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| Another Human Being. |
The Hit
To give them their due, The Human Beinz’ put a definitive spin on their hit cover of The Isley Brothers, “Nobody But Me.” No one can call that a simple copy/paste job. Moreover, it gets them in a record book:
“The recording's two 31-fold repetitions of the word ‘no’ fulfill Casey Kasem's ‘Book of Records’ category of most repetitive word or phrase in a Hot 100 top 10 hit.”
All the same, it sounds like what it is: an early-60s pop/R&B tune (originally released in 1962) with a mid-60s pop-rock beat with a light overlay of late-60s psychedelic guitar. It’s fun and fluffy, neither genre-bending nor genre-defining; it’s just a song that got big (No. 8 on the Billboard Top 100 by February 1968) more the simplest reason of all: a lot of people liked it. For one glorious year, they were the biggest band to come out of the Youngstown, Ohio scene.
The Rest of the Story
It’s appropriate that The Human Beinz hit it big with someone else’s song, because that was the formula they followed to find fame – e.g., they also shopped around a cover of Them’s “Gloria,” but a Chicago band called Shadows of Knight beat them to it. In one telling (see pt. 4 of the Summit Radio interviews below), it didn’t occur to them to record their own material until a producer noted that they could put any damn thing they liked on the b-side of “Nobody But Me” (“Sueno” came out of that).
To hear any good stories about The Human Beinz requires the patience to sit through an 8-part Summit Radio video interview with Joe “Ting” Markulin. They lasted long enough to get “Beatles-big” in Japan (see pt. 8), but only just. And the end, when it came, turned on one extraordinarily blunt change of heart. But, to start at the beginning…
To give them their due, The Human Beinz’ put a definitive spin on their hit cover of The Isley Brothers, “Nobody But Me.” No one can call that a simple copy/paste job. Moreover, it gets them in a record book:
“The recording's two 31-fold repetitions of the word ‘no’ fulfill Casey Kasem's ‘Book of Records’ category of most repetitive word or phrase in a Hot 100 top 10 hit.”
All the same, it sounds like what it is: an early-60s pop/R&B tune (originally released in 1962) with a mid-60s pop-rock beat with a light overlay of late-60s psychedelic guitar. It’s fun and fluffy, neither genre-bending nor genre-defining; it’s just a song that got big (No. 8 on the Billboard Top 100 by February 1968) more the simplest reason of all: a lot of people liked it. For one glorious year, they were the biggest band to come out of the Youngstown, Ohio scene.
The Rest of the Story
It’s appropriate that The Human Beinz hit it big with someone else’s song, because that was the formula they followed to find fame – e.g., they also shopped around a cover of Them’s “Gloria,” but a Chicago band called Shadows of Knight beat them to it. In one telling (see pt. 4 of the Summit Radio interviews below), it didn’t occur to them to record their own material until a producer noted that they could put any damn thing they liked on the b-side of “Nobody But Me” (“Sueno” came out of that).
To hear any good stories about The Human Beinz requires the patience to sit through an 8-part Summit Radio video interview with Joe “Ting” Markulin. They lasted long enough to get “Beatles-big” in Japan (see pt. 8), but only just. And the end, when it came, turned on one extraordinarily blunt change of heart. But, to start at the beginning…
The core of the band started as The Premiers, one of several bands bouncing around (what sounded like) a fairly vibrant Youngstown scene. (Markulin has nice things to say about this in pt. 5.) Markulin joined the band after The Premiers’ original drummer, Gary Coates, recommended him for a tryout after covering for the sick drummer with Markulin’s then-rival band. That saw Markulin join Coates, Mel Pachuta (bass) and John “Dick” Pelley (guitar and lead vocals) to form the first line-up for The Premiers; when Coates got drafted to Vietnam, a guy named Mike Tatman stepped in to complete the original line-up. Hold that thought on Pelley's chosen nickname...
After years of playing and producing their own material (think it was called Gateway Records), The Premiers drew reliably enough in Youngstown to catch Capitol Records’ eye. The beginning and the end started in that moment. It started with Capitol deliberately misspelling the band’s new name; with an eye on cashing in on 1967’s “The Human Be-In” (where Timothy Leary encouraged the youth to “turn on, tune in, and drop out”), Capitol changed the charmingly-arrived at The Human Beingz (chosen from a loose comment – “what are we gonna do? we’re just human beings” - about one band member feeling overwhelmed at having to choose a less dated name than The Premiers) to The Human Beinz without consulting the band (see pt. 2). The agreement was that, if “Nobody But Me” didn’t sell, Capitol would correct the spelling.
After years of playing and producing their own material (think it was called Gateway Records), The Premiers drew reliably enough in Youngstown to catch Capitol Records’ eye. The beginning and the end started in that moment. It started with Capitol deliberately misspelling the band’s new name; with an eye on cashing in on 1967’s “The Human Be-In” (where Timothy Leary encouraged the youth to “turn on, tune in, and drop out”), Capitol changed the charmingly-arrived at The Human Beingz (chosen from a loose comment – “what are we gonna do? we’re just human beings” - about one band member feeling overwhelmed at having to choose a less dated name than The Premiers) to The Human Beinz without consulting the band (see pt. 2). The agreement was that, if “Nobody But Me” didn’t sell, Capitol would correct the spelling.
Getting on the road finished them off. As Markulin recalls (pt. 6), the band got along fine even playing every night in Youngstown, because they all went their separate ways after each gig; the personality clashes sharpened to a lethal edge when they all retreated to the same hotel instead. The break-up started when Pelley stated he was leaving the band after their 1968 tour with The Beach Boys. It ended in spectacular fashion when, even after getting the full Beatles experience on arrival for a promotional tour in Japan, Pelley announced at the beginning that he was leaving the band they second they returned to Youngstown. When Markulin encouraged him to think through his future plans (he figured they could get rich in Japan), Pelley answered that he was returning to his former band, The Pied Pipers, and really twisted the knife when he finished the thought with: “I’m gonna make stars out of them, just like I made stars out of you” (see pt. 8).
Markulin had some happy stories to tell, even about that trip to Japan – e.g., boarding the flight, Markulin and another band member split some speed they didn’t want to lose to a search, so they turned the flight into a party, buying rounds for the plane as a made its way across the Pacific – and he was touring with a rebuilt version of The Human Beinz as recently as 2017, he never talked to Pelley after that. Oh, and they got two No. 1 hits in Japan “Turn on Your Love Light” (cover of a Bobby Bland song, btw) and “Hold on Baby”…but “Nobody But Me” was their only hit States-side.
Oh, one more little nugget: at the peak of their fame/clout, The Human Beinz tried to get Capitol Records to sign James Gang (these guys), Joe Walsh’s first project. When Pelley left the band (this was the first time) around the same time Capitol rejected James Gang, Walsh tried out as a replacement for Pelley. Both sides agreed it didn’t work - Markulin went so far as noting that Walsh “was so far ahead of them” – so there’s no real “what might have been” there.
About the Sampler
This wasn’t a band that excited me, and that’ll show in how I organized the sampler. As Markulin noted in…think it’s part 8, they came out of a time when record labels encouraged every band they could sign to sound a little more like The Beatles. It didn’t suit them texturally or temperamentally, but that’s how “It’s Fun to Be Clean” came around; on that, its hippie-dippie vibe aside, Markulin calls it an anti-snob diss-track. “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” came from the same inspiration; part of “being more like The Beatles” involved trying to get a lot of different sounds and textures onto one album (the result is…uneven).
The rest of the songs I included, besides the title track – e.g., “Cement,” “The Shaman,” "Dance on Through,” “The Face” and “My Animal” – came from the two albums The Human Beinz had time to put out (Nobody But Me and Evolutions*), and they all sound something like the same. I held back a couple singles, "April 15th" and “If You Don’t Mind, Mrs. Applebee,” because I actually like those a little. (* The Human Beinz actually have a third album titled In Japan, a live album, but Markulin literally calls it "terrible" and they never blessed the recording.)
Source(s)
Wikipedia – The Human Beinz
Wikipedia – The Human Be-In
Summit Radio interview (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8; seriously, if you’ve got the time and patience, this is your best of the limited sources by a long shot; on the other hand, it’s all from Markulin’s point of view, but he seems like a good dude).
Markulin had some happy stories to tell, even about that trip to Japan – e.g., boarding the flight, Markulin and another band member split some speed they didn’t want to lose to a search, so they turned the flight into a party, buying rounds for the plane as a made its way across the Pacific – and he was touring with a rebuilt version of The Human Beinz as recently as 2017, he never talked to Pelley after that. Oh, and they got two No. 1 hits in Japan “Turn on Your Love Light” (cover of a Bobby Bland song, btw) and “Hold on Baby”…but “Nobody But Me” was their only hit States-side.
Oh, one more little nugget: at the peak of their fame/clout, The Human Beinz tried to get Capitol Records to sign James Gang (these guys), Joe Walsh’s first project. When Pelley left the band (this was the first time) around the same time Capitol rejected James Gang, Walsh tried out as a replacement for Pelley. Both sides agreed it didn’t work - Markulin went so far as noting that Walsh “was so far ahead of them” – so there’s no real “what might have been” there.
About the Sampler
This wasn’t a band that excited me, and that’ll show in how I organized the sampler. As Markulin noted in…think it’s part 8, they came out of a time when record labels encouraged every band they could sign to sound a little more like The Beatles. It didn’t suit them texturally or temperamentally, but that’s how “It’s Fun to Be Clean” came around; on that, its hippie-dippie vibe aside, Markulin calls it an anti-snob diss-track. “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” came from the same inspiration; part of “being more like The Beatles” involved trying to get a lot of different sounds and textures onto one album (the result is…uneven).
The rest of the songs I included, besides the title track – e.g., “Cement,” “The Shaman,” "Dance on Through,” “The Face” and “My Animal” – came from the two albums The Human Beinz had time to put out (Nobody But Me and Evolutions*), and they all sound something like the same. I held back a couple singles, "April 15th" and “If You Don’t Mind, Mrs. Applebee,” because I actually like those a little. (* The Human Beinz actually have a third album titled In Japan, a live album, but Markulin literally calls it "terrible" and they never blessed the recording.)
Source(s)
Wikipedia – The Human Beinz
Wikipedia – The Human Be-In
Summit Radio interview (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8; seriously, if you’ve got the time and patience, this is your best of the limited sources by a long shot; on the other hand, it’s all from Markulin’s point of view, but he seems like a good dude).
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