give the guy a chance. If he didn’t hit it off with James, he wasn’t going to be in the band. The ‘If you don’t like him, I don’t like him’ club. James was the first adult I really hung out with. James brought this work ethic that was hardcore. And because he was like the parent, I just thought that’s the way you did it.”
James: “I never realised it was a parental vibe, because when you’re 21 you still think of yourself as about 15. You don’t think you’re gonna get any older; you’re still thinking of yourself in the same way. I considered myself the leader of the band, even though I didn’t want to be there, but later I found out I was more of a parental force on them than I thought I was.”
James: “We used to go down to the old records stores in Compton [in South Central Los Angeles] and listen to the 45s there. Mike was into all these strange people because he was from Kansas City.”
Mike: “[I said,] ‘I’m going to take you down to the black record stores, and get you guys some roots. I’m going to teach you guys about Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, BB King, Elmore James.’ We bought all these records, and they started to learn this kind of music and they started to get better. We never did one surf song after I got with them.”
Mark: “Stunning stuff and it was like, ‘Let’s do something like that.’ Now, because we’re white bread white, we’re not going to do it like they did it. It was about it being ours, not anyone else’s.”
Mike: “We went out and did some shows as Jim & The Lords. We started playing around the Valley. We started getting better and better… winning talent contests, we started getting a little fan base, people would come up and say they liked us.”
James: “We tried playing around at a couple of places and then decided the only way to really do this is to get ourselves uptight and together and play what it is we want to play. So we thought: ‘Instead of playing gigs, we’re going to lock ourselves in a garage for four or five months.’ I’d come every day before work and we would rehearse every day, so it was more practise than it was getting together and just jamming, or playing gigs.”
Mark: “The decision was made pretty early on that we wanted to be a recording band, not a performing band. James had a friend, Russell Bottomley, who had a recording studio. We would go over there and record stuff. [Those early recordings from ’65 of us as] The Sanctions/Jim & The Lords [were] recorded at Russell’s house. It was all one mic and he would
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cut it as we were doing it.”
James: “I got to kind of see that the real avenue of expression is in recording, it’s not going out and playing live. The decision was an adult one, it was really mine. I couldn’t go dragging around to all the clubs.”
“I’m going to take you down to the black record stores. I’m going to teach you guys about Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’Wolf, BBKing, Elmore James.
running down their repertoire in the Woodland Hills garage of Mark Tulin’s home rather than gigging in the wilds of Hollywood. Opportunity literally knocked when Barbara Harris (a realtor showing a house on the same block with her husband) serendipitously heard The Electric Prunes practising and was moved to meet the band. Through Barbara Harris they would meet songwriter Annette Tucker (who would later write their signature song). Therein Tucker introduced the band to their musical mentor, engineer and producer Dave Hassinger.
Mike: “One day we’re rehearsing up at Mark’s house and there’s a knock on the sliding glass door. Here’s this little blonde girl, about 25 years old with two dogs. Mark opened the door and she said, ‘I heard you guys. You sound really great!
Mark: “When you want to record you think about songs in a different way, you think about music in a different way; you’ve got a different approach, the way you work things up. It was a different way of looking at music. In the studio there was a sense of being good that I didn’t get from playing onstage. The only way to be a success was to make records.”
BARBARA, ANNETTE&DAVE
Through the beginning of ’66, the Prunes adhered to a strict rehearsal regiment,
Can I come in and listen? My name is Barbara.’”
Mark: “She knew this family that owned a restaurant up from RCA [Victor Studios at 6363 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood]. Even at that point we had been shucked and jived by enough people to not believe it. Everybody was going to get us a deal, and everyone knows somebody.”
James: “Of course, everyone in Hollywood does this kind of thing: ‘I know so-and-so.’ Later on we got a call and actually got to play at a party for
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