The Human Beingz
actually began in 1964, when the original members - Mel Pachuta, Gary Coates,
Dick Belley and Ting Markulin - all from the Youngstown, Ohio area, ended
up in the same group known as "The Premiers."
We played mostly late fifties and early sixties music, with a few tunes
from the British Rock bands thrown in. From late 1964 through to the spring
of 1966, we gained popularity by dropping the fifties and early sixties music
and going strictly with the current music of the time. We still had short hair and still called ourselves "The
Premiers."
A local bowling
alley was going to open a night club in their basement and the manager, Jim
MacMurray asked us to open the club for him.
We agreed to do it but, the manager had a condition or wouldn't use
us. He told us our name and look
was outdated and if we wanted to get real popular, we needed to change our
name and image to fit the music.
Dick and I came
up with "The Human Beings," and Mel said to put a "z"
on the end instead of an "s".
We agreed with Mel and changed our name to "The Human Beingz!"
We started to
let our hair grow and wore wigs until our hair was long enough. The manager of that bowling alley was right!
We became the most popular band in our area almost overnight.
During this time,
Gary Coates, our drummer,
was going to be drafted, so he joined the National Guard.
He was going to be away for six months, so, we found Mike Tatman to
sit in for him until he returned. Gary
returned in six months, but we had grown with Mike and it was clicking.
We felt bad for Gary, but he wasn't there to grow with us.
Gary was a good person... it was never anything personal.
That's how bands are. He
knew it. We knew it.
Now the
Human Beingz were Mel Pachuta - Bass guitar & vocals, Dick Belley
- Lead guitar & lead vocals, Mike Tatman - Drums, and Ting Markulin -
Rhythm guitar & vocals.
We were a phenomenon
in our area. All the clubs wanted
us and we played every night
of the week in the winter, and nine times a week in the summer.
We had a friend,
George Rousher, who worked at a record store and he kept telling the Capitol
record sales rep to come and hear us.
George called me one day and said the sales rep was there and for me
to get over there right away. I
got there just as he was leaving and talked him into coming to see us one
night. He came, saw and heard
us, and he called Capitol Records the next day to send a talent scout out
to hear us. He came, he listened
and watched, and told us we would be signed on Capitol Records.
When
our contracts arrived, it said "The Human Beinz" and we were upset.
We were told the name would be changed when the contracts went back
to Capitol. We recorded "Nobody
But Me" in June of 1967 and waited for a release date.
In September, they sent us a copy of "Nobody But Me" by "The
Human Beinz." PISSED is
not a strong enough word to describe how we felt!
We told them to change it! They
said it was too late, because of all the pressings they already ran.
Capitol then told us, if this record is not a hit, we'll change the
spelling on the next release. "Nobody
But Me" was a
hit and we were stuck with a name we couldn't stand.
We played with many of the top names of that time, and did a wonderful
tour opening for the Beach Boys for a month.
We toured Japan in the spring of 1969 and they treated us like royalty.
We had been disagreeing over things for awhile and had actually broken
up before we did Japan. We had
to do Japan, or we would have been sued, so we did
the Japan tour. When the
tour was over, we got off the plane and it was over.
-Ting Markulin
