Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Everly Brothers, Gene Pitney, The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, The Byrds, Roger McGuinn, The Who, Pete Townshend, The Kinks, Ray Davies, The Hollies, Graham Nash, The Righteous Brothers, The Animals, Them, Van Morrison, The Dave Clark Five, Tom Jones, The Vogues, The Searchers, Otis Redding, Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, Mitch Ryder, The Association, The Buckinghams, Blues Magoos, The Yardbirds, The Young Rascals, Felix Cavaliere, The Easybeats, Buffalo Springfield, Steven Stills, Neil Young, The Monkees, Johnny Rivers, The Left Banke, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Manfred Mann, The Electric Prunes, Neil Diamond (early), The Box Tops, Alex Chilton, The Turtles, The Cowsills, Nazz, Todd Rundgren, Tommy James And The Shondells, The Troggs, The Wildweeds, Al Anderson, The Chocolate Watch Band, Bee Gees (early), Spirit, The Move, Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Chambers Brothers, MC5, The Stooges, Iggy Pop, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, The Classics IV, Dennis Yost, Three Dog Night, Sly And The Family Stone, The Grass Roots, Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty, Steve Miller Band, Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, Five Man Electrical Band, The Chi-Lites, Crabby Appleton, Chase, Electric Light Orchestra, Raspberries, Eric Carmen, Badfinger, Big Star, Blue Ash, The Stylistics, Flamin' Groovies, Tucky Buzzard, Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Wizzard, Blue Oyster Cult, David Bowie, Mott The Hoople, Ian Hunter, Sweet, Slade, T. Rex, New York Dolls, David Johansen, Johnny Thunders, Roxy Music, Gary Glitter, Suzi Quatro, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, NRBQ, White Owsley, Be-Bop Deluxe, Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, The Babys, John Waite, Charlie, Buzzcocks, The Clash, Tenpole Tudor, Cheap Trick, The Records, The Knack, Bram Tchaikovsky, Killing Joke, Jaz Coleman, Geordie Walker, Pretenders, Dirty Looks (New York Band), etc., and the music of so many other virtually unknown, obscure, and long-forgotten bands.
Non-musical influences include one or more of the following: New Haven-style pizza (a.k.a. "apizza"), Long Island Sound (a.k.a. "the beach"), vinyl record conventions, live music, the never-ending pursuit of that elusive "record deal" (which we're now all happy we never got after all because we still own the masters and the publishing to all our stuff outright - there really is something special to be said for that), the overall apathy of the so-called "music industry," our parents (and we mean that), and just plain not giving a shit what anybody thought about us or our music at the time.
Sounds Like
A very short-lived edgy and unpretentious American Alternative Power Pop quartet with lots of energy, catchy melodic hooks and memorable songs who could rock with the best of them live. In other words, "Pop With A Lot Of Balls" (or so said band member Ted "Bullet" Pulit in an early interview).
Purchase the entire 12-track "Who The Hell Is Doug Derek?" album directly at one of the following digital music outlets by clicking on your preferred link below:
DOUG DEREK & THE HOAX:
"Bobby's Gotta Get Back To Boston"
(Photo Timeline Montage)
Little-known American Alternative Power Pop band DOUG DEREK & THE HOAX were in existence for just a single year from 1980 to 1981, however it was during that time that they created some of the more catchy, hook-laden songs to be put down to tape in a recording studio in the state of Connecticut - only 4 of which have actually been heard publicly (and just a handful of times) on radio until now.
Home to a thriving music scene in the '50s and '60s, the city of New Haven (also known as "The Elm City" for it's sprawling bounty of elm trees) was most notable for being the origination point for one of Rock 'N' Roll's greatest and most successful songs of all time - "I'll Remember (In The Still Of The Night)" by The Five Satins. There is actually a solid connection to the creation and release of the latter song that lies in this band, as original Hoax guitarist/vocalist Bob Cedro's uncle Tom Sokira (his mother's brother) recorded that very song in the basement of Saint Bernadette's Church in New Haven as a 17-year-old along with fellow high school chum/original producer Marty Kugell.
While the state of Connecticut on the whole continued to churn out some excellent regional original music in the likes of The Wildweeds, NRBQ, Jasper Wrath and more throughout the later '60s and early '70s, by the final few years of the latter decade -- other than the usual horde of Pop, Disco and Rock cover bands that could be found in just about any typical American city at the time -- there was indeed a handful of promising new bands bubbling just under the surface in various regions of the United States that were really trying to say something original for themselves. And Doug Derek & The Hoax was just one of them.
Along with other New Haven contemporaries like The Excerpts (whose members included now-famed producer Jon Brion and guitarist Spike Priggen), TV Neats, Poodle Boys, Disturbance, The Saucers, The Furors, Baby Strange and a few others, the New Wave scene and a second wave of fresh-sounding Power Pop bands such as Cheap Trick, The Romantics, The Records, etc. inspired a scant few to push that particular genre further into the 1980's at the time.
The problem was there were very few places to actually listen to the latter style of music at the regional level in most areas of the United States besides the Midwest, and thus not many fans elsewhere in North America with much knowledge of the artists making that type of music at the time. Especially in the Northeast, where Power Pop bands drew sadly low numbers at live shows, and those actually based there often followed a quick and seemingly unavoidable journey into total obscurity if they didn't sport the then-fashionable "new wave" skinny ties and buttons.
Despite that fact, it took just a mere 10 months for two determined tieless (and mostly buttonless) former bandmates -- 22-year-old vocalist/bassist Doug Riccio (a.k.a. "Doug Derek") and 19-year-old vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Michael Brochin (whose father Merwin Brochin was actually the man who discovered and first managed Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer Gene Pitney in the obscure vocal duo Jamie & Jane) -- to co-write more than 30 original songs together during that short, yet very productive period.
Brochin -- who had just dropped out early from his freshman year attending the University Of Miami's well-respected Studio Music & Jazz program -- had grown impatient and frustrated with his brief taste of college life (and the four additional years of waiting that it represented), and thus became inspired to write songs as an outlet and escape from that very frustration after hearing groundbreaking UK band Killing Joke for the first time.
But it wasn't until he reunited with Riccio (whom he previously played in his first band with at age 14 -- White Owsley -- as well as a second band in Toyz during the Summer of 1977), 23-year-old former Toyz drummer Rich D'Albis and 22-year-old guitarist Cedro to form the initial lineup of members of Doug Derek & The Hoax when the original ideas really began to flow.
It was with that initial lineup that they played just two New Haven gigs together (one at Ron's Place, the other at The Great American Music Hall) and made their first batch of initial original recordings in September of 1980 at Audio West Recording Studios in West Haven, Connecticut with engineer Joe Mendyk at the helm, followed up by a second round of sessions there with Mendyk in December of that year. These rare recordings reflect a band that pulled influences from just about anywhere into an unpretentious, tightly-wound unit that could hook just about anyone lucky enough to have gotten the opportunity to hear them.
All previously unreleased until now, ultra-catchy songs such as "Bobby's Gotta Get Back To Boston," "I Don't Really Like It Here," "I Need Your Love (Let Me Take You Into The Night)" and the anthemic "Airwaves" (a tale about a fictional band making it to the top of the charts with an unusually dark, ironic twist at the end) reflect the obvious Power Pop influences of Brochin and a darker, more mysterious side in Riccio that culminated in a songwriting duo that could be considered to be an unlikely pairing that was somewhat unusual for the time.
Not intending (consciously, at least) to stick to any single genre in particular, you could say that Doug Derek & The Hoax was a very energetic and edgy band with many influences, as they began as a Power Pop band and ended as what some would say was a Hard Rock outfit - possibly the very reason that all the record companies they pursued deals with showed little if no interest whatsoever in the group at the time, as the band steadfastly refused to be "put into a box and labeled" like so many others unfortunately were.
Regardless, the bottom line was the memorable catchiness of the musical and vocal hooks that could be found within the songs they created within that entire single year together, which still shine quite nicely at present in the recordings contained herein - all of which are seeing their first official release anywhere more than a quarter-century later in the final months of 2007.
Back to their history, after a little more than a half-a-year's worth of long commutes down to New Haven from the city of Boston on the weekends (which was when the band practiced), original guitarist/vocalist Cedro was forced to depart the Hoax due to work and living commitments he had in that Massachusetts city at the end of 1980 (a situation that became the very subject matter of the song "Bobby's Gotta Get Back To Boston"). Soon afterwards, the search was on locally for a replacement guitarist who could also hopefully fill the role of being a third lead singer as well as one more background vocalist.
It is another little-known fact about Doug Derek & The Hoax that a replacement for Cedro was found in local wildman Ted "Bullet" Pulit (known most notably for his success with German Hard Rockers Thunderhead and Son Of A Bitch during the late 1980's and 1990's), who was then fronting a band called Roadwork, and would soon get his first real taste of playing all-original music with the Hoax.
Bringing a noticeably heavier side to the band musically while also taking on the needed singing duties (another unusual thing about the Hoax is that they had 3 separate and distinct lead vocalists in Riccio, Brochin & Pulit), Pulit was a force of unrelenting, no-holds-barred energy on stage (not unlike he was with Thunderhead and Son Of A Bitch as well) that took the group in a direction they simply had never been before.
Best summed up in his own words from an early radio interview on WNHU shortly after joining the group, Pulit described the music of his new band as "Pop With A Lot Of Balls." No one could have said it better at the time.
It was with this newly revised and highly powerful lineup that Doug Derek & The Hoax -- however briefly -- would begin to steadily play the local scene in the tri-state area and up into other parts of New England during the beginning months of 1981. Rejected by the trendy Punk and New Wave clubs in the area at the time for either being too "mainstream" or too "over the top," they brought an unrestrained brand of all-out Rock everywhere they played nonetheless.
Wasting little time, the band would do a new round of sessions at both Audio West as well as The 19 Recording Studios in Glastonbury, Connecticut during the months of March and May, resulting in 6 new songs (the first-ever studio recordings of Pulit, who sings lead on two tracks in "Never Seen A Girl Like You" and the Reggae-flavored "Show Your Love") that also include a new, heavier-sounding "Bobby's Gotta Get Back To Boston" as well as the Raspberries-influenced "I Can Remember."
Just to have more recorded material at the ready for A&R purposes, a last-minute recording session historically referred to as simply "The John Tapes" were recorded live in Riccio's parents' basement in Hamden, Connecticut on a 4-track recorder by a friend of the band named John Pascale (hence the moniker "The John Tapes"). 11 songs were recorded that day (none of which would ever be recorded in an actual studio, since the band broke up the next month), capturing the band's unmistakable raw energy for the last time ever.
And so it was with the new lineup and recordings that Doug Derek & The Hoax would also take a new approach to getting their music heard. Since New York City was only 75 miles from New Haven, a plan was devised and agreed upon by the band to shop their songs in a more "personal" way: face-to-face with the record company personnel right where they sat and worked.
So in early June of 1981, having an unpaid gig scheduled at the prestigious (and yes, trendy) Cartune Alley (Madonna actually performed there on a routine basis prior to her first record deal), Doug Derek & The Hoax set out on the road to "make it" via New York City. They were convinced that if they could just get in to see the record company people, a deal would be struck and the band would finally be on their way to somewhere.
Having not gone over too well with the "trendoids" at Cartune Alley (yet with no less ambition, despite the apathy), adding insult to injury was the fact that not a single record company employee would even give them the time of day for a listen in the days following the gig.
Living an adventurous week in the Big Apple nonetheless (enduring day-to-day life in a non-air-conditioned van in 90+ degree heat with no public access to baths or showers, using an empty 1-gallon water bottle to urinate in due to a "lack of public bathrooms," experiencing a brazen robbery, and even playing "unplugged" on the streets of New York for money those last couple of nights), the band would head back to their home state of Connecticut flat broke.
Still undeterred, a week later the Hoax set their sights on a second locale of choice in the city of Boston to "make it" - somehow, someway. However, that also turned out to be pretty much another fruitless adventure (with zero gigs to boot) that would result in the inevitable break-up of the band soon afterwards.
Despite their promising sound, due to the mounting frustration from constant rejection of the band by virtually all music business personnel contacted for one reason or another, drummer Rich D'Albis would soon depart for the bourgeoning Los Angeles music scene, as Doug Derek & The Hoax became just another textbook case of "wrong place, wrong time."
That is, another American band full of promise and ambition, yet met with a puzzlingly disheartening reaction of apathy straight from the heart of the music business itself -- a fact of life which resulted in the unfortunate break-up of more than a fair share of some very promising musical lineups at the time.
And so it was for one brief year that the sound of undeniably catchy American-style Power Pop emanated from the streets of New Haven, Connecticut at the dawn of the 1980's in the oddly-named Doug Derek & The Hoax - a sound that still echoes back like a breath of fresh air today.
With this website recently launched and now being maintained by most of the original members, this obscure band's "debut album that never was" has finally come to be -- a 12-song, full-length collection of all original studio recordings being released for the first time an unprecedented 27 years after they were originally recorded. The aptly-titled "Who The Hell Is Doug Derek?" is currently seeing a digital-only worldwide release via iMusicMedia, and on a limited vinyl release to be issued by Italy's Rave-Up Records for Christmas.
The album was produced by original Hoax member Michael Brochin along with the amazing Park Peters at Audio Park Recording Studios in Arvada, Colorado, who also did an incredible job of literally rescuing these original recordings and digitizing the individual tracks directly from the original water-damaged (and badly disintegrating) master tapes for their first true mixdown ever.
Hola! te escribimos para actualizarte sobre lo nuevo de PZOOM!
En estos momentos estamos grabando nuestro primer LP, y queremos que seas el primero en enterarte de todo!
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Veja Entrevista que dei para o Programa “Repertório Independente”, onde eu falo de minha carreira, minha história e apesar de estar bastante gripado, ainda canto algumas canções.
Para ver este e vários outros vídeos meus no youtube, entre no link abaixo:
Go to Interzones to enjoy free streaming audio of all Interzone releases, read the Blog, comment and much more. If you live in Scandinavia you can purchase the releases as digital downloads at Gogoyoko, a publisher on Iceland. Don't forget to follow Interzone on Twitter.
Dont think we have spoke in a while! Hope your'e ok and well, we just wanted to let you know : we have uploaded 4 NEW SONGS from our EP to our myspace, and it would actually mean the world to us if you could check them out and then drop us a quick comment on what you think :)
thanks so much for your time and hope you dont mind the comment
This Weekend Max & the Tatraplan 2 x Live Friday 30 Oct 2009 Aarau Floesserplatz Saturday 31 Oct 2009 Zurich La Catrina / FREE ENTRY ! GRATIS :) cheers & bye bye Max & The Tatraplan
Please check out our video on YouTube from Battle of the Bands and leave a cool comment. It's one of our NEW songs and your page views and comments on Rockitz' YouTube page count toward our Battle of the Bands VICTORY!!! How about giving us a boost to the checker flag? Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBAmkityqfY Can you help me pass the word? Enjoy the jam... and thanks :-) - Jim
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