Feedman and Feldthouse had written a promising song called “Please,” but the truth was none of them, outside of Lindley, knew anything about playing electric music. Lindley phoned Chris Darrow, who happily signed on to the venture. Darrow brought quite a lot to the mix: he had songs, he could sing, played any number of instruments, and knew his way around amps and electric guitars. Says Crill, “Christoper was the only one who even knew what rock’n’roll was.” By late 1966 the initial lineup of what would become Kaleidoscope was set: Lindley, Feldthouse, Darrow, Crill and the drummer, John Vidican. After a few months of rehearsal they began playing clubs. They had management and a recording contract as well.

They were signed by partners Michael Goldberg and Stuart Eisen, who worked for a management company owned by actor Adam West, TV’s Batman. “Batman ran the company!” marvels Lindley, years later. Of the management team Lindley says, “Michael was not useful. [“A doofus,” adds Crill.] He took his percentage, he was a drain…Stuart was effective and went to bat for us…He was cool. He was down there scrambling with the rest of us dogs. We were actually more like hyenas. There’s a high hyena factor in that band, boy, was there ever.”

The group was founded on democratic principles. “Back in those days, that’s the way it was done,” says Lindley. “There was a spirit of sharing and cooperation, and no one took more money than the other person.” Musically, each member brought into it his own areas of expertise, and the process was educational for all concerned. As Darrow says, “The music was something that tied all the personalities together and allowed for this strange kind of tolerance we all had for each other…Everybody kind of knew what they were supposed to do and everybody seemed to know what their role was.”

Goldberg and Eisen secured a recording contract for the band with Epic, and Barry Friedman was brought in to produce. Though Friedman (later to be known as Frazier Mohawk) had never produced an entire album, he had kicked around the L.A. music scene for a few years, produced some singles and helped put Buffalo Springfield together. By the time he met Lindley and co., they were well-rehearsed and, says Mohawk, “These guys had more of an idea of what they were about than I did.”

If Lindley and Darrow had had their way, the band would never have been called Kaleidoscope. “The Neoprene Lizards,” says Lindley. “Me and Chris came up with that one. I can remember us sitting out at his house in the orange groves and trying to come up with a fucking name and we came up with the Neoprene Lizards and laughed until we peed. We wanted that, but they wouldn’t go for it.” In any case, a couple of period concert posters referring to “The Lizard Sound of Kaleidoscope” offer evidence that the original name hadn’t died without something of a struggle.

Kaleidoscope entered Columbia Studios to begin recording. As would most always be the case throughout the relationship between band and label, Epic kept them on a very tight budget. Says Crill, “We always got the studio time like from three to five in the morning…right after somebody left. If the Byrds were through in the middle of the night, we’d get it from one to four.” Perhaps their first undertaking was the song “Please,” which was issued in December, 1966 as the first single, backed with “Elevator Man.” Mohawk recalls having made a suggestion for the choral hook of the A-side. “I remember adding those extra couple of beats in that sustain on the 'Please' so that it didn’t resolve like it was supposed to. That’s actually based on something I’d heard about, 'hypnotic threes.' The basis for hypnosis is anticipating the third count. When they’re counting, hypnotists will count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…6. It’s that half beat in there that supposedly creates the hypnotic state.” Of the song’s impact on the marketplace Mohawk says, “I seem to remember it was like #98 with an anchor.”

June, 1967 saw the release of the album Side Trips. Though clocking in at only 26 minutes, it was a strong debut that amply showcased the group’s musical diversity. Opening with the Arabian exotica of Feldthouse’s “Egyptian Gardens” and closing with a quite authentic reading of Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher,” Kaleidoscope also revisited Darrow and Lindley’s old-timey roots with a stark version of Dock Bogg’s “Oh Death.” One of the album’s standouts, and an underground FM favorite, was Darrow’s “Keep Your Mind Open,” an atmospheric performance laced with wind chimes and the occasional sound of gunfire. The lyrics, which managed to be both psychedelic and anti-war at the same time, incorporated some lines from a poem written by Darrow’s sister, Joanie, who would later marry Lindley. Darrow’s other two contributions both came from his days with the Floggs. “Pulsating Dream” had originally been called “Move On Down the Line,” but Feldthouse and Lindley cooked up new words to make it more “psychedelic.” In the spirit of the times, studio experimentation was much employed on the album. Says Mohawk, “I remember putting amplifiers in steel waste baskets and doing weird stuff to get some of those sounds…playing percussion all over it…With hindsight I would have stayed off that.”

The album’s cover had to come as a shock to the band. According to Mohawk, the contract had specified a color cover, and Epic’s answer was to issue a cover with a black and white front, and a blue and white back. “They didn’t spend any fucking money on us at all,” says Darrow. Critical reaction to the album was generally favorable, sales disappointing.

It might be noted here that, for reasons ultimately known only to himself, Crill went under the name Fenrus Epp on Side Trips. On the three succeeding albums he’d appear as Maxwell Buda, Templeton Parcely, and Connie Crill. While fellow members have speculated he may have adopted the alternative names so as not to bring shame upon his straight-laced parents, Darrow has perhaps the simplest answer: “Chester won’t admit that he has a serious side.”

Kaleidoscope survived on its reputation as a live act, for record sales would always be minimal. As musicians they certainly had the required chops, but the existing technology for amplifying acoustic instruments in those days was primitive. A given number might have Crill on violin, Feldthouse on saz, and Lindley on harp guitar. Getting a proper sound was always problematical. Says Feldthouse, “The sound levels we were playing at, you’d hit a full-blown chord down at the bottom range, it would make your damn clothes flap.” Lindley adds, “Basically we used DeArmond contact mics and they were not very reliable. Lots of feedback and horror.” Live, the band steered away from the more concise songs of Side Trips and favored more extended pieces. Band numbers were sometimes punctuated by solo flamenco turns from Feldthouse or a Lindley banjo instrumental. On some occasions, Feldthouse could draw on his network and bring belly dancers or flamenco dancers on stage.

Kaleidoscope’s first experience of the emerging San Francisco scene came in February of 1967, when they shared a bill at the Avalon Ballroom with Sparrow (later Steppenwolf) and Country Joe and the Fish. It was an eye-opener. Says Darrow, “I remember walking into stores on the Haight…There really was a feeling that there was something that was going on…You felt there was something you could participate in.” Kaleidoscope went on to play all the San Francisco venues regularly, so much so they are still sometimes mistakenly referred to as a San Francisco band.

They almost played the Monterey Pop Festival in June of that year. Says Darrow, “It was a last minute deal, and after we showed up we weren’t on the bill. We were pissed, as it would have been great for us and, secondly, we had driven all day and packed up and were tired and cranky. We ended up giving a free concert outside the arena to mostly Hell’s Angels who had come up for the trip.” For Lindley, the experience indicated an early sign of the sea change that was going on in the music scene. “That’s when Babylon came into the picture and the Babylonians started fucking with everyone—saw how much money could be made from these things…And then stuff started disappearing and you had Albert Grossman’s approach.”

In July of that year they played the Berkeley Folk Festival. Their performance was the usual mixed bag, from Darrow’s singing of the Cajun fiddle tune “Louisiana Man” to their heavy, fuzz guitar-driven version of “You Don’t Love Me Anymore.” The most unusual of the songs they played that afternoon was the Middle Eastern “Taxim,” one of the centerpieces of their live set. Faren Miller, an Oakland teenager, recorded her impressions of the piece in her journal. "Dave had great solos on a weird guitar whose neck had an extra bar of wood at the neck and a harp-like bunch of strings. [Lindley’s harp guitar] He set it on his lap to play it. Sol, the wildest-looking member of the group…played solo bouzouki [saz, actually] in the instrumental while standing on one leg with the other bent and propping up the instrument! (The song was quite long too, but he bore up.)” All three of the aforementioned songs would appear on their next album.

next: "The Kaleidoscope delivered me."