The Yellow Payges

About

Garage rockers the Yellow Payges formed in Torrance, California in the fall of 1965. While attending a performance by friends the Palace Guard at the Hollywood club ~the Hullabaloo, vocalist Dan Hortter took the stage to sing a rendition of "I'm a Man," so impressive that club owner Gary Bookasta hired Hortter's own band to back the Newbeats two weeks later. The problem was, Hortter's previous band, the Driftones, had dissolved months earlier, but he quickly assembled a new Driftones' lineup including guitarists John Knox and Larry Tyre, bassist Herby Ratzloff, and drummer Terry Rae, also a member of the Palace Guard. Rae resigned almost immediately after the Newbeats gig, with drummer Dan Gorman signing on in time for the group to change its name to the Yellow Payges. They were soon playing ~the Hullabaloo on a steady basis, with Bookasta signing on as manager -- in 1966, Knox, Tyre, and Ratzloff exited, with guitarists Bob Norsoph and Randy Carlisle, and bassist Mike Rummans signing on in their stead. When Norsoph and Carlisle quit soon after, Rummans moved to guitar, with Jim Lanham briefly assuming bass duties prior to the addition of bassist Teddy Rooney, son of Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney. In 1967, this Yellow Payges lineup issued their debut single, the Showplace label effort "Never See the Good in Me" -- "Jezebel" followed later that year, and both records generated enough local buzz to earn the band a contract with major label UNI.