LONE STAR STATE ´60s PUNK 10"

The Heard Story

The Heard's 'Exit 9'/ 'You're Gonna Miss Me', released in 1967 on their own ONE WAY label, is one of those records that burrows itself in your brain on first exposure and doesn't strike with any less impact on any subsequent listenings. Both sides have been highly regarded garage classics since their original release. So it's high time for some light to be shed on this short-lived, but brilliant group.

The Heard had been playing "All the time for a year" when they decided to make a record, booking time at Robin Hood Brian's studio in Tyler. The guys were impressed by Robin's eight-track recorder (the only eight-track in Texas at the time) and homemade mixing board, but less enthusiastic about Robin's insistence upon using a new electronic gadget called the Cooper Time Cube - a tape-delay echo device that succeeded in giving the music a strange sound, as well as making Andy's vocals virtually incomprehensible.

The song that the Heard took to Robin's studio that night, 'Exit 9', was an original composition that Andy & Randy had written in their estimation, to "catch the spirit of the times." With Andy's crazed vocals matching Roky Erickson's finest moments and Bill Lewis' outta control bass runs approximating the sound of an electric jug (sort of), 'Exit 9' is debatably the greatest of the many Elevators-inspired songs of the era.

The fact that the media was giving much ballyhoo to the Summer of Love and the acid-rock bands in San Francisco meant absolutely nothing to the Heard, who underscored Exit 9's weird sound with murky anti-drug lyrics ("You're at the start, it's over now/Take your hippies and leave me child!" being a particularly brilliant line) and a wild fuzz guitar blast for a coda.

The guys added a surprise ending for the song that unfortunately never made it to the record. Andy explains: "At the end of 'Exit 9' there's this wild, climactic crescendo, and we thought it was too harsh to just leave it like that. So we came up with the idea of having the sound of a toilet flushing for the ending. I remember holding a very expensive microphone down in the toilet, and we flushed it while Robin recorded this." After much deliberation, it was finally agreed that the flush would be left off the master tapes." "It doesn´t sound like a big deal now," Randy states, "but at the time, having a toilet flush on your record would've been total anarchy! I remember Robin saying to us, "Man, djs aren't gonna play that!"

Though the Heard's debut 45 did manage to get a few spins on local radio (Andy providing copies to area deejays with a lyric sheet!), public response was otherwise indifferent. Like many groups, they sold most of their copies at gigs, but that was about it. One funny 'chart toppping' incident came out of it, though. "A few weeks after the record was released, I got a call from a dj in Center", Andy says, referring to a small town 75 miles south of Longview, "And he said, 'I wanna tell you that your record is number 1 in Center!' So we got a gig there.

"After the show we went to the radio station - it was real late, about one o'clock. And the dj said, 'I'll show you what my secret is here.' He went back to the transformer and dialed up the power. All of a sudden, it went from like a 10,000 watt station to a 30,000 watt station, and his range went from 30 miles to 250 miles. The FCC probably wouldn't have liked it. So here it is, one o'clock in the morning, we're being interviewed on the air in Center and broadcasting in Houston and Shreveport." But, as Randy laconically comments about the record: "I think making #1 in Center was the most acclaim it got." It sure as hell deserved a lot more.

The Heard broke up that fall when the usual post-high school complications (college, the draft, etc) reared their ugly heads.

The Only Ones Story

Due to the sustained efforts of those involved in the reissue scene, many hundreds of local '60s garage band 45s have been unearthed and have gone on to become classics to garage fans the world over. Initially these obscure discs were pressed in quantities of 500 or less and distributed only within a small radius - forgotten, discarded or lost in the years that followed; scant surviving copies emerging decades later, thanks only to sheer luck or the tenacious sleuthing efforts of latter-day garage fanatics.

At this late date, there are perhaps not too many records in the history of local '60s garage rock that still remain undiscovered - although this remains to be seen. The Only Ones from Longview, a town in the east of Texas with a population of 50,000, are one of the hitherto undiscovered, and their sole 45 from 1966 can easily stand comparison to other legendary garage releases from the Lone Star State. The Only Ones existed from 1965 until '68. Two of the band's founding members, John and Jim Axberg, still live in the area today and both continue to play music on a professional basis.

"We gonna bop 'till we drop" declares John, and he means it. For the last 40 years he's played in several bands, most of them shared with his brother Jim. The brothers were born and raised in a musical family. Their grandma played the piano for silent movie houses in Chicago. Their father, Eddie, moved from Chicago to East Texas after World War II, managed a music store and had his own very popular band throughout the years. "We were aware of his gigs and the clubs he played," explains John, "but he was from an older school of music than we were interested in".

Jim & John Axberg's introduction to rock & roll came via Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. In their early teens, the brothers checked out local groups like Jerry V & The Catalinas, and the Sensors, who were playing the typical-for-the-time Ventures-type instros, Ray Charles and Little Richard songs. Things changed when the British Invasion made its mark; the brothers watched The Ed Sullivan Show every Sunday. "All the English acts made their U.S. debut there", says John, "the Stones, Beatles, Animals and Manfred Mann... everything changed. It seemed like every neighborhood had a band rehearsing in someone's garage all the time". And for this, we can all be grateful.

Following the split of the Dimensions, John hired Andy & Randy Clendenen at his dad's request for one night before they became Texas garage legends, the Heard. "Our dad had booked a gig for his company's Christmas Party," John remembers. "My older brother played bass with the high school stage band and knew all of dad's old standards - and so did I, on drums. We played the old stuff for half the night and the other half was rock & roll with the Clendenens".

It was only one step further to form their own band. In mid-1964 John (then 14, on drums) and Jim (just 13, on bass) started the Dimensions, together with similarly-aged Steve Thornton (lead guitar) and Danny Sheehan (rhythm guitar). The Dimensions were a typical shortlived prepschool band and played one sock-hop at the Forest Park Junior High. They split up when the brothers started to get more serious about how they sounded. Danny Sheehan liked being on stage clowning around, but wasn't a very good musician. Steve and Jim said they weren't going to play with him anymore. John Axberg felt he had to make a stand: "I guess that was my first job as a band leader... to fire my best friend, cause he couldn't play".

In the summer of 1965 the Axbergs put together a new combo - The ONLY ONES. Their friend Steve Thornton continued on lead guitar and the three completed the band with Randy Clendenen on rhythm guitar. Randy only played a few gigs (including the Spring Hill high school prom, '66) with the group.

When he was becoming a lead guitarist, he and his brother Andy formed "The Heard". The Only Ones then brought in organist Brenda Seale, who was known for her performances at school assemblies. A female member in an otherwise male-dominated garage band was highly unusual. But in John's opinion, this was no detriment.

"We were serious about making good music and Brenda was a great organist and made the band sound great. She liked being a member and she and Jim began dating. We never thought about it being a big deal having a girl in the band".

The Only Ones soon made a name for themselves becoming ambassadors of music for their school, playing assembly programs at other local junior highs. They played receptions after the Friday night football games at the Round-Up Club - and as was almost mandatory at the time, they participated in battles-of-the-bands. The memory of these events is still fresh with John: "There were occasional battles. Seems like we were in them with bands like the Loners, the Far-Fetched, the Heard, the Plain Facts.... I remember one when the Far-Fetched won... they were dressed like Paul Revere & The Raiders. Black & white striped pants with knee boots, ruffle shirts... and they had dance steps worked out... a helluva show. Another time we won playing the theme from the TV show Batman. It was a hit, and so were we".

The Only Ones rehearsed heavily, mostly in each others' living rooms - "Whoever's parents could stand it the longest," as John puts it. The band had begun to write their own songs as soon as they started to play. "How hard is it to do a 45 rpm record?" asked Henry Collins, the store manager at John's part time job once. John had no idea, but took care in the matter.

"We knew of Steve Wright's recording studio," says John. "He sang with the Sensors. The only other studio we knew of was Robin Hood Brians' studio in Tyler. It was more expensive. So we went with Steve. We recorded both songs in one night. It was awesome. Steve was a genius. He arranged all of the background vocals, multi-layered... and had me playing a tambourine in a bathroom along with every snare beat". The record was financed by Henry Collins and a policemen named Leon Carpenter. Why? John: "Looking back, these guys were angels. They were our parents' ages and just wanted to help, because they believed in us".

The 45 came out in the summer of 1966 and was released on the band's own Brumble label. 'Another Place', an excellent teen-protest tune was written by Jim & John and both were responsible for the harmony lead vocals on it. Steve sang lead on the cool and moody punker 'Can't Trust A Woman'. He also wrote the hook-line and came up with the title. Together, the Axbergs added the typical 1966 garage punk put-down lyrics to it.

500 copies of the 45 were pressed, and sold after gigs and out of the trunk of Jim's car at a local hamburger stand. The 45 got reasonable airplay on the local and regional radio stations. It reached No. 52 at KLUE, was No. 1 on the request line of KFRO and made it to the top of the charts at a station in Center, Texas. Not bad at all for a band that have, until now, remained obscure even by garage standards

John describes this period as the apex of the band's existence: "When the record came out we drove to KLUE radio station on Signal Hill. When we got there there was no receptionist and we went straight into the DJ's booth. He was on the air. So between songs we showed him our 45 and told him we just got them in. Then he said "Let's hear what it sounds like," put it on the turntable and said "You're on the air boys!" We couldn't believe it. So we ran out and sat in our car, cranked-up the station and HOLY SHIT! We're on the RADIO. Not just that day, but all summer".

With a well-received 45 on hand, the Only Ones enjoyed their local stardom. John reflects that "We were popular because of our single, but also because we were the sons of Eddie Axberg, a well established musician in the area". Live, the band played the hits of the day and a smattering of original tunes, mainly written by Jim & John. Once in front of 1,500 students at the Longview High School Auditorium; often to 500 or 600 kids at the junior highs, Despite their popularity, connections, and no shortage of original material, the Only Ones unfortunately never recorded again.

In 1967 the band members were still too young to play in night clubs. So the Only Ones appeared at backyard and/or swimming pool parties, and kept playing the local circuit like the Civic Center and the reception dances at the Round-Up Club. Not always an easy affair as John recalls: "Steve, Jim and me were also playing in the school marching, concert and stage swingband. Our band director would let us go at the beginning of the third quarter during the football games, so we could set up early enough to play with the Only Ones at the reception dances after the matches". Brenda didn't have that luck - the director of the Viewettes, the schools precision dance group, held her up until the end of the games and it became harder for her to perform with the Only Ones all the time

Upon leaving high school in 1968, the Only Ones were approached by an agent named Benny J. St. Clair from Dallas. He booked them for the Studio Club in Dallas, as well as lining up a couple of gigs in Oklahama. Steve had left the group by this stage. He returned with his family to Odessa, TX, 500 miles away from Longview. Brenda had also left due to the continuing conflicting schedule with the Viewettes. The pair were replaced by Joel Laws on guitar and Ronnie Mason on keyboards.

In keeping with the spirit of the times, the sound of the Only Ones began to evolve. A horn section was added, with Larry Quinn on trumpet and Chuck Fenton on tenor sax. Soul and heavy psychedelia were among the most popular sounds of the time, so accordingly "We used the horns half of the night and played soul music - Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett. The other half we played Jimi Hendrix, Who and Cream" says John. The Only Ones lasted until the summer of '68. Jim led the band on the Oklahoma tour - Mike Rider from the Loners was sitting in on drums, while John was visiting his oldest brother in California. John learned that "Everything went wrong. Lotsa car trouble, no money... it was a disaster". And it proved to be the end of the Only Ones.

Steve Thornton today works as a flight instructor for Southwest Airlines in Allen, TX, and Brenda Seale is a lawyer in San Angelo. Jim & John Axberg continued playing music and started a Hendrix-styled power trio named Millard Fillmore Wild West Medicine Show during their time at Kilgore Junior College. Although this band never recorded, they received much recognition locally. This was followed by the Everyday People and numerous other projects. In 1977 they formed the Axberg Brothers Band and released a 45. Also that year they recorded an album with friend Dennis Ross. Both Axberg brothers also work as sculptors, John specialising in wood, Jim in stone. But mainly they are still making music and are on the road as Dennis Ross & The Axberg Brothers. This formation has recorded several times and has just released a new CD. As John says "We're gonna bop 'till we drop" and there's no sign of the guys slowing down, all these years after the halcyon days of the ONLY ONES.