The Lemon Fog

The Lemon Fog were a Houston-based quintet that had the distinction of being the first rock act signed to Ray McGinnis' Orbit Records label. They started out in the spring of 1963 as The Bar Eights, formed by Fillmore High School classmates Danny Ogg and Terry Horde, with Timmy Thorpe on bass, and Dale VanDeloo on saxophone and vocals. They were a Rip Chords-type surf band, with a few pop-soul numbers mixed into their sets. The group got a few coffee bar gigs and a sock hop to two to play before they broke up when VanDeloo supposedly attacked Ogg with a mike stand during an argument. Enter Chris Lyons, who was recruiting musicians at Clem's Music in Houston for a new band he was forming. Danny Ogg showed up at the store, and Lyons asked him to join--Ogg agreed on condition that Timmy Thorpe, who had just gotten laid off from work, play bass. Lyons agreed, and by that weekend, The Pla-Boys, as they were known, were playing their first gig, at St. Regis College for the Arts. It was there that they were seen and heard by Ted Eubanks, an avant garde composer on Houston's mod scene, caught The Pla-Boys' act, which consisted mostly of covers of such garage greats as Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs and ? and the Mysterians. Eubanks liked the way they played more than what they played, and immediately approached them after the show. The band liked his suggestions, and he began putting original numbers into the group's sets. He also changed their image from clean-cut, matching suits to psychedelic, including beads. In a matter of weeks in 1965, they went from being The Pla-Boys to The Lemon Fog, who quickly became recognized as one of the more formidable bands in Houston. The group's line-up soon shifted as Timmy Thorpe was dropped and Danny Ogg moved to bass, with Terry Horde...