The Tikis — “Bye Bye Bye” (Warner Brothers single version): Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — August 31, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

939) The Tikis — “Bye Bye Bye” (Warner Brothers single version)

Before turning Bizarre, Santa Cruz’s Beatlemaniac Tikis issued three singles, including this gorgeous pop rock confection following in the long tradition of singers warning girls just how much of a jerk they are.

Bruce Eder:

The Tikis were a surf/British beat-style quartet from Santa Cruz, CA, who released a pair of above-average singles for Autumn Records in 1965. . . . Rhythm guitarist Dick Scoppettone had played folk music with his high school friend Dick Yount as members of a group called the Couriers until early 1964, when the British Invasion hit America. Finding themselves under the spell . . . they joined up with drummer Ted Templeman and Ed James on lead guitar to form the Tikis in the spring of 1964. The group’s sound was a mix of Merseybeat and more homegrown music, Beatles songs interspersed with surf, and car songs by the Beach Boys and others. They became popular in the Santa Cruz area and, seeing the success of their neighbors the Beau Brummels [see #713] on Autumn Records, began pestering the label with demos. In May of 1965, the company . . . signed the group. They debuted with a Beatles-like single called “If I’ve Been Dreaming,” and followed it up with “Bye Bye Bye,” neither of which charted. . . . The Tikis . . . lucked out when Warner Bros. purchased Autumn and their recording contract. . . . Warner Bros. was a relatively new label with a minimal roster of the rock & roll acts, and was eager to exploit the groups that it inherited from Autumn. The group was placed in the hands of Lenny Waronker, a young staff producer, who discovered a new Simon & Garfunkel song entitled “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy),” which he decided to record with the Tikis. This recording, more elaborate than anything the group had ever attempted (and involving 18 musicians backing [the Tiki singers]), was such a departure — and a source of concern, that it would cost them their established audience in Santa Cruz — that the group insisted on using another name for the single’s artist credit. As a result, it was released credited to Harpers Bizarre. The record rose to number 13, and suddenly the Tikis . . . were history.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-tikis-mn0000919986/biography

Alec Palao notes that “Bye Bye Bye” “was recorded in differing arrangements, the slower [Beau] Brummels-esque take . . . appearing as a third single after the group moved to Warner Bros. following Autumn’s demise.” (liner notes to the Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 CD comp) I like thie WB version the best, and it is the one I feature today.

Here is the Autumn single version:

And here is the song, appearing as the first part of a medley appearing on Harpers Bizarre’s third album (from ’68):

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