AS SEEN THROUGH THE SHADES OF QUESTION MARK of ? and the Mysterians

Chapter 3 Sex Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll :

Left in Limbo

Wow what a year 1966 was for ? and the Mysterians! We never even planned to make a record, let
alone to be in New York City to record an ALBUM! AND getting ready the week of January 24,
1967 to record our 2nd album AND three more singles!

Can you imagine? We
are on the road we are doing concerts with every group imaginable –
no, actually they are doing concerts with US because ? And the Mysterians HAVE
ARRIVED!

AND along the way I told Neil Bogart, the sales manager of
Cameo Parkway Records at that time,
about all these groups in Michigan .
He thought we were from Detroit.
I told him no, we are from the Tri-Cities that’s up north : Saginaw, Bay
City and Midland and also ones from around the outskirts of Flint and he says
“Oh, you mean the BOONDOCKS”

I said No man,
there’s rock ‘n’ roll groups come here to play like Sam the Sham–you
name it, they all come around here to
play And we had bands like Bob Seger and the Last Herd, the
Rationals, and Terry Knight and the Pack so I gave him all these names and
Cameo Parkway picked them all
up. Lots of things were happening with
Cameo Parkway because we had their first big #1 million seller since Chubby
Checker did “The Twist”

It looked like 1967 was going be very promising for the
music scene, Cameo- Parkway and ? and the Mysterians I mean, if you thought something was
happening in the music industry in 1966, just wait til 1967!

The week of Jan 24th
? and the Mysterians were on our way to NYC. There was a lot of snow and ice and it was
probably going to take us about 14 hours to make the trip instead of 11 but we
headed forth with great songs to do for the next record.

So, we’re back in the
Big Apple ready to record our 2nd album Its really cool – so we head on up to
the Allegro Recording Studio and I open
the door and there’s Neil Bogart right there, so I blurt out “Hey Neil, we’re here to record our 2nd
album!” and he turns around, without a smile—the first time I ever saw him
without a smile– and he looks at me and says “We aren’t going to record you
guys” and I looked right back at him and said “Oh yes you are. I have a good
enough contract and this is what it says”
– I’m bluffing my way through because I had never gotten a copy of my contract.

So I get on the phone and I call our manager, Lilly
Gonzalez, but she says she doesn’t have the recording contract.

So we are there—we can either turn around and go another 14
hours back to Michigan and figure out
whats next for ? and the Mysterians, or
just record at the mercy of Neil Bogart and see what he’s going to hit us with.

Bogart took my bluff
and we’re getting set to record, but the first thing he slaps us with is that
he is going to pick the A sides for the 45s and our songs would only be used
for the B sides. Now according to what
we were told was in my contract, it was all supposed to be our material
regardless, on both sides of the
45s. Remember, our first album only had
ONE non-original on it and that was because Bobby REALLY wanted to do Stormy
Monday.

We were expecting to do another album of our original
music, but because we know we might not
record at all if we don’t do what Bogart says, so instead of heading home we
decide to see what happens.

He brings in a guy to play a song on the piano that they’ve
decided is going to be our “A” side—a song called “I Can’t Get Enough of You
Baby” and Neil tells us he wants us to
start it out with the same intro we had used on 96 Tears. I said “96 Tears??” Why do you want to do that? People will think we can’t come up with
something else and are just riding our million seller!

But like I said we had no choice—we can turn around and do
nothing and scout for someone else who MIGHT want to pick us up or we can stay
and record. Then Little Frank and Eddie decided they didn’t want to record so I told Neil and he said “well we’ll just
replace them with studio musicians”. I
don’t cuss but I kept repeating this
colorful expletive under my breath because Little Frank is just 14 years old
and his parents aren’t there to act on his behalf. We’re in a bind because he isn’t legally able
to negotiate this. So I went back and
told them Neil said he’d just replace them and they decided it was better if
they recorded than to have something go out that didn’t have the whole band on
it.

We recorded “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby” which they
released in March of 1967, but other than a Billboard ad, they did not promote
at all. It still managed to get to #56
on the Billboard top 100. It was all a
blur…..

Then I came back and did Girl (You Captivate Me) which was
once again another song they chose for us, with one of our originals on the
flip side- they also did not promote it,
but it hit the top 100 (98) before it quickly faded under fire that I
sang a “nasty word” in the song. I
promoted it solo.

The final Cameo-Parkway single was“Do Something to Me”
. All three songs received great reviews
from Billboard but our own record company wouldn’t capitalize on them and push
the songs.

So we recorded the singles and were recording the album and
things were not happening for us any more –we got ripped off for a bunch of
money but we still had an album to finish.
I decided I wanted to do “Shout”
because we were already doing it on the road. And so I recorded that.

Maybe nothing was happening with us as far as not getting
anything and them not promoting us, but I’m still an entertainer and a singer
and I’m still a songwriter and we’d been doing Shout on the road and everybody
liked it so why not record it?

That’s what I’m saying-Things weren’t working out but if you
know who you are and you’ve got the opportunity to still do an album, why
pout? I’m gonna do shout and I know
people are digging it and we may never have the opportunity again to record the
song so I’m going to take advantage of it.

And that’s how you’ve got to look at things. Just cuz somebody is doing you wrong and
something isn’t working out the way it should be working out, you still have
the opportunity to do something you believe in and do what you’re doing,
include that in- there’s no use in pouting and no use in getting mad, just
finish the album the best you can and see what happens to it.

But at the time “Do Something to Me” was our last single on
Cameo Parkway so I decided I didn’t want that in the album, I wanted to make a
45 out of that and that’s what happened
“Do Something to Me” was just a single –a 45 – it was number 1 around
our local area radio stations the week of September 9, 1967 and everywhere else we played it was top
five- in Hawaii it was number 1, the
album and the single –I did a gig for Richard – Dick Clark- on his Caravan of
Stars and the Strawberry Alarm Clock had the #1 song at the time “Incense and
Peppermints” and our song was #5 in a lot of places down south and the song was
doing very well but we only got up to 110 on Billboard because Cameo-Parkway didn’t do very much to promote
us. It was years before we found out
why.

So people who wanted to know what happened to ? And the
Mysterians, that’s what happened.

Its not that we couldn’t record or write good songs any
more– if you had no promotion by a major label you weren’t going to go
anywhere. If they just recorded you
because you had a contract but they did nothing to promote or distribute the
records, without any push every record was going to chart lower and lower. Remember, I chose the label I was looking at a brighter future for ? And
the Mysterians the bigger future, our writing our performances and being one of
the greatest groups ever- which we are- but we just haven’t been in the
limelight like the other groups but we are still here. Cameo had a different plan.

Looking back to 1966 when our song was a million seller,
Neil Bogart had told us our first royalty installment was coming on April 30,
1967 and each of us would be receiving $50,000 – I mean after all, it was for a
#1 hit selling over a million copies.

I made down payments on two Rivieras – one for my dad and
one for me. We were making good money on
the road with Mamas and Papas, Beach Boys Sonny and Cher and others like
McCoys, Outsiders, Left Banke, the Dick Clark Caravan shows.. We also played on
soul shows with Percy Sledge—other bands couldn’t bounce back and forth like
that between genres. Our music had a
beat to dance to

Everything was happening the way it should happen then so we
all bought things. Little Frank was 14
so his dad signed for a Cadillac—I think it was a gold one. Bobby bought a new house for his parents-made
a down payment on it. He told me I
should buy one and I told him I was going to wait until the money came in
April.

In January of 67
after arriving at the studio, we knew Cameo-Parkway was done pushing our
recordings but we were still owed for “96 Tears” so we’re going along because we still have
money from shows coming in and we thought we still had those checks coming in
April 67 and just doing our things.

So April 30th rolls around and everyone is calling me
saying their checks didn’t come in the
mail Mine will come later on so then the mail came and there was no
check I called Neil Bogart and told him
the checks didn’t come in the mail. He
bluntly replied “you guys aren’t getting
anything—you signed all your rights over to us.”

We never signed ANYTHING—we didn’t even sign a real
recording contract. But apparently our
manager, Lilly Gonzalez, did. She had
sold us to Neil Bogart and we didn’t
even know it – we didn’t find out what had really happened until 1999.

I never even talked back,
no matter how many rejections there were from the beginning back at Mt
Holly and Bob Dell at the Big 600 radio station -he said it was “not top 40”
and “nothing but trash” and threw our
record in the garbage can. Later he
claimed he discovered us. But what good
would it have done to say something or get nasty, for then we would never get
ahead…so when Neil Bogart said we had signed our rights over and we weren’t
getting anything all I could say was “well, we’re done”.

I said to myself,
when they make a movie, this is what’s going to be in it. “You guys can have have all the money, all
the fame, everything that comes with it but there’s one thing you guys can
never have –and that’s my ability to
write songs, to sing and to entertain.
That belongs to me and money can’t buy that.”

Cameo-Parkway released “Do Something To Me” in September of
1967 and it was #7 in our local market but did little on the national charts
without the push of the label. We were
with Premier Talent, the next biggest to William Morris—they handled a lot of
the 60s band and we were still being booked . We were still doing concerts and stuff but
then word got out that Cameo Parkway
was was in trouble. When Cameo was closed, the bookings almost
immediately stopped and we were back to playing clubs and teen centers again.

In 1968 Merlin Publishing got hold of the Cameo-Parkway publishing catalog
and that was Alan Klein and they took over the whole Cameo-Parkway roster and
then ABKCO owned “96 Tears” and everyone’s big hits. They still do.

Because of the money situation, Bobby went and got a regular job to keep the
house he’d bought I don’t know if Little
Frank’s dad kept his car–he had a good job and a nice house in a new
subdivision. Our Riviera’s had to go
back–the money wasn’t there to pay for them any more.