Bill Manning

As a lark, in 1967 a handful of Crawford High School buddies formed a band to play at the downtown San Diego Community Concourse’s Battle of the Bands and Custom Car Show.  The Band was named “The Outer Moscow Ball-Bearing Plant #9.”  They were very good but they did not win.  This was the first opportunity for Bill Manning and Jack Valentine to play music together.  Remnants of that band kicked around for a while under the name “The Flying Circus” but after numerous, tedious, futile auditions to replace flakey members, Bill and Jack agreed to go their separate ways.  Horse Feathers and Whitehorse emerged as a result.

Bill Manning was a driving force playing bass behind Horse Feathers, the most respected all-original Symphonic Rock Band San Diego produced in the 70’s.  Horse Feathers was often voted the San Diego Reader Band of the Year.  They shared the bill as opening act for “The Kinks” and “Wishbone Ash” among others and played the prestigious “Troubadour” in Hollywood.  Their Starlight Bowl Concerts in Balboa Park were feats of amazing theatre.  Also memorable were a couple of times when Jack and Bill’s paths crossed and Horse Feathers and Whitehorse wound up on the same bill.

Unfortunately, like Whitehorse, and many blossoming bands of the late 70’s, disco came in and live music passed away overnight.  Artistic bands had nothing to work towards and nowhere to play, and like the burst of the bubble, the dreams were gone.

Bill and Jack reunited 20 years later with a first attempt to resurrect The Flying Circus in 1995, but Jack’s involvement in the O. J. Simpson murder case fiasco and resulting personal traumas soon stifled all creative efforts.  A decade later, with Bill and Jack’s lives now on a more even keel, the time is right for something long, long overdue, the new Flying Circus.