The Mystery of Atlantis Symphony

I'm a new student at a university in NE Ohio, and I've been working at our school's archives, specifically the school paper. While going through the many stacks, I found a paper that caught my eye. It was dated November 16, 1979, and had this illustrious picture on the front. Upon further inspection, it was for a septet of musicians by the name of Atlantis Symphony. According to the article, they were well known throughout the area, and were extremely popular on the campus radio station to the point of wearing out the tape. Keep in mind that this is 1979, well after the heyday of prog, and this band was that popular, so it must be amazing. On top of that, they were with Hammond-wizard Brian Auger in a Youngstown concert, so they might have some pedigree.

I wanted to learn more. I went back to my dorm and looked all over for this Atlantis Symphony. Nothing. Zip. Nada. I couldn't find anything about them. What I DID find, however, was the band Atlantis Philharmonic, a duo (and later trio) who released one album in 1974. This Atlantis Philharmonic was from Cleveland, so they must be connected to this mystery band. So at least five years after their first(and only known) album, they more than doubled in group size, became region famous, and have zero record of this band's iteration online? Hmmm..

I'm going over to the radio station on Monday to see if they have an aircheck of the time, any documentation, or maybe even a limited release album with this band. I wanted to come here to see if anyone who was in NE Ohio at the time remembers this band, and maybe they can give a hint toward what this band was. I can only find members of the preceding Atlantis Philharmonic (Royce Gibson, Roger Lewis, & Joe DiFazio). Maybe they might have some info on this? Any help is appreciated.

Pic of paper in question: https://imgur.com/a/rF6Nly2

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: I've heard of Atlantis Philharmonic but not symphony. One of the obscure US 70's bands I remember hearing about. There were more than most people realize I think.

I checked all those pages in my research. The picture on the paper is supposedly the "album art" so unless the artist also got it wrong, then they must have changed names. Their whole (released) album is on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scQUjrVE6LE). I think they just fell off the radar and no one could find any other record of their existence.

Looks like the cover artist is still around; maybe he might have an idea of what happened?

I'm wondering if they did manage to release an album - obviously they made some sort of recording, but who knows if that was a proper studio recording or just a demo. Doesn't seem surprising to me that in 1979 a new prog band would have troubles getting support from a label. I could see a 7-person band collapsing quite easily if they were having troubles pushing forward.

You'll find it on page 6 of the PDF (which is actually page 10 of the paper).

"The versatility of percussionist, vocalist, and keyboardist Dave Kucera, vocalists Barb Begin and Tom Colls [Colis? Not a very good scan], bass and Taurus pedal player. Tom Lonitro, guitarist Joe Lonitro, percussionist Royce Gibson, and lead keyboardist Mark Kucera define the overpowering dynamo of the group."

(sorry if there are typos - it's copy and pasted from the article which was scanned and presumably transcribed by a computer)

Royce Gibson was in fact a member of Atlantis Philharmonic, but that seems to be the only link.

Another short article on page 9 here (PDF page 5):

It looks like there might be a few articles of the Atlantis Philharmonic from the mid 70s if you search for "Atlantis" (a not so positive concert review from 1975-03-11). Apparently nothing from after the concert for quite a few years; haven't checked all the results to see if they have anything to do with the band (most seem to be about different uses of Atlantis).

I also searched the band members' last names on that website... Nothing new seems to pop up.

Doing some cyber-stalking, Tom and Joe Lonitro seem to have been involved in this band later on, which doesn't really sound anything at all like prog (although it's not half bad either):

I wonder if there's an issue between the 11-16 and 11-30 issue with a review of the concert, although the first article implies that there was a Thanksgiving break so it would make sense if the school paper also wasn't published that week.

It seems like the author of the article was also in charge of putting on the concert, so I wonder how much the popularity of the band was exaggerated in order to generate interest.

it's called Grand Master and can be found on Youtube.