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 | Sainte Anthony's Fyre began in 1968...during the peak of the 60's music revolution....Oh yeah there's history, we got more history than a 87 year old hooker in NJ, but like a fine wine, we get better with age....and get you even more wasted! |
The REAL Story of the formation of Sainte Anthony's Fyre
(Photos by Earl Simmons) In New Jersey in 1967, local booking agent-Jean Francis, was having great success with motown bands like Betsy Jean
and the Gems, keeping them really busy with gigs. Jean would create bands and start with the basics, drums, guitar and bass, then add on keyboards, a horn section and then a front person. Greg Ohm, Bob Sharples and Richard Helmke, Fyre's first bass player (featured in the news clipping to the right with the Jimi Hendrix hairdo ), were told to play only motown music when they practiced in Jean Francis's basement, awaiting for these additional musicians to be found. At the time, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and all these power trios were just really happening on the music scene. Unfortunately for Jean, the guys took a liking to this sort of music more than the motown music they had been "ordered" to play and would often jam harder rock, playing Hendrix songs when she left, and always getting caught. ("balls to the walls volume on Purple Haze, Manic Depression")
So in 1968 they left to play the kind of music they wanted and to explore into the world of psychedelic hard rock.
The real story about how the name of the band came about was when in 1968, Greg bought a book at the Princeton Record Exchange, The Day of St. Anthony's Fire by John G. Fuller, about ergot poisoning in a village in France in 1951 (the year Bob was born) that made everyone in the town go on an LSD like trip.
Greg would bring the book around with him everywhere he went. (Bob still has the book, with Greg's notes he left in it about acid, and busting Bob's balls about using the name) At the time Bob hated the name, but after awhile the name just grew on him and stuck. After Richy Helmke left the band, T.J. Tindal played for a time until leaving Fyre to produce and play with Duke Williams & The Extremes, the Van Eaton's on their albums, as well as Bonnie Raitt, Robert Palmer, The Chambers Brothers and all of the hits that came out of Gamble & Huff's Philadelphia International Records....M.F.S.B., The Trammps, The O'Jays, The Intruders, and The 3 Degrees.
Greg Simon replaced T.J. as Fyre's third Bass player, until leaving to play for The Extremes and later in Paul Plumeri's band, Hoochie Cooch.
The band was famous for their strange and odd behavior at the time, Greg Ohm would use a music stand on stage ..with only a road map on it, doing long drawn out acid induced guitar solos and jams, using the road map as a way to "guide his trip" imaging himself in the different destinations on the map to fuel his mood.
In 1969, After nearly two years, Fyre had a healthy list of original songs under their belt and were warming up for big name acts, headlining their owns shows and creating themselves a big following in the New Jersey/New York/PA area. Bob and Greg recruited Fyre's fourth Bass player, Tom Nardi from Marshmallow Way, to join the band for recording the Sainte Anthony's Fyre album in later part of 1969. Tom had previously been an old band mate of Bob's when Bob was just 15.
Sainte Anthony’s Fyre was booked during the early 70's as an opening act for bands like MC5, Wishbone Ash, Grass Roots, Grand Funk Railroad, Rare Earth, Fleetwood Mac, and Joe Cocker. Bob and Greg also filled in as backup players for an impressive roster of artists like James Brown, Jackie Wilson, The Coasters, The Drifters, The Four Tops, Kool and the Gang and many others! Under Management at the time with Dickie Diamond, They were offered a record deal with Atlantic records and Fyre's management were offered a $10,000 finder fee to give up the band, a large sum on money in those days, but loyal to his management at the time, and unhappy with creative restrictions the band would be under, Greg Ohm turned down the contract with Atlantic records.
In 1972, Greg Ohm's brother died from accidental electrocution when he accidentally touched a power line trying to retreive a lost pocketbook that had fallen off a balcony.
With Greg distraught with grief, the band soon disbanded afterwards. Bob continued to play in bands across the country and go to college, making the Dean's list for his photography work about the people and places of the inner cities and slums of New Jersey.
In 1982, Bob flew out from the west to visit Greg in the hospital who was dying of cirrhosis of the liver, Greg died the following day. Around the turn of the century, Bob began hearing rumors that the album had sold big in Europe and was being played on the radio, Bob, contacted Tom about reforming the band but by this time Tom was busy with his family, working in construction and no longer played bass.
"in the jungle you have trade your soul to get that one rare album,
in this case it's sainte anthony's fyre" - Photo by - rolopix
Rated as many as one of the Hard rocking albums you should own (but probably don't) and sometimes sold for as much as 730 Euro. This highly coveted record by collectors was the only release by this obscure and often overlooked band of the late 60's and early 70's, being re-released many times after the death of Greg Ohm.
Sainte Anthony's Fyre 1970 (Zonk 001)
Sainte Anthony's Fyre 1987 (Breeder 563, Austria)
Sainte Anthony's Fyre 1996 (Void 03) [poster; 400#d]
-- the Void re has been reported as having inferior sound
Savona "Bob" Sharples currently resides in upstate New York and working on a new release due out in the late fall of 2009 and a book about his crazy adventures and experiences during the time of Fyre. Bob would like to thank the fans of Sainte Anthony's Fyre all over the world for remembering a great period of time in history, enjoying the music, and remembering those band members and fans we have lost over the years so early.
PEACE!!