Chocolate Watch Band

The Chocolate Watch Band formed in San Jose, California in 1965 with David Aguilar on vocals, Danny Flores on guitar, Mark Loomis on bass, and Gary Leib on drums. Their name came from a candy bar, which gives you a sense of their loose, slightly off-kilter approach from the start. They were essentially a garage rock band that got swept up in the psychedelic currents of the mid-60s Bay Area scene.

In 1966 they released 'Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In),' a single that became a kind of counterculture anthem. It's a fuzzed-out, organ-driven track that captures a specific moment. Other songs like 'Let's Talk About Girls' and 'Misty Lane' have that same raw, urgent garage energy, but with the swirling textures and extended instrumental breaks that marked the psychedelic shift.

The original lineup fell apart by 1969, plagued by the usual internal tensions and substance issues that broke up a lot of bands from that era. They left behind a handful of albums, including 'The Inner Mystique' and 'One Step Beyond,' that are now dug up by collectors and cited as early examples of American psychedelic rock. The music holds up not because it was hugely innovative in a technical sense, but because it sounds exactly like what it was: a local band turning up the reverb and trying to catch the weird spirit of the times.