Red Krayola
Encyclopedia
Red Krayola was a psychedelic
, avant-garde
rock band from Houston, Texas
, formed by art students at the University of St. Thomas (Texas) in 1966. The band was led by singer/guitarist and visual artist Mayo Thompson
, along with drummer Frederick Barthelme
(brother of novelist Donald Barthelme
) and Steve Cunningham. Their work prefigured punk
and the no wave
scene in 1980s New York City
.
They made noise rock
, psychedelia and occasionally folk/country songs and instrumentals in a DIY fashion, an approach that presaged the lo-fi aesthetic of many 1990s US indie rock
groups. Reviewing the band has produced conflicted results - in an extremely positive review from Pitchfork Media, critic Alex Lindhardt wrote "It's a band that has no idea how to play its instruments. In fact, they don't even know what instruments are, or if the guitarist has the ability to remain conscious long enough to play whatever it is a 'note' might be." He added, "This is a band that was paid ten dollars to stop a performance in Berkeley. If Berkeley's not having it, you know you're in for rough sledding."
Thompson has continued using the name, in its legally required permutation The Red Krayola, for his musical projects since.
, home label to fellow psych-rockers The 13th Floor Elevators that was run by Lelan Rogers (brother of country music
ian Kenny Rogers
). In 1967 the label released the psychedelic album, Parable of Arable Land
, featuring six songs by the original three members interwoven with a cacophony generated by approximately 50 anonymous followers known as The Familiar Ugly who appear on a number of noise tracks called Free-Form Freak-Outs. 13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson also makes guest appearances on "Hurricane Fighter Plane" (playing organ) and "Transparent Radiation" (on harmonica). The album's title track was a tape loop
of electronic sounds
with musical improvisation
s layered on top of it, a sound that foreshadowed the Red Krayola's second recording.
The minimalist music
album Coconut Hotel was recorded in 1967 but rejected by International Artists for its lack of commercial potential because of its complete departure from the full-sounding guitar/bass/drums/vocals rock sound of the Red Krayola's first album. Coconut Hotel featured such self-described tracks as "Organ Buildup", "Free Guitar" and a series of atonal "One-Second Pieces" for piano
, trumpet
and percussion. The album did not see release until 1995. During this period, the band performed a concert in Berkeley, California
where they attached a contact microphone
to a sheet of aluminium foil
that was set under a block of melting ice; this performance is captured on Live 1967. The Red Krayola also performed with guitarist John Fahey
and recorded an entire studio album of music in collaboration with him, but label head Lelan Rogers demanded possession of the tapes and recorded documentation of those sessions has been missing ever since.
The band's second album to see release (and the first to be released with the new "Krayola" spelling) was 1968's God Bless The Red Krayola And All Who Sail With It. God Bless presented a middle ground between Parable of Arable Land and Coconut Hotel, having veered away from the cacophonous psychedelic approach of their first album, but performing short, minimalist songs on electric guitar
, bass and drums (interspersed with occasional a cappella
harmonies and piano
interludes) to achieve some surprisingly melodic results and even more surprisingly off-kilter lyrics. Hints of the as-of-yet unheard music on Coconut Hotel also revealed themselves (the track "Listen To This" is a one-second piece with spoken introduction, and "Free Piece" sounds like an outtake from Coconut Hotel). The album was not as well received as the band's first release and the Red Krayola's original lineup disbanded.
In 1969, Thompson recorded a solo album called Corky's Debt to His Father
for a small label called Texas Revolution. The album, which has come to be regarded by many as the unheralded jewel of the Krayola catalogue, is devoid of Thompson's usual avant-garde indulgences, and consists instead of ten lyrically dense but warm-hearted pop songs, in various styles - Dylan-inspired
blues-rock, Tex-Mex pop-rock with psychedelic touches, and early country rock
not dissimilar to the contemporary work of Gram Parsons
and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Thompson was backed by studio musicians on the album and none of his usual Krayola (or 13th Floor Elevators) cohorts appear.
and experimental
artists and musicians of the era. The Red Crayola teamed up with the British-American Conceptual Art
collective Art & Language
, who Thompson described as "the baddest bastards on the block", for three LPs: 1976's Corrected Slogans, 1981's Kangaroo? (also featuring The Raincoats
' Gina Birch
, Lora Logic
and Swell Maps
' Epic Soundtracks
) and 1983's Black Snakes. Thompson joined Pere Ubu
for a period in the early 1980s, performing on their albums The Art of Walking
and Song of the Bailing Man
, and provided soundtrack music for Derek Jarman
. Throughout this time he was prolific as a producer for many other seminal experimental and alternative rock
acts, including The Fall (1980's Grotesque (After the Gramme)
), The Raincoats
, Scritti Politti
, Blue Orchids, Cabaret Voltaire
, Stiff Little Fingers
, Kleenex/LiLiPUT, The Chills
and Primal Scream
.
's Post Rock scene and in particular the Drag City
label, who had joined the band's ever-shifting line-up for a number of releases including the LPs The Red Krayola (1994), Hazel (1996), and Fingerpainting (1999). These were, amongst others, Jim O'Rourke
and David Grubbs
of Gastr del Sol
, the post-Conceptual visual artist Stephen Prina
, German painter Albert Oehlen
, George Hurley
(formerly of Minutemen
and fIREHOSE
), Tom Watson of Slovenly, Sandy Yang, Elisa Randazzo and John McEntire
of Tortoise
. In 2006 the group issued an album, Introduction and an EP, Red Gold.
In 1995, Drag City released 1967's Coconut Hotel LP
and in 1998 issued The Red Krayola Live 1967 with material from the Angry Arts Festival and Berkeley Folk Music Festival including their live collaboration with John Fahey
.
In 2007 Drag City released Sighs Trapped By Liars another Red Krayola with Art & Language collaboration, followed in 2010 with another, Five American Portraits which consists of musical portraits of Wile E. Coyote, President George W Bush, President Jimmy Carter
, John Wayne
, and Ad Reinhardt
with vocals by Gina Birch
.
hardcore punk
band Really Red
recorded a cover of "War Sucks" for their 1984 Rest in Pain LP and followed it with a soundscape piece entitled "Just the Facts Ma'am" that is an obvious tribute to the free form freakouts on The Red Crayola's "Parable of Arable Land" LP.
British
Space Rock
group Spacemen 3
recorded a version of "Transparent Radiation" from the Red Krayola's Parable of Arable Land, and the same album's lead track "Hurricane Fighter Plane" was covered by Nik Turner's Ladbroke Grove-based post-Hawkwind outfit Inner City Unit
, UK Goth rock legends Alien Sex Fiend
in 1986 and by Scottish
act Future Pilot AKA in 1996, as well as by ultra violent punkrockers, The Dwarves (who were originally a psychedelic garage band). Also covering "Hurricane Fighter Plane" was New Zealand
post-punk
band, The Pin Group, led by future solo performer, Roy Montgomery
. Boston-based indie outfit Galaxie 500
also covered "Victory Garden" from the Red Krayola's second album. In April 2009, Spectrum
, fronted by ex-Spacemen 3
frontman Peter Kember
, released an ep named for and headlined by a cover of "War Sucks".
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
, avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
rock band from Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
, formed by art students at the University of St. Thomas (Texas) in 1966. The band was led by singer/guitarist and visual artist Mayo Thompson
Mayo Thompson
Mayo Thompson is an American musician and visual artist best known as the leader of the avant-garde rock band Red Crayola .-1960s:...
, along with drummer Frederick Barthelme
Frederick Barthelme
Fredrick Barthelme is an American novelist and short story author, well known as one of the seminal writers of minimalist fiction...
(brother of novelist Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme was an American author known for his playful, postmodernist style of short fiction. Barthelme also worked as a newspaper reporter for the Houston Post, managing editor of Location magazine, director of the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston , co-founder of Fiction Donald...
) and Steve Cunningham. Their work prefigured punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and the no wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
scene in 1980s New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
They made noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
, psychedelia and occasionally folk/country songs and instrumentals in a DIY fashion, an approach that presaged the lo-fi aesthetic of many 1990s US indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
groups. Reviewing the band has produced conflicted results - in an extremely positive review from Pitchfork Media, critic Alex Lindhardt wrote "It's a band that has no idea how to play its instruments. In fact, they don't even know what instruments are, or if the guitarist has the ability to remain conscious long enough to play whatever it is a 'note' might be." He added, "This is a band that was paid ten dollars to stop a performance in Berkeley. If Berkeley's not having it, you know you're in for rough sledding."
Thompson has continued using the name, in its legally required permutation The Red Krayola, for his musical projects since.
1960s
In 1966 the band signed to International ArtistsInternational Artists
International Artists was an independent record label based in Houston, Texas that originally existed from 1965 to 1970.During its existence IA released 12 albums and 39 singles and was owned by a group of businessmen in Houston. Among its staff were producer Lelan Rogers, brother of country...
, home label to fellow psych-rockers The 13th Floor Elevators that was run by Lelan Rogers (brother of country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
ian Kenny Rogers
Kenny Rogers
Kenneth Donald "Kenny" Rogers is an American singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur...
). In 1967 the label released the psychedelic album, Parable of Arable Land
Parable of Arable Land
The Parable of Arable Land is the first album by the Red Krayola, then known as the Red Crayola. The album is self-described as a “Free Form Freak-Out,” and remains one of the most infamous in their catalogue. A “Free Form Freak-Out” segues each of the actual songs, often resurfacing again...
, featuring six songs by the original three members interwoven with a cacophony generated by approximately 50 anonymous followers known as The Familiar Ugly who appear on a number of noise tracks called Free-Form Freak-Outs. 13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson also makes guest appearances on "Hurricane Fighter Plane" (playing organ) and "Transparent Radiation" (on harmonica). The album's title track was a tape loop
Tape loop
In music, tape loops are loops of prerecorded magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound. Contemporary composers such as Steve Reich and Karlheinz Stockhausen used tape loops to create phase patterns and rhythms...
of electronic sounds
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
with musical improvisation
Musical improvisation
Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians...
s layered on top of it, a sound that foreshadowed the Red Krayola's second recording.
The minimalist music
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
album Coconut Hotel was recorded in 1967 but rejected by International Artists for its lack of commercial potential because of its complete departure from the full-sounding guitar/bass/drums/vocals rock sound of the Red Krayola's first album. Coconut Hotel featured such self-described tracks as "Organ Buildup", "Free Guitar" and a series of atonal "One-Second Pieces" for piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
and percussion. The album did not see release until 1995. During this period, the band performed a concert in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
where they attached a contact microphone
Contact microphone
A contact microphone, otherwise known as a pickup or a piezo, is a form of microphone designed to sense audio vibrations through solid objects. Unlike normal air microphones, contact mics act as transducers which pick up vibrations and convert them into a voltage which can then be made audible...
to a sheet of aluminium foil
Aluminium foil
Aluminium foil is aluminium prepared in thin metal leaves, with a thickness less than , thinner gauges down to are also commonly used. In the USA, foils are commonly gauged in mils. Standard household foil is typically thick and heavy duty household foil is typically .The foil is pliable, and...
that was set under a block of melting ice; this performance is captured on Live 1967. The Red Krayola also performed with guitarist John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
and recorded an entire studio album of music in collaboration with him, but label head Lelan Rogers demanded possession of the tapes and recorded documentation of those sessions has been missing ever since.
The band's second album to see release (and the first to be released with the new "Krayola" spelling) was 1968's God Bless The Red Krayola And All Who Sail With It. God Bless presented a middle ground between Parable of Arable Land and Coconut Hotel, having veered away from the cacophonous psychedelic approach of their first album, but performing short, minimalist songs on electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
, bass and drums (interspersed with occasional a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
harmonies and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
interludes) to achieve some surprisingly melodic results and even more surprisingly off-kilter lyrics. Hints of the as-of-yet unheard music on Coconut Hotel also revealed themselves (the track "Listen To This" is a one-second piece with spoken introduction, and "Free Piece" sounds like an outtake from Coconut Hotel). The album was not as well received as the band's first release and the Red Krayola's original lineup disbanded.
In 1969, Thompson recorded a solo album called Corky's Debt to His Father
Corky's Debt to His Father
Corky's Debt to His Father is the only solo LP release by Red Krayola leader Mayo Thompson. Recorded in 1970 and released on the small independent label Texas Revolution, the album was out of print for a number of years before being re-released by in the mid-eighties.-Track listing:All songs by...
for a small label called Texas Revolution. The album, which has come to be regarded by many as the unheralded jewel of the Krayola catalogue, is devoid of Thompson's usual avant-garde indulgences, and consists instead of ten lyrically dense but warm-hearted pop songs, in various styles - Dylan-inspired
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
blues-rock, Tex-Mex pop-rock with psychedelic touches, and early country rock
Country rock
Country rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
not dissimilar to the contemporary work of Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...
and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Thompson was backed by studio musicians on the album and none of his usual Krayola (or 13th Floor Elevators) cohorts appear.
1970s–1980s
Mayo Thompson continued to make music, both under his own name and as The Red Crayola (reverting to the original name for Europe). He teamed up with American drummer Jesse Chamberlain and recorded the single "Wives in Orbit" and the album Soldier Talk both of which could be seen as musical responses to punk rock. His collaborations in the 1970s and 1980s read like a roll call of the avant-gardeAvant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
and experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
artists and musicians of the era. The Red Crayola teamed up with the British-American Conceptual Art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
collective Art & Language
Art & Language
Art & Language is a shifting collaboration among conceptual artists that has undergone many changes since its inception in the late 1960s. Their early work, as well as their journal Art-Language, first published in 1969, is regarded as an important influence on much conceptual art both in the...
, who Thompson described as "the baddest bastards on the block", for three LPs: 1976's Corrected Slogans, 1981's Kangaroo? (also featuring The Raincoats
The Raincoats
The Raincoats are a British post-punk band. Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art, London, England.-Career:...
' Gina Birch
Gina Birch
Gina Birch is an English musician and film-maker, probably best known as a founding member of The Raincoats.Born in Nottingham where she attended Nottingham High School for Girls, Birch formed The Hangovers and released an album, Slow Dirty Tears, in 1998. In 2002 and 2007 she performed live at...
, Lora Logic
Lora Logic
Lora Logic is a British saxophonist and singer. She was briefly a member of the band X Ray Spex, although she had been sacked from that group by the time they recorded their first album, which nevertheless used her saxophone arrangements. A year later she formed Essential Logic...
and Swell Maps
Swell Maps
Swell Maps were an experimental English rock group of the 1970s from Birmingham that foreshadowed the birth of post-punk.Influenced by the disparate likes of T.Rex and the German progressive outfit, Can, they created a new soundscape that would be heavily mined by others in the post-punk era...
' Epic Soundtracks
Epic Soundtracks
Epic Soundtracks was the stage name of the British musician Kevin Paul Godfrey . Born in Croydon, Surrey, he was brought up in Solihull, Midlands with his brother Adrian Nicholas, who was known as Nikki Sudden .In 1972 Kevin and Nicholas formed the nucleus of what was to become the post-punk rock...
) and 1983's Black Snakes. Thompson joined Pere Ubu
Pere Ubu (band)
Pere Ubu is an experimental rock music group formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975. Despite many long-term band members, singer David Thomas is the only constant...
for a period in the early 1980s, performing on their albums The Art of Walking
The Art of Walking
The Art of Walking is the fourth Pere Ubu full-length. Mayo Thompson of The Red Krayola joined as guitarist for this album, and slanted the proceedings further towards deconstruction and abstraction, and away from the primal rock that former guitarist Tom Herman had facilitated. The group would...
and Song of the Bailing Man
Song of the Bailing Man
Song of the Bailing Man is the fifth Pere Ubu album, and their final work before disbanding for the first extended period. Anton Fier replaced Scott Krauss on drums for this album; his only appearance with Pere Ubu...
, and provided soundtrack music for Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...
. Throughout this time he was prolific as a producer for many other seminal experimental and alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
acts, including The Fall (1980's Grotesque (After the Gramme)
Grotesque (After the Gramme)
Grotesque is a 1980 album by The Fall. The music is a departure from that of the previous albums, 1979's Live at the Witch Trials and Dragnet. Marc Riley played organ on several tracks on the album. This was Paul Hanley's first album with the band, having joined earlier in the year aged just 15...
), The Raincoats
The Raincoats
The Raincoats are a British post-punk band. Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art, London, England.-Career:...
, Scritti Politti
Scritti Politti
Scritti Politti are a British band, originally formed in 1977 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. Although there have been various changes to the line-up, Cardiff-born singer-songwriter Green Gartside was the founding member of the band and the only member to have remained throughout the group's...
, Blue Orchids, Cabaret Voltaire
Cabaret Voltaire (band)
Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...
, Stiff Little Fingers
Stiff Little Fingers
Stiff Little Fingers are a punk rock band from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They formed in 1977, at the height of the Troubles. They started out as a schoolboy band called Highway Star , doing rock covers, until they discovered punk. They split up after six years and four albums, although they...
, Kleenex/LiLiPUT, The Chills
The Chills
The Chills are a guitar and keyboard-based rock band from Dunedin, New Zealand. In the 1980s and 1990s, they were one of the proponents of the Dunedin Sound.- History :...
and Primal Scream
Primal Scream
Primal Scream are a Scottish alternative rock band originally formed in 1982 in Glasgow by Bobby Gillespie and Jim Beattie and now based in London. The current lineup consists of Gillespie, Andrew Innes , Martin Duffy , and Darrin Mooney...
.
1990s–present
The 1990s found The Red Krayola with a new audience, who came to the group via musicians associated with ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
's Post Rock scene and in particular the Drag City
Drag City (record label)
Drag City is a Chicago-based independent record label. It was established with a Royal Trux release in 1990 in Chicago, Illinois by Dan Koretzky and Dan Osborn.Drag City specializes in experimental indie rock acts...
label, who had joined the band's ever-shifting line-up for a number of releases including the LPs The Red Krayola (1994), Hazel (1996), and Fingerpainting (1999). These were, amongst others, Jim O'Rourke
Jim O'Rourke (musician)
Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...
and David Grubbs
David Grubbs
David Grubbs , guitarist, pianist, and vocalist, was a founding member of Squirrel Bait, Bastro, and Gastr del Sol. He has also played in Codeine, The Red Krayola, Bitch Magnet and The Wingdale Community Singers....
of Gastr del Sol
Gastr del Sol
Gastr del Sol was a Chicago band consisting, for most of their career, of David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke. Between 1993 and 1998 they put out seven albums ranging in genre from post-rock to musique concrète....
, the post-Conceptual visual artist Stephen Prina
Stephen Prina
Stephen Prina is an American artist. His work has been categorized as "post-conceptualism." Prina is a professor at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University...
, German painter Albert Oehlen
Albert Oehlen
Albert Oehlen is a contemporary German artist. He graduated from the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Hamburg, in 1978. Closely associated with the Cologne art scene, he was a member of the Lord Jim Lodge, along with Martin Kippenberger among others...
, George Hurley
George Hurley
George Hurley is a drummer noted for his work with The Minutemen and fIREHOSE.Even though he went to the same high school as D. Boon and Mike Watt he did not meet them until around 1978. That same year, Hurley formed The Reactionaries with Boon, Watt, and Martin Tamburovich...
(formerly of Minutemen
Minutemen (band)
Minutemen were an American hardcore punk band formed in San Pedro, California in 1980. Composed of guitarist D. Boon, bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley, Minutemen recorded four albums and eight EPs before Boon's death in an automobile accident in December 1985...
and fIREHOSE
FIREHOSE
Firehose was an alternative rock band consisting of Mike Watt , Ed Crawford , and George Hurley .-History:...
), Tom Watson of Slovenly, Sandy Yang, Elisa Randazzo and John McEntire
John McEntire
John McEntire is an American recording engineer, drummer and multi-instrumentalist. He is best-known for being in Tortoise and The Sea and Cake, as well as being a highly in-demand producer and engineer....
of Tortoise
Tortoise
Tortoises are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles . Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise...
. In 2006 the group issued an album, Introduction and an EP, Red Gold.
In 1995, Drag City released 1967's Coconut Hotel LP
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
and in 1998 issued The Red Krayola Live 1967 with material from the Angry Arts Festival and Berkeley Folk Music Festival including their live collaboration with John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
.
In 2007 Drag City released Sighs Trapped By Liars another Red Krayola with Art & Language collaboration, followed in 2010 with another, Five American Portraits which consists of musical portraits of Wile E. Coyote, President George W Bush, President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
, and Ad Reinhardt
Ad Reinhardt
Adolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
with vocals by Gina Birch
Gina Birch
Gina Birch is an English musician and film-maker, probably best known as a founding member of The Raincoats.Born in Nottingham where she attended Nottingham High School for Girls, Birch formed The Hangovers and released an album, Slow Dirty Tears, in 1998. In 2002 and 2007 she performed live at...
.
Covers
Houston, TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
hardcore punk
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
band Really Red
Really Red
Really Red was one of Houston Texas' first Punk bands in the late 70's, along with The Legionaire's Disease Band, Plastic Idols and the Hates. Their roots can be traced as far back as the late 60's when Ronnie Bond and Kelly Younger had a high school band called The Lords...
recorded a cover of "War Sucks" for their 1984 Rest in Pain LP and followed it with a soundscape piece entitled "Just the Facts Ma'am" that is an obvious tribute to the free form freakouts on The Red Crayola's "Parable of Arable Land" LP.
British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Space Rock
Space rock
Space rock is a subgenre of rock music; the term originally referred to a group of early, mostly British, 1970s progressive and psychedelic rock bands such as Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, characterised by slow, lengthy instrumental passages dominated by electric organs, synthesizers, experimental...
group Spacemen 3
Spacemen 3
Spacemen 3 were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce. Their music was "colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the '60s; instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia"...
recorded a version of "Transparent Radiation" from the Red Krayola's Parable of Arable Land, and the same album's lead track "Hurricane Fighter Plane" was covered by Nik Turner's Ladbroke Grove-based post-Hawkwind outfit Inner City Unit
Inner City Unit
Inner City Unit is a British punk/space rock band fronted by ex-Hawkwind founder Nik Turner on saxophone with Judge Trev Thoms or Steve Pond , Dead Fred , Baz Magneto, Dave Anderson or Nazar Ali Khan , and Mick Stupp or Dino Ferari on drums.-History:Thoms and Ferrari were both key members of...
, UK Goth rock legends Alien Sex Fiend
Alien Sex Fiend
Alien Sex Fiend is a deathrock band from the UK, composed of the married couple Nik Fiend and Mrs. Fiend . Currently, the band is based in Cardiff, Wales.-History:...
in 1986 and by Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
act Future Pilot AKA in 1996, as well as by ultra violent punkrockers, The Dwarves (who were originally a psychedelic garage band). Also covering "Hurricane Fighter Plane" was New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
band, The Pin Group, led by future solo performer, Roy Montgomery
Roy Montgomery
Roy Montgomery is a guitarist from Christchurch, New Zealand.He has played in several New Zealand bands, including Compulsory Fun, Murder Strikes Pink, The Pin Group, The Shallows, Dadamah and Dissolve...
. Boston-based indie outfit Galaxie 500
Galaxie 500
Galaxie 500 was an American alternative rock band that formed in 1987 and split up in 1991 after releasing three albums.-History:Guitarist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang had met at the Dalton School in New York City in 1981, but began playing together during their time...
also covered "Victory Garden" from the Red Krayola's second album. In April 2009, Spectrum
Spectrum
A spectrum is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary infinitely within a continuum. The word saw its first scientific use within the field of optics to describe the rainbow of colors in visible light when separated using a prism; it has since been applied by...
, fronted by ex-Spacemen 3
Spacemen 3
Spacemen 3 were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce. Their music was "colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the '60s; instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia"...
frontman Peter Kember
Peter Kember
Peter Kember is a British musician and producer, more usually known as Sonic Boom, and was a founding member of alternative rock band Spacemen 3....
, released an ep named for and headlined by a cover of "War Sucks".
Discography
- The Parable of Arable LandParable of Arable LandThe Parable of Arable Land is the first album by the Red Krayola, then known as the Red Crayola. The album is self-described as a “Free Form Freak-Out,” and remains one of the most infamous in their catalogue. A “Free Form Freak-Out” segues each of the actual songs, often resurfacing again...
(1967) - God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It (1968)
- Corrected Slogans (1976)
- Soldier Talk (1979)
- Kangaroo? (1981)
- Black SnakesBlack snakesBlack snake and Pharaoh's serpent are two similar types of outdoor firework.After lighting the small tablet, both fireworks start smoking and an ash resembling a snake is created via intumescent reaction...
(1983) - Three Songs on a Trip to the United States (1984)
- Red Krayola (1994)
- Coconut Hotel (1995)
- Hazel (Red Krayola) (1996)
- Father Abraham (Remixes) (1997)
- Live 1967 (Red Krayola) (1998)
- Fingerpainting (Red Krayola) (1999)
- Malefactor, Ade (2000)
- Blues, Hollers and Hellos (2000)
- Singles (Red Krayola) (2004)
- Japan in Paris in L.A. (2004)
- Introduction (Red Krayola) (2006)
- Red Gold (Red Krayola) (2006)
- Sighs Trapped By Liars (2007)
- Fingerpointing (2008)
- Five American Portraits (2010)
See also
- Mayo ThompsonMayo ThompsonMayo Thompson is an American musician and visual artist best known as the leader of the avant-garde rock band Red Crayola .-1960s:...
- Rough Trade RecordsRough Trade RecordsRough Trade Records is an independent record label based in London. It was formed in 1978 by Geoff Travis who had opened a record store off Ladbroke Grove...
- Houston Noise BandsHouston Noise BandsSince the 1970s, Houston, TX has become one of the world's leading centers for a particular brand of dark experimental music, ranging from psych-rock to industrial to distorted, stripped-down folk songs, to dance party mayhem, but all sharing a similar aesthetic sensibility rooted in dissonance...
- Born in FlamesBorn in FlamesBorn in Flames is a 1983 documentary-style feminist science fiction film by Lizzie Borden that explores racism, classism, sexism and heterosexism in an alternative United States Socialist Democracy.-Plot:...
External links
- The Red Krayola on Discogs
- Thorough discography
- The Red Krayola on Drag City
- Piece Red Krayola's importance from NewYorkNightTrain.com