Teen A Go Go Book Publication Date Announced

The Companion book for Teen A Go Go will be published January 2, 2012! Arcadia Publishing will release the book nation wide on the second day of a brand new year.
Pre-order info coming soon.
Check out www.teen-a-go-go.com for more info and if you don't have your DVD of the film, order today.

Book Deal for Teen A Go Go

TAGG just signed a book deal with Arcadia Publishing of North Carolina. Arcadia is an established, well respected publisher of local and regional histories and they are as excited to have Teen A Go Go as we are to be associated with them.
The TAGG book is a companion to the documentary featuring loads of photos and excerpts from the film.
Below is a sample of things to come with an excerpt from Chapter 1.
Visit www.teen-a-go-go.com to learn more about the film.

CHAPTER ONE:

“We decided we were going to be The Beatles of Euless.”

On February 9, 1964, at 8:00 p.m. EST, Rock and Roll changed forever when The Beatles exploded onto the American music scene by way of The Ed Sullivan Show. Glued to their TV sets, teens across the country witnessed one of the most influential moments of rock-and-roll history. The CBS Network reported that they received more than 50,000 requests for the 728 seats available for the taping. The Beatles were paid $25,000, exactly half of what Elvis had earned eight years earlier. The Neilson ratings for the show registered more than 73 million viewers, over forty percent of the entire U.S. population at the time, representing approximately 23,240,000 households. David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, would later remark, “Do you know anybody that didn’t see it?” We certainly couldn’t find anyone. Of the more than sixty people interviewed for this project, everyone had vivid recollections of the show. So, with their jaws still on the floor and inspiration stirring within, thousands of youngsters experienced an overnight epiphany that rock and roll would be their destiny.

The next day young men and women in virtually every small town and big city in America rushed out to buy their first guitar, boys combed their hair down to look more British, and department stores were selling out of Beatle boots within hours. On February 10, 1964, it would seem that 10 million teens had something new to do.

In the wake of The Beatles and British Invasion that followed teen scenes sprang up like mushrooms across America. With the world still in shock from the assassination of the President of the United States, a global nuclear war with Russia a very real possibility, and Vietnam looming on the horizon, kids formed garage bands by the score prompting music entrepreneurs to open teen clubs, which at a buck a head serviced the burgeoning scene. Hyper-voiced deejays, modeled on ‘Murray the K’ [New York City’s most famous deejay at the time, who often referred to himself as the fifth Beatle], wannabe impresarios, and slick-talking record men rushed bands into recording studios to knock out 45 rpm vinyl discs that would surely become the next smash hit, or hopefully be purchased by adoring fans.

The 1960’s edition of American teenagers, indulged by parents who’d first survived a depression and a world war then scrimped and saved to ensure their children had an easier, better life, was the first generation in American history to have both disposable cash and the leisure time to spend it. And spend it they did; on records, concert tickets, musical instruments, amplifiers, clothes and all manner of promotional memorabilia like Beatle wigs, Beatle lunchboxes, and Beatle pillowcases, anything with a band’s logo. The revolution had begun.

BRUCE CHANNEL (Songwriter and recording artist; singer of “Hey, Baby” an international hit in 1962. Member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame): I first met The Beatles while touring England in 1962. They opened a couple of shows for me at the time. Back then they were just another band looking for their next gig, just like the rest of us.

SUMTER BRUTON (Record collector, TCU student, baseball jock, and aspiring guitarist; in the ‘70s played with Robert Ealey & The Five Careless Lovers; founded The Juke Jumpers with Jim Colegrove; owner of Record Town; performs with Hank Hankshaw and The Bruton-Price Swingmasters): I was a sophomore at TCU and Capitol [Records] had sent me some things to put on your books; covers that said The Beatles are coming! and nobody knew who The Beatles were. I’d be carrying my books to class and they’d say, ‘Who’s that?’ and I’d say, ‘I don’t know much about them, but they’re supposed to be some hot act out of England that’s going to be on TV soon.’

LARRY ROQUEMORE (Singer and saxophonist with Larry and The Bluenotes and Soul Purpose): We’d been reading [about The Beatles] for some time through the trade publications, going ‘there’s this band in England that’s causing a big controversy because they have long hair,’ and when we saw them on Ed Sullivan, I was going, ‘this is different,’ and we were all on the phone with each other going, ‘did you just hear what I heard?’ From then on, everybody started growing their hair and dressing alike and trying to play English music.

CANDACE CHASE (Lead singer and bassist for The Candy Canes): We were watching Ed Sullivan and The Beatles came on. My girlfriend, next door neighbor, and I were watching. And I said, ‘That’s what I want to do. That’s it.’ I didn’t want to do anything else.

DAVID DENARD (Bassist for The Novas and owner of Dragon Street Records): We changed the way we looked, we changed the way we dressed, we changed what kind of instruments we wanted.

MARK  STEVENS (Radio DJ): Even a couple of them [musicians] affected an English accent. They didn’t even know they were doing it; they just liked the English scene so much.

DANNY GOODE (Bassist and singer with The Excels, The Orphans, and ATNT; member of the Rock-A-Billy Hall of Fame): We started in December ‘63, my brother and I with two other friends in high school and formed The Excels. We were pre-Beatles by about two or three months. In the spring of ‘64 is when The Beatles came over and it really took off. [We went] from being not really noticeable in school to being invited to every party, and ‘by the way, can you bring the instruments?’ It was great fun, the stage fright was right up in your throat, but we got used to that. I think I was seventeen when we first started, and James was nineteen. [Seeing The Beatles on TV] was your basic turning point. That’s when we decided, ‘That’s what we’re going to do.’

PHIL STRAWN (Singer with The Orphans and ATNT): The next day everybody had their hair combed down and was trying to find Beatle boots and a guitar. There was a mass run on music stores. Up to that point The Beach Boys were kind of the alpha dogs of the music world. Everybody was wearing striped tee-shirts and chinos and tennis shoes and doing surf music.

MICHAEL J. DOHONEY (Drummer with The Misfits, The Chancellors, The End, and The Shux; in the ‘70s played with Little Whisper & The Rumors; performs with The Paul Byrd Band): I was sitting there glued to the set. It was a profound effect. I’d been wearing my hair combed back, I listened to The Beach Boys a lot, and the next day, I was standing at the mirror, practicing combing it down and over to the side. The hairstyle changed immediately and I went through a couple of Beatle wigs.

TOMMY HANLEY (Of Anderson, South Carolina; guitarist for The Spirals and The Penetrations): Actually, I did not [see The Beatles on Ed Sullivan]. Dad always insisted that we go to church on Sunday nights and VCRs were unheard of then. Of course I heard them on radio and in time I saw those Ed Sullivan performances. I thought the entire British Invasion sound, including The Beatles was incredible. It affected most teens in our community to some degree or another. For a certain few of us it affected us enough to form our own bands.

JOHN NITZINGER (Guitarist-singer-songwriter with The Barons; Cellar musician; songwriter on five Bloodrock albums; Capitol solo artist; in the ‘80s recorded and toured with Alice Cooper; teaches music in Fort Worth at Nitzinger’s Music Factory. Historian Rick Koster has called his lyrics ‘Texas rock’s answer to Dylan Thomas.’): It changed my life. I woke up with long hair the next morning. I sat there, grunted and grunted, and next morning, I had long hair. Yes, The Beatles changed my life and still do, because they’re the best band that ever was and ever will be in my opinion.

MIKE HARRISON (Singer with The Rising Suns, The Menerals, and The Neurotic Sheep; hosts karaoke shows in Dallas): We did see The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, and discussed at great length how outstanding it was that those guys were doing what they were doing. They changed the world! They influenced my life, and I’m sure his life, to the nth degree. There’s been nothing like it before or since.

RUSTY BURNS (Guitarist with A Song Service; in the ‘70s played with Point Blank; independent musician/producer): I remember sitting with my family watching The Beatles. Ed Sullivan was kind of the only game in town in that particular time slot. The Beatles were coming and we’d already heard about this, and I already had the record, so I was really up on what The Beatles were doing, and after I saw them and witnessed what it was they did, and seeing they played really good live, even over all the screams of the girls, we decided that we were going to be The Beatles of Euless. I think I was twelve, so I was still a child, but we learned the Beatle record though, I’m telling you. We had that thing down within a month. We had that whole album. We played it. Life changed when The Beatles came on board. Everything changed. The way I played, the way I looked at playing, the way I wanted to dress, the way I wanted to speak. These guys had something, and even if it happened today, it would still happen the same way, because they had something.

LEE PICKENS (Guitarist with The Group, The Atomic Clock, and The Crowd +1 who changed their name to Bloodrock when they signed with Capitol Records): I saw The Beatles all three times they were on Ed Sullivan.

BRIAN FREEZE (Guitarist with The Group and The Atomic Clock; currently recording a blues CD): It wasn’t as good as when we saw ‘em live.

LEE PICKENS: I took my girlfriend to see them in ‘64 at Memorial Auditorium in Dallas and when they came onstage she wet her pants. We never could hear The Beatles singing because of the screaming. The second time I saw them was in ‘65 and some friends of mine and I flew down to Houston. One of the guys that went with us looked so much like Peter Noone [lead singer of Herman’s Hermits] that girls were chasing him around down there. Then Brian and I and some other guys flew up to Memphis in ‘66 and saw The Beatles there.

ROGER JOHNSON (Singer-guitarist with Eric & The Norsemen of Lawrence, Kansas): I saw The Beatles in person in Kansas City when they were there in ‘64. You couldn’t hear much; everybody was screaming. I was in the upper deck, there were all these junior high girls going nuts, but it was magic time.

RED YOUNG (As Pinky Young, keyboard player with The Committee and Sundown Collection; since 1967, based in L.A.; has recorded and toured with dozens of marquee acts): When I first heard The Beatles on the radio I thought it was a black band when they did that ‘one, two, three, foah!’ It was different than anything I’d ever heard, and nobody had seen ‘em, so I thought it was kind’a cool. When I saw them on TV I didn’t have the same reaction that most of America did, because there weren’t any keyboards, so that was a drawback in my book. But I liked ‘em. Before them, it was more rockabilly and that sort of thing. When The Beatles came out it was all about the songs that were written. Up until that time, everything was pretty much blues based, or a carry over from the 1940’s schmaltzy sort of thing, Pat Boone, that sort of stuff. When The Beatles came out, all of a sudden it had a much harder edge.

EDD LIVELY (Guitarist with The Mods; later led his own blues band, Edd Lively & The Movers): [After The Beatles,] it was still about the girls, but then suddenly, the music became more important.

SUMTER BRUTON: When rock‘n’roll hit I remember hearing “Rock Around the Clock” played at the Forest Park swimming pool over and over and people doing the dirty bop, ducktails. The ‘50s guys were pretty tough. They had chains, they were hoodlums, and I think the ‘60s guys weren’t as much hoodlums as kids that were learning how to play an instrument [so they could] make some money and get laid, possibly. Bands got younger. They weren’t as good. They weren’t playing as long as Delbert and Bruce Channel and all those guys. Delbert and the Rondells decided to make the big switch to the British Invasion. They learned a bunch of Beatle tunes and had a big thing at the Lake Worth Casino. It lasted about three weeks and all their old fans complained, so they went back to playing Bobby Bland and Bo Diddley and Jimmy Reed. There were a lot more bands and a lot more people learning how to play guitar, but there was just a difference in talent for a while.

BUD BUSCHARDT (Producer for Sump’n Else rock’n’roll teen show at WFAA TV Dallas): Just as when Elvis came on the scene all the young guys would go out and buy a guitar and try and be an Elvis. When The Beatles came on the scene we saw guys grouping together to form their own little bands.

Persistence Equals Perspiration

DIY film-making is a beat down. It is a profession fit only for fools and dreamers and I'm pretty sure which of those two categories I fit in to.  
Two weeks ago I spent five hours uploading Teen A Go Go into the createaspace system to be posted on Amazon. Today they tell me my graphics don't 'fit their guidelines.' Back to square one.
The best thing about working in this day and age is it is possible, in theory, to reach millions across the globe. The flip side is getting your film in front of the right viewers is an arduous and time consuming process.
The mantra of the independent filmmaker is persistence equals perspiration. Chip away a little bit every day.

Every film is a collaborative process. Teen A Go Go could not have been made without the talent and cooperation of hundreds of people and dozens of bands. One of the coolest people I have met in this process is Dick Schalk of The WAYDS. Dick is a fabulous musician and an all around good guy. He graciously let us use footage of The WAYDS, which is some of the only archival footage from the period with sound.

I am posting a portion of an interview with Dick below.
You can read the entire interview on their website:  http://thewayds.com. You can also find links to their music and view their film footage by clicking around the site.

Q: Who named the band? Is there any special significance?

I (Dick) named the band The WAYDS. I remember my dad bought a new naugahide couch, and I decided to lay down on it and take a nap. I don't know if it was because I was breathing the outgassing fumes from the naugahide while I slept or if it's just a coincidence, but the name came to me in a dream while I napped on the new couch. I woke up with the name still running through my head, and decided to us it as a name our new band. True story.
Q: Did The WAYDS write many original songs?

A: Actually, it was pretty unusual for most bands from the '60s to write original music, but we did write a few. My most favorite original was named "Mr. Foster loves us all", which is kind of a sugary-sweet sounding name, but it was really about a ghost in a "haunted" house in our area. I can remember all of us sneaking up to the house one evening, peering through the windows, looking for the ghost of Mr. Foster. We were all scared to death! We didn't see any ghosts, but it left an indelible impression on us… to the extent of writing a song about it! I think this was the first song we ever wrote. We literally wrote the song too (notes on a treble and bass clef); after we finished it, my dad took it to the post office and mailed it to our house by certified mail. We were told by an old country western musician that if we did this and didn't open it, it was "as good" as copyrighting it. I've still got the unopened letter at home.

Check out The WAYDS. They are great guys and a great band.
I'm going back to redo my graphics and resubmit to Amazon. Wish me luck.
Visit www.teen-a-go-go.com to purchase DVDs and learn more about the film.