Interview with Dehner Patten of KAK

By Frank Gutch

On August 18, 2007, PCP contributor Frank Gutch spoke with Dehner Patten, the lead guitarist of obscure Bay Area psychedelic rock group KAK. KAK were formed from a nucleus of players originally in a group called The Hideaways, later Oxford Circle. Group member Paul Whaley would later found Blue Cheer (famed for covering The Who’s version of “Summertime Blues”), and lead singer/writer/rhythm guitarist Gary Lee Yoder would also be a latter-day member of Blue Cheer. KAK’s sole album from 1968 has gone on to be highly considered in collector’s circles, a heavily Moby Grape-inspired folk/acid rock band. Ace/Big Beat reissued a significantly expanded version of their debut under the title KAK-Ola in 1999, and it’s gotten plenty of spins around your friendly neighborhood editor’s house. Here’s an exclusive look at KAK's brief but memorable career through the eyes of their ever-inventive guitarist, Dehner Patten.

POP CULTURE PRESS: What was it like growing up in Davis?
DEHNER PATTEN: It was great. It was small town. My family moved there in '49 when the town was maybe five to eight thousand people. It was a small town with a university and it grew and grew and we grew with it. It couldn't have been a better place for us. 

PCP: All four guys in Oxford Circle were from Davis?
DP: Three of us were. Paul Whaley was actually from Winters, about ten or twelve miles west of Davis. We started out as a group called The Hideaways and Paul was in it from the start, so we all knew each other. They had a guy named Bob Daigl on guitar and he left, which was when I joined them. So Whaley was already there along with Jim Keylor and (Gary Lee) Yoder. I joined the Hideaways in '66, I believe, and we all developed together. 

PCP: You recorded a 45. Local label?
DP: Yeah. It was on World United, I believe. The label was out of Sacramento. Johnny Hyde was one of the owners, I believe. He was a local DJ. We were managed at the time by a guy named Gary Shiro. Shiro was basically responsible for the record thing.

PCP: Were you dumped?
DP: Oh yeah. That was our first major recording studio, you know.

PCP: You guys must have been going all over Davis saying hey, we have a 45 out. Did it immediately get airplay?
DP: Pretty much. Local stuff. I'm trying to read this ... “Foolish Woman,” #14 on KROY, 1240. In December, it was #10 on the KXOA Sacto Boss Thirty. 

PCP: Did you think you were on your way?
DP: I don't recall feeling that, you know. We were still kind of new and didn't know what to expect and didn't know what was going on. We just wanted to play as much as we could. We played a ton of teen clubs, armories, high school dances all over the Northern California area, as far north as Eureka and as far south as Fresno. We started picking up a pretty good following. Gary Shiro was managing us at that time. He also had a band called The New Breed, so he worked both bands pretty heavily. We were playing all the time.

PCP: How long were you together as Oxford Circle?
DP: The Hideaways were in '66. Probably from around '67 until ... I don't know when we finally broke up ... probably like '68. 

PCP: Close to the time you put KAK together?
DP: Right. I knocked around in a couple of things and then Gary ran into Gary Grelecki, his writing partner at the time. I think Grelecki's dad worked for CBS -- I'm not sure exactly what he did -- overseas distribution or something. He kind of got us the Epic deal in that way.

PCP: It says here there were two demo tracks recorded in Los Angeles (as the Oxford Circle). Was that part of the deal?
DP: Yeah, maybe. I think that was just past ... or maybe that was Shiro's thing. I know Yoder did a lot of legwork for the band. We went down and did a couple of tracks. I think that all helped. We were still living in Davis, but we had a house on Buchanan Street in Pacific Heights in San Francisco and we all stayed there. We were waiting with bated breath for this contract to come through so we could sign it and get going. There were the members of the band and Joe Dave's wife (Joseph David Damrell was the bass player) and Grelecki -- we were living in this fancy place -- I think it was owned by friends of the Grelecki's and they let us use this house. Pacific Heights was a pretty darn nice area of San Francisco, [it] was a gorgeous place. It was beautiful.

PCP: San Francisco must have been hopping then, right? Was the Avalon going then?
DP: Yeah, the Avalon was still going. We had played a bunch of jobs, not as KAK but as Oxford Circle, at the Avalon and at the Fillmore. We played a ton of jobs there -- opened for all the bands. After we got the KAK deal, we went down to L.A. to CBS Studios -- I think it was Studio A. A great big studio where they recorded their orchestras and all that kind of stuff -- so here was this little band right in the center of the studio, playing live.  We did the whole album in two days. 

PCP: So you're going into the studio basically without a producer. Did you rely on your engineer a lot or something?
DP: Exactly right. We would go back in the booth and say could you give us a little more of this or a little more of that. What they had were these huge 8-track, or I guess four-track tape machines, you know. The two-inch tape things. The effects processors really weren't developed at that time so we'd tell them we need a chorus-y sound or a phasing sound so they'd put their finger on the tape and slow it down a little bit and then let it off.... (laughs)  It was pretty wild.

PCP: Did the label tell you to work toward a single at all?
DP: I don't think so. We went in and did a bunch of stuff and the track that surfaced was “Everything's Changing,” but I don't recall us ever saying, ‘hey, this is the single.’ We just banged out some stuff and it was real fast. Occasionally someone would say, ‘oops, let's make another tape, guys, this one's goofed up.’ There were goofs all over that record. You can hear it. But it was like, ‘okay fellows, let's go.’ Next tune, you know. We were scratching our heads, going, wow!

PCP: After the tracks were completed, how long before the album hit the streets?
DP: It was a little while. Gary and Gary both went back to New York sometime in '68, or maybe it was early '69 and did a little promo work back there. Then I went back with a friend of mine in '69 and helped put together a couple of ads for Rolling Stone magazine. I did a promo for a radio station -- just a little ‘Hi, this is Dehner Patten with KAK and you're listening to Radio so-and-so.’ And I did an interview with a teen magazine and I couldn't even tell you the name of that thing.

PCP: What was it like hearing the Oxford Circle live tape after all those years?
DP: Well, that album there I don't care for at all. I hate it. It was a crummy night. It's just crap, to me. I can't even listen to it. I mean, we had so many better nights and performances, when I listen to that I go, ‘Oh God.’ That's what I guess Bob Cohen had so that's what you get. We were so much better than that record that I can't ... I won't even play it.

PCP: Was it good to hear the single, though? They did put the studio version of the single on their, right?
DP: Yeah. They put on “Foolish Woman” and “Mind Destruction.” That was a cool thing, but they kind of put on the worst parts. The thing went on for about twenty minutes. We liked to do all of these rave-ups and that kind of stuff. We were digging the Yardbirds then and how they'd jam at the end and crank things up.

PCP: When you were in Pacific Heights, where was that in the Flower Power era? What was that, about '68?
DP: That would have been the beginning of the KAK thing. '68. 

PCP: Were things falling apart in San Francisco then?
DP: Starting to. Right on the edge of it. It was still Flower Power and all of that, but a lot more drugs happening. Haight Ashbury was starting to not be as fun as it used to be -- freewheeling and beautiful and peaceful, you know. But it was still pretty cool. 

PCP: How long was the band together after the album came out?
DP: Maybe a year. 

PCP: Let's go to the release of the album. It comes out and you're looking at Epic. What are you saying? What do we do now? Did you get tour support?
DP: No. I don't know how many gigs we played. Maybe five, as a band, altogether, and pretty much the local San Francisco area. And I think that was it. It was a bit disappointing. The album seemed to be selling on the East Coast. I don't know how many it sold -- maybe seven or eight thousand or ten thousand. Something like that. But there was no tour support. We were never really approached about it.

PCP: Were you getting airplay?
DP: We were getting some local airplay and a bit on the East Coast. They'd bang it out on some of the New York stations. I remember hearing it a couple of times back there. It was kind of cool. Oh, and we did a video for it by an outfit called You Me & Mike. They came out from New York and filmed it in Inverness, on the coast. That was where the album cover came from, actually. It was taken from the video that we did. Probably one of the world's first videos. I don't think the company pushed it hard. Epic was part of Columbia. Epic was a big label at the time and we were thrilled to death to be on it. I just think we lacked press or any of the promotion we should have. We did it and it lay there, though it was selling a few copies on the East Coast. We did have two big half-page ads in Rolling Stone. Terry Reid was a hot guitar player at the time and we shared a page with him. I don't think Epic ever approached us about touring. I don't recall it anyway. The band folded shortly after that. We didn't have an actual manager. So we would go out and hustle our own jobs on the strength of here's a record, can we play.

PCP: After KAK, what did you do?
DP: I played in a band with Chris, the drummer, called Cherry Jam. Then I went on to other bands, touring a bit. That's how I moved to Portland. I would be in traveling road bands and when I came through town here, I met a lot of people and liked the place. Those bands eventually broke up. Everyone gets tired of living in cheap motels and living out of suitcases. So I came uphere and joined a group which had a really big run up here. I just like it here.

PCP: You're retiring soon, aren't you?
DP: I'm retiring, but hopefully I'll be doing a little playing.