An Interview with Matthew Warman
60sgaragebands.com (60s): How did you first get interested in music?
Matthew Warman (MW): Well both my parents were musical. Both had played the piano but for some reasons had stopped playing some years before I was born, but they had a lot of old 78s and 33 1/3s laying around the house, some of which were left behind by my older brother as well. There were recordings by Spike Jones, Benny Goodman, Billy Eckstine, The Ink Spots, Frank Sinatra and many other artists from the 1930s-1940s, as well as classical composers. As there was always a record player in our apartment, my younger brothers and I used to go through the records and put one on and listen to it. It was being transported to another world, one full of mysteries and so removed from my day-to-day life.
As I entered my teen years I was listening to Chicago radio stations like WLS and enjoying all the then current pop songs of the early 1960s, but it never occurred to me to want to actually play in a band. That however all soon changed on February 9th, 1964 - the evening that The Beatles made their first American TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, an event which changed the course of pop musical history and as my life as well. I had earlier seen adverts in my local record shop for their album Meet The Beatles, which looked interesting, and stated that they were soon to appear on TV, but I still hadn't heard anything by them yet.
That evening the whole family got together in front of the TV to watch The Ed Sullivan Show as we normally would on a Sunday, and waited to see The Beatles. When they came on and started playing it was like being hit by lightening and (seeing) a door opening up which had been closed all my life. I saw these four British lads singing these great songs, having a great time and having all the girls just screaming their heads off over them. It was then that I decided that that was what I wanted to do with my life: to play in a band just like The Beatles. I was 14 years old. I saved up for my first guitar and by the end of 1964 was soon playing in my first neighborhood band at 15.
60s: This must have been prior to The Griffith-Harter Union…
MW: The first band that I was in that actually played a local gig was called The DO-As. I played lead guitar and my two younger brothers played bass and drums (both were also influenced by “Beatlemania”). Two neighborhood friends living on the same street (were also in the band). We got together around late 1964 or early '65 and basically did covers of the pop songs of the day along with one original instrumental; we thought we were hot stuff. We broke up sometime in '65. The next band I was in was called The Outcasts, made up of other local neighborhood musicians. I think there were other bands with the same name, but we were the only Outcasts I knew of at that time in Chicago. We got together sometime in late1965 or maybe early 1966. We also did covers of many of the pop songs of the day, and played some local high school dances as well as other local gigs. We broke up sometime in early '67 due to different musical directions some of us wanted to go in.
60s: Where and when was The Griffith-Harter Union formed?
MW: The Griffith-Harter Union was formed in early 1967. The bass player from The Outcasts and I started to hang out in the area of Chicago known as Old Town. At this time it was a hip place to hang out; lots of happening things, places and people, trendy shops, clubs, and so on. There was a record shop there called One Octave Higher where we would go in and hang out and listen to all the latest sounds and meet up with our friends. We got to know these two guys who worked there, and found out that we all played instruments and so started talking about getting a band together.
It so happened that these two guys had recently started up this band and called it The Griffith-Harter Union. They already had a lead singer and drummer but guy named Griffith wasn't able to commit to the band and had to leave for some reasons I can't recall; it might have been his health. Randy Harter asked me if I wanted to join and play lead guitar…but be known as “Griffith” because he wanted to keep that band's name. (He also asked) if my buddy Larry would play bass in this band. Of course we said “yes”; these guys had some connections already with the Old Town scene and it seemed like a great opportunity to get into a cool band.
60s: Who all comprised the band?
MW: Well…I, Steve Warman, played lead guitar. Larry Costello played bass guitar, Randy Harter played rhythm guitar, Gary Peterson was on lead vocals and – initially - a guy named “Stosh” played drums. A different drummer, Bob Curtis, later replaced him but Stosh was the drummer on the 45 we recorded. I'd like to say here that at this time I was going by the name Steve Warman, but since about 1980 have dropped “Steve” and I only use Matthew Warman now, in case any of my old friends, fans or acquaintances are reading this!
60s: Where did the band typically play?
MW: We played at one of some the popular clubs in town and at other venues around Chicago.
60s: Did you play any of the local teen clubs?
MW: Through 1967-1969 we played a few times at one of the hippest teen clubs located on Wells Street in Old Town called Like Young. We played at the legendary Electric Playground as well as the Aragon Ballroom (which was briefly called The Cheetah during this time). We played at The Underground Theater on Armitage Avenue, and also at the very first "Be-In" in Lincoln Park, which was sort of Chicago's equivalent of the California "Love- In".
60s: How did the band land the Lincoln Park “Be-In” gig?
MW: I wish I could help you out more on this one, as well as a few of the other questions, but as I said my memory just ain’t what it used to be. I'm hoping that if I contact some of the old band members they can help us out. I think I've just located an address for the bass player who is in Chicago, and I'll try writing him and see what he has. I had some photos of that event, but like most of the others I had they are gone with the wind.
60s: Do you recall any of the other bands that performed?
MW: The Little Boy Blues may have performed at the first “Be-In” as well; there were at least two of these events and they definitely played at one of them.
60s: How would you describe the band's sound? What bands influenced you?
MW: We were heavily influenced by the Pretty Things and Rolling Stones, as well as a bit of good old Chicago blues and R&B. But we also did covers of “Hey Joe” and “Purple Haze” by Hendrix for good measure. So mix that all together and I guess that was our sound.
60s: Did The Griffith-Harter Union participate in any battle of the bands?
MW: Yes, we played in one big battle of the bands. I wish I could tell you more about it but I just don't remember who the other bands were. All I remember is that it was being part sponsored by Baldwin Instruments, and that we won the battle. If anyone reading this was there maybe they can contact us and let us know more! The prize for winning was a lot of free gear supplied by Baldwin, who was making decent guitars and amps at that time. We got some new equipment overnight which was both useful and fun…especially when I decided to do a Who take-off at a gig one evening; now having a spare guitar I did a Pete Townsend and smashed the free guitar in two. Thank you Baldwin!
60s: Did the band have a manager?
MW: Initially we got our own gigs gut then as we started getting a bit more known around town and thought we were going places we decided to find ourselves a manager. We had this guy named Jeff Byron for a while. I believe he was a friend of Randy's. I don't know if he had any real experience managing bands at all, but he could talk and he looked the part. He was tall with a beard and looked a bit imposing. He did get us the Aragon Ballroom gig and another at The Underground Theater on Armitage Ave. in Chicago. He then went off to California, which is the last I heard of him.
60s: How popular locally did The Griffith-Harter Union become?
MW: Well I would say that we were fairly popular locally and had a lot of fans that went to our gigs and believed in us.
60s: How far was the band's "touring" territory?
MW: Our touring territory was more or less what is called the North side of Chicago. Most of the clubs and venues I mentioned above were located on the North side. We did have a couple of gigs out of Chicago, but not very often.
60s: What other local groups of the era do you especially recall?
MW: There was The Little Boy Blues, who played regularly at Like Young in Old Town and whose paths we crossed. They were in the next 'league' up from us as they already had some records out and had been playing together longer. There was The Buckinghams who I even saw at a battle of the bands. There was The Flock and also The Shadows of Knight. There were many other good local bands, but these are the ones that had any degree of real success.
60s: Did the band make any local TV appearances?
MW: Unfortunately we never made it onto TV, but as we played a lot of gigs and had many fans taking photos of us so there might be some home movie footage out there somewhere. There also may have been people filming at the 1967 Lincoln Park “Be-In” for it was a big event at the time. I used to have a lot more photos of the band, but over the years and from moving from here to there they have all gone missing from one reason or another. I would like to ask that if anyone reading this interview does have any old photos or live footage of The Griffith-Harter Union, or even memories they would like to share, please contact me or this website. It really would be greatly appreciated! My email is m_warm@yahoo.com.
60s: What were the circumstances leading to the recording of the Jim-Ko 45?
MW: These two guys heard us playing at a few of our gigs and liked our looks and our sound. I think they might have also known Randy as well, since they both spent time down in the Old Town area regularly. One of them, Jim, already had some connections with the music business in Chicago and had been successfully writing ads/jingles for local radio stations. They told us they were starting up a record label named Jim-Ko and wanted to work with (us) and produce a 45 record, (then) run off a few hundred copies for local distribution and get us air play. That was fine with us! We decided that we would do a version of "Progress" as the A-side and back that up with a cover of The Kink's "A House In The Country". They set a recording date, booked us a studio and paid for it all.
60s: Where was the single recorded?
MW: Looking back this all seems quite amazing, but we recorded "Progress" at the famous Chess Studios on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, the same place where all those great blues artists recorded and where The Rolling Stones recorded one of their early LPs. However we didn't have Muddy Waters help us carry our gear in like they did! I actually do not know how these guys from Jim-Ko managed to get us recording time there of all places, but they did have some connections in the music business in town. I also think that Chess Studios wasn't quite as active as they were in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and so perhaps had extra time for the likes of us to go in and record.
I remember that the room we used to record in looked rather well used and ordinary - except for the recording equipment – and real laid back, just like a place where you'd expect the blues would be played. There were autographed photos of some of the legendary blues musicians on the walls in the hallway. The feeling in the place was both professional yet relaxed.
I used a wah-wah pedal on the recording of "Progress," which was played all through the song. This was 1967, and the wah-wah pedal was still a rather new item; you didn't hear it on too many recordings and not any of the guitarists I knew had one yet. In fact this was the first time I had ever seen one myself. Jim from Jim-Ko had gotten a hold of one and brought it along to the session. He was showing it to me and explaining how it worked; you put your foot on this pedal here and by moving the pedal up and down you could produce different levels of that classic wah-wah sound…and so on. He thought that it would sound great if I used it on "Progress." As we were minutes away from going into actual recording time, I said to Jim something like, "Listen man. This is all too new for me. There is not enough time for me to sit down and get to grips with this wah-wah pedal. Can you do it for me while I am playing?" So what happened is that we got a very long guitar cable, and while I was inside the recording room playing guitar, Jim was sitting down with the wah-wah pedal way at the other end of the room with it in his lap and was moving the pedal up and down with his hand to get the wah-wah sound which you hear all through the recording of "Progress.” For the record let me say that I did learn to use a wah-wah pedal just fine, in case there are any guitar players reading this having a laugh! Anyway once the engineer got the drums levels properly sorted out, the recording session went fine, and we did both sides without too many hiccups.
60s: Do any (other) Griffith-Harter Union recordings exist? Are there any vintage live recordings, or unreleased tracks?
MW: Not as far as I know. The only studio recording we did was the one in 1967 that became our 45. It did get some airplay on a couple Chicago radio stations. There may well be some live recordings out there, and if anyone has anything please let us know!
60s: Did The Griffith-Harter Union write any original songs?
MW: That was our one weak area, for we didn't have a real songwriter right from the start. Though I had tried writing songs in the past, while in the Griffith-Harter Union I wasn't actually thinking about writing anything. It was only towards the end of the band that some of us started to think about writing our own songs, but by then the winds of change were blowing and our days were numbered.
60s: What year and why did the band break up?
MW: We called it quits in late1968. To be honest, I just don't remember why we actually decided to call it a day. My memory has a lot of holes in it in places where I would like to recall more. You know they say if you can remember the ‘60s then you weren't actually there! I do remember that after a while some of us thought that Stosh wasn't keeping the beat as tightly as he should at gigs. He was the nicest guy in the world, but a decision was made to replace him in early 1968. We then got Bob Curtis to play the drums with us. He was a first- class drummer and had been in other local bands like The Dirty Wurds and he looked the part as well. When, where and why the final decision to break up was made remains a bit cloudy to me.
60s: Do you recall how you first hooked up with Bob Curtis?
MW: I first saw him at local gig playing with The Dirty Wurds when I was still with The Outcasts sometime in 1966. He immediately struck me as being a damn good drummer; in fact one of the best in the neighborhood at that time. Not only did he play well but he looked about as cool as you could back then.
This is a bit of an aside but the girlfriend he was with for a while back then looked even cooler and we eventually became very good friends. The Dirty Wurds used to rehearse sometimes in the basement of one of the member's homes. As I was in a local band I dropped in a couple times to listen and got to know him a bit. Later down the road when The Griffith-Harter Union was thinking about replacing Stosh, The Dirty Wurds had already broken up and Bob Curtis was more or less a free agent. He came to a few of our gigs and got to know the rest of the guys in the band. We eventually approached him and told him we were looking for a new drummer and asked if was he interested. He was.
60s: You played in Pelican after The Griffith-Harter Union…
MW: Right after The Griffith-Harter Union broke up in 1968, the guys from Jim-Ko wanted to put together another band as fast as they could. I think they were really into promoting and producing bands and wanted to get a real success story on their label. They knew me from The Griffith-Harter Union, and I had done a little studio work playing guitar on some of Jim's radio jingles. They liked my playing and I looked the part, so they asked if I would be in this new band they were putting together. I said of course because I was very much into playing in a band and thought these guys might just get lucky and I wanted to be there when it happened!
They got four other guys, all friends of theirs who I didn't know at all. We had a front man doing the main vocals, and the rest of us played instruments, so there were five total in the band. Jim-Ko had written an original song and wanted us to record it. We started rehearsing for a short time to get tight as well as to get to know each other. Jim-Ko also thought of the name of the band, which I’ve forgotten, but it was something along the lines of “Paul Revere and The Raiders” or “Tommy James and The Shondells." It was "Somebody and The Somethings." The lead vocalist was the 'someone' and the rest of the band was the 'somethings'. My brother doesn’t recall the name of the band (either), but he thought the name of the 45 was maybe "Elegant Swan", and that does ring a bell. The name of the 45 we cut was something like that. So…Jim-Ko did cut another 45 with another band I was in, and I hope we can eventually find out more about this. It's like being Sherlock Holmes looking for clues!
The biggest event for the band was not only cutting a 45 with Jim-Ko – and I don't know how these guys managed to do this – but they had gotten this band they put together that I was now in to be the opening act for one of Sonny and Cher’s 1968 Chicago concerts at a major venue in the heart of the city! This seems very unreal to me now. I remember the band dressed up in some sort of costumes; mine was something like a prince in a garish greenish outfit and the others had similar outfits in other colors. The curtain lifted and the place was packed with thousands of people though you couldn't see too far into the audience. We played our set and it was a real thrill. We didn't get to meet Sonny and Cher though; they were royalty and at the height of their fame, and we were at the other end of the ladder.
The band didn't last very long after this, and it was then that I started jamming and playing with my brothers in Pelican. I then started spending more time in my old neighborhood and less in Old Town. It was then in early 1969 that I started to jam more often with my brothers and the same guitar player from that old band The Do-A's again. It was sort of like fate or destiny bringing us back together. I guess the fact that three of us were actual brothers is a bit like fate or something anyway. We eventually decided to start a band in about 1970 and name it Pelican. It’s interesting because there is now a band from Chicago named Pelican that is having some real success!
Pelican included Bob Warman on bass, Jeff Eric Warman on drums, and Billy Marshal Weber on rhythm guitar.
60s: How long did Pelican play together?
MW: Pelican threw in the towel about 1975. I'll give you a real short history here: We did a lot of original material, and started playing around Chicago at some of the local neighborhood clubs and dances in the early ‘70s. We gradually felt that we really had a chance of 'making it' as they say in the business, so we got together a tape of our best songs, and the band boldly moved out to Hollywood, Los Angeles in 1973. There were five of us and we all lived together in one apartment - the band, our roadie and a parrot…plus all our gear. We had a lot of good times out there, but that lucky musical break never came. We tried knocking on all the music agents and record companies doors, sent them copies of our songs and did a few live auditions, but not much came of it. We tried to change our sound a few times to try and fit in with the changing commercial styles of music on the charts in those years 1973-1975 but that just seemed to make things worse! The long and short of it was that Pelican carried on until about 1975 and were just too burnt out to carry on anymore. Some of the band moved back to Chicago.
60s: What about today? What keeps you busy?
MW: Well…playing guitar has been such a part of my life for so long now that I'll probably die with a guitar in my hand, but if not I hope at least a pretty girl! I've been living in England for the past twenty years now, and during this time have been trying different styles of guitar playing like classical, flamenco, jazz/funk and good old bluegrass and C&W. Trying new ways of playing help keeps it all fresh and (makes it) a challenge as well. While here I've continued playing in different sorts of bands or jamming; there was a short-lived indie rock band called System7 when I was first in London. I've been jamming and occasionally gigging in several 'jazz-funk' bands; I’ve sat in occasionally with a 12-piece jazz big band; was busking and playing a few local pubs in a duo doing ‘60’s and ‘70's covers with a good friend from Merseyside named Johnny Caldwell (we also work together in a picture-framing business in Cambridge where I now live and which helps pay the bills); and I was also in a local bluegrass band which just recently broke up. I've given occasional guitar lessons and do some home-studio work from time to time for friends. Career-wise playing the guitar isn't making me a lot of money, but I'm hoping that one day my ship, or maybe rowboat, will come in! I'm always working on new styles; I have some song ideas kickin' about in my head, and I’m hoping to put something together for fun and maybe do some more gigging soon. You never know what's around that next corner.
60s: How do you best summarize your experiences with The Griffith-Harter Union?
MW: It was some of the best times of my life. Here I was playing guitar and gigging in a cool band (when I was) 17 and 18, and during some of the most musically innovative and eventful times of that decade - or maybe any decade for a while. (Okay so I am a bit biased!) The amazing diversity of the background music to the times I was living through in 1967 had The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's" released to Jimi Hendrix's debut LP "Are You Experienced" and everything in between. Music was changing and it seemed the whole world was changing along with it. The Beatles captured the moment with "All You Need Is Love" while the war in Viet Nam was at its height, bringing more protests from more of us. 1968 saw the riots at the infamous Democratic Convention in Chicago, which I witnessed. We all thought that we were going to change the world, and I think in some way we did. Playing in the Griffith-Harter Union during those times was like being on the Starship Enterprise observing, experiencing and living through it all.
