Biography

Rays of late-afternoon sun drip through the rafters of an old barn in Santa Barbara, California. It’s early 1975 and three recent transplants from the Midwest sit surrounding a single microphone, acoustic strumming and rapturous harmonies filling the airy space. John K. Schwab, Larry Dotson, and Carl “Mad Anthony” Richards had made a name for themselves in the Ohio club scene, going as a trio by Richards’ outlandish nickname. And while this recording session was theoretically going to provide the demos to garner that big break, the record deal and international tour never materialized. Instead, the recording did eventually reach the ears of an important listener: Schwab’s son, Ben, now a musician himself with the bands Drugdealer and Sylvie, the latter of which takes direct influence from his father’s band. And after seven or so years of Ben’s convincing, and over 40 years of the recordings going largely otherwise unheard, the elder Schwab and his bandmates decided it was time. Introducing The Lost Tapes (due via Earth Libraries). “I used to tell my son, ‘You can play all the hot licks, be the Eddie Van Halen of your neighborhood, but nothing will last as long as a good song,” Schwab says. “We didn’t have the ability to properly record in 1975, but Ben reminded me that it’s the quality of the songs that matters, not the recording.”