Album Notes

The genesis of The Human Expression began in 1965, when Jim Foster met Martin Eshelman during practice lessons at a local music store. The two hit it off because they didn’t care about learning to read and write music, but instead enjoyed jamming with their music teacher. Their ultimate ambition was to form a rock and roll group. Foster played rhythm guitar and Eshleman played lead. Both were sophomores at Westminster High School. Jim Freeman, a former student at Westminster, was friends with Foster and Eshleman, but had recently moved to another Los Angeles suburb, Tustin. He lived on the same block as Jim Quarles, a 17 year old singer and songwriter. Freeman suggested to Foster and Eshleman that they meet Quarles and hear him sing. They were duly impressed with Quarles vocal style and asked him to join their as yet unnamed group.
The trio began jamming together, but needed a drummer and bass player to have a full-fledged band. Tom Hamilton was in a group called Moby Dick And The Whalers and played bass. The Whalers played raucous music by British groups like The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds. Hamilton came from a musical background, one of eleven children, and his father made his living as a pianist. Hamilton also attended Westminster High School. He left The Whalers to join Foster’s group and brought along a drummer, Armand Poulin.
One evening, Foster and Eshleman were at Quarles house tossing around various monikers for the group. Eshleman offered up his list of names, and everyone selected “Human Expression.” They specifically omitted “The” from the name because of a desire to be different from other bands and this went along with their edgy, brooding, and mysterious image. Since most of the rock and roll bands back then had “The” in their names, it wasn’t long before their biggest fan base, the Westminster High students, kept calling them “The Human Expression”. Thus they opted to add “The” to their name and become “The Human Expression” to avoid any confusion.
The band’s formula for writing their songs was based around this method-Foster did most of the writing for the chords and rhythms with Quarles composing the words and melodies. These new compositions were then introduced to the rest of the band so they could add their parts and help to arrange the compositions for recording. Quarles said, “I didn’t know what I was doing at the time. I just wrote the songs with Jim Foster. I didn’t have any prior experience.” According to Foster “when it came to lyrics my input was mostly suggestions while Jim was composing, to keep the song from getting stuck.”
The Human Expression rehearsed for many months at Foster's parents' home in Westminster. They utilized the garage that Foster's father had converted into a soundproof studio and taped their rehearsals. Then they would sit down and listen attentively to the rehearsal tapes and find any flaws in their performances, as they were perfectionists. Their favorite band was The Rolling Stones and they wanted to be as Foster stated “the bad boys on the block”.
In the summer of 1966, The Human Expression cut their first demo at a small studio in a makeshift garage located on Beach Blvd., in Garden Grove, California. The two songs recorded were “Love At Psychedelic Velocity” and “Everynight” (these versions have never been located). Foster’s father paid for the session. Mr. Foster also became the group's promoter and Don Doughty became their manager. The Human Expression was now ready to become the next big thing in the rock and roll world, or so they thought.
Mr. Foster took the demo around to various record companies in order to get the band signed to a recording contract. He finally succeeded with Accent Records, an independent label in Los Angeles, owned by Scott Seely. According to Foster “Seely hated rock and roll. The Association had come to audition for him and he showed them the door.” When “Along Comes Mary” became a big hit, Seely realized the error of his ways and was eager to sign a rock and roll band. As fate would have it, Dan Doughty walked thru the door at the right time, and Seely signed The Human Expression to Accent Records.
Seely had the band record a new song, "Readin' Your Will", along with a different version of “Every Night.” “Readin’ Your Will” was about “a lifestyle of taking too many drugs and burning the candle at both ends-that was a subject everybody could relate to back then” according to Quarles. When it came time to pick two songs for their first single, Seely did not think "Readin' Your Will" was strong enough to release and opted for the band to record new versions of "Love At Psychedelic Velocity" and “Every Night.” In order to keep costs low, both songs were completed in a couple of hours. According to Hamilton “the reverb crash at the end of the song was because I kicked it too hard, and it went end over end, and that’s why the track came out sounding the way it did.” Since no one in the group knew how to write music, Seely would put a musical score to the music. He would play a Human Expression song on the piano, then write it down and create sheet music for each song.
Accent #1214, “Love At Psychedelic Velocity” b/w “Every Night” was released in January 1967. “Love At Psychedelic Velocity” was titled that way because according to Quarles “we were basically trying to come up with something that would attract lots of attention, and since so many bands were recording songs that had the word “psychedelic” in them, we decided to do it too. That really is a pretty crazy song and I always thought the title suited it well. “Billboard” even selected it as a pick hit, but because Accent Records was such a small label they didn’t have the proper means to promote it, and it never really got the airplay it should have.” At Westminster High School, the band handed out their singles for free and also played a concert for the students. Dan Doughty said he was going to get the band signed to Capitol Records as soon as they got to the top 40.
To promote their single, The Human Expression started off playing local gigs, then moved onto USO gigs. “We played lots of parties and some Battle Of The Bands, which was not what we wanted to do. Our record company got us involved in those things, and had we been able to make out own decisions we would have never done anything like that. Our goal was to play big concerts-we didn’t want to mess around with high school stuff”, related Quarles. Foster said, “we loved playing USO clubs and military bases around California.” Quarles recalled, “At one of our USO gigs, in the audience were several hundred crew-cut Marines. The Marines started hooting and hollering and saying insults like “Hey, honey.” We played for our lives-we knew if we didn’t, we wouldn’t get out of there alive! By the third song, the Marines were going wild with cheers. Some yelled out things like “ you guys are really cool, when I get out of the service I’m going to grow my hair long like you.”
What set The Human Expression apart from many of the other groups of the time is that, according to Quarles, “We’d do all originals, except in the middle of our set we’d suddenly switch gears and do a medley of four or five hit songs just to prove to the audience we could play that stuff as well. We were definitely not a jukebox band. Because we spent so much time practicing to be perfect, we were extremely tight and our shows were timed right down to the second. There were never any breaks between songs and we never had to stop and tune our instruments like most bands did. We were very professional and strict with ourselves when it came to our live performances. We would all dress alike in bell bottoms and white jackets like you see on the cover, but we actually liked the way we looked before we started wearing uniforms. Our hair was really long and that didn’t go over well at all in Orange County. People ran in the other direction when they saw us coming! We were treated completely different when we went to Hollywood. People would say hello to us and ask for our autographs. We played at venues such as “Gazzaris", "Whisky A Go Go", "The Cave" and "The Beach Club.”
According to Quarles, “We never really hung out on the Sunset Strip or anything like that. We were very serious about our music and would go up to Hollywood just to do our job, whether it was to play a show or go to our publishing company which was located on Hollywood Blvd. So we’d basically take care of business, then go right back home to Orange County.”
In the winter of 1967, Quarles and Foster began work on two new songs, “Calm Me Down” and “Optical Sound”, which would become the crown jewels of their recorded output. “Optical Sound” was a revelation in sound, and according to Quarles, “that click you hear is the switch between the pick-ups, and on top of that we turned up the amps and reverb which gave the song a deep echo to make that weird kalump-kalump sound. That’s something Martin came up with. He also used a bottleneck guitar and everything was overdubbed. We were constantly experimenting.” “Calm Me Down” was a reflection of the edgy, moody, and out there image the band wanted to project. Quarles had a genius for penning brilliant lyrics that sounded deep, penetrating, and different as well as rebellious. While "Love At Psychedelic Velocity" and "Optical Sound" sound as if influenced by LSD, the band did not write these songs while stoned, nor did they play them while stoned. In fact, Foster and Hamilton were the only ones in the group who smoked pot, but that was the extent of their drug use.
“Optical Sound” and “Calm Me Down” were cut at Sunset Studio on the Sunset Strip in May. As with “Love At Psychedelic Velocity”, Wally Heider, who later worked with The Grateful Dead, mixed the songs. The three versions of “Calm Me Down” featured on this album have different vocal tracks and mixes. The first version is the original single master, released most likely in July 1967. This is followed by a version from a white label acetate listing the band as “Human Expressions”-the vocal track is edgier, more aggrieved, and mixed much higher than the original single master (same with the harmonies) but it retains the original single master band track (though a different mix). The third version of “Calm Me Down” features yet another new vocal but an early mix of the band track, minus the knocking on the door sounds and background vocal at the end of the song. It was issued as a white label promo single backed with “Optical Sound” (an earlier mix sans sound effects). Probable release date for the promo single is June 1967 since the mix is the same one as the May 9, 1967 acetate from Sunset Sound (see photo).
When “Optical Sound” and “Calm Me Down” were finally released in the “Summer of Love”, the resulting lack of sales was a harbinger of things to come and Seely wanted to change the chemistry of the group. The Human Expression became a six-man band, according to a July 28, 1967 contract with Accent Records. Mike Verlingieri, a singer and songwriter, was the new member and he also appears in the only group publicity photo (featured on the front cover of this album). Other curious inclusions in the contract are a reference to two unreleased songs written by Quarles and Foster, “Pain In Here” and “I’ll Cry”, which according to Foster were never recorded. Seely must have had second thoughts about rejecting “Readin’ Your Will” as it appears in the contract, too, and just in case the band hit the big time, there was a stipulation for 5% royalties on any sales “in excess of 200,000.”
By the time The Human Expression’s third single (“Sweet Child Of Nothingness”/ “I Don’t Need Nobody”) (Accent #1252), was released in the latter part of 1967, circumstances beyond their control changed their musical direction. First off, Eshleman was out of the group because he severed tendons on his wrist in a life-threatening accident at Foster’s house and was unable to play guitar. Secondly, Seely wanted someone outside of the band to write the next single. Foster says, “I think the third single was Scott trying to find the right combination for radio play. Scott thought that we needed to introduce another writer to get a hit record. Mars Bonfire (his birth name was Dennis McCrohan) came over and played “Born To Be Wild” and “Sweet Child Of Nothingness” on an acoustic guitar. He was the ultimate hippie with very long hair and reeking of patchouli oil. Verlingieri and Quarles felt that “Sweet Child Of Nothingness” was better than “Born To Be Wild”, and since they were the singers, they got to pick the songs. They didn‘t think “Born To Be Wild” was marketable. We had the first chance at “Born To Be Wild” which was then picked up by Steppenwolf, because Bonfire’s brother was in the band.” In fact, Quarles thought the line in the song “get your motor running, head out on the highway” was trite. The third and final factor that altered the band’s direction was Quarles quitting the band before the single was recorded. Verlingieri wrote the b-side, “I Don’t Need Nobody” but did not sing because his voice was considered too Beatle-ish. He played rhythm guitar on both sides of the single. Quarles said, “I was willing to wait for Martin’s hand to heal before the band carried on, but our manager and Scott Seely said, “you guys are hot now and we have a chance to make some money.” I became frustrated and decided to quit. The Human Expression really did go downhill from there and it was very tragic. I was really disappointed with the whole situation.”
Quarles was prescient in that the third single proved to be The Human Expression’s swan song. The group split up afterwards in 1968. Foster would go on to manage various other rock groups with his father, The Human Zoo, being one of them. Like The Human Expression, The Human Zoo was mainly a group of musicians from Westminster High School. Seely was really high on them and signed them to do an album that was released on Accent Records (Accent #5055) in 1970 and was a quirky blend of psychedelic, garage, and funky music.
Prior to The Human Expression, Quarles recorded a demo tape with Russ Hanson around September 1965. It is the source for-“Room Of Shadows”, a psychedelic sounding song with cryptic and obscure lyrics (foreshadowing the lyrical tone of “Optical Sound”) and “I Told Her” a moody ballad, which with a change in the middle part, could have been a solid b-side Human Expression track. Quarles was a Stones fanatic and sang “Mona” and “Down Home Girl” on the tape, overdubbing his vocals to the Stones backing. He also used the rest of the tape reel up with a dub of The Stones “Out Of Our Heads” Lp.
Although Quarles may have sounded bitter about The Human Expression’s demise, he emphatically stated, “The Human Expression was definitely the best band I’ve ever played in. There was something special there.” Sadly, Jim Quarles passed away on October 31, 2007 at the age of 59.