IN ORDER TO AVOID MISUNDERSTANDING  WE ADVISE YOU TO ENQUIRE 

ABOUT POSTAGE COST BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY BID/PURCHASE THE ITEM

  PLEASE ASK FOR ANY INFORMATION

THE RED KRAYOLA

First incarnation of Mayo Thompson's long-running experimental group, later renamed the Red Krayola.

One of the longest running of all experimental rock bands, the Red Crayola have spent most of their long and varied history billed as the Red Krayola. Under their original spelling, they were a Houston-based trio organized by Mayo Thompson in September of 1966, with Steve Cunningham on bass and Rick Barthelme on drums. Embracing an unconventional approach to their instruments and melodic structures, they were signed to Lelan Rogers' International Artists label in 1967 after Rogers saw them engage a crowd at a shopping mall concert with their minimalist energy. The Red Crayola cut their first LP early that year, The Parable of Arable Land, assisted by several dozen noise-making hippies dubbed "the Familiar Ugly" (including Roky Erickson on organ). The group's sound was one of the bolder, less obviously commercial psychedelic incarnations of the era, which was precisely what Thompson had in mind.

"GOD BLESS THE RED KRAYOLA AND WHO SAIL WITH IT"

<reissue, originally published in 1968>

LP     RADAR RECORDS      RAD 16

MADE IN ENGLAND    1979 REPRESSING

SINGLE COVER

Barcode and Other Identifiers

Barcode: none

LABEL: RADAR - RED LABEL - BLACK TEXT

Catalog on cover: (spine & rear) RAD 16  

Catalog on labels: RAD 16  RAD 16 A* / RAD 16  RAD 16 B*

Matrix / Runout (Side A, Etched): S-1 .RAD 16-A-1  A PORKY PRIME CUT   (Stamped): Λ

Matrix / Runout (Side B, Etched): S-2 ·RAD-16-B-1 PECKO   (Stamped): Λ

On labels: top rim text "All Rights...........Prohibited"

bottom rim text "Radarscope.........A Warner Communications Co"

Made in UK

℗ 1968 International Artists Production Corp.

© 1979 Radarscope Records Ltd.

All titles.........

Produced by.......

On back cover: Tracklist + Credits + Notes

© 1968 Radarscope Records Ltd

Radarscope Records Ltd trading as Radar Records

in association with wea Records Ltd

W[logo] A Warner Communication Company

Country of manufacture of the record as stated on record label

Printed and made in England by Garrod and Lofthouse Ltd

tracklisting

Side A: SAY HELLO TO JAMIE JONES - MUSIC - THE SHIRT - LISTEN TO THIS

SAVE THE HOUSE - VICTORY GARDEN - COCONUT HOTEL - SHERIFF JACK - FREE PIECE

RAVI SHANKAR: PARACHUTIST - PIECE FOR PIANO AND ELECTRIC BASS GUITAR - DAIRYMAID'S LAMENT

Side B: BIG - LEEJOL - SHERLOCK HOLMES - DIRTH OF TILTH - TINA'S GONE TO HAVE A BABY

THE JEWELS OF THE MADONNA - GREEN OF MY PANTS - NIGHT SONG

grading

RECORD EX but (please, read above description)

SLEEVE VG+ but (please, see pictures and read above description)

Having made their debut with one of the most aggressively eccentric albums of the 1960s (a fairly remarkable achievement given the competition), Mayo Thompson and his partners in the Red Krayola (changed from the Red Crayola after a threatened lawsuit from Binney & Smith) took a very different approach on their second album. The group had been experimenting with improvisational noise pieces using found objects and feedback alongside conventional instruments following the release of The Parable of Arable Land, a logical extension of the "Familiar Ugly" pieces on the album, but God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It found the band taking up the conventional rock format of guitar, bass, and drums. However, if God Bless the Red Krayola is a formally more conventional and less alienating work than their first album, it's still a long, long way from what anyone was doing in the rock mainstream in 1968; the melodies are usually jagged and often veer into atonality, the songs stubbornly avoid typical "verse chorus verse" structures and sometimes appear to be improvised on the spot, drummer Tommy Smith enjoys throwing himself onto a different rhythmic path than his bandmates, Mayo Thompson's guitar lines run the gamut from fluid to jagged, and for all the noisy chaos of Parable, God Bless the Red Krayola is full of open space and significant, sometimes disquieting silences. However, not everything on the album is off-putting; "Victory Garden" could pass for something like conventional psychedelia, "Ravi Shankar: Parachutist" is lovely and haunting, "Sheriff Jack" starts out as something like blues before Smith's rhythms take a left turn, and "Leejol," "Dirth of Tilth," and "Dairymaid's Lament" confirm this band could play a fractured but enthusiastic version of rock & roll, even if it wasn't likely to please the average visitor to a psychedelic ballroom. Overall, God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It bears precious little resemblance to anything else that appeared at the time; it would take a few decades of post-punk experimentalism before Mayo Thompson's vision would have a truly suitable context, though the album's playful undercurrent goes a long way toward making these tiny shards of sound go down easily for the musically open-minded...(AllMusic)