The Outcasts are a garage rock band from San Antonio, Texas that released a total of five singles between 1965 and 1967. Their most well-known songs are “I’m in Pittsburgh (And it’s Raining)”, and “1523 Blair”; their recordings have been reissued on many compilation albums. According to the Ugly Things compilation album notes, they are the best known of at least 10 bands of this name that were active in the mid-1960’s. (More from Wikipedia)
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One of the other garage rock bands that I wrote about is the Outcasts. They won the statewide Battle of the Bands contest in 1966, the high water mark of the garage rock era – furthermore, they won in Texas, which probably had the highest concentration of 1960’s garage rock and psychedelic rock bands in the nation. The AIP Records series Highs in the Mid-Sixties concentrates on regional musical scenes rather than groupings of obscure songs from across the nation, and 5 of the 23 albums in that series are on Texas bands.
The Outcasts had an early hit song called “I’m in Pittsburgh (and it’s Raining)” that was included on the Pebbles, Volume 1 LP. A retrospective album by that name, I’m in Pittsburgh (and it’s Raining) was put out on Collectables Records. After Galen Niles joined the Outcasts as their new lead guitarist, the band recorded another classic called “1523 Blair”.
The unusual name is taken from the street address for a recording studio that was operated in Houston by Doyle Jones. One recent reviewer said of this song (as posted on www.officenaps.com): “The music on this selection is jarringly experimental, the spirit is possessed fervor. ‘1523 Blair’ is one minute and forty seven seconds long because it couldn’t have possibly been any longer.”
Galen Niles was later a member of the past UARB Ultra and a future UARB Homer. The Wikipedia article on the Outcasts can be found at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outcasts_(Texas_band) .
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The music on Destination: Bomp! is amazingly good from end to end, but the next to last song really caught my attention: “Fantasy of Folk” by Blair 1523. I immediately caught the reference to “1523 Blair” by the Outcasts.
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There are actually a lot of websites out there that talk about Blair 1523: It might be surprising to some that a search of the band name in quotes brings up 18,100 hits on Google. The first page of Google hits has a YouTube video of “Fantasy of Folk”, the Bomp! Mailorder site where the “last copies” of the CD can still be purchased plus another listing on Amazon.com, the mention of the band in my Wikipedia article on the Outcasts, the Allmusic review and the Julian Cope blog mentioned above, a listing on last.fm that actually has some information and even a photo of Blair 1523, and more barren listings on mtv.com, Discogs, and Rate Your Music. Further Google pages bring up other barebones listings – the one on Ticketmaster that offers concert tickets and tour schedules for a band that broke up 20 years ago is particularly hilarious – and other places to buy the CD and rate the music and see the lyrics and download “free” MP3’s (Napster lives!).
(September 2013)
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Galen Niles, one of the bandmembers in this month’s Under-Appreciated Rock Band, Homer was previously in a legendary garage rock band called the Outcasts and was later in a previous UARB, Ultra. I wrote a Wikipedia article on the Outcasts several years ago and talked quite a bit about Homer already in the Ultra post.
Chet Himes and Galen Niles were the co-founders of Homer and lived at the same apartment complex when they were both in college at Texas State University. Himes recognized Niles as being in the Outcasts – which had only recently broken up – and tried to persuade him to join a band that he was putting together.
Past UARB Ultra was every bit as different from Homer as the Outcasts; this hard rock band grew out of the final line-up of Homer, with Galen Niles and Don Evans joining the new band. Chet Himes continued his career as a recording engineer, working with Ted Nugent, Carole King, Christopher Cross, and others. Van Wilks left to start a solo career.
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While he was in basic training in San Antonio, Mike Post provided early guidance to the legendary Texas garage rock band the Outcasts; he wrote and produced the band’s first single, “Nothing Ever Comes Easy” b/w “Oriental Express”. He also recruited the Outcasts as the back-up band for performances by Jimmy Carlson (who was active in the New York folk music scene) and by Jimmy Hawkins (a long-time actor who later worked in Elvis Presley films and on The Donna Reed Show).
(January 2015/1)
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I did find a tidbit on line that I will share with you about yet another Linda Pierre King song, “Autumn Leaves” that does not appear on either CD. I must say that she has an impressive list of songs for someone about whom no one seems to know anything.
“Linda Pierre King travelled through Texas and in 1966, recorded at Accurate Sound in San Angelo. Most of her songs were recorded solo, but on a couple, some of the Outcasts backed her up. The owner of the studio, Ron Newdoll recalled her as an attractive folk singer who recorded about 18 songs in his studio. Nothing of hers would ever be released though, until a couple of decades later. This version and complete session of ‘Autumn Leaves’ makes it here or anywhere for the first time. Other artists such as Nat King Cole also covered this famous ballad.”
(April 2015/2)
