Bubble Puppy, Not Bubble Gum!
Bubble Puppy style was the opposite of “Bubble Gum” music
The Bubble Puppy was in trouble once "Bubble Gum" music hit the scene in 1969. Bands like The 1910 Fruitgum Company, The Ohio Express, and The Archies exemplified Bubble Gum music's bouncy, light, teeny-bopper sound. Here's what Wikipedia says about Bubble Gum Music: "Bubblegum is pop music in a catchy and upbeat style marketed for children and adolescents."
The members of Bubble Puppy considered our music style much more sophisticated. Despite having the word "Bubble" in our name, the Bubble Puppy style was the opposite of "Bubble Gum" music. We were not aiming for the "children and adolescent" market!
When the booking from the American Bandstand TV show arrived in 1969, the band was excited. However, we were shocked and worried after learning that we would appear on the show with The 1910 Fruitgum Company, a band that defined the "Bubble Gum" sound described above. We knew being associated with this band’s Bubble Gum sound would hurt our career. Our single Hot Smoke was #14 in the Billboard Magazine charts, so we couldn't afford to cancel our appearance. We needed the exposure to drive the song higher up in the charts.
Sadly, after our appearance on American Bandstand, the worst happened. People incorrectly assumed we were a "Bubble Gum" band because the word "Bubble" was in our name. As we suspected, being booked on American Bandstand with The 1910 Fruitgum Company was a mistake. We did not want to be known as a Bubble Gum band! We sounded more like The Grateful Dead than the Archies!
After Bandstand, we returned to Houston. We were discouraged because of the botched Bandstand booking. We visited the International Artists studio, Gold Star, where we recorded Hot Smoke. Gold Star's recording equipment was primitive. Their main audio recorder was a 4-track. This machine's low number of tracks limited us in layering of our sound. We finally got some good news at the studio, which we desperately needed: While we were gone, Gold Star had upgraded its 4-track recorder to an 8-track! Now, we had twice as many tracks to play with!
To illustrate the advantages of our new 8-track, I'll describe the recording process on the old 4-track:
Fill tracks one, two, and three with drums, bass, and guitar, then mix those three tracks down to track four.
Erase the first three tracks.
Fill two tracks up with guitars and vocals and mix that down to the third track.
Erase the two tracks.
Finish the recording using the empty tracks.
That's how we recorded Hot Smoke. The Beatles and most late-sixties bands all used this same process.
Now, with our new 8-track machine, we could record seven tracks, mix these seven down to the eighth track, and so on. Get the idea? Now, we could layer our groundbreaking dual guitar leads and add as many vocal harmonies as we wanted.
The new 8-track was fun, but our problems with International Artists continued. Our contracts specified that we would receive regular accountings, but we never received prompt accountings, so we began to suspect that the studio was cheating us out of our hard-earned royalties for Hot Smoke. Todd Potter's father, a Texas State Legislator, came to Houston to audit I.A.'s bookkeeping, and as we suspected, he found irregularities in I.A.'s bookkeeping. For example, I.A. charged us twice when record stores returned unsold Bubble Puppy records. We began to keep a list of I.A.'s transgressions.
While recording at I.A., we lived on Roseneath Dive in Houston, in what once was a very fashionable area of town. Our two-story house was roomy compared to our previous homes. The Roseneath house had four bedrooms, three baths, a large kitchen with a breakfast nook, and two living rooms. Many trees were in the yard, and the landscaping was neatly trimmed. Our home also had a garage and a guest house. My second-story bedroom featured a large picture window. It was a beautiful house.
Our landlord owned more than seventy "rent" houses in Houston. He and his wife lived down the street from us in a huge house built in the 1940s by the Weingarten family. Despite our landlord's wealth, describing him as frugal would be an understatement. For example, although his mansion had over 15 bedrooms, he closed off all but two and used a window AC unit to cool them.
In the summer of 1969, our air conditioning stopped working. Houston is humid and hot in the summer, so we suffered without AC, and the nights were so hot that it was hard to sleep. We asked our landlord to fix the problem, but he refused, even though he had the money to fix it. I don't know how we survived without AC that summer, and I have no idea why we let our landlord get away with not fixing our AC. Why didn't we pay to have the AC fixed? It never occurred to us! We had the money. Go figure.
That was also the summer the starter on my Volkswagon bug stopped working, and I spent the whole summer push-starting my car. I would put the car in second gear, open the door, get the car rolling, jump in, and pop the clutch, and it would start right up. Fortunately, Houston was flat, so I could push my car fast enough that this process worked. Looking back, it never occurred to me to pay to have it fixed. Why? I don't know.
Air-conditioned or not, living at The Bubble Puppy House was an adventure. You never knew who might drop by. The Bandito Biker gang might have visited; they were fans of The Bubble Puppy. Or Janis Joplin might hang out with us at the house after a show. We also had quite a few female fans come by the house.
One day, we got an unusual visitor: Rod's dad dropped by with a six-pack of beer. It was odd to have a parent at the Puppy House! Rod invited him in. Rod, Roy, and Rod's dad sat at the kitchen table, talked, and laughed for hours while finishing the six-pack. His dad's visit made Rod feel supported by his dad.
Rod previously told me his parents and grandparents had always been concerned with him trying to make it in music. They wanted Rod to have a "real job" with a steady income. After visiting with his dad at The Puppy House, Rod discovered that his parents and grandparents attended our performance opening for Canned Heat at the Hemisphere Arena in San Antonio. The audience gave us a standing ovation and several encores. After witnessing our success, Rod's family began to understand Rod's career choice and started backing his dreams.
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Next up on "Bubble Puppy Bites," we release our third single, "Beginning."
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Yeah, a really good story. And thanks for the brief look ahead to a future post about “Beginning, a really great song