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V: "There was a lot of hate in Bernice, looking back."
Apart from the prototype Kaleidoscope, the other great source of mystery is the final band and the Bernice album. Basically it seems that they all felt the need to change. They were always open to new ideas, fresh ways of looking at things, wanting to assimilate new styles. That's why they had started. Unfortunately some changes were less successful than others. Lindley recalls "We wanted to get more into r'n'b. I wasn't really any good at it and we all got bogged down and I got disinterested." A number of personnel changes took place both during and after the making of Bernice. Firstly Brotman was fired ("incompetence is not the only ground for dismissal") in the middle of doing the album. He was replaced by Ron Johnson (whose photograph is on the cover). He had played with Willie Bobo and Big Black. He played a fretless bass and was, according to Lindley, one of the first funk bass players they ever heard. Also they got in Jeff Kaplan who was a local jazz and r'n'b musician to handle most of the vocals, although he also played excellent guitar. Kaplan was completely devoted to music and debauchery and was a brilliant early student of martial arts. He had a big influence on Lindley but sadly he died of an overdose in mid 1970 which not only decided Lindley to stop doing things chemically but precipitated the final collapse of the band.

I wondered why there had been such a long gap between Incredible and Bernice. "Record companies, musical executives, practicing, touring - the usual hassles. There was a lot of hate in Bernice, looking back. There was a lot of caustic things, no love, no real poetry. The statements were personal in jokes, exclusive of anyone else. 'New Blue Ooze' was an attempt to do another 'Seven-Ate Sweet.' The whole album was political, so that everyone had to have three songs. That's the same problem that Buffalo Springfield had, and CSN&Y, it's the general downfall of most groups. When you get to that point it's best to say 'Let's forget the whole thing.' We weren't friends, we were at each other's throats, it wasn't too good. It was really depressing, the whole concept had changed into something else, the experimental time was over. But I'm not sad about it, because it had accomplished its purpose. What we had set out in the beginning to do was to introduce a lot of elements into the music from foreign sources and that worked. They're still around. Little Feat took a lot of it. 'We listened to you guys a lot' - Lowell George told me that."

For trivia buffs again, the lady on the back of Bernice is the wife of Marty Nelson from the Music Store days. She is standing behind the fabled Chocolate Whale. The Whale was a 1939 GMC truck but with a new power system connected. It cruised at 80. Before we leave the Bernice cover, has it ever struck you that Chester Crill looks like Radar from the MASH TV series? Lindley agreed with me that he did but added that he was an evil version.

Early in 1970 Solomon left, closely followed by Chester, although the whole band, including another new member, Richard Aplan, had contributed to the Zabriskie Point sound track. No one replaced Crill or Feldthouse - how could the? -and eventually in the late spring the remnants of the band did a final gig in Claremont and that was it.

There was, of course, on brief attempt to get together again early in 1975 but Lindley reckons that all the fire had gone out of it and it didn't work out too well. Incidentally Lindley is De Paris Letante, he owned up straight away. In any case the initials are a dead giveaway.

Next: "I had scrumpy, mead and green beer all in one evening and ended up in a Harley Street clinic."

Bernice