Here's a follow-up to last week's Cheech & Chong post, and an opportunity to fulfill a request for the instrumental B-side of their 1974 'Earache My Eye' 45.
(Click here for the A-side lyrics, from the back of the picture sleeve)
Basically, this non-LP track continues the 'Alice Bowie' record played on the A-side, but without parental interruption, and it showcases more of
Tommy Chong's over-the-top hard-rock guitar noodling.
Listen to:
Cheech & Chong (featuring Alice Bowie) -
Turn That Thing Down
(Ode Records 45, 1974)
(click for audio)
Prior to stand-up comedy, Tommy Chong's early career had been as an R&B guitarist, most notably with Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers.
(◀ Pictured second from right, wearing glasses)
Going back to the mid-'60's, when the band wasn't traveling they were based in Vancouver, B.C. at a nightclub owned by Tommy Chong.
They signed a record deal with Motown in the late '60's, and had a hit with a Tommy Chong composition, 'Does Your Mother Know About Me', a song about interracial romance.
While touring, Chong discovered improv comedy in places like San Francisco's Committee and Chicago's Second City.
After missing gigs over Green Card problems, Tommy Chong was fired from
Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers.
He returned to British Columbia, and turned his brother's strip club into an improv theatre for his new troupe, The City Works.
It was in The City Works that he met
Cheech Marin, who had settled in Vancouver after leaving L.A. in '68 to avoid the U.S. draft during the Vietnam War.
See also:
- A Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers post and archive at Fullundie.
Here's a follow-up to last week's Cheech & Chong post, and an opportunity to fulfill a request for the instrumental B-side of their 1974 'Earache My Eye' 45.
Prior to stand-up comedy, Tommy Chong's early career had been as an R&B guitarist, most notably with Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers.
While touring, Chong discovered improv comedy in places like San Francisco's Committee and Chicago's Second City.
