While their upcoming show, dubbed “Playlist: One-Hit Wonders,” pays tribute to artists who were in the spotlight just a short time, Palo Alto-based band Past Curfew has a long local lineage.Â
Local audiences may recognize Past Curfew from regular performances at Palo Alto events such as the 3rdThursday free outdoor music series on California Avenue or the May Fete parade and festival. The group plays covers from a variety of genres and from a wide range of eras.
The band, which currently features five local musicians — guitarist Steve Milne, drummer Warren Packard, bassist John Hiss, lead vocalist Tyler Zeller, keyboardist and vocalist Rich McCauley — has been through a few different incarnations prior to its current name and lineup.
Their “One-Hit Wonders” show will take place on Oct. 24 at The Guild Theatre as a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula. The concert will include singer/songwriter Jay Middleton and other special guests, as well as some young performers from the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula.
Much like those young musicians, Past Curfew members know the value of taking up music at an early age.
Milne began playing guitar around third grade, initially motivated by wanting to learn how to play the theme for the TV cartoon “The Road Runner Show.” He continued playing through high school and got into recording in college.
“My career was in tech and audio equipment. I worked for a company that made large mixing consoles, so I’ve kind of been able to combine (music and work), and I’ve been playing in a band for the last 25 years,” he said.
Packard began learning piano and then French horn while in elementary school, but his love for drumming quickly made itself known.
“I couldn’t keep my hands still. I would be drumming on any surface that was given to me, annoying everybody. So I finally convinced my parents, I don’t know how, to just buy me a drum set in sixth grade, and I promised to keep up with the French horn through seventh grade. But I guess somehow in my DNA, drumming was my release,” Packard said.
He began playing in bands in high school, continued through college and has performed with bands in the area for about 30 years, as he went on to work in tech and finance.
Likewise, Hiss has been playing music since middle school.Â
“I just loved it as a kid. The Beatles were my first love. I started playing mostly bass when I was in junior high, (at) about the age of 13, then I played guitar through high school and college, and then back to bass, pretty much until now, it’s my favorite.
“There’s a particular sound it gets, that no other instrument in the band gives. It is just incredible to me,” he said.
The group has gone by the name Past Curfew for roughly the past decade, but its history goes back much farther than that.
“It started out with some neighbors who got together to play brass instruments and that was the Byron Street Band, and then an electric band spun out of that, and I was playing in that — that was called Grounds for Dismissal — and we played for about 10 or 15 years,” Milne said.
After a few personnel changes, the group decided to switch up the name to Past Curfew, kind of a playful nod to the band’s style of music, “because we like to play cover music, and play parties until you’re (out) past curfew,” Milne said.
“A couple of our members were going on to do other things, and we renamed the band because it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I started with Grounds for Dismissal probably 20 years ago,” Hiss recalled.
Packard began playing locally around 1995 in a series of bands with friends from college and his work in tech.
“Just a couple years ago, we happened to lose our singer and guitarist at the same time, and Past Curfew was looking for a new drummer,” Packard recalled. “It just made a lot of sense, because I live a couple blocks away from Steve. I live a couple of blocks away from the bass player John Hiss. The singer from Past Curfew was actually the lead singer in my band about 10 years ago. So all these things converged, and it just felt right to join the band. So it’s just all part of the succession of bands that, you know, shake and move in the area,” Packard said.
The band’s repertoire features favorite cover tunes from many different eras, with the primary criteria being songs with a good beat that get audiences dancing.
“The number one thing is that it’s something the crowd will like, and that is recognizable, and ideally is danceable and extra points if people can sing along. So we like crowd engagement, whether it’s dancing, singing, we’ll take either one, or both at the same time is the best,” Hiss said.
Those qualities fit the songs audiences will hear at their “Playlist: One Hit Wonders” concert.
“We specifically wanted to have a (unique) set list — a lot of cover bands cover a specific genre of time or a specific style of music. … The notion is every year to create a playlist that is completely unique, and it’s based on something that’s not just a given era or a given style, but some theme that is unique and interesting,” Packard said. “That’s when we landed on ‘one-hit wonders,’ because it spans generations. They’re all recognizable, they’re all dance hits. But many of the groups that are behind the songs are unknown.”
Past Curfew will mine the charts from numerous eras for a show celebrating a variety of one-hit wonders. The bandmates didn’t want to spoil too much from their show, but named some ’80s standbys like “Take on Me” by A-ha, “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves and Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love.”
“We have 28 songs on the set list and they have been so fun. You know, there’s a million one-hit wonders, and so choosing these tunes was a lot of fun. We could do this show 10 times over and never repeat a song. Just so many good one-hit wonders,” Hiss said.
Packard had been thinking about the playlist concept for a concert — songs with a unifying theme other than genre or time period — for a while, and one of the people he shared the idea with was Peter Fortenbaugh, the longtime CEO of Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula. Fortenbaugh died in fall of 2022 and the band decided on a concert to honor his legacy and raise funds for the organization’s programs that aim to “empower students with equitable access to opportunities that will help them thrive in school and beyond,” as the group’s mission statement says.
“We’re a community band. How can we give back to the community? Because we’re not here trying to make money or become famous, and it just made sense to think about Peter and what he committed to, and give back to that group. They do so much good for so many young individuals,” Packard said.
Past Curfew presents “Playlist: One-Hit Wonders” Oct. 24, 6:30 p.m., at The Guild Theatre, 949 El Camino Real, Menlo Park; $45.88; guildtheatre.com.
