About the Best Brothers
To set the record straight, there are no Best Brothers per
se. They were born from the fertile mind of leader and
rhythm guitarist, Mark Uhler. After returning from a solo
trip on his Triumph motorcycle, in 1969, upon graduation from high school, he was inspired by the Western plains of Nebraska. Enjoying the summer, seeing much of the verdant farmland, imagining the small town life, and the home style cooking coming from kitchens of small, white clapboard homes. Oh, and those little things called twisters!
Though songs and lyrics are Mark's creations, the superb bass work was handled by Ted Uhler. That's right. There-in lies the true brother connection. They are both Cleveland, Ohio transplants that arrived on the western shores of California in the late 1960's. Prior to becoming Best Brother's, they were in a band called The Meridians, playing the usual, and sometimes unusual, fare from British wave of groups started by the Beatles and various soul songs from Motown and Muscle Shoals.
Upon settling in Alta Loma, California, their peace was interrupted by new members of a family that surprisingly had 3 boys at the time. Also, their dad was the pastor at the community church. We all know the mixture of religion and rock music can produce some interesting results. One of those results was meeting a gangly geek who mainly only played folk guitar. That is, for a better term, called campfire music where the fingers of the left hand remained only on the first 3 frets of the guitar. His name was Ken Whitford. Ted, being a fan of the Siegel-Schwall blues band, kindly showed the patterns of many 12 bar blues riffs to Ken, taking him far up the guitar neck.
L-R Stu Clinton, Ted Uhler, Dan Valadez, Sgt "Killer" Mike Valadez, Spyke Clinton, Ken Whitford, Mark Landstrom
As far as getting together, we, (the Uhler Brothers and myself) all lived in the San Diego area in 1978/1979. Strapped for cash, as many of us were, when Mark approached us with his songs, we both thought great, but you have a Silvertone Amp head with a bare speaker carted along, and as for myself, I had a homebuilt amp, put together by Rich Houston, who lived farther north in the Inland Empire. Oh, lest I forget, I was the one with the AKAI reel-to-reel tape recorder.
It was great fun to do these songs because I think no matter what you think of quality of both recording, equipment, and talent, Marks past life in the Meridians certainly gave him a keen ear for melody and great chord changes.
Life had to continue with its many facets, and I being a father of two toddlers, gave some authentic ambiance to our endeavors. That is, sometimes you can detect a cry in the background from either of them, and I suppose they may not have been fans.
I could have imagined me continuing to live in Santee but in October of 1979, after attending an air show at Miramar Naval Air base, I began to have severe headaches, which only manifested itself as being viral encephalitis and I was hospitalized at Grossmont hospital for three month, leaving me to re-learn things like walking and coordination. That put the nail in the coffin for the Best Brothers as I was forced to leave for up North to live with family members that could assist in my rehabilitation.