Talk:Syndicate of Sound

Latest comment: 7 years ago by Frankzappatwin in topic Larry Ray

User comment edit

Article currently states: The band is often thought of as a one hit wonder, on account of their 1966 top ten hit "Little Girl". By whom? Passive sentences are a haven for weasely concepts. Wikipedia isn't Rolling Stone magazine -- we're an encyclopedia, not a music review site. Who often thinks of this band as a one hit wonder? You personally don't get to express your opinion here! Either cite your source(s) or avoid weasely sentences and pejorative labels. Example: The band had just one top ten hit -- "Little Girl" in 1966. I'd change it myself ... but I honestly don't know that much about Syndicate of Sound and how well their music did (or did not) chart. 66.17.118.207 13:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)Reply


"Wrote and Recorded" the Little Girl album in about three weeks? edit

I don't have a copy of the Little Girl album handy, but I listened to it many times when I was a young(er) person. It was a great slab of 1960s punk rock which is undeservedly out of print. My recollection is that most of the songs were in fact cover versions. Also, at least two tracks were the "Little Girl" single (i.e., the song itself and its flipside, "You.") Jim Sawyers was credited as the band's lead guitarist and even takes some lead vocals, although Larry Ray's name was mentioned fleetingly on the back cover in fine print. Timothy Horrigan (talk) 04:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

T.H. - You are quite right about the 'covers' on the LP. 1st of all, Larry was playing guitar on the recordings for the single "Little Girl" / "You" which we recorded January 9, 1966 and of course they were included on the LP. Larry was playing lead on my Fender electric 12-string for "Little Girl". By the time we recorded the album Larry was long gone and Jimmy had been playing lead guitar for quite awhile. Each person chose a 'cover' of their choice to do for the LP. Jimmy took "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby" by Buster Brown, which he sang. Don wanted to do "Dream Baby" by Roy Orbison, which he sang. The Witch is a song by the Sonics, a Northwest band we had heard about; we did it in one take. I think Bob picked "Almost Grown" by Chuck Berry and Jimmy sang that one too. "Big Boss Man" was a regular part of our set list which Larry used to sing and Jimmy picked it up when he was hired. We were terribly embarrassed by the sound recording of the guitars, it sounds chintzie compared to the way we sounded live. Leo de Gar Kulka, our sound engineer wasn't that familiar with how to mic rock guitars/amps yet; a lot of recording then was through 'the line' instead of a mic in front of the amp plus an over-head for room ambiance. "I'm Alive" & "Look Through Any Window" were two songs by the Hollies that we normally played in our set list. I wrote "So Alone" and "Lookin' For the Good Time" which was sort of an homage to "The Hard Times", a band who played in Sunnyvale and later took the Raider's place on "Where the Action Is" on ABC-TV. My choice was to do a song I wrote but to record it in the style of Jr. Walker & the All -Stars. I was playing Hammond organ (and Leslie, of course), Don played tenor Sax (great sound!) and Bob and John doing the rhythm section with Larry cutting through with a telecaster guitar, if I remember correctly. The song was titled "Rumors" and it sounded great but our producer was afraid of getting sued for copying their style. See: Songfacts - "Little Girl" Anybody who heard us knew that we could capture any artist style; be it the Yardbirds - "Train Kept a Rollin'" or the Beach Boys "California Girls", etc. etc. - whatever it was, we could nail it.
Obviously the wiki article was written by someone in the UK and many of the facts were wrong. (Like my B.D.)- I'm glad you liked and listened to our album - sorry the sound was so tint-ee on the recording. And No, we Never rehearsed in the garage; Bob's family room mostly and sometimes in my parent's front room. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.76.56.97 (talk) 10:47, 14 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Psychedelic Rock clasification edit

Just wondering about this classification. To my ears, Little Girl was pure pop rock using similar instrumentation as the Byrds, Beatles and others. Is the tag applied due to the style of the rest of their recorded output?THX1136 (talk) 13:42, 18 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Larry Ray edit

I cannot find any verification of Larry Ray re-joining the band in 2005, not even on the cited reference. I'll wait a few days for any comments before editing out that sentence. Frankzappatwin (talk) 20:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

OK Found verification elsewhere.Frankzappatwin (talk) 10:57, 14 April 2017 (UTC)Reply