From Robin & His Hoods to The Eternal Flame and through SouthEnd, Mike Lusby and his band remained a fixture in Pleananton, California for 11 years. In addition to performing for East Bay stalwart Bill Quarry, they received a lot of press coverage and performed with many of the era's top groups. Unfortunately, a recording opportunity slipped by the wayside, but the band continued to write their own music and perform for appreciative crowds up until 1976.
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| Mike Lusby |
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An Interview With Mike Lusby
60sgaragebands.com (60s): How did you first get interested in music?
Mike Lusby (ML): As most everyone did at that time, the night I saw The Beatles the first time they were on The Ed Sullivan Show was what did me in! I was hooked.
60s: Was The Eternal Flame your first band?
ML: Yes. This was the first band for the core power trio and we lasted 11 years.
60s: Where and when was The Eternal Flame formed?
ML: The band was formed in Pleasanton, California in 1966. The core members were Robert Caffey (lead and rhythm guitar and lead vocals), Scott Rutherford (bass guitar and back-up vocals) and me, Mike Lusby (drums and back-up vocals). We had other fourth members for short amounts of time: Tom Lane (back-up vocals), Doug Balaban (back-up vocals), and Kirk Williams (rhythm guitar). We then had two long term and notable fourth and fifth members: Rich Alves (lead guitar and harmony vocals) and Mike Barbato (keyboards). Both Rich and Mike contributed largely to the band (The Eternal Flame and the morphed into SouthEnd). Rich went on to fame in country music with The Pirates of The Mississippi. They won a CMA award in the '90s and had hits and albums. Rich is still a very sought-after session guitarist in Nashville. Mike was with us the same time as Rich, which made five in the band. Once Rich’s dad was transferred out of state, we were back to four members.
60s: The Eternal Flame started as Robin & The Hoods. What prompted the name change to Eternal Flame?
ML: Yes, we did start out as Robin & The Hoods, but we must have had six names within the first six months until we settled on The Eternal Flame. If I can get this old mind working, I think two of the names during that first six months were: Robin and His Merry Men, and The Weekend Guests. We just didn’t like what we were coming up with until we heard “Eternal Flame,” which, by the way, came from us hearing about JFK’s burial site and the flame that was to never go out!
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| Robin & The Hoods |
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60s: How would you describe the band's sound? What bands influenced you?
ML: We played both covers and originals. Robert was the main writer of our songs, though we all wrote our own musical parts. Both Scott and I had formal marching band and orchestra training (though I don’t remember much of that now!). We were definitely influenced by The Beatles and The British Invasion and the San Francisco Bay Area bands. It was a great time to grow up in the Bay Area--festivals every weekend, The Fillmore, Winterland, Bill Quarry shows, etc. We called our music psychedelic folk rock.
60s: What was the Pleasanton rock and roll scene like in the '60s?
ML: The “P-Town” scene was very vibrant. Tower of Power’s drummer, David Garibaldi, was a few years ahead of me at my high school and there were bands and shows all the time. Pleasanton was also home to The Alameda County Fairgrounds where tons of rock shows and festivals were held many put on by Bill Quarry. Deep Purple, Steppenwolf, Tower of Power, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and on and on, played The Fairgrounds. There were teen dances held at the Pleasanton Teen Center every weekend and Amador High (our high school) held Friday night dances after every football game – and we played most of them (after I got showered and dressed from playing in the football game).
60s: How did you first become associated with Bill Quarry? What are your recollections of him?
ML: I think Bill first heard about us after we played at The Fairgrounds with Love Street Off Ramp (there’s a band you should try and dig up). He booked us at The Fairgrounds with Womb, Rest, and Rejoice, all who had records out at the time. It was a killer show and we got great reviews for our portion. Bill then had us booked with Canned Heat (twice), The Loading Zone (twice), The People (once or twice), Chocolate Watchband, etc. Bill always was great to us and kept giving us young guys a stage with the bigger boys. In 1969 he asked us to open for Creedence, but the drummer became ill and the show was postponed. Damn!
I have been on Bill’s website which looks back on his legacy and I think I have a poster/handbill of a show we did of his that he may not have. He has an extensive section showing many, many of his posters and I don’t see this one.
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| The Eternal Flame with Love Street Off Ramp, 1968 |
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60s: What do you recall about Love Street Off Ramp?
ML: I know they were from the Bay Area and were kind of “known” in 1968. I don’t remember any names. They were asked for autographs by then, I remember. They were definitely not pop, but more rock, I would say towards the Steppenwolf-sound side of things. They were great guys to us younger guys and we had a great show together.
60s: Where did the band typically play?
ML: We started out playing parties, school dances, halls, then to festivals, fraternities at San Jose State (at the same venues where The Doobie Brothers played the week before), etc. Ben Davidson of The Oakland Raiders hired us once to play at The Dublin Chevrolet Warehouse once for a big dance – that was a kick!
One summer long gig was in Hayward in a bar that was unofficially called Reggie’s Bar. It was called that since Reggie Jackson of Major League Baseball – Oakland A’s fame, was there every weekend we played. He came in every night with a girl on each arm. It was a total blast every weekend. Packed crowds, brawls, dancing, just about everything that could happen did. It was also a major hangout for some Hell’s Angels. I must say, for us, they were just the best audience and they had fun every night. We became good summer-friends with them and they ended up hiring us for one of their biker-in-the-hills parties…and what a time that was. Needless to say, during that summer, we never had to take any flack from any drunks in the audience. The bikers handled all of that for us from then on. The only sort of “balancing act” we had to do was while we were playing, say mid-song, one of the bikers would buy us all drinks, walk up to us and we were expected to down these shots while we were still playing. It could be interesting by the sixth shot!
60s: Did you play any of the local teen clubs?
ML: Yes--The Pleasanton Teen Center.
60s: How far was the band's "touring" territory?
ML: We pretty much went everywhere in the greater Bay Area.
60s: Did The Eternal Flame participate in any battle of the bands?
ML: Yes, we did. I can remember a few. We won our very first one at The Alameda Fairgrounds in 1966. We were in, I think it was, Bill Quarry’s Battle of the Bands in San Leandro in 1967 or 1968 and played with Syndicate of Sound. We won the Pleasanton Battle of the Bands in 1969, too.
60s: Did The Eternal Flame have a manager?
ML: We managed ourselves.
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60s: Why didn't The Eternal Flame offically release a record?
ML: We played a festival in Concord in 1969 and during our set we were approached by two men in their mid-twenties who owned a small independent record company. They had liked what they heard and wanted to sign us. But, as happened many times in those days, they went out of business before we could get anything going. Other than that, I just think there was so much music going on in the Bay Area then that it was very hard to get heard by the right people – but we tried!
60s: Even though you never released a 45 record, you apparently recorded yourselves regularly.
ML: We recorded to tape from 1966 (I think our first recorded song was The Rolling Stones’ ‘The Last Time’) until 1972, though a live recording was made in 1975 of one of our gigs at the music venue, Hot Toddy’s, in Livermore. It was made by a tech friend of ours but has never been found. I sure wish we could, as I think we were at our height then. It is also the first time I ever kissed this certain girl on one of our breaks, who was there to see us and would eventually turn out to be my wife. We didn’t record between ’72 and ’76 because I think we were just too busy gigging and working 9–5. The recording sessions were completely done by us on reel-to-reel (by no means, not a hi-tech one) in a warehouse in Pleasanton on the weekends, as it was a book distribution plant during the week. We had a blast doing these sessions and there were no overdubs. We made our own album sleeves too for the reel-to-reel covers. We recorded both covers and originals. At times, there could be too much wine consumption, which would account for all the laughter caught on tape between takes. I think there are about six albums worth of material on these tapes.
60s: Did The Eternal Flame write many original songs?
ML: Yes, many. Robert wrote most of the original songs, though we each wrote our own musical parts.
60s: Did the band make any local TV appearances?
ML: Yes, we played live on San Jose TV station KGSC in 1970 on the show, Right On (as SouthEnd) and performed 'For What It's Worth.'
60s: Your website shows a letter explaining how bands could "audition" via tape for an appearance on Dick Clark’s Happening '68 TV show...
ML: I remember that we submitted a couple of songs, but I don’t remember why we didn’t go down to Los Angeles. I think the songs were good, but I’m sure the quality of the recording was just so-so.
60s: What prompted the name change to SouthEnd? Was this the same personnel as The Eternal Flame or did you change members at that time?
ML: We changed our name to SouthEnd in 1970. There was five of us then: Robert, Scott, me, Rich and Mike Barbato. When we brought Mike in on keyboards is when we decided to change the name to reflect the new “sound.” By the way, our logo for SouthEnd was a mule facing away from you with its head turned around looking back at you (his “SouthEnd” was most prominent in the logo).
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| SouthEnd (1972) |
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60s: What year and why did the band break up?
ML: The band broke up in 1976. We had come to the point where we were going to have to go out on the road and really tour and promote ourselves fulltime – a fulltime job. Some of us were married and had kids by then and I decided to give my wife and kids a “normal” dad and upbringing, so I decided to get a 9-5 job. The core power trio had always had a core value that if one of us three left, then the band would not go on. So, that’s what we did…and we remain best friends to this day. We even played our 20 year high School reunion for fun back in '92.
60s: How do you best summarize your experiences with The Eternal Flame?
ML: As some of the most fun I have ever had in my life: Great friends, great music, great fans, great musical experiences playing with all of the “name” bands. And, I would have never met my wife, Nancy, of 34 years if I wasn’t in the band. A friend of hers hired us for a big outdoor party and she and her friend came to audition us.
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