The Front End were an American Hard Rock band formed as The Starfires in Brooklyn, NYC in 1964. The original group consisted of guitarist Billi Pepa, his brother, accordionist-turned-organist Al “Beads”,
trumpeter-turned-bassist Carmine Franco, and drummer Sal Sanfilippo.
All four were singers and sang 4 part harmony. All four attended Lincoln High School. All four, throughout their musical endeavors, had full time day jobs.
Billi was the songwriter and, eventually, the primary lead vocalist.
Originally managed by Billboard Magazine’s Larry Lomenzo ( uncle of James Lomenzo),the band performed on TV’s Ted Mack Amateur Hour; Performed at the New York World’s Fair; recorded for George Goldner at Roulette Records (with Bobby Lance as their A&R man);
recorded ten original songs for Les Paul at his famous home studio; played regularly with WABC DJ, Cousin Brucie at Palisades Amusement Park in NJ – which was frequently broadcast live on WNJR with DJ, Hal Jackson ( always introducing The Starfires as his “favorite band “); performed continuously with DJ, Jack Spector and the WMCA Good Guys; Often performed alongside then underground artists: Leslie West’s Vagrants, Billy Joel’s Hassles, Steven Tyler’s Chain Reaction, Louis Dambra’s Koala, Blue Oyster Cult.
As time progressed they performed alongside famous artists such as:
Blues Project, Sam and Dave, Grass Roots, 4 Tops, Mitch Ryder, Temptations, Left Banke, Patti LaBelle, Erma Franklin, Brooklyn Bridge, Les Paul, Laura Nyro.
After the replacements of Larry Lomenzo (with Rock promoter Vic The M ), and drummer Sal ( with Neil Sheen, son of jazz drummer, Mickey Sheen) the band’s live shows became darker, wilder and unusual – thus inspiring Vic to rename them The Wild Starfires.
Their extended, painfully slow, power arrangement of Hey Joe – long before Vanilla Fudge or Jimi Hendrix – which became an audience sensation, was inexplicably abandoned after the song became a commercial hit for Hendrix.
That arrangement would not resurface or be recorded until 1995 by Billi’s Jimmibeetles Rock Theatre. A live version (1996 at CBGB) of that 60s arrangement has recently surfaced on YouTube.
In 1967, the band – then renamed The Front End by famed record producers Steve and Bill Jerome ( Walk Away Renee) – began recording for Mercury’s Smash Records.
While they were very disappointed with the songs they were assigned to record,
A&R man and future manager, Fred Munao, discovered their arrangement of “(Remember) Walking In The Sand” during a gig at The Cheetah, NYC.
Their third single – recorded and nationally released in 1968 –
“Remember” (with drummer Bobby Deriso) BW / “The Real Thing” ( with bassist Carmine Pallazola) received minimal airplay (e.g., WNEW-FM in NYC for one straight week) but raised enough buzz in the area to place the band into regional status.
With the combination of a poorly promoted Power -Rock record release, Beads’ firing of Sid Bernstein’s well connected associate, Vic The M, and the band’s refusal of an alluring offer made “too late” by Mercury to record an album of original music, Mercury’s only potential representative Hard Rock band, The Front End, resigned and, therefore, forfeited their possible chance to perform at Woodstock in August 1969.
A few months after a very successful 4th Of July weekend performance in Central Park, NYC, in 1970, the band ended their time together.
Billi immediately moved forward with Beads, drummer Gussy Kydd and bassist Anthony Wesley of Koala and manager, Fred Munao, to form a concert-only act known as The Billi Pepa Universe – which soon morphed into the trio, Pepa.Beads.Kydd.
After a brief working relationship with Robert Stigwood ( who’s abandoned plan was to globally release-as-a-single, his “favorite track”, Not From Here ),
the trio completed 2 albums worth of unreleased material in their own studio while performing concerts at venues such as Lincoln Center, NYU, Columbia University, Englewood, The Circus.
They abruptly disbanded in January 1974 due, oddly, to a financially unresolvable issue with Con Edison (NYC’s electric service) and their studio – A popular musician’s center that construction workers, Pepa
and Beads designed and constructed themselves after actually constructing the new building for the landlord.
Unfinished Business
In 1994 Billi Pepa “woke from the dead” one late Summer night on Macdougal St. in Greenwich Village, NYC and formed the power trio, Jimmibeetles Rock Theatre.
After a deal with Steve Jerome dissolved and after an eventual rejection by Fred Munao and his then successful Rap record label, Select Records, the band completed – in Billi’s newly built studio -their album, The Story Of Jimmibeetles. Their new album and their live performance caught the attention of 2 Rock impresarios at the Philadelphia Music Conference.
Managed by former Epic Records legend, Ron Alexenberg and promoted by Woodstock 1969’s legend, Artie Kornfeld, Billi focused from 1994 – 2001 on picking up the pieces and finishing what the Front End started in the 1960s – only this time with completed and nationally released singles, albums, videos and a serious biography.
Psychedelic States: NY in the 60s, Vol3
Statement Debunked
Although The Front End respected Leslie West’s Vagrants, they did not cover any of their songs – and may have been seemingly influenced by them due to Billi’s first and last-time use of a Gibson SG Standard guitar ( one of Leslie West’s main guitar choices) to record “The Real Thing” in 1968. Billi’s main guitar throughout the sixties and up to 1974 was his Gibson Firebird – which Les Paul borrowed one night in 1966.
Album liner notes:
The Real Thing – The Front End (W. Tortora), 2:51, Goodness and Truth Music, BMI.- Released in December 1968 on the Smash (2129) label and b/w “Remember (Walking In The Sand)”. One of the coolest bands in New York was the Front End, a 4-man group whose repertoire included “Gonna Make You” by the Troggs, “Pictures of Lily” by the Who, “Talk Talk” and “The People In Me” by the Music Machine, and several songs by the Vagrants. It was the Vagrants who were the main influence on “The Real Thing”, a 1968 B-side written by group leader/vocalist/guitarist Billy Tortora. This was their third and final 45 on Smash. Also heard on here are Tortora’s brother Al on keyboards, Carmine Franco on bass, and Neil Sheen on drums. It was Sheen, who’d formerly played with the Untamed and the Missing Links, who suggested the band, then known as the Wild Starfires, change their name to The Front End. Famed producers Bill and Steve Jerome, who were working with the Left Banke and Reparata & The Delrons, discovered the group at a show at Rollerama, and brought them to the attention of Smash Records (which was also the home of the Left Banke and another Jerome project, The San Francisco Earthquake). None of their singles broke nationally, but their heavy version of “Remember (Walking In The Sand)” caught the attention of their pal, Steve Tallarico (nee Tyler) of the Chain Reaction, who decided to reprise the song many years later with Aerosmith. As they say, the rest is history.
