Rock and blues group managed by Stuart Windsor and associated with the Psychedelic Propeller head shop on Read Street. The group came to the new Read Street shop seeking a gig, thinking it was going to be a night club. Windsor liked their sound and became their manager, renaming the group after the new shop. As the Psychedelic Propeller the group performed on the sidewalk in front of the store for the grand opening. Threatened with jail if they continued to play, Jim Brazier took them to City Hall where they obtained a permit at the last minute. This sidewalk store opening event spawned the first of many Read Street Festivals.
Members of the Propeller included Denny Romans (guitar ex-Chamber Men) of East Baltimore, Dale Patton (guitar ex-Blues British) of Bel Air, Chris Zweinski (bass) of Bel Air, and Austin O’Baker aka ‘Aussie’ (drums) of Dundalk.
Their equipment manager was David Crews who described them as “a pretty good teenage band… Rock n’ Roll with blues roots and straight up, rocked out blues numbers.”
“The Psychedelic Propeller band members and I were some of the small number of Baltimore area teens who wore Mod clothing. We identified ourselves as Mods. In 1966,’67, and ’68 Baltimore, no one in or around Baltimore was calling themselves, or being called, Hippies. Back then, those four guys were some of the very few longhaired males around Baltimore. And just wearing those maroon pants and fringed moccasins was enough to make some other guy want to start a fight with (them), at any Maryland high school dance, and a lot of other places, in those days. It was one thing for those guys to be having long hair and dressed in full Mod clothing while up front and playing in the band at some of those dances, but if (they) had dressed like that to go see some other band play at a school dance, (they) would have been hassled by other teens at that dance–for certain.”
The group traveled to and from gigs in a 1948 Cadillac hearse. They traveled to New York and recorded at CBS Studios but no recordings were ever released. Locally they performed at the Hullaballoo Club in Glen Burnie, Parkville Teen Center dances hosted by Kerby Scott, and made appearances on Kerby’s TV show on June 2, 1967 and again on June 23, 1967. As house band at Judge’s they built a special stage off the wall for their psychedelic light show. On the road they performed at clubs in Georgetown (DC), the Cheetah in New York, Boston Tea Party in Boston…
Windsor eventually took on managing additional local bands and in July 1967, and along with Jim Brazier, became manager of the Hullaballoo Club in Glen Burnie.
Romans was also a member of local groups The Moss, the Riffs, Good Grief, Maypole… Patton went on to found the Baltimore Blues Society…
