OUT OF THE COBWEBS
A few years back Bruce Licher, who owns the Independent Project Press on Willow Street in Bishop, was wandering about the Cobwebs Antique Shop (which has since closed and been replaced by Luxe Salon and the Indy Coffee Co.).
He randomly looks up, and there’s a 45 record on the ceiling.
Now if you don’t know Bruce, he has an extensive vinyl collection. Into the several thousands. He has been part of an ‘80s punk rock band of some renown (Savage Republic) and has produced other niche bands of note.
You can’t slap a record on the ceiling and not have him bite.
So he bought the record for seven bucks and brought it home and put it on the turntable.
And damned if it wasn’t pretty good.
The sound quality wasn’t great, sure, and the printing was littered with mistakes (on one side of the record, the band was listed as The Rubber Bands.
On the other side, comically, The Bubber Bands.
The songwriter’s name is also
Both sides, it turns out, were wrong. It was The Rubber Band, formerly known as The Fourth Reich, a garage band of high school kids from Bishop.
They had gone to L.A. and recorded these two songs in 1967.
The main songwriter was Michael Hemler (even his name is spelled wrong on the record), whose younger sister Mary (now Baker) still lives here.
The band included Hemler on lead guitar, Mariano Sanchez on rhythm guitar, Joe Wilkerson on drums and Bill Elliott on bass.
Only Elliott is still among the living.
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Hemler was one of seven children. He was the only one to pursue the guitar. He was a big fan of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix.
The Fourth Reich (what the band had been named until the guy at the recording studio said you can’t use that give World War II and Hitler are still too fresh in people’s minds) was a partial offshoot (providing Sanchez) of a previous garage band known as the Van Dells. This according to Jerry Simcox, who own band “No Shame” filled the local band vacuum once The Fourth Reich disbanded.
Simcox has lived his whole life in Bishop save for a brief stint in the service.
“They were really good,” said Simcox of Hemler’s band. “They were really into it. They used to play the Masonic hall and dances at different local venues.”
Simcox said Hemler wrote both songs on the 45, and though it was a cheap recording, the songs “were pretty inventive.”
Hemler and his bandmates would take copies of the 45 to school and sell ‘em for a dollar.
“Michael really could have gone far, but … “ Simcox said he got into drugs, et. al.
The other issue was just the size of the town. Bishop was a dead-end street for a talent like that.
The other standout in the band was Sanchez, who had an incredible voice (a voice which unfortunately is not featured on the 45).
Simcox said at one point Sanchez did some guest vocals for his band. He specifically recalls a jam session in someone’s garage where Sanchez sang “One” by Three Dog Night so beautifully that he had a mom in the neighborhood in tears.
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The band collapsed for a few reasons, as bands are wont to do.
Mariano was three years older than the others. Hemler was strong-headed and ambitious and they clashed. Ultimately Mariano got married and moved away and others who were subsequently brought in never quite clicked.
The second dagger occurred when Hemler’s girlfriend got pregnant. The families didn’t like each other – it was a Romeo and Juliet scenario. The baby was ultimately given up for adoption.
And then Joe and Bill went off to college.
According to his sister, Michael dropped out of BUHS at 16. He should’ve graduated in ’68. Eventually he got his hair cut and went back to try and finish.
But it didn’t stick. Nothing ever quite stuck. He drifted in and out of Bishop from 1970 on, showing up at his mother’s door in between adventures and debacles.
At one point he was living under a bridge in Santa Cruz.
He drank.
There were glimmers of hope. He kicked booze at one point and got a job at the local hospital and even bought a car.
But that didn’t last.
In his final hurrah, his final attempt to turn it around, he was living in a halfway house in 1977 with thoughts of becoming a counselor.
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Mark Winter played the organ for No Shame.
His Dad was a music teacher in the local schools and as Mark says, “I was predestined to play music.”
Simcox pretty much described Winter as the secret sauce – “a great organist.”
After high school, in fact, Winter went on the road with a country/western band for six months before realizing the itinerant musician lifestyle wasn’t for him. He soon joined the Navy.
Winter described Hemler as an unusual character, stand-offish. This was echoed by his sister, who described him as “difficult.”
Which is not uncommon of young talent.
He may have inherited some of his rebellion from his father, a radio announcer at KIBS, who was opinionated and often less than tactful. He eventually got fired for not apologizing for something.
“The feeling I got about Michael,” said Winter, “is that he just never felt worthy for some reason. In his mind I guess he just wanted to do something more.”
Mike Cheshire was a drummer for the Van Dells. He described Hemler as a very good friend. Their bond: “We were the only guys in the Owens Valley who had long hair,” said Cheshire with a laugh.
Sheet: Do you have a copy of that record?
Cheshire: I sure wish I did.
And that is the call to action. Licher would like to re-issue the the single on his record label, but needs to find a clean copy of the record to create a new master (as the original master tapes are long gone).
“I’m hoping that someone here in the area who might be reading the story will have a copy we can use for that purpose,” said Licher. “I’d also like to find any other photos or printed ephemera (flyers, articles, etc.) about the band that anyone might still have, so that we can tell the story of the band and the making of the record in our re-issue of the music.”
As to where they are now.
Hemler died in 1984.
Mariano Sanchez died about thirty years ago. He lived in the Carson Valley.
Joe Wilkerson died in Bishop in 2019. He had moved back four years previously. He’d been in the HVAC business.
Bill Elliott, we’re told, lives on the other side of the Sierra.
