The Insurgents

Five squeaky-clean Atmosphere Push servicemen, California’s the Insurgents — Ron Robinson (vocals), Joe Orlando (rhythm guitar), Paul Tift (lead guitar), Affluent Dymalsky (bass), and Bob Mellich (drums) — would hardly price a footnote in the history of garage area rock it not for his or her motivated rendition of Gershwin’s oft-covered regular, “Summertime.” Dogged with a continual groupie, the music group decided to cut the listen in Dec 1965 at Sacramento press personality Expenses Rase’s micro-studio. Once there, Mellich and documenting engineer Jim Walker strike upon the book idea of presenting intensely echoed bongos as percussion; it had been a heart stroke of genius. Stripped to its most elementary premise, the melody assumed a magic, ethereal surroundings. 150 copies of the 45 rpm one (Zar 118) had been duly pressed (and repressed when the flip side’s combine proved undesirable). The music group sold these to patrons from the Extra Area, a Folsom Boulevard nightclub where they frequently gigged. With exposure limited by this and various other local locations — like the unusual bowling alley or teenager sock-hop at Mather AFB — the group drew appreciative but smaller sized audiences and quickly hung it up. Luckily, the stellar “Summertime” resurfaced on the many performers’ compilation, Nuggets THROUGH THE Golden Condition – The Audio Of Youthful Sacramento (Big Defeat CDWIKD 195).