Martin Espinosa - Uther Pendragon (Part Two)

When and where were you born? Are you originally from the Bay Area? What was growing up like for you? When did you first begin playing music? Was this something that was relevant in your household growing up?

San Fransisco. Our household was full of family, friends, doing chores, mowing the lawn, washing the cars, going to school, playing sports, and of course, playing music. I started the accordion when I was 6. I had a player piano on which I pumped all kinds of music 2 or 3 days a week and sang along. Yes, our house was always full of music of all kinds.

Who were some of your influences early on? Where would you go to see shows in your community and what groups/performances stood out to you the most during that time? What would you and your friends do for fun back in the day? Tell me about Blue Fever, what eventually became Uther Pendragon.

Definitely all the San Fransisco groups, plus so many others. Jefferson Airplane, It’s a Beautiful Day, Moby Grape, Paul Butterfield, Cold Blood, the Birds, Janis Joplin, Jimmie Hendrix, The Doors, Canned Heat, Cream, Steve Miller, and scores of others. I went to the Filmore, Avalon Ballroom, Winterland, all the local colleges. Keystone Berkeley. All the groups I mentioned I saw at these places because I loved them and am most influenced by. Besides going to concerts, we would frequently hitchhike to the airport, when you could, and wander all over people watching and playing funny games. Blue Fever. I don’t remember how we got that name. I think that Mark or Bruce came up with it.

When did you first meet your band mates and what led to the decision to form the band in ’66? When and where did you guys first get together to rehearse and what was that experience like? When did you make your first live debut playing music in front of an audience?

I met Doug Williams, our singer and organ player, at my high school Serra High School, when I was a junior, and he asked me if I wanted to play bass guitar in his band with Bruce. I had recently bought a Silvertone guitar and amplifier and was practicing 4 or 5 days a week. I played along with records and the radio. Mark was in Spanish class with Bruce. Bruce was giving Mark guitar lessons and we needed a rhythm guitarist so we auditioned Mark to join the group. He made the grade. The first time we got together was in Doug’s garage, just me, Doug, and Bruce. We jammed on all kinds of songs from the radio like Louie Louie, Gloria, Hey Joe, Beach Boys, Chuck Berry tunes, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other rock ‘n’ roll songs. That’s tough. Let me remember. I think it was at our local teen club in Belmont, the town I was raised in.

How did the name for the group come about? When and where did recording begin and what was that process creating those songs like for you?

The original name was Blue Grass Fever, and I think either Bruce or Mark suggested it.Tell me about writing and recording the songs that would have been the band’s LP “San Fran Earthquake”. The songs from that 3 album set came from an eleven or twelve year period. “You’re a Human Now” Bruce played for Mark and I on the beach in 1966. It was one of our first originals. I believe still it is one of our best songs. The rest of the songs on the albums came from individuals, but were arranged by us together like choruses, harmonies and tempos. We all considered all of the songs to belong to the group. We started recording in 1966 or ‘67 and continually recorded our songs and jams all the way through until 1976. For a while we practiced at a rifle range from midnight to 7am because no one was there and it was out in the industrial part of town. Afterwards we’d still go out for breakfast if we were still awake enough. Mark and I would load up all the equipment into Bruce’s station wagon because Bruce and Doug were working a swing shift at a local electronics company. Then they would come straight to the rifle range from the electronics company and we would write and practice all night. When we got our 2 track and 4 track tape recorders in ‘68 or ‘69, that’s when we started seriously recording a lot of the songs, some of which are on our albums.

What did you guys want to achieve and/or express with this material?

We wanted to talk about the issues of the day and we loved working out intricate harmonies and creating arrangements that fit together with the vocals. In 1972, we built a recording studio in my construction company’s warehouse with the intention of producing our albums and albums for other groups. It was during this time that we decided to have 3 and 4 hour jam sessions during which we went literally crazy with all the experimentation of sounds. It was during one of these sessions that one of the best songs on the album, “Spanish Fly,” was conceived. We started with the basic premise and did it over and over until we came up with the final version that is on our album.

It’s one of our best songs and is unbelievably fun to play. This was also a time period during which a lot of our stage antics were experimented on. Me jumping up and down all over the place. Bruce playing his leads on his needs. Our drummer going wild. Mark headbanging to the rhythm of the music. Some of the best music in our career was made during those jams. Unfortunately, not all of them were recorded. Sometimes I would get so high from the music that I would scream at the top of my lungs because I had to let all of the energy out. The only way I could do it was screaming like a banshee! The band and its cosmic identity was around from ‘66 to ‘78, but never released any physical material till 2016.

First, tell me about the group’s many different phases it went through with names such as: Timne, Hodological Mandala, Mandala, Kodiac, Justus and Pendragon as well as the multiple different line-up changes that came with it.

In the beginning most of our repertoire was copy tunes from the radio or groups that we went to see with a few of our originals interspersed. In order to get gigs, you pretty much had to play copy tunes for the different clubs and dances that were hiring at the time. I remember when we played at a local teen club in San Carlos and we were expecting about 500 to 1000 people because our audition went well. But that night hardly anyone showed. LIttle did we know, about 2 miles a way, this brand new group who had just released their first album was playing. This group, called Santana, filled their house. After the time spent in our studio doing a lot of jamming, we started writing and producing more and more original material to the point that we mostly played all of our original material at our gigs instead of copy tunes. We did make exceptions for some Chuck Berry and Rolling Stones tunes that we rearranged to fit our style. The name changes were because we were trying to look for a name that represented our group and the kind of music we were doing. Uther Pendragon was the father of King Arthur. We felt an affinity with the mystical aspect of his story.

Can you tell me why the band never released any material during its existence? I understand Guerssen released what would eventually become the “San Fran Earthquake” LP in 2016. Can you tell me how that all came about and what it was like to finally release this unheard material?

We did our best to contact record companies, but most of our songs were long and the record industry wanted songs that were 2 and a half to 3 and a half minutes of which we only had one or two. Our manager, Craig Pederson, put together a documentary about our group and put it on YouTube in 2010 about “one of the Great San Fransisco groups that never had a record contract.” In 2014, Guerssen Records happened to see the documentary and contacted Craig and Mark asking if they could re-release any records that we had out. They couldn’t believe that we did not have any records from that time period based on the songs that they heard in the documentary. Things went forward and they offered to sign us initially to a two-album set. But because of how many songs we submitted to them, it became a three-album set. To finally have our albums released was an unbelievably coooooool thing to happen to our whole group. One of the most amazing things about this time period was reading the reviews from across the US and Europe that were extremely supportive and full of high praise for our music. All of them said that they could not understand why this group was never signed by a major label. It was a dream come true for me and my bandmates.

Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?

The time period that I was with my fellow musicians until we parted ways was one of the best and most precious times of my life. I have nothing but great memories of playing, working, and being a family with the band. We did end up buying a house together in which we all lived and had our practice studio in the garage after we had to move our studio. In ‘67 and ‘68, we were in two battles of the bands. The first one was sponsored by Sherman Clay, a well-known guitar and amplifier store in the ‘60s and ‘70s. We won and the first prize was a trip to Disneyland and we got to play with Country Joe and the Fish at one of the local drive-ins up on a flatbed trailer. That was really exciting. The second battle of the bands was at the College of San Mateo in which Stevie Nicks was a judge. Even though we didn’t win, she told me she thought that we were the best band. The following year, I went to San Jose State and Stevie Nicks also went there. We were neighbors at our apartment building. I got to meet their whole group, Fritz, at that time. Lindsey Buckingham was the bass player, not the lead guitarist, and I was amazed at what a phenomenal bass player he was. I used to see her 2, or 3 times a week and of course we would always talk about music.