Everything about Red Krayola totally explained
The Red Krayola (formerly
The Red Crayola) 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.
Thompson has continued using the name, in its legally required permutation
The Red Krayola, for his musical projects since.
They make
noise rock,
psychedelia and occasionally folk/country songs and instrumentals in a
DIY-punk 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's 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."
History
1960s
In
1966 the band signed to
International Artists, home label to fellow psych-rockers
The 13th Floor Elevators that was run by
Lelan Rogers (brother of
country musician
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 100 anonymous followers known as
The Familiar Ugly who appear on a number of noise tracks called
Free-Form Freak-Outs. The album's title track was a
tape loop of
electronic sounds with
musical improvisations 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 didn't 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. 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). The album wasn't 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.
1970s–80s
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-garde and
experimental artists and musicians of the era. The Red Crayola teamed up with the
Conceptual Art collective
Art & Language 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 a couple releases, 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,
The Chills and
Primal Scream.
1990s–present
The
1990s found The Red Krayola with a new audience, who came to the group via musicians associated with
Chicago'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
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
The Minutemen and
fIREHOSE),
Tom Watson of
Slovenly, 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.
Thompson is active as an
art critic and currently lives in
Edinburgh,
Scotland, and in
California, where he teaches at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design.
Covers
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 deathrock group
Alien Sex Fiend in
1986 and by
Scottish act
Future Pilot AKA in
1996, as well as by ultra violent punkrockers,
The Dwarves. 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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Red Krayola'.
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