The Panicks

The Panicks were a garage rock band from Peninsula, OH, a small town not far from Akron. The group was formed in 1965 by Roger Everett and Bill Sobecki, two guitarists who had met while playing in a local country & western combo, West Virginia Dude & the Mountain Dewers. When the accordion player with the Mountain Dewers died in an auto accident, the group broke up and Everett and Sobecki were considering forming a rock & roll band when the owner of a Peninsula nightspot gave them the best kind of encouragement by offering them a booking if they could quickly get a new act into shape. Everett moved from guitar to drums, Sobecki became lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Bob Dent was hired as the new group's lead guitarist, and Dent's pal Jim Pierce signed on as bassist. The new band adopted the name the Panics, and after hiring a manager, Don Feldman, they booked time at a studio in Akron and cut their first single. "Work" and "Treat Me Right" were a pair of originals written by Sobecki, but when the 45s came back from the pressing plant, they discovered Feldman had credited himself as composer, and he was soon dismissed. Another problem with the single arose when the band discovered there was already a band called the Panics who had a record deal with Phillips, so they changed the spelling to the Panicks; stickers with the new spelling were printed to paste over the old name on the remaining singles. Despite the problems with the record, it was a calling card that helped the Panicks book a steady stream of gigs throughout Ohio, with the group sometimes venturing into Pennsylvania and Indiana. The quartet became a quintet with the addition of Katie Hendricks on keyboards, and with Hendricks' help the Panicks recorded a second single, this time a pair of covers, "You're My...