This Week: The Tongues of Truth
"Let's Talk About Girls" b/w "You Can't Come Back"
Current Records C-112, September 1966
In the early '80s, former Tucsonan Manny Freiser was working as an exec to the president of A&M Records. A co-worker approached him and said «are you the real Manny Freiser?" to which he replied, "why, do I owe you money?" Manny had no clue that a song he wrote and recorded in 1966 with his Tucson group The Grodes at DJ "Emperor" Bob Hudson's Los Angeles area "garage" studio had become a full-on garage-rock anthem.
A brief history of this Tucson classic: A day's work on the "Let's Talk About Girls" L.A. session came close to being trashed when an argument ensued between producer John Fisher and engineer Hudson over the amount of reverb being used, which resulted in the reel of tape being hurled across the room, clanging against the wall. Fortunately, the tape was OK and the session proceeded, awkwardly. Back in Tucson with tape in hand, producer, DJ and manager Dan Gates decided to change the name of the band to The Tongues of Truth (without their knowledge!) and pressed up 500 copies of the 45, which made it to No. 37 on the KTKT-AM charts. An offer was made for The Standells to cover the song, but never happened though unbeknownst to Manny, The Chocolate Watchband did. The almost forgotten album track became a part of Lenny Kaye›s legendary Nuggets compilation, and the rest is history!
Lee Joseph grew up in Tucson. He's a DJ (Luxuriamusic.com), marketer of cool shit (Reverberations Media) and founder/CEO of internationally respected Dionysus Records, an indie that has long specialized in releasing super-rare music, and more. He came of age in the first wave of Tucson punk rock and is an expert on Tucson music. He now lives in California. Vintage Vinyl is a weekly addition to the Tucson Weekly.
