It was written and sung by Lee Freeman and Ed King. They would have had a fighting chance if UNI had promoted the single and album title song, Good Morning Starshine, as much as Oliver’s record company promoted his version of the song. They tried in earnest to regain the momentum that once was, but without the support of their record company and an abandoned audience they floundered. They enlisted Jimmy Pitman as the front man and main songwriter and brought back the Incense and Peppermints drummer, Gene Gunnels. Mark and Ed produced the fourth and final album. When the remaining members crawled from the wreckage and picked up the pieces they had a renewed urgency….they did finally fire Holmes and the other producer, Frank Slay. We were all of the same mind to move forward as a cohesive unit without the interlopers. It was at that point Randy Seol and I quit the band. Three band members felt beholding to him and said we can’t go through with it. Then out of left field he tells us he has cancer and only six months to live and begs us not to fire him. We had a band meeting where we all agreed to fire Holmes. Worse than that, our hard earned touring profits were being pilfered. There were bad dealings going on to the extent that law suits were being brought against us without our knowledge. Then after the third album it was brought to our attention that Bill Holmes, our manager and co-producer was undermining us financially. The band ended up having to fire the manager and discontinued working with the producer prior to recording the 4th and final LP, Good Morning Starshine.Īfter the first album we had all agreed to first let go of Gary Lovetro. I believe we would have had a better shot at longevity without all the ill fated decision making, and we haven’t even touched on the greed factors involved. We were on good terms with the band for the most part, but at odds with the manager. Randy Seol and I left the band after that third long player. Even curiouser than before the SECOND single from the 3rd LP was Seashell written by Carter and Gilbert and on the flip side is Paxton’s Backstreet Carnival from the 1st LP! That was another slap in the face for Weitz and (Ed) Kiing. The fix was to bring in outside writers like Carol King, Bob Stone, Roy Freeman and even John Carter and Tim Gilbert who got the full writing credit for Incense and Peppermints. At this point UNI and our producer and manager had basically blamed the band for writing bad and overly indulgent material. The third LP, The World in a Seashell suffered in many ways from the failure of the 2nd album. The urgency of an album to be supported by a single was lost as Tomorrow had already peaked…the album was left to forage on it’s own and died. Even more curious was that the flip side of Tomorrow was Bird’s in My Tree, from the first album! Tomorrow did reach #23 on Bilboard’s Hot 100. The single, Tomorrow was released at the end of 1967. Wake Up It’s Tomorrow was released in early 1968. What it did instead was pull the plug on the momentum of the I&P LP and prematurely promote the 2nd LP which would not be released for months to come. This was a way to make up for that travesty. Why?, because Mark and Ed were denied writers credit for the first single, Incense and Peppermints. Instead they had us rush to record a new song, Tomorrow, written by Mark Weitz and Ed King. What they so miserably failed to do was to cull follow up singles from the I&P LP. The major error was between UNI and our manager and producer regarding the subsequent LP’s. I’m not really sure who the extorter was….probably both. Links to Amazon product page if title is available Reader Interactions “Girl From the City” bw “Three” UNI 55241 - 1970 Sundazed Music reissues: “California Day” bw “Three” UNI 55218 - 1970 “I Climbed the Mountain” bw “Three” UNI 55190 - 1970 “Starting Out the Day” bw “Small Package” UNI 55185 - 1969 “Good Morning Starshine” bw “Me and The Township” UNI 55125 - 1969 #87 “Stand By” bw “Miss Attraction” UNI 55113 - 1969 “Sea Shell” bw “Paxton’s Back Street Carnival” UNI 55093 - 1968 “Barefoot In Baltimore” bw “Angry Young Man” UNI 55076 - 1968 #67 “Pretty Song From Psych-Out” bw “Sit With the Guru” UNI 55055 - 1968 #65 “Incense and Peppermints” bw “The Birdman of Alkatrash” UNI 55018 - 1967 #1 “Incense and Peppermints” bw “Birdman of Alkatrash” All American 373 - 1967 “Changes” Vocalion VL 73915 - 1971 SAC singles: “The Best of Strawberry Alarm Clock” UNI 73074 - 1970 “Wake Up Where You Are” GRA Group 13112 - 2012 “Good Morning Starshine” UNI 73054 - 1969 “The World in a Seashell” UNI 73035 - 1968 View the Strawberry Alarm Clock albums page. By title(s)/label/catalog number/year/peak chart position on Billboard. Listings of the group’s album and singles.
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