The Legend of Billy Satellite: Fossil Bakersfield 45 record unearthed - By N.L. Belardes
I'm no Indiana Jones. He was no true archeologist anyways. Sure, Harrison Ford is cool as the world renowned adventurer, but let's face it, he didn't study artifacts. He stole em.
I was recently digging through a collection in a fossilized bed of 45 records when I came across this gem of a record.
I carefully dusted off the record, studied the surroundings: an aged shelf with other mysterious artifacts. I carefully recorded those as well. There's no date on this record, but I'm thinking pre-Millennium 1980 or thereabouts. And although the record says, "Billy Satellite", I went ahead and called Monty Byrom.
"Hey, I found a fossil 45 record by Billy Satellite."
"No way, man. What's the song?"
"Gimme Some."
"Now that's the first record I ever made. I was 21 years old and in a three-piece band... Where did you find it? I don't even have one."
And so on and so on went the Legend of Billy Satellite. Not forgotten, no... but an urban myth as sordid and twisted in local rock music culture as any...
Just who is Monty Byrom? ...this guy who refuses to get on myspace.com and release more records...
I was recently digging through a collection in a fossilized bed of 45 records when I came across this gem of a record.
I carefully dusted off the record, studied the surroundings: an aged shelf with other mysterious artifacts. I carefully recorded those as well. There's no date on this record, but I'm thinking pre-Millennium 1980 or thereabouts. And although the record says, "Billy Satellite", I went ahead and called Monty Byrom.
"Hey, I found a fossil 45 record by Billy Satellite."
"No way, man. What's the song?"
"Gimme Some."
"Now that's the first record I ever made. I was 21 years old and in a three-piece band... Where did you find it? I don't even have one."
And so on and so on went the Legend of Billy Satellite. Not forgotten, no... but an urban myth as sordid and twisted in local rock music culture as any...
Just who is Monty Byrom? ...this guy who refuses to get on myspace.com and release more records...
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Friday, February 10, 2006.
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Monty Byrom's first band was in 1970-71 while he was in 7th Grade. The name of the group was called "Rising Sun", and featured Monty on Guitar & Vocals, Bob Bender on Bass, and Curt Carter who played drums. The band played mostly cover tunes from Iron Butterly, Three Dog Night, and Janis Joplin (Monty could do a mean "Me & Bobby McGee"). Dates included office parties, private events, and the occasional 8th grade school graduation.
By 1972, Monty was attending Bakersfield High School, and along with Bender had grown the group from a trio to a four piece act. Carter had been replaced on drums with Kenny Minton and later Carrie Pierce, and rhythm guitar duties were handled by Dennis "Dink" Hall.
However, by 1974 Monty had his fill of local high school dance bands, and upon leaving High School joined the Navy where he learned more about music theory (and was taught to actually read music!).
From that point on, things went vague for a while until 1983 when Monty surfaced in San Francisco with a new group signed by Capitol Records called "Billy Satellite". He called his old buddy Bob Bender Bakersfield to come on up and become the band's band gear tech (which was short lived... about 2 weeks worth), and together they toured with Billy Satellite opening for Nightranger across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
After Billy Satellite disbanded in the mid-80's, Monty formed the band Monty Byrom & The New Frontier (1988) which scored a deal on relatively unknown Mika Records. Produced by legendary Richie Zito, the band enjoyed marginal success at radio, but once again Monty became impatient and decided to create himself again.
By 1996, Big House was created and signed to MCA Records in hopes of becoming the next big country act. This event lasted for only a short period of time, and Monty left the band to go on and produce for Eddie Money among others.
Monty currently resides in Bakersfield where he sells real estate, and plays the occasional gig on the weekends.
Hey, thanks for the great history. By the way, the dialogue in the blog is from none other than Monty Byrom himself!
:)
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