The Tangerine Zoo
audiostreet.net/thetangerinezoo
Home Town: East Freetown, MA
Genre: Psychedelic
Posted By: Tiger
Joined On: March 6, 2004
Page Views: 11,743
Song Plays: 1,239
Current Rank: 871
Highest Rank: 41
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Albums
Tangerine Zoo 1st album, Outside Looking In, Uncaged
Similar Artists
Pink Floyd, Vanilla Fudge, Moody Blues,Yes
Group Members
Wayne Gagnon, Bob Benevides, Ron Medieros, Don Smith, Tony Taveira
Instruments
Guitars, Bass, Hommond Organ, Drums
Musical Style
Sixties psychadelic/garage
Influences
Pink Floyd, Vanilla Fudge, Moody Blues,Yes
Additional Info
Hit LINKS tab to see Live Videos of the Band... |
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Swansea's Tangerine Zoo
Posted on April 25, 2006 4:55 PM
|  Hank Seaman
Portraits
hseaman@s-t.com
Take a trip with me through the mists of time, back to a place, age and lifestyle known as the '60s.
Back to the year 1967, to be precise.
Ah, can't you just see it now? Long hair, hippies, love-ins, be-ins, Vietnam, pot, peace, power to the people ...
It was far out, man ... in the groove ... uptight and outtasight ... sock it to me.
What male of a certain age cannot recall tucking a paisley shirt into striped hip-huggers, then throwing on a Nehru jacket and a peace medallion, and heading out the door on a Saturday night date? Or perhaps it was merely a tie-dyed shirt and bell-bottom jeans, but you get the gist.
It was a one-of-a-kind, bad-to-the-bone, specific type of sartorial splendor and it endured, oh, maybe, all of 20 minutes. But, oh wow, man, like, it was freaking' humongous, man, while it lasted.
Like, totally ... make love, not war ... it's, groovy to the max.
All this accompanied by a musical soundtrack unlike anything we've ever seen -- before or since. Pop music was being stretched, shrunk, elasticized, and strung out in permutations and tempos beyond all previous experience. Can you dig it, babe? Evvvvverybody must get stoned.
When the truth is founnnnnnnnd ... bend me, shape me, anyway you wanta ... and listen while I play-y-y-y-y-y my green tambourine ...
Leading this psychedelic parade, of course, as they had for so much of that turbulent decade, were the Beatles.
We all live in a yellow submarine cuz all you need is love and it's strawberry fields forever ... Coo coo ca joob.
Silly?
Perhaps.
But the times, they were indeed a' changin.' Somehow, it all seemed to mean something cerebral, meaningful and deep, way back when.
For as short-lived as it all turned out to be, however, psychedelic pop music is still having an enormous, if surprising, influence on collectors and fans alike.
Take, for instance, one long-ago area "psych-garage" band, The Tangerine Zoo.
Bass guitarist Tony Taveira, drummer-vocalist Donald Smith, lead guitarist-vocalist Robert "Benny" Benevides, rhythm guitarist-vocalist Wayne Gagnon and organist-harmonica player Ronald Medeiros.
Thanks to the Internet, surprise, surprise, the boys are currently in the middle of an honest-to-gosh renaissance.
As some local fans may recall, this five-man band, four of whom hailed from Swansea -- just a hop, skip and a toke from the old Fall River line -- had a short, yet incredibly sweet ride in the late 1960s.
With two albums -- and a number of singles -- released nationally on the big-time Mainstream label, not only did they become New England favorites, but the boys also managed to squeak their way into the fringes of the collective national consciousness.
Not quite making it to the top o' the garage band "elite" -- like, say, The Rascals, for one chart-topping example -- nevertheless, they managed to parlay their 15 minutes of fame into something far more than merely local memories.
At their height in 1967-68 the Venus de Milo Restaurant house band opened for the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Vanilla Fudge, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Van Morrison and Deep Purple throughout New England, culminating in a memorable gig at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Anyone who ever saw them perform live never forgot them, that's for sure. In concert they were something else. Yet, the big time always managed to just elude them.
It's not enough to have talent in this world, you see, you've also got to snag the breaks.
Not that our lads didn't come mighty close to everlasting celebrity. Actually invited to perform at Woodstock, they were forced to decline in order to honor a prior commitment. Hey, who knew?
Like I said, this close.
And throughout this short psychedelic trip, guess what young, hungry future newspaper photographer-columnist attempted to ride the Zoo's eminent Edwardian coattails to the toppermost of the poppermost?
That's right ... moi, yours truly.
In fact, if you'll dust off your ancient copy of "Outside Looking In" --The Tangerine Zoo's second, and last, album from 1968 -- there's ol' Hankie's name, right there in the photography credits.
Yeah, right, as if anybody still remembers albums, that is.
I don't recall being paid much -- if anything -- yet photographing and designing a nationally distributed pop music album didn't hurt my chances of landing a photography job at The Standard-Times later that year. Like the man said, it all looked good on the baloney sheet.
So, any S-T readers harboring grudges can, in effect, blame the Tangerine Zoo.
In any event, none of this would matter much at this distant remove if not for Tony Taveira's computer skills.
Out of the blue, I recently received an e-mail from the former bass guitarist, now living in East Freetown. Was I the same Hank Seaman, he asked, who photographed the group all those years ago? If so, did I still have the negatives? He had exciting news for me.
Seems The Tangerine Zoo is almost hot tooty, again.
Their song "Nature's Children," written by Don Smith and Ron Medeiros, and recorded in 1968 for the "Outside Looking In" album, is currently No. 6 on the mp3 playlist of downloadable music. Apparently, today's kids are discovering it for the first time, while older fans may also be returning for a listen.
Well, one e-mail led to another and before I knew it there I was face to face with Tony Taveira -- after a period of 32 years or thereabouts.
It was good to see him again, though truthfully, I wondered if either of us would have recognized the other on the street. After all, there'd been an awful lot of time away from the zoo for each of us.
The Zoosters, Tony explained, had disbanded in 1970, and aside from three or four reunion concerts over the years, the five former bandmates have had little contact with one another, for the most part.
The only exception, Tony added, was Benny Benevides. "I see him on a regular basis," he laughed, "cuz I'm married to his niece."
He's had little to do with the others, however -- or their former fans.
Indeed, Tony has worked as a substance abuse counselor for the past 28 years at the Brockton VA Hospital, where none of his patients have known anything of his musical background. "It just didn't seem important," he explained. "At least, then."
Now, he's not so sure?
"Without a doubt," Tony laughed, using what I would soon realize is his favorite expression.
Due to this renewed popularity, not only can cuts from The Tangerine Zoo's two '60s albums be downloaded off the Internet, but a new "Best of" CD is now available for purchase on the site, as well.
Additionally, trying to strike while the iron is hot, Tony is shopping around some of the group's unreleased demos from 1969, packaged with vintage live tracks -- "The Tangerine Zoo Reincarnated Live."
And, best of all, he said, they are going to play together for the first time in years, with the Zoo now in negotiation for a number of high-profile gigs in the coming months.
Stay tuned.
"We're going to reunite to plug the album. Who knows what might happen?"
Who knows, indeed.
After more than 30 years, things are definitely looking up again for the psychedelic songsters.
"Without a doubt," Tony enthused breathlessly.
"I just created that Web site a short while ago -- www.tangerinezoo.com -- and we've gotten 1,800 hits so far ... 10 to 15 a day. There's every possibility that we'll become as big today as we ever were back then, thanks to the world-wide exposure on the Web."
Ah, technology.
"Go figure," Tony laughs. "I just got an e-mail from a film producer. He wants to use 'Nature's Children' in a film he's making."
Did I still have any of those negatives from those long-ago photo shoots, he wondered? No, I replied, those negs are long gone, but in the course of our conversation I happened to mention that I still have one wrapped-in-plastic, pristine and sealed copy of "Outside Looking In."
You know, the album I photographed and designed but upon which I never made any money.
"Maybe you'll have the last laugh," Tony replied with a spirited chuckle. Thanks to this resurgence of interest, that album's now worth at least $300 on eBay, he theorized. A perfect copy, still in the shrink wrapper, might even go as high as $500.
"Really?"
"Oh yeah," Tony Taveira laughed quietly.
"Without a doubt."
Hank Seaman paints "Portraits" for you every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. Telephone: 508 979 4504. E-mail: hseaman@s-t.com
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