Lovecraft and loaned me his copy of "At the mountains of madness". Oh Boy! Then to top it off, Bill Traut (George's partner) was a friend of August Derluth who happened to be the executor of the Lovecraft estate. Unbelievable! Talk about timing. That's how we came up with, and got permission to use the name H.P. Lovecraft. Bill also had a complete set of Lovecraft's books. I read everything!

The Band...Well, we had a name, we had a record, we were negotiating a multi record deal with Phillips Records, but we lacked one thing...A Band! 

I had never played an electric guitar. David had never played an electronic Keyboard, but we loved to sing, I was writing, and we were working on songs. I borrowed an electric guitar, and David dipped into savings and bought a dual keyboard Vox Continental organ and an amp for each of us. After losing our home to a fire the year before, my wife and I had moved to a small apartment in the Chicago suburbs. This became our home and music studio. David and I set up in the living room and began jamming. We worked on songs from my folk repertoire, songs from other writers, and began exploring musical ideas that later would become H.P.Lovecraft songs. The first of these was "At The Mountains Of Madness" I had just read the book, which inspired the lyric, and David and I created a very Lovecraftian musical theme...our first real Lovecraft tune! Meanwhile we were searching for musicians. This proved challenging because most of my musical friends were acoustic musicians, and David's were from the classical world. With help from management we began auditioning players.

Tony Cavallari was one of the first people we encountered. He was young, a little edgy, played the blues, and had a free spirit. I liked him right away. The problem was, he lived in Indiana, 50 miles away, and didn't have a car! Tony soon became a regular on our couch, staying at our place for days at a time. David and I were still working with the Mercier Trio, Jamming with Tony during the day, and gigging at night. We were coming together musically, but  my home life was suffering. Things had to change. I convinced our management to rent us a rehearsal space in Chicago. They found a place on an upper floor of an office building right downtown in the heart of the city. Because the building was in use during the day, we could only rehearse there at night from 10pm on. This was fine when it was just Tony, David, and myself, but as soon as we added bass, drums, and a Sound System for vocals, things got a little dicey. Police visits became regular events. The first one came as quite a surprise. On this particular evening we had just smoked... and though we had opened the windows (we were on the eighth floor), I'm sure the room reeked of cannabis. Suddenly the door opened and two uniformed police entered.The police were very courteous and professional. They told us there had been a noise complaint (it was 2am) and could we please close the windows. Then they left... Hallelujah!

Shortly after we moved into the city we met Michael Tegza. He was 16. A sharp dresser with an outgoing personality, and an off the wall drummer! He was solid right from the start. Our first bass player (there were 3) was Tom Skidmore. Tom was a nice, well rounded all american guy who really wanted to be in a band. He loaned Tony his Gibson ES-330 guitar which Tony immediately fell in love with. This got Tom a few extra weeks with the group. Tony used this guitar for the feedback effects on the recording of "The White Ship" and claimed that its pickups were responsible for the other worldly sound he achieved.

David and I left our trio gig and began focusing on Lovecraft exclusively. By this time we had a strong set of performance material and I had just written "The White Ship". The song came to me in one sitting on a bench in the hall outside our rehearsal space. It was written on an acoustic 12 string guitar in about fifteen minutes. When we got back to the rehearsal and began playing it, everything just fell together, it came to life. Tony's Guitar, Michael's drumming and especially David's Organ, harmony vocal, and Harpsichord solo created the unique ambience of the piece. H.P. Lovecraft had arrived... We had a sound! We were starting to play some local gigs, and needed a stronger bass player who could keep up with Michael and possibly sing with David and me. Jerry McGeorge was suggested. Jerry played rhythm guitar with "The Shadows of Knight", a Chicago group with whom we shared management. He was leaving the group, and we invited him to join Lovecraft as our new bass player. Things jelled quickly with Jerry, and we went into the studio to record the first LP.

The First Album...The first record "H.P. Lovecraft" was recorded at Universal Recording in Chicago in a little over a week. The band was well rehearsed, and we were ready. Recording was very different in those days. Sessions were booked in three hour blocks of time, and you were expected to do a song from start to finish in that period. Unlike most of the bands in the midwest then, we weren't imitating other artists, we were original, recording original material, with an original and experimental sound! Because of this, and our desire to actually use the studio as an instrument, we required a certain amount of experimentation time.This drove our producers, and to a lesser extent our engineer crazy! They'd never seen anything like it. We booked our sessions six hours at a time instead of the usual three, sometimes more! We were spending precious time (Money) exploring what we could do in this new environment, and loving it! Jerry and I were the only band members with studio experience but the other guys soon jumped right in. Everything was  going well until it came time to record "That's How Much I Love You Baby (More or Less)". This song evolved from a chord progression that I had been toying with for years. One day Tony uttered the phrase (speaking of a girlfriend) "That's how much I love you baby more or less", and I latched on to it like a dog on a bone. The rest of the lyric came pouring out, and we had a tune. It was new, jazzy, swingin', and in 3/4 time. Whoops! Michael and Jerry (our rhythm section) were rockers, and try as they might, just couldn't grab the jazzy swinging feel of the song. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to record it, we ( the producers and myself) decided to bring in some musicians who were more familiar with Jazz to play the bass and drums. This pivotal moment represents the first ripples of discontent and fractioning within the group. After that it was never the same. We went ahead  and recorded the piece with the studio musicians, and it was everything we'd hoped for, but because of the bad feelings created, decided to use a lesser take with Michael and Jerry playing drums and bass on the recording. I still really like the song. I've been asked about the ships bell on "The White Ship" and the cowbell on "Wayfaring Stranger" many times over the years. Here's the story. The first album was a four track recording. This means that as you go along, things must be permanently combined to make room for new sounds. Once this is done there's no going back, it's forever! Both bells were added to our recording by Bill Traut using this process. His intentions were good, but in my opinion they're both too loud. While on this subject, I'd also like to say that the horns on the album were a later addition as well... Also done by Bill Traut, and arranged by jazz pianist Eddie Higgins. They added these things without our knowledge. I was upset by this at the time, but have since come to realize how important and meaningful these additions were to the sound and success of the record. One more thing to know about the LP is that "At The Mountains Of Madness" was written for, recorded, and intended to be on the first record. (It was later released on H.P. Lovecraft II) It was omitted in favor of "The Time Machine"to my everlasting embarrassment. I wrote "The Time Machine" as a send up of a popular novelty tune of the day "Winchester Cathedral". It was a joke, a total goof, complete with megaphone vocal and a big yteh-thir! It was never intended for the public, but there it is.

****

The Road...Almost as soon as our first LP was released, it was clear that we were a bit out of sync with what was happening musically in the mid west. Local radio just didn't know what to do with us. Though we were gaining popularity and people were requesting our record, our best known tune "The White Ship" was six and a half minutes long! In those days if you wanted a song played on the radio it had to be three and a half minutes or less. We needed to branch out. As fate would have it, Bill Graham heard our record and arranged for us to come west, play the Fillmore Auditorium, and do a west coast tour. As soon as we arrived in San Francisco we knew we were in the right place. Our record (the whole LP) was in constant rotation on local radio, people stopped us on the street, and were lined up outside the venues we played. We had no idea! The shows were fantastic! Unlike the mid west, the people in California cared about the sound, they cared about the lights, they cared about the music!! We were in Heaven. Some of us were getting high...it seemed like almost everybody was getting high! It was the 60's and we were feelin' it! After that first California trip things really changed. We were on the road constantly, coast to coast and back again for eleven months! We traveled in two leased vans, driving around the clock, seven people plus our gear. Needless to say, this took a toll. We played some great gigs, and heard and jammed with  some amazing musicians, but the group was falling apart. The label was demanding a record, we'd been on the road constantly for eleven months, and I hadn't been writing. The other elephant in the room was that I wanted to move to California! We still lived in Chicago, our management was there, plus George and Bill were dissolving their partnership, and we had to choose one or the other to manage us. Great timing! David and I were also drifting apart. On top of that, one band member was whispering in Davids ear to jump ship and start his own band, not realizing that what people were interested in was how we sang together. We were a team, that's where the energy was, and why we were successful. David was a huge talent, and could have easily had a solo career, but he didn't write songs, and outside the band, had no real relationship to, or interest in contemporary music. Never the less, it was a distraction. During this very chaotic time we also fired Tony Cavallari who seemed to have lost interest in the band and really wasn't playing well. This was a mistake and I take responsibility for it. We replaced him temporally with Chicago blues guitarist Joe Kelly, but after the first gig it was clear that Tony was our guy, and that letting him go was a  bad decision. I apologized, and Tony returned to the fold. Somehow I managed to convince the band that our future was in California. A lot was up in the air, and it felt like a good time to relocate.

After the move, we settled in to begin work on the new record. The energy within the group wasn't good. In hindsight, I think there was some resentment and repressed stuff with a couple of the guys, which was affecting the group vibe, and more importantly, the music. Enter Jeffrey Boyan (our third and last bass player). Except for early on, I never felt that Jerry was comfortable or happy with the band. When he joined, his playing really helped us come together, and he was great onstage. So what was the problem? At this point in the band's history, we needed to up our game. To find another strong singer (which Jerry wasn't), and a good bass player. Preferably someone that could also write. I had known Jeffrey since the folk days. We had jammed together many times.  He was a great singer with a good ear for harmony, wrote good tunes, had good stage presence, and played guitar and bass, just what was needed. On a personal level I should also say that I never felt supported or liked by Jerry, and when I heard that Jeffrey was interested in joining the group, I was very enthusiastic, as were the rest of the guys. We had a record to make, and Jeffrey was like a breath of fresh air.  

The Second Album...We were under the gun. The label was threatening. Our manager had booked studio time in L.A., we had a new bass player, and very little in the way of material. I had started work on a few song ideas before leaving home, and was excited to hear what Jeffrey was bringing in. I had high hopes. I wasn't disappointed.  We were  recording at a studio in L.A. owned by the Beach Boys (ID Sound). The engineer (Chris Huston) proved to be exactly the right person to record the group. He saved the day! Chris was a total wild man, often with a beautiful woman on his lap while he recorded. He was also a genius. Chris had been experimenting with backward tape, multiple delays, and numerous other studio effects years before they were in common use. He was way ahead of the curve, and brought his knowledge to bear on Lovecraft II. "Electrollentando", "Mobius Trip", and "It's About Time" are examples of what I'm talking about. Those tunes couldn't have existed without Chris's magic. Jeffrey brought in "Blue Jack of Diamonds", and sang the Billy Ed Wheeler classic "High Flyin' Bird". He was a perfect fit. Since the first record we'd been looking without success for a song that featured David.  David was also starting to write songs, and wanted them to be considered for the record. This created some tension because Jeffrey had just joined the group and we'd already recorded one of his original tunes, and featured him on another. Plus, I'd brought in two songs from my friend Terry Callier "It's About Time", and "Spin,Spin,Spin". David wasn't happy. We finally found "Keeper of the Keys" by Shipley and Brewer, and recorded that as David's solo piece. The label must have liked it, because they released it as the single! Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys liked the group. One night he came by the studio with a friend. We were in the midst of something, so nobody was paying much attention. Later when we were listening to what we'd recorded that evening, I noticed Dennis and his friend sitting in the back of the room. A few weeks later, I saw a photo of Dennis' friend in the newspaper. It was Charles Manson! 

We were about to leave on a short tour, but the record wasn't finished, and the natives at the label were getting restless. We decided to take the tapes with us and work on them in Chicago and New York. We played a couple of mid west concerts, then had a week off in Chicago before heading to New York. We were in Chicago working on the record when I ran into my old friend Ken Nordine in the studio lounge. Timing truly is everything! He agreed to come in and riff on tape, which he did brilliantly! Ken is a true genius, a legend with a golden voice. This was cutting edge stuff at the time. A Jazz poet with a rock band? Almost unheard of in 1967. New York was great. We had two fantastic nights at Fillmore East. It was the best the band ever sounded. Jeffrey's vocal blend with David and me was strong, he and Michael were killing it on bass and drums, and David and I were on fire!  We were feeling good. We were mixing the record at The Record Plant, and were excited to be working in a state of the art studio with Chris Huston and Eddie Kramer doing the mix. As we neared the end of mixing though, I repeatedly felt that I was listening to a work in progress, not a finished recording. I still feel that way today. H.P. Lovecraft II has some incredible and innovative moments, but if the label hadn't been pushing so hard for product, it would have been a very different, and more exciting record.  All I can say is, I wish we'd had more time.

The Last Gasp...We were living in California, more or less out of touch with our management in Chicago, and not getting along. Bill Graham was expressing interest in managing the group, but we were still under contract. I had been loyal to George Badonsky (our original manager), but was beginning to see that things weren't working and couldn't continue much longer with the current set up. We were gaining in popularity, playing larger venues, and our business was more and more centered on the west coast. With all the touring, and the addition of Jeffrey, we had become a very good live band, but off stage was another matter. The younger guys were partying hard most of the time, and David wasn't in a good place. I think he felt unappreciated because we hadn't recorded one of his devotional songs. This weighed on him, as well as the fact that everybody else in the group got high. David was living in the band house with the younger guys, and I'm sure was feeling a bit like a fish out of water. At this point I was spending more time with my friends than with the guys in the band. They had a large house with a pool that soon became party central. I was living quietly in Mill Valley with my wife, spending time with friends, writing, smoking weed, and tripping in the woods. I should have been paying more attention. We were in the middle of booking a summer tour that included a concert in Hawaii with Jimi Hendrix, and an appearance at The Woodstock Festival, when I got the call. It was Bill (Wlillem) Kenect our crew chief in a panic. Apparently David had been dosed with something (to this day, I don't know with what), had experienced a complete meltdown, and demanded to be driven immediately to the airport where he boarded a plane and returned to Chicago. Once there, he moved in with his parents and refused all contact with anyone connected with the band for over a year! David eventually returned to Northwestern University where he obtained a masters degree in music. This is the first time the real story of H.P. Lovecraft has been told. There have been a number of accounts in print about the demise of the group, but this is the first time the actual unvarnished and unspun truth has been revealed. I'm now 72 years old and have read a fair amount over the years concerning our history. I've been amazed (that there's still interest, thank you) and amused, and yes, sometimes hurt by things people have said. Some true, some not. In past interviews I've avoided certain subjects out of respect for peoples privacy, and not wanting to rock the boat by challenging some of their stories, but I'm now at a place in life where I want the full story without the spin to be known. This is it.

Aftermath...I was devastated! I knew there were problems, but had no idea things had gotten so bad. I knew it was over when David refused all our attempts to make contact with him. Replace him and move on? Ridiculous! Nobody could replace David! Eventually I took a job as a booking agent. I was burned out from the road and all that had happened, and needed a rest from being a band leader. 

We had been back in Chicago almost a year when I got a call from Bill Graham. He had a plan. He invited me to come to San Francisco for the weekend. As it turned out, Bill was starting a management company and wanted Lovercraft to be his first client! Woah! He advised me to get a lawyer and start looking for musicians, and that he'd advance any necessary monies to get things started! I told him the same thing I'd been saying all along...simply that H.P.Lovecraft was David and Me! Bill agreed with this assment, and not only that, he called David and David took the call! I wasn't present for the conversation, but the next thing I knew, David was back and we were putting a band together! I approached Bill Traut (our former manager) who was also a music business attorney, to handle contracts and negotiations, and we went looking for a record deal. A short time later Bill and I flew to L.A. and I  signed a whopper of a deal with Warner Reprise. The contract allowed enough money to hire just about any musician available...it was to be a "super group" built around me and David! We had total label support, Bill Graham as a manager, and access to the best musicians money could buy! What  could be better? I was in charge of putting the band together while David continued working on his masters degree. We started with Michael Tegza (our original drummer), and built the band from there. It sounds perfect right? Not quite. Flash forward to departure day. We're on our way to California and our new digs, (a beautiful spanish mansion with pool on 160 forested acres, complete with a large wood paneled room with a fireplace to rehearse the band). I'd come a couple of days ahead to insure that everything was in place. Time to go to work. Everyone arrived right on time. Everyone but David! I mentioned earlier that I'd signed the record deal. This is relevant because as band leader, I was contractually responsible to deliver the agreed upon personnel...David! We tried everything to change his mind, including a substantial cash bonus, but nothing could persuade him. Years later he released a CD of devotional music (In Dust I Sing) dedicated to his Guru Meher Babba. He never performed with a contemporary rock group again.

I attempted to salvage what was left of the group, but without David it wasn't the same. Other people were brought in, there was a lot of money on the table, and the infighting began. Ego and power became the thing, People were buying new cars, packin' their noses, and livin' the life. Somewhere along the way the music got lost, and I left the group. They made a record for Reprise "Lovecraft in the Valley of the Moon" that bore no resemblance to the music of the original band, and that was that. The label lost interest, the record didn't sell, and the band broke up. That's the story.

Almost fifty years have passed since H.P.Lovecraft took the stage. The band only existed for three years, but what a time it was! 

Addendum...A few attempts were made to capitalize on the name and success of H.P. Lovecraft. The name was used, a couple of records were released, but other than that, nothing was similar...it was just business.

Ethan Kenning

Live 1968 album out on Sundazed.

You can also check our interview with Mr. Kenning.

Article made by Ethan Kenning/2015

© Copyright http://psychedelicbaby.blogspot.com/2015

Mick Softley: A Rebel Life With Friends And Music

“Music is the world’s essence. Culture is the musical rhythm through which the world grows” (Aleksandr Blok). It engages many emotions and when touches us may stimulate exploration. Such is this journey, with friends of a minstrel who chose not to fit any foisted construct—including that of the music biz—but to go his own way. Never wavering from the bohemian life of his songs, Mick Softley epitomises the 60s and traits of the English spirit.

    He influenced Donovan and many others as well as being promoted as the new Bob Dylan (whose birth year he shared). Living the rebel life from the outset, his lyrics went for the jugular more than the American dared. Softley’s father worked as a mechanical engineer from East Anglian tinker ancestry; his mother from an Irish Catholic farming background qualified as a nurse and assisted the famous Pankhursts of the Women’s Suffragette Movement (her son’s stamp album was from their mail, even the Emperor of Ethiopia; he precipitously swapped it for a tuck-shop drink). His first school was run by nuns but preferred his own playground in nearby Epping Forest, though probably in the choir because classically trained, and a Jesuit College in Tottenham didn’t result in priesthood because he was more interested in girls he told one interviewer. An avid swimmer, the local pool’s lifeguards doubled as evening club bouncers so he was able to see Ken Collier and skiffle bands that were all the rage. His attitude to music changed with Big Bill Broonzy 78s—similar to Beau with Lead Belly—and so the teenager taught himself country blues on a mail-order guitar.

    Inspired by James Joyce, the 18 year-old quit his factory job with £50 savings and motor-biked with a friend to Spain in 1959, then hitch-hiked to Paris and lived above a bookshop. He sat with Beatnik writers like Corso and Burroughs, but they soon paled compared to the ex-pat music community there such as Sandy Denny and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. He busked with two later folk legends: the pre-ISB banjo man Clive Palmer and Wizz Jones. The latter recalls that when walking down the Champs-Elysees they saw a Union Jack on a building: ‘Look at the state of that flag, Mick” to which he responded “Follow me”. The two blue-jeaned vagabonds marched up to the posh receptionist who asked “Can I help you?” to which Mick curtly responded “The flag!” “Pardon?” “The flag—it’s dirty, a disgrace! As a patriotic Englishman I find it extremely embarrassing and offensive. See to it immediately!” “Yes, sir, of course” and they trooped out. Passing by a week later it had been cleaned and restored! “With a hilarious cheeky persona and wonderful voice,” Wizz recalls, “the French loved him. He was always a joy to play beside in those days”.
 

In Paris, 1960.

    When in Blighty he ran the Spinning Wheel in Hemel Hempstead, a tiny but raucous club where he encouraged the stage-shy Maddy Prior (she still remembers) before Steeleye Span fame. It was in that town that Wizz first met Softley through mutual friends who used to make an annual pilgrimage to Cornwall in the spring and summer (Clive Palmer resided there too).  The Home Counties was both base and a rich folk network where Softley’s “biting political songs [and] anarchic attitude were the bench-mark,” a reputation extending to “rambling ways and roving eye” (Terry Cox). One evening, sitting around suggesting titles for Mick’s first album, a popular crooner’s ‘songs for swinging lovers’ came up. Wizz Jones suggested a play on it, as there was much talk then of the campaign for nuclear disarmament.

    The angry Romantic’s boldly-voiced blend of protest, travel and travails of love—more a Shelley than Keats, mixed with Byron—first appeared on Songs For Swinging Survivors (Columbia 1965). Its ironic title, hirsute cover shot on a smouldering Essex rubbish tip and uncompromising sleeve-notes, heralded the new scene. The producers cherry-picked a single-day’s session at Bond Street’s Advision studio (“a lot of personal hells”)  featuring covers of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Billie Holiday, plus the first Vietnam protest song ‘The War Drags On’ and ‘Goldwatch Blues’ about the exploitative workplace. Donovan covered these, though the elder Softley was aggrieved when presented with a contract to sign before even being asked if could be used. This is how Donovan put it to me a few months ago:

    “Mick was a pal who helped me as did Mac [Keith ‘Mac’ Macleod] with
    my early guitar studies. Perhaps Mick showed me how to D tune when I
    learned his ‘The War Drags On’ which was influenced by Buffy Sainte
    Marie’s ‘Codine’. We all listened to Buffy. Mick was a character indeed
    and had some fine ways in his playing. I learned Wiz [sic] Jones songs
    from him too. Mick was a guy to listen to in the early scene ... I guess I
    helped Mick to record his first album, introducing him to producers Peter
    Eden and Geoff Stevens, the two who discovered me. Thanks boys and
    thank you Mick, you are one of a kind.”        

The charting Dave Berry covered one of Mick’s unrecorded songs as a B-side, ‘Walk Walk Talk Talk’, arranged by an A&R rep and they never met the singer informs me. In November the same year Immediate issued his ‘I’m So Confused’ / ‘She’s My Girl’, the A-side about organised religion no doubt with his parents in mind. These first electric band recordings continued a year later with Mick Softley and the Summer Suns’ ‘Am I The Red One’ / ‘That’s Not My Kind Of Love’ on CBS. Both A-sides often appear still on compilations. His close friend ‘Mac’ Macleod, who’d given up his record shop job in St.Albans to play second guitar on Donovan’s first UK tour in ’65, recalls that this “strange, quirky masterpiece echoes his schizophrenic life which was unpredictable and erratic to say the least”.

    Softley’s wife Maureen and young son Matthew (a daughter arrived later) lived in Hemel Hempstead. Wizz with his wife and child were in difficult circumstances living in a VW camper, waiting for the spring to decamp down to Cornwall, so Mick’s family made room for them. Mick had a market-stall selling foam rubber and the house was full of the buzzing of an electric cutter and blaring rock music. “I plan to be a millionaire by the time I’m thirty!” he used to declare, so time was running out. When that didn’t quite go to plan he also opened a home-made wine shop, which he locked up one afternoon and never returned to.

    Mac first met him soon after leaving the Merchant Navy in ’61, either at the Spinning Wheel or in one of St. Albans’ two clubs where Mick “performed one of his unique shows, with his vintage Gibson Kalamazoo and amazing voice I was immediately impressed”. Donovan’s sidekick left after their ’65 tour for three years in Scandinavia, then on his return Softley reappeared at his club-like home in French Row, St. Albans. In July ’69 Mac, with percussionist Candy Carr, were invited to join Donovan (who also encouraged Softley to record again) at his Skye retreat to prepare for an upcoming American tour.

    Just before they left Mick turned up at Don’s home in Little Berkhamstead, and as Mac was having problems getting a US visa he decided to stay in England and form Soft Cloud Loud Earth (a nod to Mick’s paganism?). Enlisting Mike Thomson on bass and a drummer, the pair started rehearsing but Mick’s behaviour was becoming rather erratic and needed kid gloves, Mac recalls. The rhythm section couldn’t handle it and pulled out before even gigging. So they reverted to an acoustic duo as Soft Cloud in September, with lauded concerts at the Roundhouse and Zig Zag benefit with Fairport Convention at the Dunstable Civic Hall the next month:

    “We always went down very well, but it was an ordeal never knowing
    what Softley’s state of mind was going to be. He had a propensity for
    surveying the audience with a lingering, threatening stare which really
    made me feel hot under the collar. The demise of Soft Cloud came a
    short time after, when Mick was called to the studio to record Sunrise.”

Mac, understandably, thought he’d be involved but the upcoming producer Tony Cox preferred his own sessioneers; Mac realised his friend was more of a one man show anyway. Softley told the inaugural Zig Zag that the sessions were strictly professional, without stimulants, because respected word and music craft (another factor is that he didn’t know the renowned musicians). Not one photo exists of Soft Cloud nor recordings apart from some home demos at French Row—one of these has surfaced on Youtube, a storming version of Mick’s later single ‘Time Machine’. As Mac put it:

    “Despite Mick’s mercurial character, we had some great times playing
    together and I regret that Soft Cloud didn’t progress any further. He
    wrote some excellent songs and it would have been interesting to see
    how the collaboration could have developed.”

Mac formed the Danish psych legends Hurdy Gurdy (he is Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man) and was in early Argent. He also appears on the recently discovered Attic Tapes by the late John Renbourn before his debut album. Acclaimed by musical peers then and since, his Incredible Musical Odyssey retrospective garnered excellent reviews in 2003.
             
    In the summer of ’69 they walked into the Wellington pub and started up—not chuffing the landlady as it actually was the gig of Rory McNamara! A few days later he re-met Mick, worked on some songs including Woody Guthrie, and busked together in Leicester Square in between gigs during that winter. Nigel Hyams, who has worked in films and television ever since, first saw Mick one Sunday in 1968 or ’69 playing at the Green Dragon in London Colney village: “as we approached I heard one of the most incredible voices belting out an amazing version of ‘Aquarius’; there against a pillar stood this rather short guy with a wizard-like beard, playing an old Gibson. I did think, and still do, that Mick’s voice and delivery is up there with the very best of the best”.

    Through a mutual friend, Dennis Garlic, they became friends. Softley lived a nomadic life between England, Holland, Denmark and the so-called Gypsy Festival in the Camargue (he was like a human internet in those days). Back from his travels, many hours of deep conversation and music were enjoyed at Dennis’s flat in Beaconsfield Road St. Albans. Signed to CBS, Nigel recalls that the singer was later desperately trying to get his songs’ copyright back which he eventually achieved, much to his relief. “He was never mainstream, and hated the way they commercialised his music”. When Nigel, Dennis, Satch Niemiec, and Colin Geraghty played in the area (Scott’s Wine Bar; Adelaide; Fleur de Lys etc) Mick might show up and play an impromptu guest spot: “It was always so incredibly uplifting to hear that powerhouse of a voice, and catch up on things afterwards”.

    A problem developed at Scotts: it became too busy and people stayed too long!! The owners wanted to open the basement as a burger bar instead (were they time-travellers from the future?). When Mick heard this after returning from abroad, he insisted they all go down there. He was dressed in his full “wizard” outfit: long black cape with a mystical symbol on the back, long flowing hair and very long wizardy beard. He talked to the owners and, basically, put a spell on the venue so that it would never have live music there again unless it was by them. It has changed ownership many times, says Nigel, but the curse seems to have held ever since.
     
    By the time Softley’s first CBS LP Sunrise came out in 1970, the singer had spent the advance on a transit van—the one featured on the cover—to facilitate a bohemian life from a vacant plot in sleepy Flaunden. The label seemed to have been searching for an English Bob Dylan as Donovan went his way. Marc Brieley for example was signed for a couple of albums but also eventually left the music business in 1973. Marc tells me he never met Mick Softley, being in Al Stewart’s circle around that time.

    Street Singer the next year was more of a return to his roots, including the evocative natural home of ‘Goldwatch Blues’. When Rory McNamara was busking in Portobello Road one day his friend Mick was heckling in the crowd. The CBS photographer turned up with some of The Byrds, who were then label-mates; Rory handed over his Framus guitar so Softley could pose on what eventually became the Street Singer cover. Rory appears on the right, with curly hair. In Wimbledon later Rory said he planned to busk on the continent. Mick lent him his little 1930s Gibson for luck, ‘I’ll come and get it when I need it’. Eighteen months later he appeared out of the blue on his friend’s doorstep in Amsterdam, and they went out busking…for a few months. Now living in California and gigging across the states with two great recent CDs available on his website, Rory McNamara fondly remembers a major musical influence and generous spirit.

    Softley’s final CBS album, Any Mother Doesn’t Grumble (1972), was the most lavish and best known, but all are hypnotic trips: emotional story-telling like soul-experiences via one of the era’s most melodically strident voices carries a song to its own place, unimaginable by anyone else. Reviewers noted its “majestic feel, creating images of awe-inspiring vastness”, which is not mere hyperbole. There is an intense beauty in all his work, as if illicitly overhearing inner thought.

    He told Melody Maker about hating the music business and couldn’t respect anyone in it, with the possible exception of Ritchie Havens. “The rest are incredibly sick, just singing about themselves in a life that just ain’t real. The pop business is a bloody great cardboard pyramid, and they live in it. It’s so banal it’s absurd!’ Brave words in an era of singer-songwriters like James Taylor and John Denver, though Cat Stevens eventually had his own doubts, when the media spotlight preferred to focus on the ‘safe’ rather than more demanding contemporaries such as Softley, Wizz Jones, Kevin Coyne, John Martyn and Roy Harper. Protest against injustice and exploitation of person and environment, social hypocrisy in life and love, celebration of what others condemn, all and more permeate his songbook in a heady brew.

    By then he’d appeared on two CBS samplers (Together; Rock Buster), picture-sleeve singles around the world especially in Europe, tours supporting Steve Miller and Mott the Hoople (which he liked and likened to a road-sweeper clearing the ground for the main act!), Radio One’s Sounds Of The Seventies, French T.V.’s Grande Affiche, top billing at one of the first Roskilde festivals, and interviews in all the leading music papers including the first Zig Zag. Even CBS must have finally realised they had not so much a flower child as a loose cannon liable to go off at any moment.

    Nigel Hyams recalled that his friend was becoming “more and more allegorical in his speech and acting quite unusually. I still have a long letter from him that is almost impossible to understand. He also sent me what appeared to be the copyright to ‘Birdy Birdy’. I’m not sure whether it was a gift or not, but I still have it”. There are some parallels with the memories of Wizz Jones about this time too. Their paths crossed several times over the years in Holland, France and Belgium, and from Paris came a poignant letter from Mick recounting how he’d met his estranged wife in an unsuccessful attempt to rekindle their failing marriage: “By this time Mick’s mental state was deteriorating due, I’m convinced, to too much cannabis imbibing”. (If this is so, then it may add a regrettable footnote to what Mick told the press about his initial CBS recording sessions. The nomadic life perhaps took its toll too.) A few years later they’d wake in the morning to see Mick’s van parked outside but he would never come in, only occasionally knocking on the door asking for a glass of water. “We had some wonderful times, and I find it very sad that we lost touch and that he never achieved the success he deserved.” The same can be said of Wizz, Mac, and Rory McNamara, except that their reputations continue deservedly high in folk circles.
     
    Softley’s only live recording is one track on C’est La Fete a Malataverne (Expression Spontanée ES6) with Alexis Korner also and, appropriately, well-known French political musicians. The idea of Pierre Toussaint, it was held in the troubadour south but the artistes centred round his Le Bourdon club in Paris. Attended by 12,000 people, it had local support and is still recalled fondly. By the end of his CBS contract, Softley was abroad for longer periods. McNamara met up again in 1977 when Mick was living in Haarlem near Amsterdam. After a few years busking outside the music scene, disliking others “making money out of what I do…that’s why I’ve avoided a proper career”, he released two vinyl LPs and a cassette via Doll Records of Zurich: Capital (1976), Mensa (1978), War Memorials (1985), his last recording. A couple of songs are in French, sounding as if from the medieval troubadour age of which he seems more a part of. The first (which starts “Arrows forged…”) was recorded in three days in Germany and mastered in Holland the same month. Nothing else is known about these ultra-rare recordings.

    However, Mick did have the master tapes but never the required equipment to transfer them (a second-hand machine he bought didn’t work), according to fellow-musician and artist Simon Rackham. He has put the last album very recently on Youtube for everyone to enjoy, with the artist’s permission and blessing. There is also a short mockdoc by Phoenix and Moore there, adding to the myth if not the legend. Peter Frame included him in Rock ‘n’ Roll Landmarks of the UK and Ireland (1999), having booked Mick as the headliner (over Wishbone Ash) at the first birthday party bash of his famous Friars club in Aylesbury.

    Mick Softley was one of the victims of the County Court rulings in the 1980s against travellers, so moved to Northern Ireland the year before his last album, occasionally surfacing at the Belfast Folk Festival. Around this time (dates are difficult to pinpoint for such memories) Nigel Hyams received a tape copy of a Doll recording from the artist which he thinks was made in Enniskillen (War Memorials?) when they met for the last time in French Row. To this day he feels “very lucky to have shared some times with Mick Softley” and “wishes him well in every way”. Melissa Softley believes her father’s first stroke was around that time, and he unfortunately suffered another a few years ago while cycling around town, confining him to a nursing home ever since. It’s believed, from friends there posting news on a Facebook page devoted to him, that the local council sequestered his belongings from his council home (which may have included the Doll master tapes). While gardening there and researching Einstein whom he greatly admired, he’d written and published several books of poetry on four computers. From childhood, books were always close to his heart.

    As one CD reissue says, Softley was “far too original to be categorised and bar-coded by the faceless suits running big record companies”. Kris Needs has called him “criminally overlooked”. A box-set is overdue to say the least. As friends movingly show us—and my gratitude to each of them here—there is a symbiosis of music and life lived to the full with its own integrity, which of course had fall-out in areas such as family as the artistic life often does. His originality deserves wider appreciation for what certainly has resonance just as much now as then.
Please contact Ian at www.upthecreekmusic.co.uk if you have any Doll recordings or information for our ongoing project. Thank you.

Article made by Brian R. Banks/2015
© Copyright http://psychedelicbaby.blogspot.com/2015

Hi-Fi series presents: Ken Kantor (Acoustic Research, ZT Amplifiers)

Psychedelic Baby music room with Acoustic Research AR9 loudspeakers.

Ken Kantor is a prominent audio engineer. His career began in one of the most known and well established audio companies of the past - Acoustic Research. These days Kantor is very active in his own company ZT Amplifiers. He's not just an audio engineer, but also a big music enthusiast. The result of this symbiosis is what his work represents. We are proud to open our brand new series of interviews and articles dedicated to audio equipment with Mr. Kantor.

As many of your readers have probably experienced, the emergence of psychedelic music in the mid-to-late 1960’s brought with it new demands on the performance of audio systems.  In addition to the very wide frequency response and high dynamic sound levels demanded by newly evolving forms of rock music, psychedelic music, in particular, highlighted the issue of 3-Dimensional spatial reproduction.  Of course, audiophiles had long been concerned with left-to-right stereo separation and soundstage, as well as with a general sense of reverberation.  A wide spectrum of musicians in diverse genres, from Stockhausen to the Velvet Underground to the Beatles, were already exploiting stereo effects as compositional elements. And, now, innovative musicians were beginning to utilize all dimensions of direction and space as musical tools in whole new ways.  Major bands such as Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, to name only two, began utilizing so-called, “surround,” or, “quadraphonic,” techniques in their live concerts, and more and more listeners hoped to experience these effects at home.  

 1980 art resume.

1981 video performance art.

Direction and space came to fascinate me as a budding audiophile, an erstwhile electronic musician and as a wannabee audio scientist.  I wanted to know how to understand directional and dimensional audio in a scientific way, so I could better apply it in musical ways.  Starting in the early 70’s, as I was (most of the time...) in High School, it was becoming apparent to me that loudspeakers were really the key to this all.  Along with, of course, microphone and recording studio techniques, which the listener had no control over, speakers were the exact element that defined the relationship between a recorded electrical signal and its blossoming forth as a real sound in three dimensions.  (Or, four dimensions, really, since the temporal properties of a sound are critical to it’s perception by human ears.) 

Kantor's  first solo product  ARSRC-1.

But, what were the characteristics that made a particular loudspeaker either good or bad at creating spatial sound?  Certainly, the regular speaker specifications, the, “specs,” like frequency response or impedance didn’t tell you anything about a speaker’s ability to create a convincing illusion of image, depth, width, envelopment and other characteristics that were important to a convincing sense of space.  In fact, there were speakers with great specs and very accurate tonal fidelity that seemed to offer almost nothing in the realm of spatial sound.  Meanwhile, there were other speakers that didn’t do so well by existing audiophile standards that did provide a more convincing sense of space to the music.   So what were the key issues?   How could one measure, and in turn, more importantly, how could one design a speaker with great imaging and space?   This is what fascinated my teenage mind and became my audio obsession.

The first important realization I had was that, in general,  the best large panel speakers like electrostatics and planar magnetics tended to have the most laser-like, pinpoint stereo localization, but offered a very “dry” presentation with little ambience, while speakers with small, dynamic radiators, dome tweeters, etc., were just the opposite.  The best of these provided a rich sense of reverb, ambience and envelopment, but at the expense of pinpoint imaging.  So, what did this mean?   Well,  it took me a while to come up with it, after lots of reading, lots of experimenting and lots of discussion, but I settled on the idea that the exact radiation pattern of the speaker was the missing, “specification,” the critical factor that related to a speakers imaging prowess.  Of course, I am simplifying things a little here, since various factors inter-relate in complex ways.  Still, I was on to something.   

AR 303 Loudspeakers.

After I went away to college at MIT, eventually settling on studying Electrical Engineering, (in large part because MIT also includes much of the study of human hearing within that field), I continued to refine my ideas about the relationship between loudspeakers and spatial hearing..   As it turns out, MIT required Electrical Engineering undergrads to do a “thesis.”  A thesis involves the concentrated study of a particular topic or problem, resulting in a detailed, scholarly paper.  For my own thesis, I proposed the development of a loudspeaker that I believed would combine excellent imaging, usually the province of narrow dispersion speakers, with excellent ambience and envelopment, usually associated with wide dispersion speakers.  The trouble was, I was an impoverished student, without the means to purchase all the materials... specialized electronics, cabinets, lots of speaker drivers, etc.  Because of this, one of the professors I was working with suggested that I contact Acoustic Research, “AR.”  AR was not far from Boston, and had a history of funding academic research projects about loudspeakers and acoustics.  Sure enough, AR wound up supporting my thesis, (which, incidentally, several years later formed the basis of the AR MGC-1, “Magic” speaker). 

Introducing Magic Speaker.

This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  Bob Berkovitz, the head of AR’s Research Department, became something of a mentor to me, and I started to help out at the AR research labs, building custom test equipment and prototypes, assisting with experiments, etc.   At that time, AR had two distinct technical organizations in the US:  the Engineering Department, responsible for the planning, development and manufacturing of the products AR actually sold, and the Research Department, which investigated new technologies and did advanced development.  In public, all was copacetic.  But, behind the scenes, there was great competition between the groups.  They did not see eye-to-eye about the direction AR should take, or how the products were being developed.   In a nutshell, the Research people  did not feel the designs AR was bringing to market were state of the art, while the Engineering people felt that the Research folks were elitists, unrealistic about the real world, and insulated from the enormous pressures they were under to bring dozens of products to market every year, working with tight budgets, etc.  

AUDIO Magazine.

Enter the AR-9.   At the time I started working at AR, the 9 was just beginning development.  An incredibly ambitious design effort, the 9 was conceived to be the most technologically advanced, best sounding, best measuring product AR had ever produced.  It was to incorporate the very best ideas from both the Engineering and the Research teams, as a cooperative effort.  Engineering contributed their best driver designs, the novel opposing-woofer configuration, with its special crossover, and countless other details.  Research gave the 9 the “acoustic blanket” and impulse response improvement aspects, and it’s ability to work with room boundaries, as well as new measurement techniques to help steer the design work.  While many people contributed key aspects of the 9’s engineering, Tim Holl, AR’s Director of Engineering and Bob Berkovitz, AR’s Director of Research were the design leaders.  

More information at The Vintage Knob.

I can take no credit for the design of the 9; this was fixed before I got involved.  My role, most often, was to drag prototype speakers around the building, making measurements, soldering and screwing things together, debugging problems, and such.  If the schedule demanded some weekend work, the fingers pointed at me, the low man on the totem pole.  Of course, from time to time, I might suggest some engineering approach or design element in a planning meeting.  Eventually, I would  help drive the speakers to the various big magazine reviewers, establishing contacts that lasted throughout my career. But, realistically I was still an undergrad at the time, and had no experience bringing products to market. I was a sponge, soaking it all in, learning all kinds of things about design, manufacturing, marketing, etc.  

The AR-9 went on to become a huge commercial and technological success, and today it is, along with the 3a, one of AR’s two most revered products.  Over time, I gained more and more experience, and got more heavily involved in the design and development of products at AR.  Once I finished my Electrical Engineering degree, I decided to switch gears and go for a Master's in Art and Media Technology, and my work at AR, as well as for several of the other audio companies that made the Boston area home,was how I supported myself.  After graduation, I was invited to join NAD in London, England.  The pay was meager, but they set me up with a small home studio as part of my deal, and I spent my days designing amps, and writing and recording strange music.  I eventually returned to the US, and took a job at AR, where I did my first “solo” product design, the SRC-1, “Stereo Remote Control.”  It was a turbulent time at AR, and I soon found myself running the Research Department.  

Kantor with Villchur and Kloss AR Founders.

This was the period when I really dove into the question of how speaker design could be advanced in order to achieve better stereo imaging and ambient envelopment.  Personally, I consider the AR-9 to be the ultimate embodiment of what I call the, “2-dimensional frequency response,” speaker paradigm.  Essentially all speaker designs up to that point focused on providing a flat frequency response, one way or another.   Some tried for flat anechoic response.  Others tried for flat in-room response.   And there were countless variations on these themes.   Every loudspeaker company, every loudspeaker designer, had some formula for achieving “flat response,” that they believed was best.   Stereo imaging and the reproduction of ambience were after-thoughts.  It was imagined that if the frequency response was correct, those other factors would somehow take care of themselves.   But, this is not what I believed, and not what my early work at MIT suggested.   I believed that one could improve the spatial reproduction of a speaker by controlling its radiation into the room.  The results of my thinking became the AR MGC-1, the so-called, “Magic Speaker.”  

The MGC-1 was a very different design than the AR-9, and that was intentional.  As I said, the 9 represented the ultimate embodiment of AR's traditional thinking, perhaps of traditional loudspeaker design in general.  The MGC-1 was the first step in a new way of thinking.  It certainly outdid the 9, and most any other speaker, in terms of imaging and ambience.   But, it wasn't as refined or capable in other areas.  Frankly, this was not helped by AR Engineering's refusal to give the MGC-1 the full bass capabilities of the 9, for fear that it would over-shadow that product.  I fought this.  I lost....   So, while the MGC-1 uses the 9's “Dual Dome” mid-tweeter combo, and other excellent drivers, it was intentionally handicapped in the bass department.  This proved to be a serious problem for a speaker of its size and cost.    

NHT 3.3. (We do not own copyright for picture above)

Fast-fowarding to 1990, a speaker company I co-founded, NHT, released a product called the 3.3 that is very much an heir-apparent to the AR-9, while incorporating important aspects of the MGC-1.   The 3.3 does not use active electronics like the MGC-1, but it does provide a very high level of imaging and ambience reproduction, while simultaneously equaling the 9's bass response and improving on its frequency response.   I like to say that the AR-9 is the NHT 3.3's daddy, and the MGC-1 is its mommy...   

Rocking in the 90s.

So, we are finally getting near the present.   Thanks for indulging these digressions!   After I left NHT, I was involved in a number of projects, new companies, and such.  In 2008, I decided to un-retire in order to do something that has fascinated me since grade school... building guitar amplifiers.   After all, I figured that if I could make a small hifi speaker sound like a huge concert hall, why couldn't I apply the same principles to make a small guitar amplifier sound like a much larger one?   The result was a new brand of guitar amps, called “ZT Amplifiers” which contain a bunch of acoustical and electronic innovations designed to make them sound and play like much larger, more expensive models.  

Early ZT lunchbox prototype.

We've been very gratified at ZT by the acceptance of the amps by amateurs and pros alike.   Without  marketing or give-aways on our part, bands including ZZ Top, Wilco, RHCP, Sonic Youth, White Zombie, Echo and the Bunnymen, Andy Summers, MGMT, Steve Wynn, Merle Haggard and many others have gone out and bought our amps.   I feel like I have finally come full circle, back to my musician roots!

In ZT lab.

Article made by Ken Kantor/2015

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