Thomas & Richard Frost

Thomas & Richard Frost (born Thomas Martin and Richard Martin) were associates of several San Mateo, CA-based groupings through the early to mid-’60s — including a surf group (the Impressions), a folk-rock group (the Newcastle Five), along with a fuzz rock and roll group (the Artwork Collection, teaming up with visiting New Zealand singer Ray Columbus) — before forming a mod-pop power trio called Natural powder. This group transferred right down to L.A. to record an record at Hollywood’s Silver Star studios, even though they were now there also found work as Sonny & Cher’s touring group. Despite hailing from North California, their pop art-psychedelic singles had been the closest matter the West Coastline to rival swinging London’s early Who as well as the Creation. However for the brothers Martin, Powder’s LP was hardly ever released. Discouraged, they came back to San Mateo, nonetheless it wasn’t a long time before they were documenting new material once again, this independently. They soon enticed the eye of Imperial Information, who agreed upon the duo, who have been now contacting themselves Thomas & Richard Frost. Thomas & Richard Frost documented a small number of traditional pop singles for Imperial from 1968 through 1970, including “She’s Got Like,” which charted at amount 83 on Billboard’s Best 100 singles graph. In November 1969, they made an appearance on TV’s American Bandstand, executing the melody. Each subsequent one was a stage toward that which was sure to end up being their creative tour de drive, an record they envisioned as Visualize. For these brilliant 1969 recordings, the duo had been supported by Kim Fowley’s normal Imperial program gang, including Neglect Battin (ex-Skip & Turn, the Byrds, the Traveling Burrito Brothers, and the brand new Riders from the Crimson Sage), Steppenwolf guitarist Mars Bonfire, and renowned drummer Hal Blaine. However for everyone concerned, this record was also — and relatively inexplicably — canceled within the 11th hour with the powers-that-be at Imperial, despite the fact that the group’s get good at recordings were within the can, as well as the record had been designated a catalog amount and had been prepared for discharge. The only description Imperial gave at that time was that these were going through reorganization after getting obtained by Liberty Information; their album merely wasn’t important to the brand new matches, and, so, Imagine was indefinitely shelved. All this resulted — as you may anticipate — in Thomas & Richard Frost getting disillusioned making use of their record organization. In 1972, they documented a few extra tracks to escape their record offer, then moved to UNI, where they ultimately released an achieved country-rock flavored vocalist/songwriter recording, the self-titled Thomas & Richard Frost, made by Joe Saraceno. In 1996, the Distortions label released a series by Natural powder, entitled Biff! Bang! Natural powder, that was comprised mainly of the 1968 demos. In 2002, Rev-Ola reissue maven Joe Foster gladly negotiated the discharge of not only the entire Visualize recording (songs one through 12), but extra outtakes and all the duo’s unique mono singles, released before the recording sessions.