Visualizing the California Superpop of Thomas and Richard Frost
Two talented brothers’ struggle to hit the ‘60s musical bigtime
Welcome back! This time around, I’d like to explore the sounds of a Sixties rock/pop duo whose music never fails to put a painted dayglo smile on my face. No, it’s not Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart nor Chad and Jeremy, although both of these acts will eventually get the star treatment here. I’m actually referring to Thomas and Richard Frost out of San Mateo, California.
You might now be telling yourself, “Huh? I’ve never heard of these guys.” That wouldn’t be surprising as these two brothers never had a big hit record and, barring some reissues of their material, have basically flown under the radar when it comes to the history of ‘60s music. Yes, hardcore collectors may have their singles, but not original copies of their 1969 album. Why? Because it never ever came out until 2002(!) for reasons I’ll eventually get into.
I bought the CD release of that album, entitled Visualize, some twenty years ago, mainly because I was immersing myself more and more in the softer sounds of the mid-late Sixties and also because I was aware of the earlier recordings of Thomas and Richard Frost, thanks partly to a detailed article on them in the fantastic early ‘90s fanzine, Cream Puff War. The Frosts had been in a Mod-ish teenbeat combo called the Art Collection and, more importantly, in the freakbeat group, Powder. Both bands’ superb material had been reissued in the Nineties and I’ll also get to it shortly.
Visualize kicked off with an orchestral fanfare and a bombastic spoken introduction by the legendary Los Angeles radio DJ The Real Don Steele and segued into the organ and horn driven pop number, “She’s Got Love”. The melody was instantly memorable as were the Frosts’ vocal harmonies and I immediately thought, “Where the hell has this song been all my life?” Hear it for yourself here!
The rest of Visualize consisted of gentle numbers redolent of the Hollies, the Bee Gees, and Simon and Garfunkel. A mixture of introspective ballads and up-tempo tunes which shared an abundance of hooks. But considering the Frosts’ pop past, the catchiness of the album’s material didn’t come as much of a surprise.
Before we take a closer look at Visualize, let’s delve into that past, shall we? Doing so would help us understand how Thomas and Richard got to that unreleased LP. First of all, Frost wasn’t even the brothers’ last name. In reality, they were called Thomas and Richard Martin. The two played in their first group in the early ‘60s and were ably mastering their craft by the time they were in the Newcastle Five, a teenbeat folk rock combo influenced by the Byrds and P.F. Sloan. (They picked their name to sound like a UK outfit what with the British Invasion being in full swing.) Thomas and Richard wrote songs and played guitar behind lead singer Lydia Pense. Although they cut a few tunes in ‘65, their recordings remained unreleased until 1997 when the Sundazed label put them out on a three song 7” single. Each of these compositions are enjoyable - my favorite is the lament, “I’m Losing You” - and promise better things to come for the songwriter/guitarist siblings.
After the Newcastle Five were no more, the Martin brothers were introduced to New Zealand expat Ray Columbus who had been a big hit in his homeland and Australia. His popularity had declined, however, and so he attempted to make a splash in the States, moving to Northern California in mid-1966. The Newcastle Five, minus Lydia Pense, were recruited to be Columbus’ backing band and renamed themselves the Art Collection. The group had the reputation of possibly being the most Anglophile group in the San Francisco Bay area and, unsurprisingly, were thought to be British by their audiences. Other than playing gigs in teen clubs and opening for Eric Burdon and the Animals in early ‘67, Columbus and his Art Collection released a scorching single at the start of that year. The A-side was a wild garage punker, “Kick Me”, and qualifies as one of the most aggressive teenbeat tunes from an era that was overflowing with them. It deserved to be a hit but, alas, never made it onto the charts.
Ray Columbus handled the lead vocals on “Kick Me” with Thomas and Rich Martin on guitar. The Art Collection also recorded a few other songs including “Snap, Crackle & Pop” which came off like a lighter variation on the UK freakbeat cut by the Who, the Creation, and the Eyes at the time.
That song, along with “Kick Me” and a couple of other decent numbers, had to wait until 1993 to be reissued when the Distortions label put out a 7-inch by Ray Columbus and the Art Collection. By late ‘67, Columbus had split from his group and rather than continue with the same moniker, the brothers eventually decided to change their band’s name to Powder (as in gunpowder). They had also decamped to Los Angeles where, as a trio, they found themselves backing Sonny and Cher onstage while touring across the country with the duo.
Sonny Bono offered Powder a recording contract. The group cut an album’s worth of songs at the legendary Gold Star studios in Hollywood where Phil Spector and Brian Wilson had earlier been at the top of their game. But, as if in a premonition of future problems Thomas and Richard would face, the Powder LP was shelved. That was a real shame because despite some technical issues in the studio, its Who-influenced material was true to the power implied by the group’s name. And splendid proto power pop the songs are, especially Martin compositions like “Gladly”, I Try”, “Magical Jack”, “Do I Love You”, and “Turn Another Page”.
A vinyl compilation of these tracks and more came out in ‘93 under the title Biff! Bang! Powder by the same label that released the Art Collection EP that year. There were also comprehensive CD collections of recordings by both groups put out in 1996 and in 2014. One of the quieter Powder numbers, the reflective “Flowers”, is an accurate precursor to the style of the Martin brothers’ final project of the ‘60s, the album Visualize, credited to Thomas and Richard Frost, curiously enough.
Why the name change? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they thought that Frost sounded more memorable than Martin, although they had also considered calling themselves Raoul and Giuseppe, believe it or not! After Power disbanded, Thomas and Richard returned home to San Mateo and began working on new songs in the more introspective vein of Simon and Garfunkel. A demo of their material found itself in the hands of promo man John Antoon who got the brothers signed to Imperial Records, a subsidiary of the Liberty label.
And so it was back to LA for the duo where they cut another demo, at Liberty studios this time. From it, the aforementioned tune, “She’s Got Love”, was overdubbed with horns and keyboards and came out as a single in September 1969. It became a hit on the local top 30 powerhouse radio station KHJ and also got considerable airplay on other California stations. That 45 was followed by the 7” “With Me My Love”/ “Gotta Find a New Place to Stay”. Both songs showed that “She’s Got Love” was no fluke and that the Frosts were no slouches at writing strong material.
Unfortunately, the new single was a commercial flop, but Thomas and Richard were still given the green light to record a full album, Visualize, on which they drew upon their Simon and Garfunkel, Donovan, and Bee Gees influences. It’s a beautiful orchestrated affair produced by the label’s Ted Glasser, arranged by Al Capps, and cut with Wrecking Crew musicians. Whether upbeat or melancholic, every song is a gem, but I’ve got to single out the fab “Where Did Yesterday Go?” and “On Our Way Home”.
The five Thomas and Richard Frost compositions I’ve showcased here are my favorites from Visualize. Before the release of the album, a couple of other 45s came out but sank like a stone. It was the failure of these releases to achieve anything even resembling the limited success of “She’s Got Love” that prompted Liberty Records to shelve the Visualize album. That and the fact that Liberty was also putting its Imperial label out of commission. It’s mind boggling to think that it took thirty-three years for Visualize to finally see the light of day.
In any case, the Frosts licked their wounds. In 1972, they finally released an LP which was in the singer/songwriter genre of the time rather than in the harmony pop style of the late ‘60s. But that’s another story for another Substack and I’ll bid you goodbye for now with another one of their superb late Sixties A-sides, “Hello Stranger”. In passing I’ve got to mention the early ‘90s article in the Cream Puff War zine and the liner notes to the 2002 Rev-ola CD reissue of Visualize which were very helpful for my look at the excellent mid-late Sixties California freakbeat/soft rock of this talented brotherly duo. Two musicians who got lost in the shuffle of the era’s endless deluge of fantastic records, but nevertheless deserve to be remembered among the many greats of the day.