THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
850) We the People — “In the Past”
This “astonishing” (Garage Beat ’66: Vol. 6: Speak of the Devil CD comp) ’66 B-side by the Orlando, Florida, garage rock “super-group” (see #495) is “way cool” (On the Flip-Side, http://ontheflip-side.blogspot.com/2012/12/song-of-week-we-people-you-burn-me-up.html?m=1), “a masterpiece” (Kurt Curtis, https://www.orlandoweekly.com/music/garage-days-revisited-2259038), “one of the great raga rock tunes” and “gutsy”. (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/we-the-people-mn0000816941)
Wayne Proctor, one of the band’s two primary songwriters, wrote and sang “In the Past” . . . and played the Octophone:
[The song] was a little weird for the DJ’s and promoters to understand at the time, because the Indian Sitar movement was just beginning, thanks to the Beatles. Not sure the American radio stations had quite grasped the importance of how such instruments would affect the psychedelic era which was coming on strong about then. . . . I had a high school friend . . . and another friend and I were visiting him one summer afternoon. I was 18 years old, and my friend who sold me the instrument was probably around 15 or so. He took us into his attic where I saw an eight-stringed instrument in the attic corner . . . . [H]e sold it to me for a small amount. The instrument was similar to a mandolin, but larger, and apparently had been built by my friend’s grandfather. I was told only 50 had been made. At the time I knew nothing about it, but later heard it was called a “Regal Octofone.” . . . [Proctor added a pickup and did a little more magic to the instrument] Not long after that, I wrote two songs especially for the “Octachord” as I called it, one being “In the Past,” and the other, “Half of Wednesday.” When I took the instrument to practice with the band one night, and plugged it in for the other guys and for our manager, I remember them staring at it with jaws dropped.
https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2014/09/we-people-interview.html
In ’68, the song was covered by the Chocolate Watchband (see #160). Proctor: “I thought it was really cool that someone else had recorded my song, and naturally I was extremely happy, although their version was somewhat calmer than ours. But, I understand it was their attempt to be a psychedelic band, which was really beginning to take hold about that time.” (https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2014/09/we-people-interview.html)
Steve Leggett bemoans the fact that We the People “never captured any kind of national attention, which is hard to believe given the vitality, quality, and proto-punk punch of the band’s material. . . . usually delivered with a punk intensity and sneering vocals that are all the more striking because they are actually based around fully realized melodies.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/too-much-noise-mw0000796014)
Richie Unterberger gives some history:
One of the most versatile mid-’60s garage groups — indeed, they were for the most part too accomplished and pop-savvy to truly merit the garage band tag — We the People had some big hits in Florida, but never broke out nationally, despite releases on the large RCA and Challenge labels. Veterans of Orlando garage [bands] . . . all found their way into We the People, who made their first single for the local Hotline label, “My Brother the Man,” in early 1966. “My Brother the Man” was a smoking, almost-crazed, hard garage-punk number, a path the band continued to follow on their early Challenge singles “Mirror of Your Mind” and “You Burn Me Up and Down.” . . . Yet at the same time they could throw in gentler and more lyrically and melodically subtle originals . . . . Unusual for a garage band, they boasted two prolific and talented songwriters in Tommy Talton and Wayne Proctor. . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/we-the-people-mn0000816941
Proctor left the band in ’67 as “I had become 1-A on the army’s list, and was sure to be drafted. I knew I had to do something if I didn’t want to go to Vietnam, so I quit the band and enrolled in college.” (https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2014/09/we-people-interview.html)
J.M. Dobies gives a sense of the scene:
Summer 1966. At places like the Orlando Youth Center, Leesburg Armory, or the Coconut Teen Club . . . . [h]undreds upon hundreds of teens are dancing to the beat stomped out by one or more of the top local bands. . . . On Monday morning, the band members will be back in class, subject to being hassled by teachers about the length of their hair, but on the weekends, they are rock & roll stars. They’re totally boss, man.
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/music/garage-days-revisited-2259038
Band members Terry Cox and David Duff reflected on the changing scene, giving the most concise, incisive and hilarious analyses of the same that I have ever read:
Terry Cox: “I can almost pinpoint the day where everybody who was dancing around, jumping around, raising hell, packing the place, instead sat down on the floor and expected to hear ‘In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.’”
David Duff: “The mood changed. And it was a change for the worse. I can remember playing in Gainesville at the University of Florida. We go set up in one of the frat basements and play all night, and there’d be nobody in the room. Everybody was upstairs in their rooms, smoking dope and having sex. I liked it better when everybody danced.”
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/music/garage-days-revisited-2259038
Here is the Chocolate Watchband (“a piece of shimmering psychedelia with a great beat and arrangement”, Bruce Eder, https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-inner-mystique-mw0000118416):
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