40 Years later.  A Reunion to Remember

On August 25th, 2007 four of the original members of Afterglow met for the first time in nearly forty years to catch up and help each other understand the overwhelming realization that their album is a critical and commercial success.

Larry Alexander (drums), Ron George (bass & vocals), Gene Resler (guitar & vocals) and Roger Swanson (keyboard & vocals) met in Fort Jones where the band spent the summer of 1967 preparing 20 songs for Leo Kulka, Producer at Golden State recorders.

Tony Tecumseh (guitar & vocals) joined the group by phone.

Family & friends greeted the band after they spent the day in front of a television production crew reminiscing and reminding.  Nobody in the band had any idea that the album had been released twice by Sundazed Music and was considered by many to be an important album in the psyche-pop scene.

Stay tuned for a television documentary capturing the reunion’s highlights and perhaps a rerelease of the missing ten songs from that memorable jam session in 1967.

Larry & Gene greet each other as the crew prepares for the rest of the band’s arrival.

The band toured Larry’s parents house where they spent the summer of 67 preparing the album.

Gene, Roger, Larry & Ron

Scroll down for pictures from the Afterglow reunion.

The guys talk outside the “Rehearsal Hall” in Scott Valley.
Text Box: Afterglow’s reunion as reported on Sundazed Music News: It was an exciting moment for Sundazed when what was assumed to be one of the great, long-lost rock 'n' roll combos of the 1960s turned out to be present and accounted for, after all. When Larry Alexander, drummer for the much-revered Northern California band Afterglow, rang up Sundazed GHQ in Coxsackie, N.Y. five weeks ago, still reeling from the knowledge that Sundazed had reissued their self-titled 1968 album  in 1995, it set in motion a glorious chain of events. Alexander immediately tracked down the rest of his Afterglow comrades—guitarists Tony Tecumseh and Gene Resler, keyboardist Roger Swanson and bassist Ron George—and scheduled a band reunion at his Ft. Jones, Calif. recording studio, 15 miles west of the group's old stomping grounds in Yreka. Then Alexander hired a staff of seasoned videotape pros to film the all-day event on Saturday, Aug. 25, highlighted by an extensive onscreen interview of the band members by Sundazed's West Coast rep, Jud Cost. Tecumseh, unable to attend due to health issues, was reached for a touching session with his old friends via conference call. The remaining quartet, with Resler on guitar and vocals, Alexander on drums and George and Swanson adding backing vocals, topped off the afternoon by playing a brief set in the studio.  With vintage folk/psych-rock gems by Afterglow fluttering in the background like wild birds in the bushes, band members, their families and employees of Alexander's land resources management firm adjourned to his spacious office compound for an outdoor barbecue that lasted until the sun set over the lush Scott Valley farmlands. As a cooling evening breeze whistled through the pines of the surrounding mountain side, lit by a full moon, the verdict was unanimous: Band reunions don't come much more sublime than this one. —Jud Cost, Sundazed Music www.sundazed.com

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