The Changing Tymes (Pennsylvania - US, Garage Rock) - (nie) zapomniane zespoły
Grupa The Changing Tymes z Filadelfii (PA, US) była w regionie Tri - State (Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Delaware) jednym z najlepszych zespołów garażowych drugiej połowy lat 60-tych.
Pomimo skromnego dorobku fonograficznego (jeden singiel) na trwale zapisała się w pamięci (wspomnieniach) ówczesnych nastolatków.
Z wielką przyjemnością mogę Państwu przedstawić historię tego nietuzinkowego zespołu, opowiedzianą
(specjalnie na potrzeby mojego bloga) przez jednego (z dwóch) z założycieli - Ray Tilli (Raymond J. Tilli,
ur. 18.05. 1947r., absolwent Father Judge High School, Philadelphia - class 1965).
W tym miejscu pragnę serdecznie podziękować (Ray Tilli) za materiały i szczegółowe, obszerne informacje
o zespole.
The Changing Tymes - grupa założona w 1965r. przez dwóch przyjaciół (Ray Tilli i Jimmy Mahoney) - pierwotnie w składzie :
- Ray Tilli - guitar, bass - na singlu, vocals
- Jimmy Mahoney - lead guitar, vocals (zmarł na początku stycznia 2015r.)
- Tom Shapiro - lead vocals, guitar, bass - na koncertach)
- Wayne Tort - drums.
(The Changing Tymes, 1966, od lewej : Tom, Jimmy, Ray, Wayne - niewidoczny)
Około wrzesień - pażdziernik 1966r. grupa nagrała (Impact Studio z siedzibą w północno-wschodniej Filadelfii) singiel :
- "You Make It Hard" (Shapiro - Mahoney)
- "Try A Whole Lot Harder" (Shapiro - Mahoney),
wydany w listopadzie 1966r. przez R.D.#1 Records ("R" - oznacza Roy Howell - który sfinansował
produkcję,a "D" - Dave Wilson - manager zespołu).
https://www.metacafe.com/watch/12087160/the-changing-tymes-us-pennsylvania-you-make-it-hard-single-a-side-1966/
https://soundcloud.com/kossoff1963/the-changing-tymes-us-pennsylvania-you-make-it-hard-single-a-side-1966
https://www.metacafe.com/watch/12087163/the-changing-tymes-us-pennsylvania-try-a-whole-lot-harder-single-b-side-1966/
https://soundcloud.com/kossoff1963/the-changing-tymes-us-pennsylvania-try-a-whole-lot-harder-single-b-side-1966
Około 1967r. doszło do zmian personalnych w zespole - w składzie :
- Ray Tilli - bass, vocals
- Jimmy Mahoney - lead guitar, vocals
- Nicky Indelicato - lead vocals (zmarł w marcu 2020r.)
- Mike Laurence - guitar, vocals,
z pomocą różnych perkusistów The Changing Tymes dodali do repertuaru trudniejsze (pod względem
wokalnym i instrumentalnym) utwory.
Początkiem końca zespołu było odejście Nicky Indelicato do grupy The American Dream.
Ostatecznie The Changing Tymes rozwiązano w 1968r.
Oto historia tego zespołu przedstawiona przez Ray Tilli :
"...Hi Paul,
Sorry again for the delay. Here is a relatively comprehensive account of the answers to your questions regarding my band, The Changing Tymes. I’m not sure of the format in which you present bands on your Blog, so I hope that you can use the following to your satisfaction. Hopefully, this is good enough for your purposes. Please let me know if this is okay for you.
Well here goes:
First things first - the group personnel:
The first iteration of the Changing Tymes were:
Tom Shapiro - lead vocals, guitar, bass (on live gigs)
Jimmy Mahoney - lead guitar, vocals
Ray Tilli - guitar, bass (on the record), vocals
Wayne Tort - Drums
Details about the band:
The Changing Tymes were a quintessential Rock band of the “Garage Band” era, founded by myself and Jimmy Mahoney in 1965. We were uncompromisingly dedicated to the music - we ate, drank and slept music! Nothing else seemed to matter. Like other “garage” bands at that time, I think we were fortunate to have come of age at a time when we saw and experienced the birth of Rock and Roll, and we were deeply influenced by the greats of that early era like Little Richard, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers - the list goes on…
Then in 1964, the Beatles and the subsequent great bands from England and America invaded our brains! Every week there was some new artist, song or album to get really excited about, and to pour ourselves into and absorb. It was a time of great creativity, inspiration, and expression, and it drove us to practice, practice and practice more!
Some trivia:
Our record was recorded at Impact Studio, located in Northeast Philadelphia, on or about September-October 1966, and released in November 1966.
Impact Studio was the location for the recording of the hit “Karate” by The Emperors (recored Sept. 1966).
The meaning of the record label, R&D #1 Records: the “R” stands for Roy Howell who funded the production, and the “D” for Dave Wilson, our manager.
The Changing Tymes were featured on various compilations of the “best of” The Garage Band Era albums from Europe, Australia, and South America (and of course, the USA). To this day, the Changing Tymes - the record and the band, are still valued by collectors as an important band and sound of the Garage Band era. I have been contacted by people in other countries for details about the Changing Tymes.
Some history and stories about The Changing Tymes:
During the recording session at Impact Studio (and in a hilarious bit of irony), we didn’t know why, but the engineers in the recording booth were laughing so hard that they had trouble “slating” the tape for recording because they had to say the name of one of the tunes: “You make it hard”! We actually didn’t get the joke; all we were thinking was, the world was Rockin’ and we were part of it! Talk about naive and clueless...
Also, when Jimmy Mahoney began to play lead, there was a shout from the control room: “What’s that noise!”, when he used his big hollow body Gibson ES-175 guitar with the new Fuzz Tone pedal/stompbox. It caused a type if feedback they had never heard before - but it was controlled feedback, and that type of sound became an integral part of classic rock music (I guess we were just a little ahead of the times)! The recording would have been wilder if we recorded it the way we wanted! Unfortunately, Jimmy had to switch to his backup guitar to get the sound they wanted...
We got pretty damn good, and quickly gained a reputation as being one of the best bands in the Tri-State area (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware). Word got around and we were asked to appear on all the regional music TV shows (American Bandstand had just moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles in 1965, so we missed that opportunity). The next most popular TV show was called “Summer Time at the Pier with Ed Hurst”. The “Pier” was the world famous Steel Pier in Atlantic City, NJ. [For an interesting quick read, check out the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Pier
[I lost track of the other 2 recordings. I don’t think they were put on vinyl.]
We appeared on the live broadcast of “Summer Time at the Pier with Ed Hurst” in the summer of 1966 along with Manchester England’s “Freddie and the Dreamers” (who had a number of hit records at the time), and the Ramsey Lewis Trio (who also had a few hits). After playing the “Pier” gig, we drove about 20 minutes south to Margate, New Jersey to play our regular 5 night per week gig at the “White House” - a Club near the beach in Margate, NJ. (During that summer we were the house band at the White House.) All TV’s in the club that day were showing our live appearance on Steel Pier, so when we arrived back at the club we were greeted with a rousing applause and back-slaps!
A similar occurrence happened when we played a live TV show in South Philadelphia, PA called “Aquarama”. The backdrop was a HUGE fish tank with hundreds of exotic species of marine life. After the show we had to immediately rush to our evening gig at Penn State University's Ogontz Campus outside of Philly. The crowd was getting annoyed because we were late, but when we finally arrived we were greeted with cheers and applause! “It was a “$3.00 Night” - all you could drink for three bucks! Some folks took advantage of the cheap booze, got rowdy and many fights broke out - beer bottles were flying, but we played though it - and a wild time was had by all! We made about a half dozen TV appearances on regional tri-state television that year.
A funny fact: our looks belied our music. Both Jimmy and I were in college at the time (I was also in the Army ROTC and Army Ranger ROTC training program), and the other guys had jobs that had dress and hair codes. We looked squeaky clean cut, but our sound was HUGE & WILD!
Case in point: The first discotheque in Philadelphia was the “Underground Discotheque” in the basement of the (giant) Atlantic-Richfield building at Broad and Spruce Streets. It was the beginning of Psychedelia - black lights, strobe lights, gel projections etc. We were playing that night with an excellent band called “The Down Children”. When both bands showed up for setup before the gig, we were throughly intimidated by the other band; they were older and looked like a bunch of “Hell’s Angles” - a look way ahead of any band we’d ever seen in 1966!
They looked like they could (and wanted to) kick our asses - they were scary! Fortunately, the setup went on without incident. When the gig started the Down Children went on first. They were a really good band and looked badass tough and cool. When they finished they disappeared into the dressing room. Then it was our turn…
So looking rather “preppy” the audience seemed to take little notice or interest when we took the stage. That was until we started playing. We won them over almost immediately - we played our hearts out! We couldn’t help but notice that the other band came out from their dressing room and watched us intently! We weren’t sure if that was good or bad - we wondered if they going to crush our heads after the gig!!
After the first set (each band played 2 sets), a couple of the scary dudes from The Down Children came up to us and started asking questions: “Hey man, how did you get that tone?” “How did you get the sound on ….”, “You sounded EXACTLY like the record”! Man, were we relieved - they were impressed by us - NO HEAD CRUSHING!! Needless to say, we felt validated!
Another sticky situation was when our lead singer got arrested on stage during our stint at the White House. We were all to young to drink: 21 years of age was the minimum age in the tri-state area. We were 19 years old (and had to have special permits to play in the bars). But being 19 doesn’t mean you can’t drink! With that in mind, our lead singer, Tom, acquired some phony ID cards to get into a different club the previous night to get some drinks. Somehow, the police were able to track him down to our club, and during our first set (of 5 sets that night), a few cops arrived and came up on stage. They asked Tom his name, then put handcuffs on his wrists and hauled him off to jail.
So there we were, no lead singer who was also the bass player at the time (not on our record, that was me (Ray) playing bass on the record), and the rest of the band still having to play 5 sets per night, 5 nights per week! His bail was set at $500 which neither he, nor none of us had. We improvised the best we could. What a stressful week - 5 nights as an incomplete band! Once we were finally paid, we took our full $500 cash pay to the courthouse and bailed him out. No pay for anyone in the band for that week!
There are too many stories of the Changing Tymes to relate here, like the time our cars crashed into each other on the way to a gig and we were 3 hours late! We played gigs at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Penn State University, St. Joseph’s University and other various colleges and fraternities in the region. Also, many, many rock clubs and bars in the area. We worked our butts off!
I was fortunate to have had a relative in a high level executive position with RCA Records in New York City. After our record was released, and feeling a rush of confidence, we met in with my relative, John Rosica, head of promotions for RCA. He patiently and intently listened to our new record and said, “The best advice I can give you is to go back to collage and get a good education”!
We were shattered! He then said, you guys need to sound and play like full-time musicians - like these guys who we just signed, they’re called “The Youngbloods”… He put their new (yet unreleased) LP on the turntable and played “Grizzly Bear”. “Wow, I get your point, John, they were great," I said. So we left NYC with our tails between our legs, demoralized, but not defeated. It was a hard life lesson but we still persevered.
The second iteration of The Changing Tymes were:
Ray Tilli - bass, vocals
Jimmy Mahoney - lead guitar, vocals
Nicky Indelicato - lead vocals
Mike Laurence - guitar, vocals
Various drummers
(unfortunately, no pictures)
This version of the Changing Tymes added more challenging songs to the repertoire both vocally and musically. The “nail in the coffin” for the group breaking up was the successful recruitment of Nicky Indelicato to become the lead singer of a new group “The American Dream”. The group was the very first band to be produced by Todd Rundgren. (Also a Philly native.) They opened shows for The Doors, Hendrix and many others. They were an exceptional original band. We were sad to see him go, but happy for his success. Nicky passed away in March of 2020.
Jimmy Mahoney went on to do studio work and appeared on the Robert Palmer album, “Double Fun”. He also recorded at Sigma Sound for Philadelphia International Records. He played with band members from Stanly Clark, Chick Correa and Larry Coryell. He was also a member of the band “Medusa” on Columbia records.
I also played with other bands including one with the former lead guitarist from the “Bill Black Combo” who had a few international hits. Later, I got into the business part of music as an agent, and then as a Manager/Road Manager with a band called “Cats” who were signed to Electra records. They toured and opened for “Van Halen” for the entire 1980 US summer tour.
All things considered, it was a BLAST - so much fun to last a lifetime! After the Changing Tymes disbanded in 1968, most of us went on to other bands and careers. I became a Psychologist (now retired). Jimmy Mahoney passed away in January 2015. I miss him to this day. We remained close to the very end. He sent some of his memories to me about the band a few years back, and I have included some of them in this Changing Tymes history.
Feel free to use any of the above for your purposes. I hope if was informative for you and hopefully it will be for your many followers. If you have any further questions or observations, please feel free to contact me.
All the best to you,
Ray Tilli
..."
