
4 With Big Noise Hope to Make It Big
By David Gilbert
It
was a peaceful, quiet Friday when the front door at 619 W. North
St., Hinsdale, opened and a hard-driving sound interrupted the
solitude of the residential scene.
The sound rocked
out – “For your love, for your love, I’d to anything…” ad
infinitum. It was just a regular practice session of a contemporary
pop group that calls itself the Changing Tymes.
The mod-looking
group wants to make it big. “We do not play rock ‘n roll,: said
John Hora. The groups leader. “Our sound is contemporary pop. Rock
‘n roll went out when the Beatles came in.”
The group believes
that the advent of different instruments for rock ‘n roll groups
helped to get contemporary pop off the ground. “The Beatles started
the big change in using instruments that had a different sound. It
is a necessity now. Right now we need experience. We try to
practice every day, either as a group or on our own,” said Hora.
Hora is the
drummer. Resembling the much screamed about Ringo Star of the
Beatles, the 16 year-old sets the hard-driving beat for his cohorts.
They are Marty Nicosia, 18 of 2231 Winnemac St., Chicago, Barry
Kopecky, 17 of 434 N. Monroe St., and Scot Robinson, 16 of 115 S.
Garfield Ave., both of Hinsdale.
The Changing Tymes
have been gaining experience since the group was formed last
August. They have played for fraternity and sorority parties, youth
center dances. U.S.O. clubs, and for anyone else who will listen to
their sound.
“We are trying to
work strange instruments into our routine,” said Hora. The group
uses a recorder, a baroque wind instrument, a steel drum, and other
instruments that have not been associated with the hard-rock sound.
The group believes
they are somewhat handicapped when stacked up against some of the
well established groups on the pop scene. “We only have about
$5,000 invested in our equipment. Our objective is to get the
biggest, hardest sound that is possible out of four people.”
However, the
group’s main sound is delivered with the conventional rock ‘n roll
instruments, two electric guitars, an electric bass, and a set of
drums.
The group is
critical of other groups that have made it big using gimmicks.
“Too many groups today have made it on the gimmick alone and not
talent. Other groups who have not made it big try to duplicate
popular recordings sound for sound.”
The Changing Tymes
repertoire includes popular tunes, but they make their own
arrangements. All of the members sight-read music. Most of the
young members play more than one musical instrument.
Robinson is the
most versatile member of the Tymes. He plays trumpet, piano,
recorder, and guitar. “I like to pick up a new instrument and learn
to play it.”
Hora is an amateur
photographer, collector of old radios, and a peat-time student. He
is studying American problems, public speaking, and journalism.
Robinson also is
studying on his own. He said that he is trying to lean all that he
can about “music, comedy, parents, and human problems. My parents
say that they cannot understand me,” the mod-looking, long-haired
singer said. “How they let me make my own decisions and if I go
wrong, they will be able to say, I told you so.”
The group believes
that to make it big in the recording industry, “you need the
br4eak.” They said that on in every 500 groups in the country makes
it with a hit recording.
“Every group has
its bag (the thing that it does best). But we do not rely on our
musical ability for financial support,” Nicosia said. Each member
of the group is preparing for other careers should the big break not
come.
The young musicians
said that they would rather play jazz than contemporary pop. “We al
like jazz, but there is not much of a public demand for it,”
Robinson said.
The groups is not
relying on commercially written songs to take them to the top. They
are writing their own music, including “She’s Mine,” “Don’t Bug Me,”
“Sad Street Comedy,” and “Don’t Worry Baby, I’, Only Dying.”
Robinson has
written many of the songs, including the lyrics to the “Gates of
Heaven.”
“When you hear
those bells above you, And you see those gates before you, Hush,
listen closely, you’re about to die. You are in the gates of
Heaven.”
“I was really
depressed when I wrote that one,” he said. The other members of the
group laughed.
Until their time
comes, the Changing Tymes said, they will continue to rev up their
amplifiers in Hora’s basement to perfect their sound. “Remember,
Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

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