The song hit the imagination in strange ways: Anyone listening to AM radio in 1970 was surely struck by “Vehicle,” a relentlessly funky yet darkly enigmatic number by an unknown act, The Ides of March. The song’s narrator identified himself as “the friendly stranger in a black sedan” and invited his listener (victim?) to hop in, promising “pictures, candy” and professing to be “a loveable man.” Were these the words of a roving child molester? A record label talent scout? And then he went on to profess passionate, obsessive love to the object of his attention.
I never forgot “Vehicle,” even though I never heard of The Ides of March again except in reference, years later, to the band’s guitarist-vocalist Jim Peterik as the force behind ’80s arena rock act Survivor. Imagine my surprise at the release of Last Band Standing, a multi-disc box set issued on the occasion of the band’s 50th anniversary. Turns out The Ides of March are not only still around but had an extensive history before “Vehicle” rolled onto the Top 40.
Most of disc one covers their years as a Chicago band absorbing the impact of the British Invasion. They tried their hand at snarling garage rock a la The Kinks, but seemed more inclined to the pop side with love songs, Beatles-esque harmonies, folk-rock jangle and catchy tunes. By 1968 they showed promise with the heavy psychedelic rock of “Strawberry Sunday.”
“The Ides played shows with The Buckinghams and The Shadows of Knight and always had a blast,” Peterik says of their early days on the Chicago rock circuit. “I recall a show at the now demolished Edgewater Beach Hotel sharing a ‘dressing room’ with The Bucks—it was actually the kitchen for the main dining room!”
Peterik went on to discuss the band’s musical evolution. “The differences between 1966 and 1970 are great. Early on our main influences were the British Invasion bands. Soon we started to get enamored with the Memphis sound of Wilson Pickett and Arthur Conley Jr.—so we added a trumpet, then two, then a sax. By that time [1970] we were heavily into the first Blood Sweat and Tears album and were inspired to pursue that direction.”
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“Vehicle” was the title track of their 1970 album, a generous helping of which is included on Last Band Standing. A curious LP, eclectic to the verge of uncategorizable, Vehicle included pop melodrama but also “Symphony for Eleanor (Eleanor Rigby),” a reinvention of The Beatles’ classic as a suite of contrasting musical colors that pushed through psychedelia to progressive rock. Similarly, the Ides turned a medley of Stephen Stills’ “Wooden Ships” with an obscure Jethro Tull instrumental, “Dharma for One,” into a masterpiece of orchestral rock. The Ides were funky, poppy and jazz-rock. Their album fell between the cracks of AM and FM. The industry didn’t know what to do with them.
They continued to record into the ’70s (disc three), playing with vocal harmonies that suggested Crosby, Stills and Nash; they broke up and reunited when “we got an offer from our hometown of Berwyn to regroup for a one time only concert,” Peterik says. “We rehearsed for three months straight—all the original guys. Twenty-five hundred people showed up to welcome us home. We have not looked back since that 1990 show.”
Also in the Last Band Standing box set is a recent concert DVD with bonus clips of early ’70s TV appearances and several newly recorded songs including the title track featuring guitar great Steve Cropper.
