This month’s Under Appreciated Rock Band of the month is the Human Zoo, a band having numerous connections to a truly legendary band called the Human Expression, one of the garage rock and psychedelic rock bands where I wrote up the Wikipedia article many years back. The Human Expression was from Orange County, California and formed in 1966. The father of one of the bandmembers (who was also one of their songwriters), Jim Foster served as the band’s manager. They released only three singles on Accent Records in 1966 and 1967, with “Optical Sound” being a regional hit. The band had the opportunity to record “Born to be Wild” before Steppenwolf when they were presented with two demos from songwriter Mars Bonfire; bandleader Jim Quarles selected “Sweet Child of Nothingness” as the “A” side of their third single over the future 1968 hit song (and he has a point if you ask me).
Jim Foster of the Human Expression discovered the group and also became the manager for the band, following in his father’s footsteps (he had managed the Human Expression); and he is the one who suggested that they change their name to the Human Zoo in 1969.
(July 2015)
