The Phantoms (English version)

Despite their slightly unimaginative name, The Phantoms’ history is far from the usual. As a local band composed of underage teens from the seaside town of Buckie, Scotland, they didn’t have much to expect as far as stardom is concerned. They were one of many groups playing mostly weekend dance gigs in the neighbouring areas, far from big cities and far from record label talent hunters. They didn’t get a chance to make a record in their country. They got in communist Poland, which they toured in the summer of 1966, giving concerts on the country’s biggest stages, treated as top shelf beat stars.

The Phantoms' EPs, released in 1966 on the Pronit label.

The band was most likely formed in 1964 by local teenagers: Stuart Geddes, Frank Hay, William Smith, Stephen Wojcik and Brian Calder, aged 15-17. Shortly after their formation, the band came second in the North East Beat Group competition held in the village of Kemnay in October 1964. The Phantoms played their first paid gig in Nairn in the same month and it was then that a legal problem occurred. Three of the band’s members were too young to play for money according to the Scottish law and as a result, their promoter Albert Bonici was fined with the princely sum of 2 pounds and the fathers of the underage musicians were admonished. The band continued to give concerts on a regular basis in 1965, participating in the Cullen House Beat Festival held in September, where they shared the stage with fifteen other beat groups, including Manchester’s The Toggery Five who had released two singles on Parlophone.

Somewhere between 1965 and 1966 The Phantoms’ line-up underwent several changes. The summer of 1966 would see the band composed of : William Smith – aged 17 – lead guitar; Steve Coull – aged 15 – saxophone; Stephen Wojcik – aged 16 – electric organ, vocals; Stewart Geddes – 16 – drums and Eric Farquhar – 16 – bass, vocals. This period marked the most important event in the group’s history as Stephen Wojcik’s father Emil, a Polish immigrant, took on the role of the Phantoms’ manager and organized a six-week concert tour of beat-hungry communist Poland, which allowed the boys to taste what they could never expect in their homeland: stardom.

Promoted as “the youngest British beat group” and “the first Scottish band in Poland”, they played to tens of thousands strong crowds of enthusiastic Polish audience, who treated the Scots almost as if they were one of the biggest rock bands of the time. No one really knew whether The Phantoms’ had had any success in the United Kingdom or whether they had released any records. All that counted was that they were British and that they played decent cover versions of the English hit-makers such as The Small Faces and The Hollies. Poles crowded beneath the stages not only to hear the music but also and perhaps more importantly just to see them, to get a glimpse of the way the group dressed, to see what equipment they had. Although The Phantoms were far from being the first British rock act to tour Poland (Robb Storme and The Whispers and The London Beats visited the country in 1964), their gigs were a major attraction. From late July to the last days of August, they shared the country’s biggest stages with the most prominent Polish beat groups such as Niebiesko-Czarni (The Blue-Blacks). The Phantoms’ Polish tour culminated on August 21 1966 with two concerts at one of Warsaw’s biggest venues: The Gwardia Hall.

Just like The London Beats, at some point during its visit to communist Poland the Buckie group was approached by the state-owned recording company Polskie Nagrania for a recording session which resulted in three extraordinarily rare EP sides released shortly after on the Pronit label: 

N0432 – “Hello Josephine” / “What Kind of Girl” / “Talking About You” / “Since I Lost My Baby”

N0434 – “You Must Believe Me” / “Hey Girl” (side A only, side B contained two tracks by Polish beat group Pięć Linii).

Pronit N0432 - side A

Pronit N0432 - side B

Pronit N0424 - side A

The recording quality is surprisingly good for what presumably was a makeshift session and it does justice to the band’s musical abilities which were not too shabby bearing in mind their young age. The Phantoms could rock, projecting sharp guitar riffs - their cover of The Small Faces’ “Hey Girl” comes rather close to the mesmerizingly dirty sound of Steve Marriott. The group played a rather wide variety of teenage dance music, going further than just copying what was successful on the British charts of the time. Their first two sides are filled with refreshed cover versions of Fats Domino’s “Hello Josephine”, Chuck Berry’s “Talking About You” and a great, raw, soulful rendition of The Temptations’ “Since I Lost My Baby”. The only thing that keeps these 7-inchers from being one of garage rock holy grails are Eric Farquhar’s vocals which may seem a bit unconvincing and mild-mannered. On the other hand, what should you expect from a 16 year old vocalist from an unimportant local beat band?

The huge amount of errors on their first record’s label may be a symptom of haste to release the material as quickly as possible. All of the tracks are mistakenly credited to The Phantoms, save for “Since I Lost My Baby” which is mysteriously described as The Copycats’ composition. Who were The Copycats and how did they find themselves on the label? Buckie Advertiser snippets available at the Buckie & District Fishing Heritage Centre mention another local beat group under this name, active contemporarily with The Phantoms. It could be that the latter learned the song from The Copycats, perhaps unaware of it’s proper source.   

The two EPs must have been pressed in very limited quantities and due to lack of publicity, they didn’t sell too well. Nowadays they are probably the rarest beat 45s released in 1960s communist Poland. Compared to other records of this genre released through every one of the three recording labels active in the country, The Phantoms are close to being unfindable unless one wishes to spend several years searching for a playable copy.

The band continued to gig with variable regularity, playing local concerts in Buckie and neighbouring areas at least until 1969, unable to reclaim their short spell in the limelight. The Phantoms were one of hundreds if not thousands amateur beat groups active in mid-1960s UK and if it hadn’t been for their brief stay behind the Iron Curtain, they would have been easily forgotten. Apprentice technicians practicing their licks between other daily activities in their homeland, in Poland they were heroes, at least during their stay as nowadays, the band remains completely unknown and wasn’t mentioned in any publication on the subject of 1960s Polish beat scene.   

The Phantoms' recordings are available here.