Human Beinz

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Human Beinz

The Human Beingz actually began in 1964, when the original members - Mel Pachuta, Gary Coates, Dick Belley and Ting Markulin - all from the Youngstown, Ohio area, ended up in the same group known as "The Premiers." We played mostly late fifties and early sixties music, with a few tunes from the British Rock bands thrown in. From late 1964 through to the spring of 1966, we gained popularity by dropping the fifties and early sixties music and going strictly with the current music of the time. We still had short hair and still called ourselves "The Premiers." A local bowling alley was going to open a night club in their basement and the manager, Jim MacMurray asked us to open the club for him. We agreed to do it but, the manager had a condition or wouldn't use us. He told us our name and look was outdated and if we wanted to get real popular, we needed to change our name and image to fit the music. Dick and I came up with "The Human Beings," and Mel said to put a "z" on the end instead of an "s". We agreed with Mel and changed our name to "The Human Beingz!" We started to let our hair grow and wore wigs until our hair was long enough. The manager of that bowling alley was right! We became the most popular band in our area almost overnight. During this time, Gary Coates, our drummer, was going to be drafted, so he joined the National Guard. He was going to be away for six months, so, we found Mike Tatman to sit in for him until he returned. Gary returned in six months, but we had grown with Mike and it was clicking. We felt bad for Gary, but he wasn't there to grow with us. Gary was a good person... it was never anything personal. That's how bands are. He knew it. We knew it. Now the Human Beingz were Mel Pachuta - Bass guitar & vocals, Dick Belley - Lead guitar & lead vocals, Mike Tatman - Drums, and Ting Markulin - Rhythm guitar & vocals. Many songs are from Hear The Music LLC, Gary Van Voorhis is a drummer, writer, producer, Janet is artisitc director at Hear the Music Foundation