I figured, ‘Hey, how often in your life are you going to have a record on the charts?’ I went back and got my degree later.
“Carter and I found ourselves in Los Angeles in the spring of ’67. “Stations didn’t think it was inappropriate until (radio performer and publisher of the Gavin Report) Bill Gavin wrote in his tip sheet that if you played this record on the air, you did stand a chance of losing your license, because it did proselytize drug use. 1 with an asterisk next to it that said, ‘Not suitable for airplay.’ Every week, they’d print the Top 30 weekly survey. It was unceremoniously yanked from playlists.Īccording to Gilbert, “KHJ was the ‘boss’ radio station in Los Angeles at that point. However, national sales and airplay went up in smoke once word got around about the song’s real inspiration. The song continued to dominate Denver radio in early 1967 and peaked at #70 on the Billboard pop singles charts. The group was then signed to Uni, which distributed “That Acapulco Gold” nationally. It was 180 degrees from all the music we were playing.” A lot of what we did on ‘Acapulco Gold’ was reflective of that. 1 hit by the New Vaudeville Band, sung through a megaphone). “There was a song out at the time called ‘Winchester Cathedral’ (a No.
#Rainy daze dew drop mac#
In 1966, the Denver quintet-Gilbert, his brother Kip Gilbert (drums), Sam Fuller (bass), Bob Heckendorf (organ) and Mac Ferris (guitar)-issued “That Acapulco Gold” on the Chicory label. I had a micro-talent for writing melodies, and John was quite a talented lyricist.” When it became important to write original music, with people in Hollywood saying, ‘If you’re going to be anything, you’ve got to write your own music,’ we looked at each other and said, ‘Shit, who can do that?’ John insinuated himself into that process. He had a great musical sense, but he couldn’t carry a tune. It was a long time before I took him seriously. “John was a roommate, a guy who hung around. “Everybody was going to the University of Colorado,” Gilbert said. Originals were written by Gilbert and fellow Denver South High School student and lyricist John Carter. You had to play some Beatles, but we were more Stones, Yardbirds and Who, so people thought we were ‘edgy.’ We would periodically go into the studio and try to record an original song and become stars so that the pool of available women would grow!” “A band’s identity was more determined by the covers you played than anything else. The whole idea was to play and make money, $350 to $500 a night. “The idea wasn’t to get rich and famous, although the availability of young women was way up on the list of reasons to do it. “We were a working band,” lead singer Tim Gilbert said. This means longer, hotter days.The Rainy Daze had one of the biggest Colorado-based hits of the 1960s-”That Acapulco Gold,” an ode to marijuana crooned in Roaring Twenties vaudeville style.įormed in 1963, the Rainy Daze played six nights a week at the Galaxy, a Denver club.
The heat of summer is simply a direct result of the Earth’s tilt.ĭuring summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the tilt of the Earth causes the Sun’s rays to hit at a more direct angle, and for a longer period of time throughout the day. While this period usually is the hottest stretch of summer, the heat is not due to any added radiation from Sirius, regardless of its brightness. Thus, the term Dog Days of Summer came to mean the 20 days before and 20 days after this alignment of Sirius with the Sun-July 3 to August 11 each year. They referred to this time as diēs caniculārēs, or “dog days.” On July 23rd, specifically, it is in conjunction with the Sun, and because the star is so bright, the ancient Romans believed it actually gave off heat and added to the Sun’s warmth, accounting for the long stretch of sultry weather. In the summer, Sirius rises and sets with the Sun. This is why Sirius is sometimes called the Dog Star. The phrase is actually a reference to the fact that, during this time, the Sun occupies the same region of the sky as Sirius, the brightest star visible from any part of Earth and part of the constellation Canis Major, the Greater Dog. The constellation Canis Major, the Greater Dog.