'I'm The One For You' by The Great Society is garage pop at its absolute finest. It's as catchy as can be, yet still features the best that garage rock has to offer, including screams, solid guitar, excellent teen vocals and a heavy dose of fuzz guitar. The song's greatness has been made available for all to hear on Sundazed's 2131 South Michigan Avenue: '60s Garage & Psychedelia from USA and Destination Records compilation. Though not included, the song's flipside, 'And I Know,' is definitely more tame but still a cool ballad. While we've been aware for a while that The Great Society hailed from Villa Park, Illinois--just a stone's throw from 60sgaragebands.com headquarters--we never had any prior luck in locating the band. Therefore, upon release of the USA set, we immediately contacted Jeff Jarema, author of the Sundazed set's informative liner notes. He in turned hooked us up with drummer Irv 'Butch' Vetter, who graciously filled us in on the history of The Great Society. It's been worth the wait.
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An Interview With Irv "Butch" Vetter
60sgaragebands.com (60s): How did you first get interested in music?
Irv "Butch" Vetter (IBV): In the early Sixties most of my friends played some sort of an instrument, and my father was a professional trumpet player in a society band at The Palmer House in Chicago. I wanted to play the electric bass but I only knew drummers and I could borrow their drums, there it was--I'm a drummer and never took a lesson in my life.
60s: Was The Great Society your first band?
IBV: No, the Society was not my first band. Little Anthony and The Midnighters was my first and we stayed together about two years. We all were about seventeen and played school functions and basement parties.
60s: Where and when was The Great Society formed?
IBV: The Great Society was formed in Villa Park, Illinois, in my basement and the lead guitar player's house in Oak Brook, where we split our practices. On a summer break from school from the University of Illinois, Nick Truske (lead guitar) called me and asked if I would like to get together and jam with him and school mate Jim Sonnenleiter (rhythm guitar and lead singer) in the summer of 1967. We jammed for a few weeks without a bass player and we tried to find someone but as it turned out Nick's mother knew someone whose son was a bass player. That turned out to be Irv Burgraff, our bass player. I feel the four of us put this band together but, you might say, I was the one to push to play clubs and the record.
The Great Society was: Irv "Butch" Vetter, drums and backup vocals; Jim Sonnenleiter, lead singer and rhythm guitar; Nick Truske, lead guitar and harmonica; and Irv Burgraff, bass and backup vocals.
60s: How would you describe the band's sound?
IBV: We had a commercial sound, although when everyone else was listening to The Monkees, we were playing Sam & Dave, James Brown, Wilson Picket, Muddy Waters and Little Milton.
60s: What was the Villa Park rock and roll scene like in the '60s?
IBV: It was alive in the Sixties. There was always a dance with a band, there were a couple of teenage only clubs and WLS Radio seemed to always have a sock hop with the latest hot band. It was a great time to live through.
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60s: Where did the band typically play?
IBV: For a long time we headlined my basement. We went right from getting together and rehearsing to me getting us a gig at the Ball & Pin Bowling Lanes on Roosevelt Rd. in Lombard (Brunswick Bowl) Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights for a month and, as it turned out, the bar manager really liked us and we ended up playing the the whole summer of '67. At the same time we were writing our own material and this is when Jim wrote 'I'm The One For You' among others, but then Jim and Nick had to go back to school at the University of Illinois. There were times the bass player and I went to Champagne to play a house party and a place called The Function @ The Junction for the weekend. We also played a house party at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and The Eastern Illinois Teachers College in Macomb. When Jim and Nick came home we got together and rehearsed.
60s: Did you play any of the local teen clubs?
IBV: We didn't but I went to The Pepper Pot in Westmont.
60s: How far was the band's "touring" territory?
IBV: We didn't tour because the band wasn't together that long.
60s: Did The Great Society participate in any battles of the bands?
IBV: We never competed in a battles of the bands.
60s: What other local groups of the era do you especially recall?
IBV: Ral Downer (Lombard), The Mustwangs (Addison), Cryan' Shames, Buckinghams, and The Mob.
60s: Did The Great Society have a manager?
IBV: Our manager was Don Chapman, who was a on air deejay at WJJD Radio when it was a country station. He was very active producing and guiding us. My brother sold cars in Palatine, and there was another salesman there named Vince Domino. He talked about his uncle Chapman, and that they were recording bands and looking for bands. My brother told him about us and Vince came to hear us and recommended us to Don Chapman. He came to hear us and signed us the following week.
60s: How popular locally did The Great Society become?
IBV: Because of the stint at the Ball & Pin, and all of our friends, we had a very large following in all the towns surrounding Villa Park.
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60s: What were the circumstances leading to the USA Records 45?
IBV: Don Chapman knew the Goldman's that owned USA Records.
This is kind of a funny story...Earlier, I had spent about an hour at Mercury Records talking to Allen Mink, the head of ANR, and he said he liked what he heard from The Great Society and wanted to send a couple of producers out to hear us. You can't imagine how fired up we were knowing that Mercury was sending producers to hear us! I told him we would be at the Ball & Pin the following week. We practiced and practiced over that weekend and when the big night came we were ready! We knew when the producers came in because they didn't look like your normal bowling alley crowed.
The night he sent the producers out, there was a power failure and they sat there till the power came back on. We didn't get a chance to warm-up with a few covers and had to go right into our material and we just couldn't get it together and bombed. I called Allen Mink the next day and he said I he heard there were a few problems and suggested he might give us a second chance. I never heard from him again but he was a real gentleman to us. This was about three months before the USA session and we were did our songs on the record.
60s: Where did The Great Society record?
IBV: At Balkan Recording Studio in Berkley, Illinois, in Palatine at a home of an engineer at WJJD Radio--a great little studio--and at RCA Custom Studios in Chicago.
60s: Who was the band's primary songwriter?
IBV: We had a large catalog of originals, all written by Jim Sonnenleiter.
60s: Do any other Great Society recordings exist? Are there any vintage live recordings, or unreleased tracks?
IBV: Yes. I have other tracks not released, but nothing live; all studio stuff.
60s: Did the band make any local TV appearances?
IBV: No TV and, to my regret, no home movies but I have a lot of photos.
60s: What year and why did the band break up?
IBV: In late summer 1969 but not after backing up Tyron Davis a couple of times at ABC Records. After ending our contract with Don Chapman, we took our tapes around to different record companies and got a meeting with the A&R head Barry Despenza. He heard us and liked us, and invited us to rehearse and practice and listened to our submitted tapes and our own material at 1321 South Michigan Ave. in Chicago. We took him up on it and Tyrone Davis was in and out of the offices and was looking for a band to back him up on a couple of gigs? We did and it was an experience. We did not do anything as far as recording with him.
60s: How do you best summarize your experiences with The Great Society?
IBV: It was the best time of my life and the best band I was in.
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Where are they now?
April 2009: Jim Sonnenleiter is a retired United Airlines captain; Irv Burgraff works for Playboy; Nick Truske is a free spirit who the band has lost touch with. He is reportedly retired in New Mexico; Irv "Butch" Vetter is the owner of a glass company (and according to Jim a really unique and creative individual as well as modest. He flys small planes, too.). Before Jim was with United Airlines, he was a pilot in the Air Force and flew several tours in Vietnam; he later piloted corporate jets and flew people around like The Eagles and others. The picture shows from left to right Glen Frey, their manager, Jim in the background and Don Henley. You never know where you'll end up after rock & roll!
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Special thanks to Jeff Jarema...
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