Mike Taylor | My Last Day | (J-Beck) 1966

“My Last Day” taken from the LP ‘Bad Seeds, J-Beck Story 1’ | (Eva Records EVA 12034) 1984

Mike Taylor | My Last Day | (J-Beck) 1966 | This is the story of perhaps the best Texas ’60s record label: J-Beck / Cee-Bee. It’s impossible to find a company that had better rock & roll, consistently, during the ’60s.

The label’s story is at the same time the history and evolution of three great bands: the Bad Seeds, the Zakary Thaks and the Liberty Bell. The man behind this amazing company was Carl Becker.

This interview was taped with Carl, Mike Taylor (vocalist with the Bad Seeds) and Chris Gerniottis (singer for the Zakary Thaks and later with the Liberty Bell). Three very fine people who I want to thank for taking the time to do this interview.

NFA: Carl, how did you get into the music business?

Carl: Well, I always loved music, never played an instrument, but I could always tell the hits, whenever I’d hear a song I could tell if it was gonna be a hit. So I started working for a jukebox operator in Corpus pickin’ the hits for him and I got to know a local DJ called Charlie Bright.

He suggested that we start puttin’ on shows in Corpus cause they were goin’ over real good and he couldn’t do it since he was working for a radio station.

I thought it sounded good so I said OK what’ll we call ourselves, he said, ‘I dunno, anything . . . call it J-Beck Productions’, so that’s what is was.

We put the shows together, I signed the acts like Sir Douglas, Gene Thomas, Sunny and the Sunliners and admission was $1 a head. So, like these shows came off like a champ, my cut of the first show was $1 200 in one dollar bills, my wife just couldn’t believe it!

Mike Taylor | My Last Day | (J-Beck) 1966

Anyway I was working full-time for the airline and my brother-in-law, Jack Salyers, was working there too. He saw me counting all this money out there one day and he said, ‘Where’d you get all that money’, so I told him from that show I had.

So Jack said, ‘Hey I wanna get into business with you’, and he wanted to handle all the money, book better shows and start a corporation. That sounded alright to me, I never was that good a businessman with money, if I had $100 in my pocket I’d go out and spend $150 . . . (laughter) . . . so we formed a corporation and called it J-Beck, we each owned 50 %.

We started throwin’ more shows and more shows, and each time we’d bring in bigger and bigger acts, hell, one time we had like $12,000 tied up in just deposits for a show, we had the Paul Revere and Raiders show, Dick Clark, Caravan Of Stars and we’d bring ’em to San Antone, Corpus and McAllen.

NFA: You booked outside of Corpus then?

Carl: Oh yeah, so meanwhile little bands started callin’ us and sayin’, hey you oughta come see us, and me and old Jack we’d drive out to see ’em, that’s how we saw Mike Taylor.

The Surf Club

NFA: At the Surf Club with the Bad Seeds?

Carl: Right, we went and listened to ’em one night and found out they had a couple original songs, so we’d drive down to Jimmy Nicholl’s studio in McAllen. We’d save up our money from our shows and every Sunday morning we’d take 4 or 5 carloads of guys down to McAllen.

NFA : You had to drive all the way to McAllen to record ? (150 miles)

Chris: Yep, and it was a two-track studio!

Carl: We’d leave at like 6:00 in the mornin’ , before daylight, ’cause we’d get the studio for little or nothin’ on Sunday. So everybody J-Beck had recorded in McAllen at least 5 or 6 times, anyway we took the Bad Seeds down there and cut their first record, ‘Taste Of The Same’.

It got some airplay in Corpus, McAllen, little stations in South Texas and pretty quick the Bad Seeds had a good name, they played all the proms, any good gigs in Corpus they’d automatically get ’em.

They started buyin’ better equipment, we kept recordin’ them and anytime we had a big show we’d put them on as the opening act. So they became very popular, in fact they got so popular that some of ’em who’d never had girlfriends before, started havin’ girlfriends . . . (laughter) . . . and on account of the girlfriends they didn’t practise as hard as they used to practise . . . (laughter) . . . so anyway I started hearin’ about this other little group in Corpus called the Zakary Thaks.

Mike Taylor | My Last Day | (J-Beck) 1966

A guy named Jim West, DJ at KEYS radio in Corpus, was managing them and he’d always be tellin’ me about ’em, so me and Jack went down to the Carousel Club one Sunday to hear them.

Now this place had a battle of the bands every Sunday and every teenager in South Texas would show up, just pack the place. So we went to hear them and . . . we just couldn’t believe it, they had homemade amps, the worst equipment you can imagine and came up with the damnest sound, just great and we decided we’d have to get hold of ’em before Jim West locked ’em up . . .

NFA: Chris, was this first time you saw Carl?

Chris: Yeah, in fact we were on stage at the Carousel and Carl walked up and gave me his card, told us to call him and we were really excited.

The Zakary Thaks

NFA: Now how did the Zakary Thaks get together?

Chris: Well, we were first called the Marauders which was a very surf-oriented group, then it was the Riptides, then, in about . . . March of ’66 we officially became Zakary Thaks, we had a different drummer but it was basically the same group when we met Carl.

NFA: Mike, how did the Bad Seeds start up, I know Rod Prince was your guitar player.

Chris: I know Rod’s first group was called the Titans.

Mike: Yeah, and my group was the Four Winds. We were playin’ at the Teaky Teen Club in Corpus and the manager told us we’d have to get a new drummer ’cause the one we had couldn’t keep time, so nobody could dance, he’d speed up — then slow down . . . (laughter) . . . but Rod’s group broke up so me and him put together the Bad Seeds, we had Henry Edgeington on bass and Bobby Donahoe on drums, Bobby was in the Titans with Rod and a real good drummer but kinda hard to get along with.

Carl: I think all drummers are that way . . . (laughter)

Mike Taylor | My Last Day | (J-Beck) 1966

Mike: They are, they’re a real pain in here too, they never been in a studio before and they know everything about recording . . . . (laughter)

NFA: The Bad Seeds were the first real rock band in Corpus weren’t they?

Mike: Yes, I guess we were, I remember when we played Kingsville we had to send a guy in with a hat on to see if we were gonna be able to go in and play . . . (laughter) . . . those cowboys didn’t like that long hair!

Carl: Yeah, McAllen, Beeville, Rockdale, there were a lot of places like that back then.

NFA: Did you record any other places besides McAllen?

Carl: Well, we recorded in Houston later on but we did try to do something with Abe Epstein in San Antone once.

NFA: He was the guy with all the labels, Jox, Cobra, Beckingham.

8-track studio

Carl: Uh-huh, we were playing a gig in San Antone with the Thaks and he came by and said, ‘You guys gotta come see my studio, you’re wasting your time in McAllen, I’ve got a 8-track studio’, so we said OK, went over there and he had 8 different tape recorders . . . (laughter) . . . he’d try to hit ’em all at the same time! (laughter)

NFA: If sounds like the Bad Seeds were the band around Corpus for awhile then Zakary Thaks came along.

Carl: Right, let me tell you the big story, me and Jack were the managers of the Bad Seeds and we knew that they had to start practicin’ very hard or this young group would knock ’em off, hell, Chris was only 15 at the time, the Thaks were a very young group.

So we finally had a showdown at the Carousel Club with a battle of the bands, I figured we’d take the Bad Seeds down there and blow these little kids off.

Well, we went down there and the Bad Seeds were playin’ as best they could, which really wasn’t that good.

Mike: Yeah, we were havin’ a lot of internal problems.

Carl: They were havin’ a lot of problems and they sounded like hell but most of the people didn’t hear anything.

Mike: We just turned up real loud.

Bad Seeds break-up

Carl: They had a big following and most of the fans didn’t notice, so when they got through, the spotlight went over to this young punk group with these funky guitars and homemade amps.

I saw ’em and told Jack that they just weren’t gonna cut it, well, the Thaks blew the Bad Seeds so far off the stage that the Seeds and me and Jack knew their days were over. So immediately I got hold of me Thaks and we kept Mike as writer/producer and later on as an artist.

NFA: Now the Bad Seeds all broke up after this?

Mike: Yeah, but they reformed as the New Seeds with Rod Prince, David Frasier, Roy Cox, David Fore.

NFA: Did they make any records as the New Seeds?

Mike: No, but they ended up as Bubble Puppy later on and moved to Houston.

NFA: Now you made some records as Michael around this time.

Mike: As the Fabulous Michael ! (laughter)

Carl: Back then whenever you introduced somebody as the Fabulous Michael you knew it had to be terrible. (laughter)

Mike: They started puttin’ me on for real with that Fabulous shit. (laughter)

Carl: So anyway we started playin’ around with the Fabulous Michael and cuttin’ some of these records and whenever we took the Thaks to the studio we’d take Mike along and he’d put together a song, the Thaks would back him up . . . (to be continued – see the Zakary Thaks)