Greg Miller - John Alexander - Clifton Buie - Bill T Miller
The name ELECTRIC ONION was a mutation taken from the just released
BEATLES - White Album (November 1968) with the song GLASS ONION, combined with the
word ELECTRIC, via an Electric Prunes/Electric Flag inspiration.
When I moved from Virginia to North Carolina, I met John Alexander.
John and I had started to jam a bit in summer 1968 and now with a band
name and the addition of Clifton on drums (around x-mas '68) rock stardom
was moments away. The Beatles Abbey Road album was released in fall 1969 and the song
"I Want You" was one of the last tunes added to the Electric Onion set. By early 1970
the band sorta fizzled away under the excess (of sex and drugs and rock-n-roll) and band
members took off various on solo careers and the quest for enlightenment.
Notice in the picture above that John and I both have guitars. I doubled
on BASS and RHYTHM GUITAR parts on my guitar, later adding a Mangus Chord Organ
to my arsenal. John did played RHYTHM and did most of the LEADS. He is NOW a DOCTOR working at a hospital in NC. For a moment my other brother DAVID MILLER was the original drummer for Electric Onion, but we only had a snare drum/cymbal set-up and he never really played much. So eventually neighbor Clifton Buie got an ACTUAL KICK DRUM, he took over the EO drum throne and David become a Manager/Roadie. CLIFTON became the manager of a huge furniture empire in NC. My brothers DAVID & GREG are still in NC as well. GREG is a professional musician, engineer, producer. RUMOURS of an ELECTRIC ONION Reunion still persist.
Actually the FIRST BTM "band" was a few years earlier in 1966, when we lived in Virginia,
BUT our "instruments" were tennis racquet guitars, plastic trash
can drums, one actual plastic guitar, broom stick mike stand with
a dixie cup for a mike all set-up to lip-sync to records and have
fun. It started with myself (Bill) and my younger brothers David and Greg
in the living room and then later moved the garage. I added bandmates Carl Dickoff and David Simpson
who were my own age (nine years old) and the rest is history.
No actual audio recordings were made of Electric Onion or Racquet Band, but there is
rare short 8mm silent film that my MMMom shot of the original Racquet Band line-up in 1966 with brothers "Bill David Greg" that you can
SEE HERE.
Below is a picture of my brother GREG on trash can DRUMS from that era.
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