Vintage Music Video below*
The end of the year always makes me think back on those moments that helped define me. The Daily Planet was, for many years, the biggest “moment” of my life.
Marc was a skinny Polish-American Jew. I was a Euro-American mutt who’d decided he was Irish after playing a leprechaun in the high school musical. We formed our first rock group at age 14, and boy was it clunky. If the chords to the song went, “Blum, blum, blum,” the bass player would go, “Boom, boom, boom,” and the drummer would go, “bang, bang, bang.” All skate.
The band broke up. But Marc and I started writing songs. Our favorite was a McCartney-esque paean to the day we wrote it, Thursday. There was a stage-dad a few blocks away who was desperate to turn his thirteen-year-old into a rock star. So we sold him our cast-off tunes for date money. But we refused to sell “Thursday Song.”
After a few false starts, we managed to finagle an Italian-American drummer named Joey into auditioning for us. We’d never heard anyone play like him. Forget “bang, bang, bang.” Joey could go, “ska-dinka-dunka-clank-clank-ba-dink-dunk-shiiiik!” He was that good. And then Jeph, a 15 year old half-Native American bassist, who’d played a one-
nighter with the James Brown band (which made him a living legend), sat in with us, explaining that as soon as something better came along he’d be outa there. Nothing ever did.
It was the blind date that blossomed into love. We were better together than we were apart. We’d try to do covers, but then someone would say, “So I wrote this song,” and we’d work on that instead. It was a draw-back for school dances, where everyone wanted Top 40 and all we knew was Top Us. But eventually an embryonic fan club began to show up and call out the names of their favorite Daily Planet songs.
The Daily Planet. That was what we called ourselves, because of our international…ish…ness. We were just shades-of-white American teenagers, really. But we looked pretty diverse in our WASPy little SoCal suburb of La Mirada.
We managed to score some off-hours recording time with the Beach Boys’ engineer Chuck Britz (who was married to one of my mom’s childhood buds). We laid down four tracks at United Western Recorders, where icons like Elvis and Ray Charles had recorded. Even though our style was folk-rock, everyone picked the poppy “Thursday Song” to be our first hit.
So when Capital Records and the Singer Sewing Machine Company (go figure) announced their Sounds of ’68 campaign, we submitted “Thursday Song.” And then forgot about it. But a month later someone called and said, “Congratulations, you’re the best new band in the western United States!”
We drove to Hollywood and re-recorded “Thursday Song” with Billy Strange, the guitarist who’d done the James Bond theme (“DUM-da-da-da-DUM-dum-da-DUM-da-da-da-DUM-dum-da-DA-da-da-da-DA!”). And got our measurements taken by a wispy clothing designer named Boyd (his theme: “patent leather hippies”). And played at the Daisy Club in Beverly Hills, where our slightly stewed host Tony Bennett announced that we were his new protégés! (We never heard from him again.)
We lip-synched “Thursday Song” on a Tuesday at ABC Studios, for the adoring masses. Well, for our adoring little fan club back in La Mirada, anyway—who would have eventually become adoring masses, if only…
But that’s another story.
*Here’s a video (in black & white for some reason–the show was in color). Be kind.
Wow… really good!
Thank you, Leenda (Linda?).
Leeeeeeeenda!
With that specific number of ‘e’s, or is the number optional? ;>)
Well, that was fun! Yes, the outfits had me chuckling a bit, but your band’s sound took me back to my teens. I hope you have more of these reminiscent treasures in store.
Thanks, Cindie. They “gifted” us with those costumes after the show, btw. The Goodwill was very happy to have them.
Could it be that those costumes would have been the reason the video is in black-and-white??
Don’t know, Liz. The broadcast was in color, of course. True, the patent-leather heavy costumes were black and white, but the set was actually very colorful, and so, as I recall, were we. ;>)
Love those pants and hey you guys could actually sing. My cousin Tommy and I had a terrible basement band for six months and the best claim we could make as to popularity was that his mom ( my dear godmother) didn’t kick us out to the garage!
Hey, you had a “fan”!
That’s really great,you are truly multitalented.God has bestowed much grace to his bestie.Thanks for sharing.Take care.👍🙏🌹
Aw, thank you, Francis, and Happy New Year!
Happy New Year wishes to you and your loved ones.🙏🌹❤️👍
Pleasure,happy New Year wishes to you and your loved ones.🙏🌹❤️👍
Wow! Sounds great!
Thank you, Nicky!
Boy, that was a surprise. Good drummer. Good sound. Didn’t know you could even carry a tune. I sure can’t.
Glad you still had access to the video. Well done!
Actually, a friend found it on Youtube one day and told me. I don’t know the person that posted it, or how he got it (though I did respond to the post, and he seemed delighted).
And sharing the stage with William Shatner, too?!!
That genuinely sounded as good as any other famous band of the era. I’m incredibly impressed!
Actually, that’s Ed Ames, who was the show’s co-host. The other host was Aretha Franklin–wish she’d introduced us! And thanks, Abe.
Well don’t I look silly!
Not as silly as I do in my matching patent leather vest and knee-high boots!
Wow, Superman Mitch, you’ve even worked for The Daily Planet. I’d say your band’s catchy tune / sound features an intriguing blend of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Feeling Groovy” and Herman’s Hermits’ Mrs. Brown (You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter). Uh… I’m no expert… and… um… maybe it’s just me… but… it could’ve used more cowbell.
Love that cowbell (Joey had an array of atypical percussion instruments). Yes, the verse chord progression is similar to “Feelin’ Groovy” (“The 59th Street Bridge Song”). Marc and I actually wrote ‘TS’ a year before the Simon & Garfunkel song was released. “Great minds think alike,” right? ;>) I certainly don’t mind being compared to Paul Simon, one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century!
That song writing timeline means great minded you may have influenced great minded Simon. BTW, I don’t know if you noticed the “show more” YouTube blurb, but… GREAT CAESAR’S GHOST… your name got misspelled. Check it out…
“The group consisted of Mitch Toomley, Mark Rochonne, Joe Pino and Jeph Haberman.”
I kinda doubt New Yorker Paul Simon cribbed it from two completely unknown teenage songwriters in an L.A. suburb. It’s a common chord progression, actually. And, yes, there are quite a few errors in the post, including the song’s title. But then the guy who found it didn’t know anything about us; he just found it somewhere, liked it (bless him), and decided to post it on Youtube.
Sooo fun to see! You guys were adorable.
Aw, thanks, Colleen. And Happy New Year, dear friend!
Those must have been heady days! (You were very cute.)
They were! (Gosh, thanks, ma’am.)
You’re welcome. 😉
What a happy sound! And the outfits were a hoot. Good memories of a simpler time.
Happy New Year, Rob!
That’s so cool, what a history!
Thanks, Beth!
Interesting must have been two different bands with the same name. I found some other songs by the same name band, but they don’t list the same people.
First I’ve heard, Jean, but, yes, I just googled and found at least two other bands who’ve since used the name. But none as legendary as us. ;>)
Is there a similar thing to copyright for musicians? Not sure how that works.
Copyrights don’t cover names, those come under trademarks, but none of us could trademark The Daily Planet since we all cribbed it from Superman.
happy new year
El jue, 30 dic 2021 a la(s) 09:07, Mitch Teemley ( comment-reply@wordpress.com) escribió:
> mitchteemley posted: “Vintage Music Video below* The end of the year > always makes me think back on those moments that helped define me. The > Daily Planet was, for many years, the biggest “moment” of my life. Marc was > a skinny Polish-American Jew. I was a Euro-American mutt who” >
Happy New Year to you, too, my friend. Are you a blogger? Your comment link above seems to lead right back to here.
Love the name of the group, the song, the boots, the bell bottoms! Such a hopeful decade! Thanks for taking us all back!
My pleasure!
Great story! That was definitely fun to see mitch. loved the mix and the sound. I Started a wanna-be band of guys that all got sidetracked by girls…probably saved our folks some embarrassment.
Thanks, Gary. Happy New Year!
Interesting! You have the best stories, Mitch! 💞
Thanks, Tricia!
💓
Hey there Mitch, You’ll enjoy this. One of my first jobs as a teenager was a caddy. I earned $2.50 for 18 holes. $2.50 was what a Beatles album cost. Work all day, buy a record. Great essay. Happy New Year. Jerry
What else would you do with the money? Happy New Year, Jerry!
What a cool name for a band. The outfits cracked me up though😂 But as I recall most bands of that era dressed as such.
Cool song too, 😊
Trust me, Stuart, we wore ordinary clothing when it was up to us (see the shot of us on-stage a little above the video clip)! Thanks, and Happy New Year!
I really enjoyed this “blast from the past”!!
Amazing, Mitch. Actually, shockingly unbelievable.
I hope you saved all of those outfits. They belong is a museum.
I was going to note the only thing you lacked was cowbell… but I see someone beat me to it. Oh, and I suppose you did include it on some of your other tracks.
Yeah, I think this was the first song Joey used the cowbell on, but after that he incorporated it into several other tunes. No, we ditched the costumes right after the show. Truth be told, we were big-time embarrassed about having to wear them.
Well, that was fun and very good, too! I really enjoyed seeing and listening to your once-upon-a-time band; reminded me a bit of The Turtles. You could have been a contender! They say it’s never to late. Maybe in the new year you’ll get the old group together. Who knows? The sky’s the limit!! ✨ 💫
Maybe our kids could play us in the sequel. ;>)
Agreed: you guys were really good–and so cute! I would’ve gladly joined the La Mirada Fan Club–except I lived nowhere near California . . . Perhaps I could have started one in the Midwest!
Now you say something! ;>)
Tried to find the lyrics online, but only a different “Thursday Song” popped up.
BTW, I don’t get curious to read the lyrics of a song unless it’s really good.
Why, thank you, MC. Send me an email and I’ll pass them along to you.
Done.
OOPS! Got the error msg
{{ Status: 5.1.1 (bad destination mailbox address) }}
when I sent e-mail with body
{{
Hi. Here’s the e-mail request for the lyrics.
Dunno if it’s intentional, but there is no CONTACT page on your blog. Google found your IMDbPro page; I started a trial membership to get your e-mail.
=-=-=-=- Mel
}}
Looks like your IMDbPro page has stale info. Maybe it would be simplest for the lyrics if U used the CONTACT page on my blog.
Where or what did you click when you got a “Status: 5.1.1 (bad destination mailbox address)” response? I’ll fix it, if I can. Meanwhile, I sent you my email via your Contact page.
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Very cool! California was the place to be back then. Good times.
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Love, love, love this Mitch. You guys were really good!
Why, thank you, Kellye!
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very nice song, Mitch! 🙂 Loved hearing about how it came into being–fun story! 🙂
Thank you, Katie!
Really impressive, and that’s so much fun
♥️
I love your life story, inspiring and you’re so talented…
♥️♥️
Aw, thank you, Roksana.
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What a plethora of interesting life experiences! 🤗❤️