Mountain Bus

Mountain Bus' claim to fame is that they were sued by Windfall Music on behalf of the popular hard rock band Mountain for stealing the band's name, confusing the consumer public, and causing revenue loss by diverting sales of Mountain LPs. In reality, Mountain Bus had been using the name a few years before Mountain even formed. Guitarist Ed Mooney, vocalist Tom Jurkens, and drummer Steve Krater were all students at Loyola University in Chicago with their own individual bands in 1962. When Mooney's Moons and the Stars and Jurkens' Jurk & the Bushmen broke up in 1965, they hooked up in Rhythms Children, adding a couple of other musicians, one of whom was Krater. The band split in 1967 when one of its members fled for Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft. Mooney, Jurkens, and Krater found guitarist Bill Kees, and they formed Mountain Bus. The quartet stayed together until April of 1970 when Krater left for a two-week honeymoon. Lee Sims filled in for him, and when Krater returned, the band decided to keep both drummers. Mountain Bus played in and around Chicago from 1967 to 1971 while the members also held down full-time jobs. During the same period, some Chicago record store owners came up with the idea of starting an independent label to record local bands because they could release the music at a cheaper cost to the public without losing any profits. Good Records was formed, and they set out to record Mountain Bus in the spring of 1971. Their album, Sundance, was released, and sales started out slow before picking up steam. That came to a halt, however, in November of that year, when a temporary restraining order was issued by Windfall Music to Good Records and the band members in order to keep them from using "Mountain" as part of their name. Mountain Bus had never received much publicity outside the Chicago area, nor had they made any money to speak of with their album, so the lawsuit was likely an attack on Good Records because the label was trying to offer music at affordable prices, which was a threat to the profits of major labels. The lawsuit proved effective when Good Records went bankrupt trying to fight it, and Mountain Bus broke up as a result. Leslie West and Felix Pappalardi of Mountain, when confronted with the charge that they had been part of this hostile legal action, insisted they knew nothing of nor did they condone the lawsuit, but the damage had already been done. ~ Stanton Swihart, All Music Guide