THE 1960s & '70s ROCK & ROLL DAYS: BARRY BEARD IN HIS OWN WORDS
Submitted by Big D '60s Yahoo group groups.yahoo.com/group/bigd60s.
Years ago, when Gene Fowler and William Williams tried to get a book project for North Texas Music History going, they sent out a questionnaire— this is a portion of Barry's response:
BAND HISTORY:
The Trites (Jack Morgan, Barry Seltzer, Barry Beard)
The Main Street Prophets (Jack Morgan, Tim Allan, Barry Seltzer, Barry Beard)
Three and a Third (Jack Morgan, David Williams, Barry Beard)
Cabbage (Jack Morgan, Tommy Waggoner, Brian Papageorge, Barry Beard)
Rattlesnake (Larry Rowell, Brian Papageorge, David Faulkner, Barry Beard)
Max Pageant (Joe Kennedy, John Benoist, Barry Beard)
....played school dances, teen clubs, private parties, and with Max Pageant, 'The Pub' - alternating weeks with Gary Myrick's band 'Smiley'... also fashion shows, and 'The Marrs Bar'. Cabbage also played many of the Sunday 'free concerts' at Lee Park.
People always hated us in general because they wanted Top 40 dance music - we were always thought to be too young to be playing Stones and Yardbirds in the 5th and 6th grade. But because we looked mod and we were always knocking over our drum kit and amps, people were curious.
Because Jack Morgan and my fellow band mates were 3-4 years younger than our local idols, we admired, followed, and emulated the Orphans (William's 'Orphans')... Originally, that was it! They were always our favorite Dallas band. Others were the Novas - if you liked the Beatles, but back then I had ten to one Stones albums over the Beatles, although I've grown to enjoy and appreciate them more over the years....
My family always let us practice in our garage in good weather, and in the living room in bad weather. They also let the Orphans and other bands practice at our house for Teen Week, a weekly party my parents sponsored for the Chapel Downs neighborhood, a dance for $1.00 a head, to keep those kids off the mean streets of North Dallas.
Those were the days my friends - we thought they'd never end...
The only band I was in that played all original material was Max Pageant. There were many incidents: once we were thrown out of a club because, while jumping up and down on the drums, my green velvet heart (patch) over my red velvet crotch (hole) split wide open, and Willie waved hello to about 150 people straight on, if you get my meaning!
Another time we were pitched out of a teen club because Joe came on wearing full makeup and strings of Christmas lights, blinking as I entered the room, with lit Roman Candles shooting off into the audience. We got to finish one song before we were ousted. Those glam-drag days in Dallas were cold and lonely but so much fun. In '71 the ONLY two 'glam-bands' in Dallas were Max Pageant and Smiley. OK, so there was a satin shirt here or there, but that was it. We were the real deal at the time - 'The Dallas Dolls' so to speak. We dripped nightly in velvet, satin, shimmering lurex, snakeskin, glitter, coiffed and madeup with chiffon and jewelled acoutrements.
Were we pirates, pansies or pop stars? - we kept them guessing!
Pre-punk, we would get heckled a lot for our androgynous outfits and outlook - a few feather boas were torn from our necks, a few beer cans were pelted upon us, but overall it was the old thing of people being afraid of what they don't understand. They stayed away, and because we (especially Brian Papageorge and I) were tall and haughty, that attitude that we were already stars always seemed to create an invisible, impenetrable bullet-proof wall between 'us' and the rest of the world.