Max Frost and the Troopers

Max Frost and The Troopers was a fictional rock music group created for the exploitation film Wild in the Streets, released in 1968. The film featured Christopher Jones as the highly influential singer Max Frost. The songs performed by Frost and his band, a group that was never formally named in the film, was credited to Max Frost and the Troopers in subsequent singles and album. The band name "Troopers" is based on the term "troops," the designation Frost used in the film to refer to his friends and followers.

A studio group appeared on the soundtrack album for the film, along with incidental music penned by Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, and composed by Les Baxter, however the songs were not originally credited to Max Frost and the Troopers, but rather to The 13th Power.

Due to the success of the song "Shape of Things To Come" as a single, an accompanying album by Max Frost and The Troopers, Shape of Things to Come, was issued on the Tower record label in 1968. Musicians playing on the album are believed to include members of Davie Allan and The Arrows (who also released the "Shapes of Things to Come" without lyrics), with lead vocals by Paul Wibier (who also wrote a majority of the songs on the album). The music is high-energy rock with some psychedelic touches.

The group was produced by Harley Hatcher and Eddie Beram for Mike Curb Productions. Their first single was recorded with Curb's Tower subsidiary, Sidewalk Records. Subsequent singles were taken from their album.

Their final single, "Sittin' In Circles," was performed in the film Three in the Attic, by Davie Allan and the Arrows. The B-side of that single, "Paxton Quigley's Had The Course," was a Chad & Jeremy composition.

The soundtrack album for the 1968 film The Glory Stompers, starring Dennis Hopper, contains two additional songs credited to Max Frost and the Troopers: "There's A Party Going On" (which was released as their first single) and "You Might Want Me Baby."

For later, "Max Frost and the Troopers: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" was released with the singles of the original "Shape of Things to Come" LP included more four songs as the single for the film title called also that of the song "Wild in the Streets" joined with the "Listen to Music", "Love to Be Yor Man", and "Fourteen or Fight" singles of the soundtrack where none of these songs has ever been released on CD.

The cultural historian Greil Marcus borrowed the Troopers' song title for his 2006 book, "The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy & The American Voice."

Discography

Singles

• "There Is a Party Going On" / "Stomper's Ride": Sidewalk 938 (1968)
• "Shape of Things to Come" / "Free Lovin'": Tower 419 (1968)
• "Fifty Two Per Cent" / "Max Frost Theme": Tower 452 (1968)
• "Sittin' in Circles" / "Paxton Quigley's Had the Course": Tower 478 (1969)

Albums

• Shape of Things to Come: Tower ST-5147 (1968)

Compilations

• "Shape of Things to Come" was featured on the 1998 4-CD box set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968.
• "Lonely Man" also appears on the compilation Turds on a Bum Ride.

Advertisements

• Beginning in 2005, "Shape of Things to Come" was used as the theme song to TV commercial advertisements for the Target Corporation chain of department stores.