Category Archives: Musicol Recording Studio

The Epics of Columbus, Ohio

The Epics Dolphin PS White Collar House
The Epics, picture sleeve to their Dolphin single

The Epics Dolphin 45 White Collar HouseThe Epics came from Brookhaven High School in Columbus, Ohio. Warren Knox, Jim Miller and Michael Richards wrote the great A-side, “White Collar House” which refers to some kind of upscale nightspot, whether a dance club or bordello I can’t decide as the lyrics are vague. The band’s performance is a stand-out, and Musicol Recording Studio did a good job recording it.

Library of Congress records show copyright registered on May 1966 to Warren Knox, James Miller, and Mike Richards (Michael Kirk Richards). The band was a quintet but I don’t know who the other two members were.

Michael Richards wrote the gloomier b-side, “She Believe In Me”, and also arranged both sides. S. Graves produced the session.

It’s the only release I know of on the Dolphin label, which Buckeye Beat suggests was tied in with the Blue Dolphin Club for teens. There is a rare picture sleeve which I don’t own that shows the photo at the top, with a blank back.

The Epics Dolphin 45 She Believed In Me

Gun Shy

Gun Shy Musicol 45 Gun ShyI come across many singles out of the range of the ’60s garage I usually cover on this site. When something is very obscure, with little or no info on the ‘net, I post it to satisfy my own curiosity.

Such as this single by Gun Shy,  Ohio rock that sounds mid-70s but actually dates to 1981. It’s a Musicol press out of Columbus, with lots of EQ notes in the dead wax.

The A-side is “Gun Shy”, straight-up  rock with plenty of cowbell, and a professional sound. The flip “Rymes and Reasons” is a power ballad with a good solo. B. Whitlatch and J. Cremeans wrote both sides. No publishing info, but production was by L. Smith and W. Withrow.
Gun Shy Musicol 45 Rymes & Reasons

The Endless “Prevailing Darkness” on Cardinal

Endless at Hull's Musicol studio, 1966
The Endless at John Hull’s Musicol studio, 1966, from left: Jack McAtee, Mike Lyons, Mike O’Brien, Pat McAtee and Chuck Moorman.

The Endless Cardinal 45 Prevailing DarknessThe Endless came from Springfield, Ohio, making their only record in December, 1966 at John Hull’s Musicol Recording Studio.

“Prevailing Darkness” really shows attitude in the vocal delivery. Pat McAtee’s strong vocals also balance the delicate composition and performance on the nominal a-side, “Tomorrow’s Song”. Both songs were written by Pat and Jack McAtee.

The group started as the Mods in Springfield, Ohio, with brothers Jack McAtee on lead guitar and Pat McAtee on bass, Mike Lyons on rhythm, Jan Weinbreight on vocals and Bill Dale on drums. Jan left to form the Children of Stone and Mike O’Brien replaced Bill Dale. Chuck Moorman came in on keyboards.

Jack McAtee wrote a detailed history of the band. I will include a section of it below, but the full history, with more information on how the group formed and stories from their touring days is available as a PDF file here.

One day the band signed up for a battle of the bands contest sponsored by WIZE radio in Springfield. The winning prize was a couple of hours of recording time in a studio called Mega Sound in Dayton, Ohio. Paul Carmen was the disc jockey from WIZE who conducted the battle of the bands. Jack and Pat had written some original songs, “World of Sin” and “Endless Wandering” … we thought it would be great to record them. A week or so later we headed to Dayton with Paul Carmen. We recorded a couple of original songs and a couple of covers on a tape.

Around this time, … we met Chuck Moorman, an electric piano player with another group at the time. We were reluctant to add another person to the band, but it was one of the best decisions we made. He was very talented and was just as passionate at playing as the rest of the band. He soon added a Farfisa compact organ/keyboard which not only made us more versatile but added a lot to our original songs, and he was also a great singer.

The band was now complete. The Endless 1966: Jack (Bat Jack) and Pat (Sugar Bear) McAtee, Mike (Screen) Lyons, Mike (Miguel or Wolfman) O’Brien, and Chuck (Pick It) Moorman.

Everyone in the band sang led on at least one song and we had great harmonies.

Jack, Chuck and Mike went to Columbus to see if we could find someone else that might be interested in hearing our tape. We did find one company that was interested called Cardinal Records. We made an appointment with Frank Keefer, the owner, and took our tape to him, but guess what, the tape was not readable. In those days you couldn’t just pop the tape into any player, it was a large reel and took a special recording device to read it. After spending a couple of hours with Frank, trying to convince him our music was good, he asked if we were willing to pay for the first hour of a recording session. Then, if he liked our music we could continue recording and he would cover the additional cost. So, we set up a time to come back.

The Hull Records acetate with earlier versions of the songs on the Cardinal 45
The Hull Records acetate with earlier versions of the songs on the Cardinal 45. Hull Records became Musicol Recording Studio.
A week or so later [October, 1966] we met Frank at his house and headed to Hull Records in Columbus. We met John Hull there and he set us up for our recording. After the first hour Frank liked us a lot and told us to continue with the session a few more hours. Frank and John decided to make an acetate, a small album with 5 originals that we could distribute to radio stations to see if they liked our music. The original songs were called: “World of Sin”, “Endless Wondering”, “Tomorrow’s Song”, “A Cry for Yesterday” and “Prevailing Darkness”.

At that time Frank became our manager/producer with Cardinal Records and started booking places for us to play. At the same time another disc jockey at WIZE in Springfield, Ron Brown, took our album, played the songs on Friday and Saturday nights and asked the listeners to call in and vote for the ones they like the most. The listeners decided on “Tomorrow’s Song” and the band picked “Prevailing Darkness” for the flip side.

Cardinal Records F.J. Keffer business card
We went back to the studio and re-recorded the two songs again [in December, 1966]. We had to shorten them because the radio stations in those days would only play songs that were two and a half minutes long. Then we released the two songs on a 45 single. Frank had 1000 records made up and distributed them to various radio stations and record stores…

Once we played at a huge Battle of the Bands at a National Guard Armory. It was put on by WIZE radio station in Springfield. There were at least a thousand kids there. It came down to us and a group call “The Children of Stone”, Jan Weinbreights’ band. Guess what, at the end of the show they called it a tie. It was a lot of work for nothing. We should have put the party on ourselves, with The Children of Stone, and split the profits…

What happened to The Endless? A couple of the guys went off to college, and Uncle Sam came to visit some of us. During this time, Chuck Moorman was replaced by Jeff Dunmire on keyboards, and a singer named Bobby Saint, along with a sax player named Art Moppit, were brought in.

Jack, Mike Lyons and Mike O’Brien were drafted in late 1968. Jack went to the Air Force, Mike Lyons into the Army and Mike O’Brien into the Marine Corps. After Jack left for the military, Pat continued with another band, Chuck and Mike Lyons formed a band called “The Blue Light” which were a very good.

Later in life, Pat, Chuck, Jeff and Mike Lyons played in several bands, “The Legacy Band” and “The Pleasant Street Blues Band”. Jack started another band in the late ’80s, while living in Phoenix, called “The Steppin’ Back Band” and played a lot of clubs and parties for about 10 years.

The band decided to get together again in 1996 and 1998 for 30th and 32nd class reunion parties. We rented a hall, and thanks to all of our old fans, it was standing room only.

Jack McAtee

The Endless Cardinal 45 Tomorrow's SongThe five earlier Musicol recordings were supposed to be released on a compilation of Mus-i-col recordings over two years ago, but for some reason it never appeared. Hopefully whatever issues are holding it up will be resolved so we can hear the extended work of this band. The three unreleased titles are “Cry For Yesterday”, “Endless Wandering” and “World of Sin” – heavy stuff!

Thank you to Jack McAtee for the photos in this article.

Endless on Disco 2 Dayton TV 1966
The Endless on the Disco 2 TV show, Dayton, Ohio, 1966: Jack McAtee on guitar behind Chuck Moorman, keyboards, on the left, Mike O’Brien on the drums, Pat McAtee on the bass and Mike Lyons on the guitar on the right.