'Talk To Me Girl' has long been a favorite garage pop song here at 60sgaragebands.com. Written by Eric Olson of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Next Five, the song has been immortalized on an early Pebbles volume, and is one of those tunes that sticks to the brain after an initial listen. The Next Five recorded other songs, and even had one of their singles released as The Toy Factory. Olson explains all that and more...
For more on The Next Five, visit Erics' Web site.
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An Interview With Eric Olson
60sgaragebands.com (60s): How did you first get interested in music?
Eric Olson (EO): I recall sitting at my aunt's kitchen table eating lunch, I was six or seven, and my teenage cousin was playing 'Don't Be Cruel' on her little record player. I can remember saying, "That's jazzy," and she said, "No, it's not. It's rock and roll." I think that was the first time I heard that term, and I can remember being moved by the music. I think she also told me at that time I had the same birthday as Elvis, January 8th. And, up until I was about ten, everytime my parents had guests over, they made me come out and sing '16 Tons.' I was a little ham. In the early '60s I saw my first live band, The Savoys, at Jackson Park in Milwaukee. That was also the first time I saw Bruce Cole on drums. I knew then I had to learn the guitar. Shortly after that I saw The El Demerons, Mike and Jim Milewski, at Grant Social Center in Milwaukee. Mike went to my school, so I got to know him and he gave me my first guitar lessons.
60s: Was The Next Five your first band?
EO: I got my first guitar on Christmas 1964, and joined a band called The Variations. Our first gig was at View Street Social Center in the spring of '65, and we kept changing members until I joined up with a bunch of guys from Brookfield, Wisconisn in the spring of '66.
60s: Where and when was The Next Five formed?
EO: Four guys from Brookfield Central High had a band called The What Four. I was starting a band in Milwaukee and got Steve Thomas' number from a friend. We got together and I told him my ideas and we hit it off'; he then said he already had a band and maybe I should just join it. I went to their rehearsal at Steve's house and met the rest of the guys. The What Four became The Next Five in the spring of '66.
The members of the Next Five were Steve Thomas on guitar, Gordy Wayne Olski on the bass, Mark Buscaglia on the Hammond organ, Tom Stewart on the drums, and Eric Olson on lead vocals. John Kruck was the drummer from '68 on.
60s: Why was Tom Stewart replaced on drums?
EO: Tom left the band. I remember some misunderstandings, but not what it was about. He did join up with some guys from The Destinations right after that, and we played a show with them, I think in Port Washington. I remember because the president of the union, Russ Russo, was there and told me I was not allowed to play the tambourine. Since I had stopped playing the guitar in the band to just sing, I quit the union. It turned out the tambourine was a musical instrument. I still played it and we got fined. He had also fined us when we opened for The Rascals for being late on dues, and that was about $300.00 to New Jersey. Anyway, the last time I saw Tom Stewart, was in Port Washington.
60s: How would you describe the band's sound?
EO: Like most of the teenage bands of the '60s we did all the big Top 40 songs of the day. Everyone in the band sang, so we were able to do the challenging vocal stuff, too. We liked The Rascals, Hollies, Turtles, Animals, Doors, Who and many more.
60s: What was the Milwaukee music scene like at the time?
EO: The Milwaukee music scene in the '60s was all local for us until we opened for The Rascals at the Milwaukee Auditorium. We were also managed by Con Merten, who managed The Robbs, one of Wisconsin's biggest bands, who were in California doing Where The Action Is--a daily TV show featuring Paul Revere and The Raiders. When we released our first record, everything became more regional. Our original manager was Tom Schroeder, but he was gunned down in a parking lot in downtown Milwaukee.
60s: Where did The Next Five typically play?
EO: We played at high schools and proms and post proms, CYO dances, and events put on by WOKY and WRIT, the AM radio stations at the time. We also played the first Summer Fest in Milwaukee in '68 when the tent blew down. At Christmas, we would go to children's hospitals and sing Christmas songs. We did TV shows and radio interviews around the Midwest. The teen scene in Milwaukee was mostly those CYO dances and school dances.
60s: How far was the band's touring territory?
EO: Mostly around the Midwest and as far as Washington, D.C.
60s: Did The Next Five participate in any battle of the bands?
EO: We played a battle of the bands in the town of Brookfield, when Con first came to hear us. We were new and came in second to a well established group. Con said if we would have won, he would not have taken us on as clients. I know he said that just to make us feel better. When it came to taking care of business, Con was our only manager, from the begining to the end. He also became General Manager at Cherokee Recording Studios in Hollywood in the '70s, and that was owned by The Robbs. I worked there from '77 to '80.
60s: What led to the band's opportunity to record?
EO: Every gig we played had a radio personality there to introduce the band, and they would plug (us) on the radio all week long; that's how you get crowds. Paul Christy was one of our favorites. He became good friends with the band and suggested we record. He had a song called 'Little Black Egg' that he thought we should do. He was right about the song because five bands have done it since '67, including The Cars in the '90s. It was written by Chuck Conlon (of The Nightcrawlers from Florida).
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60s: Where did The Next Five record?
EO: 'Little Black Egg' and 'He Stole My Love' were recorded at Dave Kennedy Studios in Milwaukee. Everything was so planned that I don't have alot of memories about the session; there is nothing that stands out good or bad. 'Mama Said' and 'Talk To Me Girl' were recorded at Cuca Studios in Sauk City Wisconsin. 'Mama Said' went down very smoothly because we were prepared. 'Talk To Me Girl' was a different method. I wrote the song the night before the session so nobody knew it, and we only had 45 minutes to an hour to record it. I wrote it on a piano so I played that part and Mark played the Hammond organ. There were very few chords so everyone just played what they felt, and the vocals were created as we went along; that was my first experience with spontaneity, which told me sometimes it's better not to know what you're going to do. The first idea is usually the best, so don't give yourself the time to try to make it better.
The most interesting recording session was 'Sunny Sunny Feeling.' It was recorded at Chess Studios in Chicago the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. A man came into the studio (always believed to be Blue's Icon Muddy Waters) and said to Stu Black, the engineer, and Paul Christy our producer, "You've got to get these kids out of here. This place is going up." The band was rushed out to the cars, and we laid on the floors and backseats and got out of there as the rioting began. The day before that session, I was walking though the halls of my school (South Division in Milwaukee) and heard a violin coming out of a practice room. I opened the door and found this kid playing. He was so good I asked if he wanted to go to Chicago and record with us. He said yes, and those are the violin parts on the record. His name was Mike, and that's all I remember. I lost my yearbooks a long time ago, and always wondered what became of him. I'm sure he still plays. The flip side of 'Sunny Sunny Feeling,' 'Whats That Melody,' was written by me and forgotten by me ASAP. I can't even remember where it was recorded. It was one of our earliest recordings and was in the can so Paul Christy decided to use it for the flip side of 'Sunny Sunny Feeling.'
60s: Who was the band's primary songwriter?
EO: After deciding we would do 'Little Black Egg' for our first single, Paul Christy said, ok now you guys write a B-Side. I don't remember if there were any other ideas, but we ended up doing the one idea I had, which was the guitar part for 'He Stole My Love.' We took that and built on it until it until it sounded like something. It really wasn't us but it was all we had, and Paul didn't care what was on the B-Side. How it made Mindrocker #3, I don't know. It was such a dark song; I don't know where that came from, it really wasn't our vibe. When it came time for the flip side of 'Mama Said,' that method was a winner. I always wondered what would have happened if we had access to a studio and the time to be spontaneous. That wasn't possible in those days due to the cost of studio time. I never really found myself as a songwriter until the early '70s when the Teac 3340s came to the market and I was able to write and record 30-plus songs in less than a year as outlined on Springdale '73, Eric Olson. That was a major turning point in recording history for guys like me. I would bet that if the Teac 3340s was around five years earlier, the '60's psych/garage/punk thing would have been much different.
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60s: Why was your third single released as by The Toy Factory?
EO: Our third record was 'Sunny Sunny Feeling.' Paul Christy moved to Virgina and Con Merten went to New York where he set up offices on Broadway with Denny Randall, who wrote 'Dawn,' 'Rag Doll' and many more for The Four Seasons. We were going to move to New York until Con and Denny had a falling out and Con went to the West Coast to be with The Robbs. Paul Christy pulled off the deal with Jubilee Records and wanted to start fresh with a new name, "The Toy Factory." We were not related to Avco Embassy (group), as some people wish to believe.
60s: Are there any other Next Five recordings, either unreleased songs or live tracks?
EO: There are just a few other recordings by The Next Five on acetates, a cover of 'Not Fade Away' and two I wrote, which nobody will ever hear. We may have had a live recording at one time but I have no idea what ever happened to it. Even if we had one, it probably wouldn't be of any quality due to the slow speed and the limits of the technology in home recordings of that period.
60s: Did the band make any TV appearances?
EO: We did local TV shows like The Art Roberts Show in Chicago, and the Upbeat show out of Cleveland. Some of those shows were on film, and they probably still exsist somewhere. There is a Super 8 movie on my Web site that was made at a St. Williams CYO dance in Waukesha, Wisconsin in '68.
60s: When and why did The Next Five break up?
EO: 'Sunny Sunny Feeling' ran its course in 1969 when Paul was in Virgina and Con was in New York. Gordy and I decided we should now go to South Carolina and play at the Army Navy Club, six sets a night and six nights a week which amounted to musical slavery. I left after a month and went back to Milwaukee knowing that was the end of The Next Five. Tt was almost 1970.
60s: Did you join or form any bands after The Next Five?
EO: From 1970 to 1977 I played in a number of bands around Wisconsin. One of the last gigs I played in Wisconsin was opening for Tom Petty's first gig touring his first album. I didn't know who he was yet and didn't stick around for his whole show. About a year later, when I was working at Cherokee Recording Studios in Los Angeles, I ran into them again. They were recording there, and he became one of my favorite songwriters of all time. Out in Los Angeles in the late '70s and early '80s I had a New Wave band that played all the clubs at the time. In the middle '80s I started a dance band that was together for 10 years in Los Angeles and ended up with MG Kelly and KODJ radio opening up for all those bands I knew in the '60s. In the year 2000 I started a seven-piece R&B band that lasted three years.
60s: What keeps you busy today?
EO: Although I've had many offers to join bands, I haven't played since my R&B band broke up. There just aren't enough good paying gigs around L.A. to keep a good band alive. Instead, I bought a digital recorder and started writing again. I spent the last year fixing and remixing my Springdale '73 project for release on CDBaby. It is really about the home recording technology of the time; the first time you could record multi-tracks in your home.
60s: How do you best describe your experiences with The Next Five?
EO: So much happened from '66 thru '70 with The Next Five, and we were all so young that it almost feels like a Happy Days episode mixed in with the movie That Thing You Do by Tom Hanks. I don't have any bad memories of anything about that time period. Although I had many great moments in other bands since, nothing ever reached the level of The Next Five experiences. I'll always love everyone involved with making my teenage years what they were.
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Discography
45 Singles:
Next Five - 'Little Black Egg' b/w 'He Stole My Love' (Written by Eric Olson) (Destination #637, 1967)
Next Five - 'Mama Said' b/w 'Talk To Me Girl' (Written by Eric Olson) (Wand #1170, 1967)
Toy Factory - 'Sunny Sunny Feeling' b/w 'What's That Melody (Written by Eric Olson) (Jubilee #5668, 1969)
Unreleased:
'People' (Written by Eric Olson)
'Sunday Deamin'' (Written by Eric Olson)
'Not Fade Away'
'Talk To Me Girl' (Alternate Version)
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