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History
The Ethnogs are a legendary mythic American rock band formed in 1966 in Seattle by Dougal Macrorie, Gory Bateson, and Dick Diver. They were one of the most influential bands of their time, due mostly to their eclectic brand of rock and blues and their incredibly talented and constantly changing ensemble of musicians who coveted performing with the original trio. The Ethnogs had numerous hits in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s until their dissolution in 1986 shortly after the death of fellow touring band member Chris “Crisp” Peterson.
The three founding tan thru golf gloves members reunited in February 2007 after attending the funeral of Jeffrey Michael, an early manager of Jimi Hendrix who arranged for Dick, Gory, and Dougal to play with Hendrix. The Ethnogs performed “Wild Thing” at their reunion performance, the hit song that they encouraged Hendrix to play at the Monterrey Music Festival in June of 1967 and, in fact, a song on which they joined with Hendrix in July of that year to perform in a special appearance at Pebble Beach Golf Course. In one of the most bizarre blendings of music icons, Bing Crosby sang back-up.
After the brief 2007 reunion tour throughout the U.S., the Ethnogs once again went their separate directions in early 2008. Today Gory and Dougie continue to collaborate on various musical projects including a new CD entitled “Fallen Kings,” but they do not rule out Ethnogs’ performances in the future that would include Dick Diver. Gory has been quoted saying “breakups are a part of who we are.” Over the years Dougie became known as the brains of the group and Gory as the balls of the group. Ricky Dick was variously known as either the appendix of the group or, when he was a bit cantankerous, the colon of the group.
Origins
The origins of The Ethnogs lay in a chance meeting of the three founding members at the Spanish Castle in Seattle in early 1966. The three men had come to Seattle for various reasons: Dougal came to travel overseas, possibly as a Merchant Marine, as his uncle had done years before; Gory arrived on his way to Vancouver, British Columbia, to avoid the draft and the Vietnam War; Dick had just graduated from high school in New York City and was on a quest to see America.
Although they were under 21 at the time, the manager of the Spanish Castle allowed the trio of teens to stay and watch local guitarist James Marshall (Jimi) Hendrix perform, after they helped carry in his equipment, as Hendrix’s roadie had passed out. They had to sit together in the corner, and they started up a conversation about their respective musical talents. During Hendrix’s last break, Dick, Dougal, and Gory dared each other to get on stage and jam together, and before the manager of the Spanish Castle could stop them Hendrix’s manager Jeffrey Michael heard the trio and asked them to continue. In that first mini-set together, the trio played "Route 66," "It's All Over Now," and “Secret Agent Man.” The bass and mic were not grounded and Dougal was nearly electrocuted. When Hendrix’s drummer, piano player, and bass player were too wasted to perform the last set, Michael allowed Dick, Gory, and Dougal to sit in with Hendrix. The trio talked Hendrix into playing “Wild Thing,” the first time he performed the song. Hendrix played it the next year at the Monterrey Music Festival in 1967.
After their impromptu performance at the Spanish Castle, Dick, Gory, and Dougal formed a band. Gory and Dougal wanted to call themselves “The Ethnographers,” as both of them had connections through family members to ethnography, an esoteric methodology used by sociologists and anthropologists to study culture. Dick thought Gory and Dougal had suggested the name “The Eggnographers,” which he thought was an amusing reference to the Christmas drink. The band’s name was inadvertently shortened when a promoter who attended one of their first gigs took a picture of their drum head but a mic stand and one of Gory’s legs covered the letters “rapher” so the name looked like the “The Ethnogs.” Others tell an alternative story in which an artist who made the poster for their first paid performance at the Spanish Castle couldn’t fit all of the letters on the poster and shortened their name arbitrarily. Whichever story is true, the name “The Ethnogs” stuck, and they used that name for their entire career.
During their early years, the Ethnogs were seen regularly at The Factory and it is widely believed that Andy Warhol created a series of band profiles some of which included fungirl Edie Sedgewick. These profiles were thought to be in Jim Morrison's possession when he left for Paris in 1971. They have not been seen since.
Brief Bios of Members
Dougal Macrorie was undoubtedly the most versatile of the band, playing guitar, bass, keyboards, bagpipes, and other instruments. He was a third generation Scottsman from Gary, Indiana, a dirty factory town about thirty miles southeast of Chicago. Dougal is a version of the Scottish first name "Dughall" (pronounced Doo ghul): literally translated it means "black stranger." Most people mistakenly thought his name was Douglas, so early in his career people called him Doug, Douglas Mac or sometimes just Mac. People who know him well call him Dougie or Dougie Mac.
Dougal hated Gary and on most weekends he hitchhiked to Chicago to visit his aunt, the widow of his merchant marine uncle who disappeared in 1961. He often would sneak over to Maxwell Street to listen to the blues and early rock n' roll played by the negro men on the street. He picked up a stolen Fender bass guitar on Maxwell Street when he was 12, back in 1958, but also played bagpipes and the fife at the Scottish Rite Armory back in Gary. (He was the one who suggested to Eric Burden that he use bagpipes on “Sky Pilot.”) In Gary he played bass in a rock n' roll band called the Coalition that re-formed with some member changes as The Forge. He graduated from high school in May of 1964 and immediately moved to Chicago with his bass guitar. He played in two more bands in the Chicago area, including a resurrection of The Coalition, before he left for Seattle in late March of 1965 thinking it would be the jumping off point to get overseas.
His aunt's mother, Pearl, was the secretary for ethnographer W.I Thomas at the University of Chicago around 1915. Thomas made quite the impression on Pearl (there were rumors of an affair) because her mom would tell her story after story about William's (her mother never called him W.I.) work. Over the years when Dougal would visit his aunt she would retell to me the stories her mother told her about his work.
Gregory (“Gory”) Bateson was the most talented musician in The Ethnogs, and also the most troubled. He was born in 1947 in Brooklyn to Stanley Bateson and Gertrude Huggenbauk Bateson. Stanley, a tax lawyer for the Brooklyn Dodgers, named his only son after his only brother, the anthropologist Gregory Bateson. Stanley loved the big jazz bands of the 1940s and 1950s, while Gertrude loved classical music. Gory took music lessons at an early age, including piano, clarinet, oboe, and French horn, but he took a liking to guitar. His parents hated rock n roll music, so he played classical and jazz guitar in the house but rocked out with the other kids on the block.
Gory collected and learned to play exotic musical instruments that his Uncle Gregory and Aunt Maggie sent to him from around the world, like bull-roarers from New Guinea, didgeridoos from Australia, kudu horns from Swaziland. He formed a band called "The Basements" when he was nine years old and brought his exotic instruments to performances so kids would have various things to shake, rattle, and blow.
Gory and his parents moved to L.A. in 1957 when the Dodgers moved to California. Gory did not adjust well to the move, and there were rumors of sexual abuse from Gory’s Uncle Nevin. In L.A. Gregory started to use the nickname “Gory” and to get in trouble, hang around with punks, engage in vandalism and graffitti. He also started doing outrageous things for attention, like eating the heads off live ants, crickets, and other creatures, until he got very sick after eating the head off his pet parikeet, Beauregard.
Gory’s life changed dramatically in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. His dad received the Purple Heart in WWII, and he demanded that Gory enter the military. Gory refused and ran away from home before his senior year of high school and hitchhiked to Seattle. He planned to go to Vancouver to avoid the draft, but stayed in Seattle. Along the way to Seattle he hooked up with a beautiful girl from a Kansas farm named Sandra Sue. She was fresh out of high school and wanted to see the world outside of rural Kansas. She joined Gory on his adventure to Seattle. Through the years they lost touch. Gory often wondered what happened to sweet Sandra Sue.
In one other note, very few know about the birth of Gory's three beautiful daughters named Jen, Di, & Karron. Like their father, all three have a passion for music. In fact they have started a band called the Ethics and Gory recently has agreed to write songs for them.
Dick Diver, the versatile drummer turned rhythm guitar player of the The Ethnogs, was the glue that kept the band together throughout their tumultuous history until their dissolution in 1986. Dick was an orphan, left in swaddling clothes on the stoop of the orphan’s foundling house on 53rd Street in New York City in the early 1950s. His name was given to him by the recording secretary of the orphanage. She had been a big fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald so Dick was named after a main character in the book, Richard Diver. His band mates called him Rickey Dick or Rickey Rich when Diver found out that there was a porno star who shared his name.
Dick never knew who his real parents were, although the secretary of the orphanage once suggested, under the influence of Scotch and pain pills, that he was the illegitimate child of two famous anthropologists.
Dick was influenced early by the secretary’s favorite jazz musician, Thelonious Monk, but Monk was soon replaced with Elvis, and Little Richard, and the Ventures. The song “Wipeout” turned Dick into a rock n roller, which led him to play the drums. He went from banging on skins in the music room of PS 133 to sitting in on sets with local bands trying to make good. When the British invasion occurred he was still in his early teens but could pass for legal if the light was just right. He played bars, clubs, and Bar-Mitzvahs. When he graduated high school he said goodbye to the city and took a train ride across country and ended up in Seattle.
Musical History
The three founding members constituted the band in the early days, with Dick on drums, Gory on guitar, and Dougal on bass. But as early as 1968 they started the trend of adding an ever-changing cast of additional musicians and singers. By 1970, top musicians throughout the world were auditioning for the band. The addition of other musicians allowed Dick and Dougal to play other instruments, including synthesizers in 1972 after getting turned on by the Moody Blues and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Gory refused to play anything but lead guitar, which caused a rift when Eric Clapton auditioned to be a member in 1973 and was turned down. Dick eventually gave up playing the drums altogether claiming that “they distanced me from the crowd.”
The Ethnogs formed in 1966 and quickly became a cult favorite in Seattle. They played rock n roll, but with an exotic flair using various exotic instruments from Gory’s Uncle Gregory. They started the tradition of passing out maracas and shakers and horns to audience members to get them involved in the performance. "Wild Thing" was their best early cover, written by New York-born songwriter Chip Taylor and originally recorded by The Wild Ones in 1965. The Ethnogs wanted that song to become their trademark hit for their first album in 1966, but the Troggs released their version a few months before. The Ethnogs had to re-record their album and released it in 1967. They never forgave The Troggs for stealing what should have been their first hit.
In their first year together, The Ethnogs mostly performed covers of the Doors, the Stones, and others, while they worked on original songs in a studio. They came out with their first album in 1967, titled “The Ethnogs.” That first album produced several Top 40 hits including "The Muse of the White Goddess," "My Dog's Bladder," and their first big hit, "Eatin Alive by Love," which remained Number One for 27 consecutive weeks.
The success of their third album in 1969, “Oral Traditions,” brought controversy. The Roman Catholic Church expressed displeasure with their song “Train to Purgatory” and its references to Catholic High School and “going to hell” for questioning the Church. Despite the controversy (or maybe because of) “Train to Purgatory” skyrocketed to the top of the charts. In addition to the problems the Catholic Church had with the song “Train to Purgatory” the Ethnogs frank assessment of the pleasures of orality in their song “Spit Me Out and Take It Back” (also on this album), lead to a ban of all Ethnogs’ songs by various Christian radio stations and by the entire Southern Baptist denomination.
Shortly after the release of “Oral Traditions” album, the song “B Train” (a live and irreverent performance of “Train to Purgatory”) started to show up in their concert play lists. This version emerged from the band’s propensity to change the lyrics of the original “Train to Purgatory” during live performances in late 1969. Some of their most ardent fans became so enamored with the word changes that whenever The Ethnogs would try to sing the original version in a concert, they would shout out the “B Train” lyrics. This prompted another set of fans who loved the haunting words and melody of the original version to sing out the lyrics first recorded on the 1969 album “Oral Traditions.” At some concerts the band would play both versions in an attempt to appease both factions of their fan base. The band actually recorded the “B Train” version on their 1972 album “The Ethnogs and Friends.”
The band started touring in late 1966. They mostly toured the U.S., and spent a lot of time in NYC and Chicago. Their first international performance was in London in late 1966, where they opened for Hendrix at London's Saville Theatre. Given their connection to ethnography, the band began a series of tours to more exotic places such as Morocco, Turkey, New Guinea, and Tonga. Everywhere they played they found indigenous musicians and instruments to incorporate into the show. Although not confirmed they are said to have been on a bill with the Beatles for a little-known concert held somewhere in Germany in either 1966 or 1967.They even had one ill-fated acoustic stretch in 1968 (which Crosby, Stills, and Nash quickly imitated) in which they only played soft acoustic songs for a few gigs, including the tepid “Walking on Sidewalks” and the reflective “Why are We Singing Like This?”
The Ethnogs kept cranking out albums and hits during the 1970s. They released a quixotic cover of "Nights in White Satin" on their "Live at the Maddog Café" album in 1979 that became a cult classic, along with a haunting version of "Pinball Wizard." In the 1970s they produced hits such as "Gimme Culture," "New Guinea Swamp Blues," and the esoteric “The Taste of Ethnographic Things.”
Throughout their history they have had a fiercely loyal set of fans self-labeled the “Nogheads” lead by their most famous groupie Dottie. Gory, Dougie, and Rickie Rick often invited members of the Nogheads up on stage during their concerts to play various percussion instruments. At one concert the band gave several Nogheads cowbells and drumsticks. This move stemmed from one of the Ethnogs basic tenets – “More Cowbell!”
The Dissolution of The Ethnogs
Like many rock n roll bands of that era, the band experienced many tensions. They experimented too much with sex and drugs and nearly died several times. Although Gory had stopped biting the heads off live creatures, several decades of doing so had given him ulcers and intestinal problems and he was constantly being hospitalized.
Then in late 1985, one of their touring musicians, Chris “Crisp” Peterson, was found dead in a hotel room in Memphis after a concert. Police determined that Peterson choked on his own vomit after ingesting alcohol and illegal drugs, though the case was never investigated. Rumors alleging Gory, Dick, and Dougal’s involvement in and/or coverup of Peterson’s death immediately surfaced. A few months after Peterson’s death The Ethnogs did not show up at a scheduled concert in Shea Stadium in New York City with The Allman Brothers and Tina Turner.
The whereabouts of the band members in the late 1980s and 1990s are mostly unknown. Dougal went to Australia for a period where he did a stint at an aboriginal outpost. Dick retreated to the United Kingdom where he played local pubs in Liverpool. Gory’s whereabouts during this period remain a mystery, though he spent much of the time in hospitals and rehab centers surfacing every couple of years to release a solo album of original material. The Ethnogs never appeared again together until their reunion in Seattle in February 2007.
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Even though they did not appear together in concert, they appeared together in court several times during the 1980s and 1990s. There were lawsuits from former touring musicians about royalties from albums and countless palimony and paternity suits.