The Harbinger Complex — “I Think I’m Down”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — April 16, 2024

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

1,178) The Harbinger Complex — “I Think I’m Down”

This “fuzz-Punk masterpiece” (Cory Linstrum, The Rock & Roll of San Francisco’s East Bay, 1950-1980) is “kick-ass proto-punk at its finest” (Stansted Montfichet, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-harbinger-complex-mn0000554526#biography), “propelled by a nasty, fuzz-guitar riff . . . featur[ing] a great, double-tracked Jagger imitation while the crude rhythm section lays down a clumsy, loping groove from way down in the mix”. (Mike Stax, liner notes to the CD comp Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968) It has the “snarl appeal of the toughest British groups.” (Alec Palao, liner notes to the CD comp With Love: A Pot of Flowers)

Cory Linstrum tells us that:

[The Harbinger Complex was p]robably the coolest and crudest East Bay garage band . . . . not only sound[ing] raw and great . . . also look[ing] raw and great. Its members were tough and thuggish, wore long, unkempt hair . . . and had the snotty attitudes of their heroes: the Stones, the Yardbirds and the Kinks.

The Rock & Roll of San Francisco’s East Bay, 1950-1980

Zolland gives us some history:

Bob Hoyle III and Ron Rotarius began playing guitar together when they were in the eighth grade. By the time they were sophomores together in high school, they had enough talent and musically-inclined friends to put together a band. They called themselves The Norsemen. Unfortunately, in 1965, Hoyle was called to active duty in the Naval Reserves for the Vietnam Conflict. By the time he had come back in 1966, the early stages of The Harbinger Complex had already begun with Rotarius. Hoyle was quickly accepted as the band’s lead guitarist, while Rotarius performed rhythm guitar duties. Also in the band were Jim Hockstaff on lead vocals, Gary Clark on bass, Jim Redding on drums, and Chuck Tedford on organ. Tedford parted ways with the band before having a chance to record. The band had a huge local following in their hometown of Fremont, California, and they were soon recording singles. . . . When Jim Hockstaff left the band in early 1967, Gary Clark took over the lead vocals. Unfortunately, the band didn’t last much longer and they split up before the end of 1967.

https://abitlikeyouandme.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-harbinger-complex-time-to-kill-1966.html

Stansted Montfiche notes that “Hockstaff’s Dionysian exploits — the siring of several love children — got him banned from Fremont’s Washington High”. (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-harbinger-complex-mn0000554526#biography)

Last FM adds that:

The Complex’s publicity shot for [a] pair of performances shows Hockstaff sitting astride a barnyard mule, microphone in hand, looking like a half-crocked itinerant preacher, surrounded by his four bandmates. The accompanying blurb reads thus: “Five muddy bodies lie upon a desolate street. Sudden inspiration doth lendse them well. A Harbinger beckons them. Ominous groans – the anguished sounds of dying animals. Courageous lads, they set forth on a one-way trip. Neglect not your surging blood, pounding pulse, throbbing limbs! Five naked souls untamed, uninhibited, crawl into your head. Walk inside your mind, filling your body with an unknown substance…You have experienced the Harbinger Complex.”

https://www.last.fm/music/Harbinger+Complex/+wiki

Apparently, “a drug bust in early 1967 would ultimately destroy the [band], not because of jail time, but for the dissention it caused within the group”. (Alec Palao, liner notes to the CD comp With Love: A Pot of Flowers)

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