Los Altos, California’s Chocolate Watch Band were not a bubblegum act—their rough edges and maniacal R&B led one critic to dub them America’s Rolling Stones—but they sure got whored out as one.
On the band’s first two studio LPs, their villainous producer Ed Cobb thought nothing of turning them into a psychedelic garage Milli Vanilli, using the band on a few songs, while either using another band altogether on other songs or replacing snot-nosed vocalist Dave Aguilar, who may well have been in another state altogether when the songs were recorded, with a ringer named Don Bennett on others.
On 1967’s No Way Out, you need a scorecard (and do some internet sleuthing) to figure out which songs actually featured the band and/or Aguilar. Things aren’t quite as difficult on the band’s 1968 sophomore LP, The Inner Mystique, but Cobb’s machinations are every bit as egregious.
On side one, the actual Chocolate Watch Band are MIA, while on two of the songs on the far superior second side, Cobb (who also produced The Standells and wrote “Dirty Water,” as well as “Tainted Love”!) swapped out Aguilar’s vocals for Bennett’s.
Why? Because he could. And it’s not like you don’t notice. Aguilar’s vocals are grease-caked, garage floor sleazy; Bennett, who would later adopt the name Prince Teddy (and record an obscure 1977 LP under that name), was an African-American whose voice is a bigger, blunter instrument. And the psychedelic pastiches on side one are largely wastes of space.
It’s curious that Cobb never got away with any such antics with The Standells. It makes me think The Standells put a switchblade to Cobb’s neck when he tried any funny business, or the Chocolate Watch Band weren’t a band of naive and pliable pushovers.
And the tragedy is that The Inner Mystique could have been a great garage rock record had Cobb simply let the Chocolate Watch Band do their thing. The amazing thing is the record is as good as it is. If Ed Cobb’s goal was to treat the Chocolate Watch Band like they were the Ohio Express, he succeeded.
But the authentic Chocolate Watch Band left just enough of an imprint to give you a sense of just how good they were, even if every song they played on the album was a cover. Psychedelia was the order of the day, and the opportunistic Cobb wanted to cash in. That’s the only way to explain the electric Kool-Aid acid test twaddle that ruins side one.
The Cobb-penned “Voyage of the Trieste” is a “groovy” instrumental that makes prominent use of sitar, flute, bells, and a very Traffic saxophone solo, and while it’s not really THAT bad, it’s a million light-years away from the Chocolate Watch Band. Who actually played on the damn track? I don’t know. It’s possible nobody knows.
It’s followed by the acid fandango “In the Past,” which is a somewhat more likable proposition. A very Beatles trumpet runs through a song that is at least up-tempo and has a pop melody, but it reeks of love beads, which, because hippies never bathed, smell awful!
Once again, I can’t find out who played on the song. I’m not even sure who’s singing it—it wasn’t Aguilar, and it doesn’t sound like Bennett. It’s possible they dragooned some day tripper in a paisley poncho and ratty moccasins out of the alley behind the studio, where he was rooting around in a dumpster for his first non-hallucinogenic meal in a week.
Side one closes with the Cobb-penned “Inner Mystique,” on which an acoustic guitar, a tambourine (I think), a flute, and a piano conspire to invent easy-listening psychedelic mood music—this is what you’d get if somebody gave Burt Bacharach fake acid, so he THOUGHT he was tripping. That said, my lava lamp digs it. He finds it very relaxing.
One of the LP’s two biggest highlights is the Watch Band’s cover of The Kinks’ “I’m Not Like Everybody Else.” The Chocolate Watch Band is actually doing the playing, Aguilar is actually behind the microphone, and from the opening crash, the song is echo-laden bang-and-smash, with Aguilar sounding very Jaggeresque and very, very mean. He barks out his words to the brutal rhythm, and this is garage rock at its rawest.
Why Cobb thought it would be a good idea to swap out Aguilar’s vocals for ANYBODY else’s, including Mick Jagger, is a mystery that may never be solved. And that’s made clear on follow-up “Medication,” a serviceable number the Watch Band filched from The Standells. It was co-written by an obscure jazz pianist named Ben di Tosti and boasts a reverb-heavy guitar riff that the Chocolate Watch Band also filched from The Standells.
Bennett’s vocals lack sleaze—he’s got this big but anonymous voice, and sounds better suited to power his way through a soul number than to dirty up the waters. And that goes double for follow-up “Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go,” a cover of the Hank Ballard and the Midnighters’ No. 1 hit. Sure, it’s an R&B number, but Bennett’s singing lacks electricity, and it sounds like he’d recently had his vocal cords de-greased.
On the other hand, the song sounds ill-suited for Aguilar, too. It’s a loping thing, and lacks the rough edges Aguilar might have scraped his vocal cords raw against. I would love to hear the version with Aguilar to find out. I doubt the version with Aguilar even exists, or we’d have almost certainly heard it by now. I like to think it’s in a vault somewhere and will someday see the light of day. I’m not holding my breath.
“Baby Blue,” the Chocolate Watch Band’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” is a true marvel and every bit as good as Van Morrison’s (with Them) version. The Chocolate Watch Band gives it a baroque, chiming reading, which provides the perfect counterpart to Aguilar’s very Jagger vocals. The song’s a dream and has a psychedelic feel that makes a mockery of Cobb’s tie-dyed miscues on side one. And Aguilar’s singing at song’s end is one of the finer moments in the history of psychedelic garage—gritty and yearning at the same time.
“I Ain’t No Miracle Worker” is a cover of the 1965 regional hit by Merced, California garage rock band The Brogues. The Brogues’ version is Byrds-influenced and faster, but vocalist Gary Cole (aka Gary Duncan) is no Aguilar—his voice lacks snot and grit. The Chocolate Watch Band version is a true shocker, hillbilly garage!
Why, I could almost swear I hear a banjo in there. There isn’t one—lead guitarist Sean Tolby is simply scraping away at the strings in a truly unique way. As for Aguilar, his is a truly astounding performance. He reaches deep, hits some great high notes, and lends a real urgency to the song. When he sings “I do the best that I can,” your ears stand up and take notice—this guy was a truly unique talent and a shoulda-been garage giant.
The mid-sixties were rife with good garage bands undone by unscrupulous managers and producers who thought nothing of eliminating them from their own albums, and the Chocolate Watch Band is a prime example. Ed Cobb’s machinations on The Inner Mystique—and its predecessor No Way Out—are nothing short of a crime, and one that cost us plenty.
Replace the Chocolate Watch Band-free side one with songs actually performed by the Chocolate Watch Band, and the album might well be a classic. If nothing else, side one—along with the two Bennett swap-outs on side two—deprived us of the vocals of Dave Aquilar, and the less is inestimable.
Listening to Cobb’s interpretation of psychedelic music almost makes me think LSD was a horrible mistake. LSD or The Beatles. I blame The Beatles!
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B
