The Chocolate Watchband got its start at Foothill College in Los Altos, California in 1965. There were three Watchbands, each one as distinctly different as microwaves to cement trucks. The longest lived and the one everybody recognizes from the albums and movies, was Mark Loomis (18) on lead guitar and keyboards, Gary Andrijasevich (16) on drums, Sean Tolby (22) on rhythm guitar, Bill 'Flo' Flores (18) on bass and Dave Aguilar (17) lead vocals and harmonica. This Watchband always did everything in twos. They made two movies, recorded two albums, released two singles, hauled women up, two at a time, into their second story hotel rooms with knotted-up bedsheets, ordered two separate dinners when they ate out, played two encores at the end of a show and came together and blew apart in two years.

  This line-up quickly dissolved after a number of factors that included the draft; which claimed Rich Young, then the departure of their drummer, Pete Curry, who was replaced by Gary Andrijasevich, a jazz drummer from Cupertino High School. The final blow to the band came as a result of other bands around the area, fond of the Watchband, successfully attempting to poach some of the group's members. A San Francisco-based combo known as The Topsiders offered Ned Torney a position as the band's guitarist. Torney's departure coincided with that of frontman Danny Phay and organist Jo Kemling, who also left the Watchband in order to join The Topsiders. As a result of their departure, Torney, Phay, Kemling, as well as Ken Matthew and Tom Antone (members of The Topsiders) formed a new band called The Other Side.

  Loomis found a temporary berth with a very busy surf band called the Shandells, but wanted to play to an audience older than the pre-teens who attended their shows; he also saw no reason why he couldn't take another run at success, especially as the exiting members had made no attempt to keep the Chocolate Watchband name, he got Andrijasevich back, and recruited ex-Topsider guitarist Sean Tolby (who'd also been left high-and-dry by the personnel switch), and then grabbed the Shandells' bassist Bill Flores. That still meant finding a lead singer to replace Phay, and it was just about then that he discovered David Aguilar, who was (nominally) a biology major at San Jose State University -- Aguilar also sang like a punk god, had a stage presence to rival Mick Jagger, excellent musical sensibilities, and could even write songs.


  Loomis decided to recreate The Chocolate Watchband with The Shandels' bass player Bill 'Flo' Flores, and former Watchband drummer Gary Andrijasevich. They enlisted the help of former Topsiders guitarist Dave "Sean" Tolby, and the charismatic frontman of a local band known as The Early Morning Reign, David Aguilar.

   Mark Loomis acted as somewhat of a leader during this time, although the band never really had a definite leader. Sean Tolby obtained the latest in Vox equipment while Mark Loomis provided the space for daily rehearsals. The band performed at various places in the teen-circuit in San Francisco's South Bay, playing a range of blues cover songs and even more obscure import tunes cranked up to a level even the original writers never imagined. Very different from the jam bands they were playing with (Grateful Dead), led by Dave Aguilar, the Watchband had a knack of instantly splicing different songs seamlessly on stage in real time. One night at the Coconut Grove in Santa Cruz, "Season of the Witch" turned into the full 8-minute version of "Going Home". Other bands in the Bay Area covered popular Stones songs but nobody had the gravitas to pull off "Going Home"

The Chocolate Watchband's success and popularity was beginning to pick up at the same time as an interest in signing the band began. The band were offered a management deal by Bill Graham after a show in which they opened for The Mindbenders at the Fillmore in San Francisco. However, having signed with their new manager Ron Roupe a week earlier, the band eventually secured a deal with Green Grass Productions and began working with producers Ray Harris and Ed Cobb. Cobb gave the band a song he had written called "Sweet Young Thing", which was recorded and released in December 1966  on Tower Records, which featured the group's cover of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as the B-side.

The Watchband began to experiment with writing their own material around this time, with Dave Aguilar penning originals like "Right By My Side", "Gone & Passes By", "Don't Need Your Lovin' Anymore" and "Sitting There Standing"; however, the producers had other songs they wanted the Watchband to record instead. Although "Sweet Young Thing" gained strong airplay around San Francisco during the Spring of 1967, and has since been covered by the Australian band JET, it was poorly promoted by Uptown Records. Too busy playing in the Bay Area, the band preferred to perform cover material of obscure British songs. To the Watchband, the show was the sport. Many times, they thoroughly intimidated headlining acts by literally blowing them off the stage with their wild and driving music. The Watchband's second single was a commercial-sounding "Misty Lane", released with an orchestrated ballad, "She Weaves a Tender Trap", as its B-side, a choice that the band absolutely hated. When the 45 was released, the band took boxes of them and used them for skeet shooting targets thrown off the back porch of Sean Tolby's house in the Santa Cruz mountains.

  Thus was reborn the Chocolate Watchband in the spring of 1966, and what re-emerged was a much more powerful and impressive unit. They didn't play in front of people until they'd done some crash development of a proper stage act in Loomis' garage. They hit the ground running, playing the best white R&B-based rock heard anywhere this side of London, with a stage act that rivalled that of the Rolling Stones for excitement (and wasn't hurt by the presence of Brian Jones-lookalike Sean Tolby on rhythm guitar). The fact that they played Vox instruments only helped, making them look incredibly cool and their music -- already very potent -- sound like little else that was being heard around the Bay area. They secured the services of a manager who, in turn, got them signed to Green Grass Productions, a company co-founded by ex-Four Preps vocalist Ed Cobb, which had a recording deal with Capitol Records by way of the latter's Tower Records subsidiary. They played gigs with the early Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother & the Holding Company, and looked to be headed for that same level of possible success that those acts were already seeing. There was one false start, however, in the form of their debut single, "Blues Theme" -- an instrumental written by Mike Curb and originally cut by Davie Allan & the Arrows for the movie The Wild Angels -- it was getting radio play, but the original label had declined to issue a single on it, so Cobb and company jumped in with the Watchband, rush-releasing their version to try and grab some sales and attention -- the record was credited to the Hogs, owing to the tune's being associated with a biker movie, and the presence of the sound of a Harley on it; though they couldn't have known it, this wouldn't be the last time that the Watchband's identity was an issue on their records; and for reasons that seem bewildering, it came out on the kid-oriented Hanna-Barbara Records label, home of soundtracks to The Flintstones and other cartoons. The presence of the delightfully bizarre, satiric Zappa-like "Loose Lip Sync Ship," credited to Aguilar and Loomis as composers, on the B-side, only added a final piece of weirdness to the puzzle of that first release. The single never charted, but it was still a good record, and not a bad beginning.


  Everything seemed to be moving in the right direction, including a second single, "Sweet Young Thing" b/w "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. The A-side, authored by Ed Cobb, Featured Aquilar, who seemed to sum up the searing passions of the Stones' 13-minute "Goin' Home" in just three minutes, and mostly the last 30 seconds of the song -- with every instrument on the record seemingly cranked up to 11 and over-mic'ed, it was a larger-than-life performance issued on Tower's subsidiary Uptown label in December of 1966; the A-side was supported by a rendition of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" that used Them's arrangement as a jumping-off point but pumped up the wattage and gave Aguilar a great vocal canvas to work with.
  They followed this up in February of 1967 with "Misty Lane" b/w "She Weaves a Tender Trap," which was a somewhat more lyrical, melodic song than they'd been working with. It had a great beat and was a good showcase for Aguilar and company, and was also perhaps a bit closer to the sort of records that Loomis hoped to be making. The B-side, authored by Cobb, was a piece of soft pop balladry, complete with an overdubbed reed and horn accompaniment that had the bandmembers playing at midtempo with an acoustic instrument or two in evidence, and Aguilar in an almost languid performance; it was pretty enough, and a credit to everyone involved, but it wasn't what the Watchband was about. In retrospect, the members might've become concerned about precisely what was going on behind the scenes and what the thinking of their management was, but they were busy playing lots of gigs, not only in the Bay area but all over California, and whatever their feelings about some of the music on the singles, those at least represented the group's work and the records were getting played on the radio locally.
 Soon after came the two songs for Riot on Sunset Strip, which ended up on the movie's soundtrack album, and a fourth Watchband 45, "No Way Out" b/w "Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-in)"
  "Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-in)," ended up being used in the exploitation movie The Love-Ins (in which the band was supposed to have a major role but mostly ended up on the cutting room floor, as a result of some sort of havoc they created on the set), still resonates 40 years later as a moment of triumph for everyone, and the Cobb-authored "No Way Out" wasn't far behind, a shimmering piece of full-blown psychedelia with a killer performance by Flores and Andrijasevich in the opening, and Loomis' guitar laying down a jagged psychedelic blues lead line, while Tolby's instrument chimed and crunched away in the background while Aguilar intoned the spaced-out lyrics; even the tape effects and distortion at the end were handled with restraint and class.


  In 1967 The Watchband set to work cutting their first LP, which duly showed up in September of that year with the title No Way Out, and to the shock of the members, they discovered that only a pair of tracks, "Come On" and "Gone and Passes By," had made it onto the album intact. The vocals on almost half the record (including the opening track) had been given over to Don Bennett, a singer and songwriter (and co-author of "Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love In)"), and two of the tracks were by an entirely different band altogether, a studio group put together by engineers Richard Podolor and Bill Cooper. The album's flaws seemed to lead to the exposure of fissures just beneath the surface of their success. The first to go was Loomis, who could play practically anything but whose taste ran to more lyrical sounds -- he was getting tired of the Watchband's high-energy, blues-based sound on-stage -- and he cut out for the Tingle Guild, a folk-rock band, with Andrijasevich in tow. Their exit prompted David Aguilar to split, leaving Bill Flores and Sean Tolby as the sole active members of the Watchband.
  Flores and Tolby managed to put together a temporary lineup to fulfill the group's upcoming gigs -- Tim Abbott on guitar, Mark Whittaker on drums, and Chris Flinders as vocalist. Flinders and Abbott left before the end of 1967, however, and once again the group was reduced to half a band. Aguilar came back for a short time, but by December of 1967 the Watchband, in terms of what it had started out to be or any of the original participants, was essentially history.
  The Podolor label exploited the name. Podolor assembled a group of studio musicians and put Don Bennett at the microphone once more, retrieved some outtakes from the original group's sessions, and a pair of songs completed by the band, and delivered The Inner Mystique. it was a slightly late psychedelic release in February of 1968. It included the instrumental "Voyage of the Trieste" and the ornate, shimmering interpretation of "In the Past" (a track originally done by the Florida-based We the People). Speaking for the real Watchband, in defiant, sneering punk tones, was a glittering remixed version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," a beautifully conceived and executed rendition of "I Ain't No Miracle Worker" (authored by Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, of Electric Prunes fame), and Aguilar's greatest musical triumph on record, his fiercely defiant rendition of Ray Davies' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," where he and the band proved that they could hold their own with the Kinks as easily as the Stones.


  The band was involved in disputes with their manager Ed Cobb, because they were presented as being more instrumental on record than they were live due to Cobb's vision of what a psychedelic band should be. Never taking the time to see them perform on stage, he had no idea of the talent he had at his disposal. In later life, he would publicly lament this lack of curiosity or foresight on his part. In addition, Cobb recorded parts of the Watchband's albums without them - in fact, less than half of The Inner Mystique was originally recorded by the band, with many of the instrumental songs performed by session musicians. One Step Beyond was to be a fresh new direction for the band but nonetheless completely unsuccessful except for the songs written and sung by David Aguilar that were put in on the album from past recording sessions. The difference was remarkable. Rambling, low energy folk tunes interspersed with rolling in your face rock and roll of the popular earlier band. Before the recording session could really get underway, Mark quit and was replaced by Jerry Miller.


The Chocolate Watchband was reformed in Autumn of 1968; its line-up consisted of:Sean Tolby, as a guitarist - Bill "Flo" Flores, as a bassist - Mark Loomis, as a guitarist - Gary Andrijasevich, as a drummer - Ned Torney, as a guitarist and Danny Phay, as the frontman and singer. The Watchband recorded with Cobb to produce their third album, the relatively original One Step Beyond.


  My main problem with the Dead was that I was never stoned enough to ever uncover or appreciate any of their hidden genius. I always thought of them as a really bad country and western band that had accidentally taken too much acid. I was just too impatient to hang around twenty or thirty minutes to find out how a song ended. The rest of the group thought the Dead was just about the most amazing bunch of drug addicts to ever hit the stage together at the same time. They partied every weekend with them. I learned my lesson that Saturday night about partying with the Dead. They put acid in everything and on anything. At their house, someone might have rubbed a tab on the toilet paper...on a door knob or all over someone's bare breasts. You never knew. It was just one big joke. That night, at their house, there was an industrial party going on. Jerry was in one corner of the living room playing acoustic guitar...women wandered around topless with flowered bell bottoms and bare feet or naked with beads and silk scarves draped all over their bodies....everybody loved everybody else and was out to prove it.

  Bill, Mark and Sean had dropped acid before they got there. Sean and Mark disappeared into a back bedroom with two girls dressed like Indian maidens. Billy was under the table playing air bass, which looked more like he was losing a wrestling match with a giant invisible octopus. Gary had vanished. I was on my own. I was standing in the hallway wondering who had the keys to the van when out of nowhere, a tall, thin pretty girl with long red hair and a see-through blouse floated over and kissed me softly on the lips. Then she laughed like a mischievous fairy in a Mid-Summer's Night Dream. She said her name was Mara in a voice that sounded like a shallow brook running over small pebbles. Oh yeah, she was also eating a stick of butter like it was a candy bar! She offered me a bite and I don't know why, I took it. (DANGER Will Robinson!) Sean's new girlfriend and later his wife that he had picked up earlier that evening at the Fillmore squeezed past us asking if we'd seen Sean. As she saw me take a small bite from the butter she remarked sarcastically."Where are you two from, Oklahoma?" The remark never phased Marna. She had that look in her eyes that cows get when a train suddenly passes by. "What the hell was that?" She just smiled and said "I think the Indians are smoking your mans' peace pipe in that back room there. They're having a big pow wow." Then, she turned back to me and proceeded to tell me about her amazing ability to fly. She told me how beautiful Golden Gate Park was at night as she flew over the treetops sometimes landing in a giant redwood to rest when the fog came in. You always had to be careful when flying around the Golden Gate Bridge because sometimes soldiers at the Presidio would shoot at you.

  As I listened, a thought came into my transfixed mind. I hope she is stoned right now and not permanently messed up like this because she is really beautiful. But before I could say any of the words that were now drifting out of my mouth like giant cartoons, she floated away from me and before my very eyes, turned into a shiny green mermaid with a golden wings and beautiful waving tentacles for arms. With a smile and a wink from one of her many hypnotic orange eyes, she began melting like a snowman on Venus into the rug - flowing out the door like a blue-green ocean with tiny chrome fish leaping out of the water filling the room like fireflies. I watched my feet melt into her retreating waters and flow away from me as if they were entering a black hole in space. Somehow for the next few hours, all the molecules in our bodies mixed together forming one new, insatiable creature. After all, this was the House of the Dead and all it had taken was a single kiss.


By the middle of the '90s, ex-members had discussed the possibility of a reunion, but no such event ever materialized until 1999, and by that time Sean Tolby was gone. With Aguilar, Tim Abbott (subbing for Mark Loomis, who pulled out), Bill Flores, and Gary Andrijasevich back together, and Michael Reese filling Tolby's spot, they played their first gigs in the spring of 1999. Those shows culminated in November of that year with their appearance at Cavestomp in New York, which resulted in the concert album At the Love-In Live! (2001); in between the Cavestomp gig and the CD's release, the Watchband issued the first studio album made up entirely of their own work.

It was a long wait, but it was worth it, especially the live album, as the band ran through their entire core repertory in excellent form. The event also got the group -- who seldom got much coverage off the West Coast -- their first ever coverage in The New York Times, 30 years after their last regular gig. And they're still at it, as of 2005, playing gigs in Europe and finally getting the worldwide recognition and fan adoration that should have been theirs in 1967.