Shows/KNUZ Battle of the Bands

March 23-26, 1967
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Gulfgate Shopping City
City	Houston, Texas
Tour
Event	KNUZ-FM Swingin' Festival: Battle of the Bands
Billing

The event took place in the parking lot on the right

Announcement

Houston Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle, 1967

1967

Swingin' Festival for Gulf Gaters!

More than 100 local teen combos will be competing in a "Battle of the Bands" during the KNUZ Swingin' Festival at Gulfgate Shopping City Thursday, March 23, through Sunday, March 26.

Beautiful engraved trophies will be awarded to the first through fifth place winners by The Houston Chronicle Young World. Judging will be done by Young Worlders who will be given a ballot when they attend the festival.

Bands that want to compete in the battle should contact Buddy McGregor of KNUZ, who will coordinate stage activities. In addition to the competing bands, there will be special performances by record stars such as Neal Ford and The Fanatics, Charlie Romans and The Pastels, The Coastliners, The Traits and the Surf Knights.

Dozens of other exciting booths will be set up for the festival. These will include exhibits of mod style clothes, musical instruments, custom cars, motorbikes, mag wheels and other auto accessories. A "Dunk-a-Tank" will be sponsored by University of Houston fraternities.

The chronicle will have a souvenir booth where visitors can have their picture taken "on the front page of the newspaper."

Events will take place under a colorful tent in the north parking area of Gulfgate, near the Gulf Freeway.

Reviews

KNUZ brochure

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Retrospectives

Steve Cunningham

[Lelan Rogers] was at Gulfgate Mall shopping for a new parakeet for his wife. We were on a bandstand in the "Santa Claus" area of he mall, playing in a battle of the bands event sponsored by a radio station KNUZ-FM. Lelan stopped and listened to us, then came up and introduced himself. Gave us his card and said he'd like to meet and discuss a recording contract with us.

Mayo Thompson

Lelan [Rogers] was an adventurous thinker in his way. He had an imagination, and he had a show-business nose. He came along and saw us playing one night in a battle of the bands. KNUZ had a battle of the bands we were invited to play. We played one night in Gulfgate Mall, and he came to that looking for a parakeet and found us and asked us to make a record.

Paul Drummond

That night the band struggled through the obligatory Hey Joe cover but soon gave up and invited various friends from the audience to join them on stage and play spoons, honk horns and turn the performance into an improvised happening. Eventually someone pulled the plug...Whether they won or lost is now forgotten but nonetheless they were offered a prized record deal.

Lelan Rogers

A curious echo of that laughter can be heard in Lelan Rogers's recounting of his first encounter with the Red Crayola, the band Thompson formed in 1966. An A&R man for local label International Artists, Rogers, brother of Kenny, caught the Crayola's set at a KNUZ-FM battle of the bands held at Houston's Gulfgate Mall, where he and his wife had stopped to replace a dead parakeet. "'There was this group of kids, three of them, up on a stage that had four or five different kinds of instruments and they could not play a note," he remembered. "'They were just making noise and really putting people on"

References

The Red Krayola Shows
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Live recordings