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OK, a long twisted band story. Back in '64, I was the sound guy and roadie for this California Hippie band. We would haul our stuff around in my VW bus, which had a big Daisy painted on the side. We were pretty messed up, but we had a great singer/songwriter/bassist when we started, called Roger Sidwater. He wrote a bunch of songs, and then wandered off and left the band right before we were going to make our first album.
We started off being called Cygnet 6 (because my name was Schwan/Swan and they couldn't think of a band name, but after Sidwater left, we looked at the big daisy on the bus, and Ricky Right (keyboardist) suggested "Petal", and David G. Shepard (lead guitar player) wanted to call us "Daisy". Dave was a total womanizer, and always referred to his latest conquest as his "Daisy". Ricky won the band name contest, and we were called "Petal", but Dave took our best song and called it "One of these Daisies"... because every time we started to play this song, he would yell out to the girls in the audience "One of these daisies is going to be mine!" The band thought it was sick, but we put up with it for awhile, since he was the lead guitarist.
We recorded our first album in '68, and came up with the album name "Petal to the Metal". The song "One of these Daisies" was the #1 hit on the album. After the album came out, the band squabbled over money and pretty much broke up, but in '69 we decided to travel to Woodstock and see if we could play our hit song there. We found Roger Sidwater and Ricky Right, but Ricky was totally shroomed out and could barely play 2 notes at a time on the keys, and had maintained his vicious hatred of Dave. We almost didn't live through that drive. But we got up on stage and tried to perform our song anyway. Ricky had sold his organ long ago, so he had to play a regular piano that was on stage. Dave was dripping with testosterone, as usual, and started the song off with his usual yell to the crowd. This always upset Ricky, but this time it drove him nuts. When Ricky had his solo in the middle of the piece, I had forgotten to cut his microphone, and he grumbled about Dave while he was playing and his voice broadcast out over the stage! This totally freaked Dave out and the band got temporarily lost, but Sidwater's bass pulled them back together to finish the piece.
I had a reel-to-reel running, and recorded this rather touchy performance, and recently found the tape, so here it is.
Our band broke up after that performance, but several years later, some other British band stole our song idea, and changed it slightly and put it on their own similarly named album (Meddle), and it did really well... sigh.
(PS - Some parts of this story are actually true)
We started off being called Cygnet 6 (because my name was Schwan/Swan and they couldn't think of a band name, but after Sidwater left, we looked at the big daisy on the bus, and Ricky Right (keyboardist) suggested "Petal", and David G. Shepard (lead guitar player) wanted to call us "Daisy". Dave was a total womanizer, and always referred to his latest conquest as his "Daisy". Ricky won the band name contest, and we were called "Petal", but Dave took our best song and called it "One of these Daisies"... because every time we started to play this song, he would yell out to the girls in the audience "One of these daisies is going to be mine!" The band thought it was sick, but we put up with it for awhile, since he was the lead guitarist.
We recorded our first album in '68, and came up with the album name "Petal to the Metal". The song "One of these Daisies" was the #1 hit on the album. After the album came out, the band squabbled over money and pretty much broke up, but in '69 we decided to travel to Woodstock and see if we could play our hit song there. We found Roger Sidwater and Ricky Right, but Ricky was totally shroomed out and could barely play 2 notes at a time on the keys, and had maintained his vicious hatred of Dave. We almost didn't live through that drive. But we got up on stage and tried to perform our song anyway. Ricky had sold his organ long ago, so he had to play a regular piano that was on stage. Dave was dripping with testosterone, as usual, and started the song off with his usual yell to the crowd. This always upset Ricky, but this time it drove him nuts. When Ricky had his solo in the middle of the piece, I had forgotten to cut his microphone, and he grumbled about Dave while he was playing and his voice broadcast out over the stage! This totally freaked Dave out and the band got temporarily lost, but Sidwater's bass pulled them back together to finish the piece.
I had a reel-to-reel running, and recorded this rather touchy performance, and recently found the tape, so here it is.
Our band broke up after that performance, but several years later, some other British band stole our song idea, and changed it slightly and put it on their own similarly named album (Meddle), and it did really well... sigh.
(PS - Some parts of this story are actually true)
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Roxylee
I love the band bio- it's fun to know what's really going on among the band members. I bet Dave personally checked his mic after this gig. Very cool intro to a Pink Floyd-ish tribute- sounds great! :-)