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primary, Dick Dale was huge. The radio was everything; we had little transistors. ‘Pipeline’ (The Chantays) I played at the ninth grade talent show. I adored The Four Seasons, loved Rick Nelson more than Elvis and then American Bandstand. I was never in the cool crowd, [but] with [a] guitar you could be anything you wanted to be.”


James: “I had a friend who played the blues and he showed me how to play the guitar. I went to Hawaii (and started gigging with) a guy who played banjo. That was my real introduction to music. We would come to the point when someone had to sing the lyrics, and the guy playing banjo said, ‘This is too hard.’ So, I had to do it – not by choice, but because I had kind of gotten shoved into it. That’s how I became a vocalist.”


Mark: “I met Ken Williams (our future guitarist) in eighth grade. You’d go over to each other’s house and see how fast you could play ‘Miserlou’ (which was popularised in a surf guitar arrangement by Dick Dale in ’62) and Ken was really good at it. He had a Gretsch Country Gentleman guitar; I really liked him for his gear. Myself, Ken Williams and a guy named Jack Hardy (started playing together). We had three guitar players and no drums. None of us were outgoing guys, [but] we did have Beatle boots. In the ninth grade, the three of us formed a surf band.”


Mike: “[At the time I was in a band called] The Fabulous Silver Tones. We became huge. Everyone from Kansas City came to hear us play. We got to Sun Records and Sam [Phillips] cut two songs: ‘Midnight Thunder,’ which was an instrumental, and ‘Dimples’ by John Lee Hooker. [Our single was issued on West Coast Records in ’60 and] went to #4 immediately at [radio station] KUDL in Kansas City. I was 15 years old. We became the biggest band in four states. I was making anywhere from $15 to $25,000 a year when I was a kid.”


FROMSURFIN’ TO SANCTIONS


Ken Williams and Mark Tulin would eventually meet James Lowe and form a new band called The Sanctions. In March ’65, The Sanctions taped a group of tracks that exhibited their shift from surf instrumentals to the frat/garage sound of ‘Louie Louie’. With the late ’65 addition of Mike Weakley on drums, they assimilated a British blues Yardbirds style to their groove, becoming Jim & The Lords. Through a demo session at a friend’s home studio in Woodland Hills, the group gained confidence and found their direction as


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primarily a studio aggregation.


Mark: “I don’t actually remember the moment I met James, probably approaching junior year. James was out of high school, had a family and two kids. He was a little bit ahead of me chronologically on what he liked. He was older, with more life experience.”


James: “[We met] through a guy named Steve Acoff who was a drummer. I asked if he knew anybody who might be interested in hooking up to play some music. He mentioned Mark, [who] at that time was a guitar player, not a bass player. He brought along Ken Williams, who was [also] a guitar player.”


Mark: “We rehearsed in the garage of my parents’ house, which they turned into a den just for us. I don’t think they would have been encouraging if they thought I wasn’t going to be an attorney. We played a few shows with Steve [on drums]. One was at a donut shop on Van Nuys Boulevard; we’d set up in the middle of the aisle and play during the day. Nobody came in. Then we played a strip club on Lankershim Boulevard. It made absolutely no difference what we played; everyone [was] just watching the strippers.”


Mark Tulin, Ken Williams, James Lowe, Mike Weakley


James: “[Our drummer, Steve Acoff] brought us together and after the third


[gig] didn’t show up. I started to get the idea of how flakey music [people] could be.”


Mark: “At that point, we were rehearsing three days a week and weekends. We said, ‘If you go surfing, you’re out of the band.’ He went surfing; we kicked him out of the band.”


James: “I had a friend who was a drummer. He was actually the boyfriend of my sister- in-law. He had just come from Kansas City – Mike Weakley, [but] we called him Quint.”


Mike: “My birth name is Michael Quinton Weakley, so I took Quinton and shortened it to Quint for the Prunes.”


Mark: “He was a stunningly good drummer, with that R&B feel. He could play rock, but he had that deep pocket that only came from playing certain kinds of music. He understood the rehearsal work ethic.”


Mike: “They were playing surf music kind of halfway. But I said, ‘OK, I’m going to work with you guys.’”


Mark: “We added a keyboard player, Dick Hargrave, who looked like either Chad or Jeremy… I can’t remember [Ed. – we think Chad]. Dick could sing a little bit; for that reason he and James never hit it off. I was so sided with James that I would never


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