After Kevin's tragic accident, Tom Behm took over on drums.  He played his first gig with the band on April 9, 1966 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. 

Rick:  That gig was at the Cheyenne Auditorium with Sam the Sham and the Pharaoh's of "Wooly Bully" fame.  These guys cracked us up.  They had about a pound of grease on their hair, could barely speak English, and only knew about 10 songs.  It was quite a night!  We had to play much longer than was planned, plus we had a new drummer and Tom hadn't learned all of our songs.  As I remember we had a few beers after that one!!!

These pictures were all taken at a park in Greeley.  Click here to see a current band info sheet from this time and more photos from this photo shoot.

Rick: "We wanted to really stay on top of our music because at that time if you played Top 50 songs--I mean you were human jukeboxes at that time, and if you could imitate what was on the Top 50 you could get a job, if you did a good job of it.  You know the Top 50 was changing daily so we found a man whose name was Mac McCormick; he played piano, saxophone and all kinds of hits at one of the big hotels in Denver.  I can’t remember which one, the Brown Palace?  I think so.  I can’t remember exactly.  Anyway we went down to hear him at a piano bar, and all these old duffers are sitting around drinking their Manhattans and you know, he knew every song there ever was.  Sittin’ there playing, and he loved saxophone and singing, and he was kind of a Santa Claus looking guy.  So during one of his breaks we sat down and talked to him and said, 'Hey look, I got this idea Mac.'  

We had talked to his son and met him at one of the teen clubs we had played at and we were kind of talking about this problem we had learning songs fast enough.  He says, 'You gotta meet my dad.  The guy’s got perfect pitch.  You can learn a song in five minutes.'  And I’m going, I don’t think so--and let’s go talk to him! 

I told Mac, 'Look we got this idea, what would you charge us?'  I said, 'Do you think if we gave you a record you could learn the song and teach it to us?'

He said, 'Well the only problem I have is the lyrics.  I don’t want to sit down and listen to the lyrics.  I’ll teach you the music.'

'Well, you got it!'  Cause we had all kinds of girls who could sit down and listen to the records and write down the words to the songs, no problem!  But we still had our doubts. 

Then he says, 'Well why don’t I come down.  If you don’t like me you don’t have to pay me.  I travel from Denver up to Greeley and I want $20 an hour and if you’re not satisfied, you don’t have to pay me.  As simple as that.'

So we were at this teen club, we were all set up and he says I have 5 records there.  He had the words written down.  It’s gonna take us about an hour.  We go, 'Whoa.'  So he comes in and brings the record player, puts the record on, he listens to it. 

'OK, who is the bass player, who is the electric guitar…OK, now here’s your part play E, G…'  And he’s telling us what to play after listening to the record once.  In five minutes, we just learned a song. 

'OK, what’s next?'

And we’re going, 'Oh my god!'  He puts on another record and listens to it once and starts telling us what to play.  And if somebody had a problem and couldn’t get the part, he’d work with him and in five minutes you got it.  So we would pay Mac McCormick to come and teach us songs.  We’d learn 5 new songs every time he came up, once a week, so we stayed right on top.  Nobody could keep up with us, and that’s mostly why we won this Battle of the Bands.  We knew the whole Top 50.

What else Mac would do besides teaching the songs was we got to where we would learn 5 songs, then we would play 5 songs for him.  We added another hour.  Now we had a two-hour session.  The second hour we would play him songs and he would arrange them and polish them up, so musically speaking we just had laser guns, man.  And this guy who had been in music, I imagine he was in his late sixties, could play twenty some instruments proficiently.  I mean this man knew music so well, and show business, and he had stage presence.  We had the most perfect coach in the world.  Then you add Tinkerbell as the manager.  She went in and opened doors and did things you just wouldn’t even believe. 

(Tom, Rick, Jon, Don, Robb)

Click here for more photos from the above photo shoot.

The above photo relates to the Battle of the Bands contest at the Teen Age Fair that The Monocles won in late August 1966.  More information on this can be found on the Recordings page. 

Rick:  (shows me the above promo photo for Fender) That was such a kick, man.  We thought we died and went to heaven because the Beach Boys had one too (he shows me one of the Beach Boys Fender promos from the same time period) and they went up in Happy Logan’s Music Store.  When you got your picture in Happy Logan’s, you made it! 

Les:  Where was that store located? 

Rick:  Down near Larimer Square.  He was the biggest Fender instrument dealer.

Shortly after returning from recording in Hollywood, The Monocles played a dance that certainly was ahead of its time.  The dance took place on September 23, 1966.

The above article appeared in The Criterion that day along with a picture of the band in the tree as can be seen near the top of this page.

The Monocles also had a Fan Club with several members listed in the book above.  To the right is Caroll, President of the Fan Club.

At least one of the hearses still exists.  Click here to see it as it looks in 2006.  You will also be able to read some of the history behind it. 

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