“For us, the blues were the root. We just stretched it. We were based in Champaign-Urbana, about an hour and a half from Chicago. If you played harmonica back then, you hitched rides to the city, slept at the Y, stood on Maxwell Street, and listened outside clubs until the sun came up. That’s how you learned.”

George Faber: Rockin’ Blues Times Roll

In the mid 1960s Champaign became the epicenter of a regional music explosion and a Mecca for professional musicians. In March of 1968 the Finchley Boys lineup was established that led the way in blues-oriented and original progressive music. George Faber (vocals, harp), Garrett Oostdyk (guitar), Larry “Tabe” Tabeling (bass), and J. Michael Powers (drums), took their innovative sounds and dynamic stage show to new fans in virtually every college campus, concert hall, and teen center in Illinois. Other Midwestern states followed – Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and Ohio – and then on to New York, Toronto and San Francisco. One of their most highly-acclaimed shows, reported on the front page of the Chicago Tribune as the concerts breakout performance, was as one of the top acts at the Kickapoo Creek Rock Festival. Joining them were Canned Heat, B.B. King, Delaney and Bonnie, among other music legends on that Memorial Day weekend in 1970. 

(Photos: George Faber of Finchley Boys, a legendary hard psychedelic bluesy rock band from Illinois)

Known for their great live shows and theatrical antics – including a live boa constrictor five years before Alice Cooper made it famous – the Finchley Boys were considered ahead of their time. They started recording in the fall of 1968 and throughout 1969. Those songs would not be heard until 1972 with the release of Everlasting Tributes. By 1983, already a top collector's item, the album would be bootlegged on vinyl and then CD. Several songs were culled from the recordings and added to various compilation albums and CDs. The popular album was bootlegged again on CD twice in 2004. Over the years, there have been several legitimate requests to re-release Everlasting Tributes and the band agreed to allow a re-mastered vinyl release on Anazitisi Records in Europe, a deluxe CD released by Parasol Label Group's Reaction Recording, and recently an ultimate reissue of this classic hard-psych album by Catalonia-based label, Guerssen. Including two killer tracks that were left off of the original tracklist.

Interview by Michael Limnios

How has music and the rock counterculture influenced your view of the world? Was there a moment that changed your musical life the most?

When we came up, there was a clear line in the sand. A handful of kids with long hair on one side, everyone else on the other. And it wasn’t subtle. Our music lived in that divide. It was loud, raw, and didn’t ask permission.

People either got it or they didn’t. We were fine with that. We played for the ones who felt shut out, the ones who needed something that spoke back. That group started small, but it grew. Sometimes the tension turned physical. Sometimes it got ugly. But the harder we pushed for the right to express ourselves, the more the music reflected that fight.

What drew you to the harmonica? And what keeps you going after six decades in rock and blues?

The harmonica was right there. Cheap. Portable. You could pull it out of your pocket and make noise immediately. The more I played it, the more I realized it breathed like a human voice. You could cry through it, shout through it.

It gives you something back right away, but it never lets you off easy. You spend your whole life chasing it.

My father worried when I said I was going all in on music. He asked me what my plan was for getting older. I told him Muddy Waters was already old—and he was still standing onstage. That was my plan.

“Rock ’n’ roll came straight out of the blues. “Rocket 88” is usually called the first rock record—it was jump blues. Chuck Berry took those blues changes and wrote songs kids actually recognized themselves in. Guitars. Cars. Girls. Elvis followed, and his early records were blues through and through. Then the British bands came along—Beatles, Yardbirds, Animals—and started feeding American blues back to us.” (Photos: Finchley Boys, a hard psychedelic bluesy rock band and George Faber plays harp on stage)

Why do you think the Finchley Boys’ music still has such a loyal following?

I’ve thought about that a lot. I think it’s because the music came from a real place, at a very specific moment. There was no safety net. No filter.

We’ve all grown since then. We’re better players now. Better writers. But what we caught on tape back then belongs to that time. You don’t recreate that. You either lived it or you didn’t.

Any memories from gigs or sessions that still stick with you?

One night that never leaves me—we were headed to New York to play the Bitter End. Strange fit for us. Folk club, and we were anything but folk. Still, it mattered. Dylan had stood on that stage.

On the way, we stopped in Ann Arbor and played with Iggy Pop and the Stooges, and the MC5. Back then, I’d finish our set with a live boa constrictor wrapped around me.

Iggy followed us. Took a sledgehammer to a television. Smashed it to pieces. Then he dove, shirtless, into the glass while the band kept pounding away. After that, the MC5 came out and told the crowd to tear the Union Ballroom apart. They nearly did.

That was the era. No rewind button.

What do you miss about music from the past? And what do you hope for moving forward?

I don’t spend much time missing things. There’s still plenty of honest music out there—you just won’t find it handed to you.

I live in Minneapolis now. Any night of the week you can hear great blues, jazz, and rock if you know where to look. That was true in the ’60s too. The best stuff was rarely mainstream.

“We’ve all grown since then. We’re better players now. Better writers. But what we caught on tape back then belongs to that time. You don’t recreate that. You either lived it or you didn’t.” (Photo: Finchley Boys — Garrett Oostdyk, George Faber, J. Michael Powers, and Larry “Tabe” Tabeling)

Why did the 1960s become such a hotbed for psychedelic blues and rock?

Everything felt unstable. Vietnam. The draft. Authority getting questioned from every angle. Psychedelic music didn’t come out of nowhere—it came out of pressure.

It was young people rejecting conformity, materialism, and being told how to live. Music stopped being just entertainment. It became a tool—to open minds, to shake things loose.

For us, the blues were the root. We just stretched it. We were based in Champaign-Urbana, about an hour and a half from Chicago. If you played harmonica back then, you hitched rides to the city, slept at the Y, stood on Maxwell Street, and listened outside clubs until the sun came up. That’s how you learned.

How did the blues shape rock and roll—and how do we carry it forward?

Rock ’n’ roll came straight out of the blues. “Rocket 88” is usually called the first rock record—it was jump blues. Chuck Berry took those blues changes and wrote songs kids actually recognized themselves in. Guitars. Cars. Girls.

Elvis followed, and his early records were blues through and through. Then the British bands came along—Beatles, Yardbirds, Animals—and started feeding American blues back to us.

The blues never went away. It just stayed underground. That’s where it works best.

What role does music play in society today—and how do you see your generation’s impact?

There’s always been throwaway music, and there’s always been music with weight. That hasn’t changed. What’s changed is how people listen. When albums disappeared, something broke. One song at a time doesn’t leave much room to tell a full story.

The fact that vinyl is coming back gives me hope. It tells me some people still want to sit down and listen—not just consume.

And it’s the small, independent labels—the ones doing it for love—that keep that connection alive. They’re the reason the past still has a pulse.

(Photo: George Faber of Finchley Boys, a legendary hard psychedelic bluesy rock band from Illinois)