THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,615) The WordD — “You’re Gonna Make Me”
This garage rock gem from Dallas is so good, they’re gonna make me listen to it over and over and over. Word. I’m not sure whether it was the band’s only A-side or only B-side. But when two of the band members joined the Penthouse 5, it was rerecorded and definitely issued as an A-side and called the Penthouse 5’s “masterpiece”, “captur[ing] all the best elements of the era, from folk-rock to Yardbirds’-inspired fuzz freak out”. (liner notes to the CD comp Garage Beat ’66: Vol. 7: That’s How It Will Be) The WordD’s original version is even better — rawer and shorter! Bruce Eder opines that “[a]lthough the Penthouse 5 is the best of them, each of the [predecessor] bands [including the WordD] was amazingly accomplished in both singing and playing Beatlesque songs with an edge (think of the Monkees as a real garage band), and their songwriting . . . was formidable when it wasn’t too pretentious.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-wordd-is-love%21-mw0000031150)
Billlooney6992 (the same Bill Looney who was the WordD’s bassist?) tells us that:
When this record was aired on [American Bandstand] ’68 [actually, ’66], The WordD had already broken up. And two members, John Williams (vocals) and Richard “Lurch” Keathley (guitar) had joined the Penthouse 5, comprised also of Steve Wood . . . Bill Looney (bass) and Mike Echart (drums). A psychedelic version of this song was (re)recorded by the Penthouse 5 circa ’69 [actually, ’67]. BTW: This [American Bandstand] “Rate a record” received an 87 rating mark… a record that stood for years.
As to the Penthouse 5, Bruce Eder writes:
The Penthouse 5 were one of dozens of unsung bands floating around Texas in the mid-’60s. Based on the recorded evidence, however, they were also one of the great ones . . . translat[ing] the Beatles (and, to some extent, the Byrds) influence into garage rock terms about as well as any of them. The mix of Beatles-like harmonies, crunchy guitars, and pumping, grinding Farfisa organ is compelling and always surprising in its details and nuances. Justin Brown (lead guitar), Rob Graham (vocals), Mark Porter (drums), Steve Wood (guitar, vocals, keyboards), and Bill Looney (bass) came out of Oak Cliff, [Texas]. They were part of an orbit of Beatles- and folk-rock-influenced musicians in the area that included . . . Jon Williams, who had been . . . with the WordD. By 1967, internal conflicts had driven Brown, Graham, and Porter out of the Penthouse 5’s lineup, and they were succeeded by Jon Williams (vocals, keyboards, harmonica), Richard “Lurch” Keathley (lead guitar, vocals) — who had both come from the Dallas-based the WordD — and Mike Echart (drums). The new band, renamed the Penthouse, made another half-dozen records with producer Edward Greines; the Beatles influence was still discernable on songs like “You’re Gonna Make Me,” but the reconstituted Penthouse was more self-consciously heavy and serious, and cut singles for the Solar and Hawk labels. By the end of 1967, however, the band had split up . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-penthouse-5-mn0000483978#biography
60’s Garage Bands asked Bill Looney how familiar he was with the WordD before Jon Williams and Richard Keathley joined the Penthouse 5. Looney said: “We had heard some of their acetates and were impressed with the creativity and musicianship, and we were having internal problems with a few members, so when producer Tom (Darryl) Brown introduced them to us, we knew we had our next group incarnation.” (https://web.archive.org/web/20151119124155/http://www.60sgaragebands.com/interviews/penthouse5.html)
Here are the Penthouse 5:
Here is American Bandstand:
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