'Best Beat In Town - SWITCH

 A 'SWITCH' MOMENT: 

Switch II - The 2nd Album

We first arrived in California back in the spring of 1977. We lived in the San Fernando Valley and Greg, Bobby, Tommy & myself rented a home, which had become the band house.The living room didn't have any furniture we just had our instruments set up in the living room so that we could rehearse and write songs. It was truly a bachelor's pad. But, do you ever wonder how songs sometimes get their titles? This is a pretty funny story.

The Motown building was on the corner of Sunset & Vine in Hollywood which was about 12 miles or so away from the band house. We would travel back and forth to meetings, etc. So we would see various restaurants around town.  One day we saw this one small hole in the wall restaurant in North Hollywood that had the slogan "Best Beef In Town". Their were some jokes that went around about that slogan. 

From that slogan Bobby used to play this groove on the piano and sing 'Best Beef In Town, Best Beef all around' just being silly. But the melody was catchy and we used to sing it for fun. So from time to time that was one of our little jokes between ourselves.

Eventually the idea went from 'Best Beef In Town,' a slogan for a restaurant to 'Best Beat In  Town'. This actually fit the band. So Bobby played around with the chorus and came up with a verse, we put our touches and 'Best Beat In Town' was born. This became the 1st single on our 2nd Album and it did quite well. One of the only upbeat singles that we recorded. Definitely part of the disco days :-)

As I mentioned in a previous BLOG as to how we got our name, we all play various instruments and would switch instruments on various songs. In the studio usually Jody Sims played the drums but on the 'Best Beat In Town' that's actually Bobby DeBarge playing the drums AND he's playing the congas on the song as well as some of the keyboards. You can also hear him scatting some Popeye vocals on the bridge. That was a fun song and we still have fun performing it today.

So when you hear 'Best Beat In Town' playing on one of those old school radio stations or you're dusting off one of your old vinyls of Switch, realize that the 'Best BEEF In Town' became the 'Best BEAT In Town' showing that inspirations for songs came literally come from anywhere.

Until Next Time - Phillip