[Steve] Robbins, spokesman for the Jesters known later as Jester Holiday, recalled the heyday of the band, which enjoyed a wide degree of regional success from 1963-1969. He explained why the band found it necessary to change its name in 1967.
"We were putting out a record and there was a band out which called itself the Jesters that had a nationally released record," said Robbins. "I remember how the name got changed when we were driving back from Massachusetts from the recording session. We were somewhere on Route 1 and we saw a Holiday Motel. It was then that we said, 'There it is: The Jester Holiday.'"
Robbins said that a successful rock and roll band in the '60s required two ingredients: imitation and innovation.
"You had some awfully good imitators and innovators," he said. "For example, we had super musicians and we imitated well because the kids wanted to hear the Top 40 stuff, so we sounded like the expected us to sound."
For the Jester Holiday, who incorporated a wide variety of instruments into their act, including the trumpet and flugelhorn, innovation was evidenced in their "Beethoven to Beatles" show. The two-hour concert attempted to merge the best aspects of classical music and rock and was well received, Robbins said.
"I think we were the precursor of the show band," he said. "We rehearsed steps two and three nights a week. At one point we had 12 numbered one-hour-long shows that we could call out and change to at any time."
Robbins said the band members' collective goal was the secret to their success.
"The situation was unique," he said. "We had a couple of chances to be big stars, but we turned them down--because we had to get back to school. The band was the means to achieve an end. That's how we paid for our college education. The band was also our job and it was a highly professional business. The mentality of the band was different. It wasn't like the kids getting together and having a wahoo kind of a time. We never did dope and we didn't drink. We had a rule: We didn't play and drink at the same time."
In 1963, Robbins was 15 and rock and roll was fun. But by 1969, the course of rock and roll had changed irrevocably. When bands like Gary Lewis and the Playboys stopped playing songs like "This Diamond Ring" and the American Breed abandoned tunes such as "Bend Me, Shape Me," the Jesters began to fade and the holiday was over. One era ended as bands like Cream, Led Zeppelin and the Butterfield Blues Band stepped into the spotlight.
"We basically packed it in at about the same time Jimi Hendrix died," said Robbins. "I remember the night. We were in Millinocket. We did Purple Haze or one of those garbage things. We'd use a little feedback and one night on a break we just cranked everything that we had just for laughs and let it all feed back. We watched it wave back and forth and in the midst of the noise we saw that the kids were just totally gonzo and unaware of what it was we were doing. I turned around and looked at the guys and we all shared an instantaneous conclusion: We quit. The band had ceased to be entertainment. Maybe we outgrew it or maybe we just couldn't cross over from the '60s into [the] psychedelic mood that was moving in on what remained of our type of music."
The material posted above represents maybe half of the Bangor Daily News article cited. The photos, on the same BDN page, show the Barracudas and the Mainiacs. The caption lists these members of the Barracudas: Mike Akin, Tom Gass, Bob Rolsky, Robie Robichaud, and Pat Storey. It names these members of the Mainiacs: Harry King, Moe Schenck, Milt Smith, Jim Trudel, and Mike Trudel.
The names of the various Barracudas are quite familiar; and at one point in our respective boyhoods, Bob Rolsky (reclining on the van roof, but otherwise attentive) was a school friend -- we used to go swimming at the Bangor YMCA together. Last I knew, he was living in California and working as a movie producer, using a professional name that I'm afraid I've forgotten.
Harry King has had a successful career in music, and his songs, playing, and production are well represented in our record collection. Someone once referred to him as a Renaissance man -- whoever it was got that right.
I had a single by the Barracudas, though in the late '60s it died in a melting accident. I blame myself. I'm quite certain my brother had a single by the Jesters or the Jester Holiday.
The A. Jay Higgins piece in the Bangor Daily News mentions other Maine bands toward the end, including the Blues Alliance, the Chancellors, Cherry Opera, Dick Cotter and the Triumphs, the Dolphins, the Early Train, the Eccentrics, Mike and the Miracles, the Plague, Ronnie and the Roadrunners, and the Village Green. A couple University of Maine at Orono bands come quickly to mind: the eternal Cumberlands and the Psychedelic Syndrome, later known as just the Syndrome.
On the folk side, we had Gordon Bok in the Camden area, the Devonsquare Trio down around Portland, Dian and Zoltan (in Gene Pitney profile, note 6) at the University of Maine at Orono, and the Mallett Brothers up in Sebec. At that time, the Maine country scene was pretty much presided over by Dick Curless, who was having a string of hits, first on Tower and then on the Capitol label.
Incidentally, a 1987 Bangor Daily News article about Conrad Noddin names these members of the Jesters circa 1966: John Haskell, Conrad Noddin, Claude O'Donnell, Paul Ogilvie, and Steve Robbins. -- Alan Lewis, 9/9/2001
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