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The Mechanical Candlestick
The Mechanical Candlestick was a musical garage band from Millbrae, California that was formed in the late 1960's

Original Members of the band were:

Byron Snyder, Keyboard

Tom Mares, Drums

Bruce Snyder, Singer

Peirre Berube, Lead Guitar

Mike Riccomi, Rhythm Guitar

Other members of the band included

John Owens, Lead Guitar

Mike Burns, Bass Guitar

Harry George, Rhythm Guitar

Brooks Binder,

It was on one of those days in the late 1960's in the beginning that Tom Mares came over Byron Snyder's house when he noticed Mr. Snyder's organ sitting in the corner of our front room. Tom then asked Byron if he played the organ. Byron responded that he knew how to play but secretly not that well. That was the start of The Mechanical Candlestick Band from Millbrae, California.

Byron knew that Tom played the drums, from the many times that he sat in Tom's room and listen to him practiced to the music he played on his stereo. The music was, at the time was made up of loud psychedelic music with drums, keyboards and guitars. Now they had an organ and drums all they need was guitars and a singer.

It was like a surge of electricity that ran through bodies as they drug Tom's drum set piece by piece over to Byron's house. They were so excited and laughed so hard it took them longer than usual to set up Tom's drums next to the organ.

The following is from the biography writing's of B. R. Snyder's "The Mechanical Candlestick":

I considered Tom very talented when it came to music. He knew how to play the keyboard and drums. Years later he told me that he thought I was the more talented because I had better rhythm than he did. I still don't agree. He had a real ear for music. Together we tried to play several short arrangements together and it sound fairly descent. We were just having fun and never intended to get serious about playing. Over the next couple of days we were talking about getting together again at my house and practice playing some more music. This time we were going to try playing one of our favorite songs, "Louie, Louie." It was an easy song for me to play, because basically it had just a few chords that I could play over and over again. Tom had played the "Louie, Louie" many times to the record so we were ready to practice until we got it right. Well, we practiced alright. The only thing is we had no singer and without a guitar it fell short of sounding okay. I suggested to Tom that I had a friend who just started to play the guitar; maybe he would like to join us. The next thing I knew my front room was filled with several long time friends and music equipment ready to contribute to our music.

Mike Riccomi, another close friend played rhythm guitar and was the cousin to my next door neighbor, Harry. Mike was the one that I had told Tom about. Well Mike contacted another old friend, Pierre Berube. He played lead guitar. Both Mike and Pierre had their own equipment. Harry, my next door neighbor also played rhythm guitar and joined in on that day. My older brother, Bruce dreamed of being a crooner and immediately became our lead singer. A girl from school that Tom knew learned of our home-grown concert and end up singing backup with us. Her name was Karen Zebarth.

It was the craziest thing that ever happened to me and Tom in our early friendship. It just sprung up over night. We had so much fun and we sounded pretty good. In fact we enjoyed it so much that I convinced my mother to buy me a portable keyboard and amplifier. Over the next couple of weeks we ended up practicing every night until Mom kicked us out of her front room. Now that I had my own equipment it was easily for us to relocate in one of the other member's garage. Soon our little group came down to basically five members Tom, Bruce, Pierre, Mike and Me. Over the next few months we became quite good and had perfected a set of twenty or so songs. We worked hard on "Light my fire", the long version, by the Doors and it came to be one of our favorite songs. Yet, there was one musical song and arrangement that Tom and I wanted to accomplish and that was "In-A-Godda-Da-Vida". The long version had a drum solo that Tom was just keyed up to do and an organ solo that I was energized to do. It ended up to be my organ solo that revealed to the world that Tom and I were best friends. My organ solo really was not a solo demonstration. It had Tom beating out the rhythm behind it. Together Tom and I perfected our solos and together we really belted that music out. It ended up being our personal trademark. Our little garage band went through several names but the one that defined us and that really stuck was the “Mechanical Candlestick”. It was that name that would carry with me and Tom for many years.