Touch (60s band)

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Touch were a 60s rock group who recorded just one album, 1968's eponymous 'Touch'. They consisted of John Bardonaro (Drums, percussion, vocals), Don Gallucci (Keyboards, vocals), Bruce Hauser (Bass, vocals), Jeff Hawks (Vocals), and Joey Newman AKA Vern Kjellberg (Guitar, vocals). (Bardonaro's name has many spellings but the handwritten sleeve of the original album seems to suggest that this spelling is correct). Gallucci will probably always be best known as the kid who played the keyboard riff on the Kingsmen's classic recording of the song 'Louie Louie', but it was this hit that forced him to leave the group. At the age of 15 he was not old enough to tour with them and thus it was that he later founded 'Don and the Goodtimes' with Newman and Hawks. They had a No. 20 pop hit in the US with 'I could be so good to you'.

In his as yet unpublished biography, Gallucci recalls that by the end of 1967, following the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, they were beginning to feel like they were "Just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic" and felt the need to move on. Accordingly he wrote what the sleevenotes to the Eclectic Discs CD reissue of the album calls the "Lysergic soaked" epic 'Seventyfive', and Touch was born. The three teamed up with Hauser and Bardonaro and they set themselves up in a house in the Hollywood Hills where they set to work on writing the songs for the album.

The recording took place in the Sunset Sound studios with Gene Shiveley producing. Exactly how Shiveley and the band created some of the sounds on the album in these pre-synthesiser days is still a matter of conjecture as no one present seems to remember, but with the only unusual instrument on the album being a tone-generator it seems it was all done with the use of real instruments and ingenious production. Unconfirmed reports suggest that "Certain substances" may have been involved, which, given the time of recording, would not be too surprising.

The band folded soon after the release of the album because they believed that the music contained on it could never be replicated live which resulted in them being unable to tour to promote it. This one LP has since been credited as the inspiration for the Brit pomp rock band 'Yes', a major influence on rock bands Kansas and Uriah Heep, and an inspiration for the transformation and rebirth of prog rock band Genesis after the departure of their vocalist, Peter Gabriel.

According to various internet sources Gallucci and Hawks no longer work in the music business and are now in real estate and hairdressing respectively. Newman still works as a musician. Bardonaro and Hauser seem to have vanished without trace.