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God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It

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God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It
Studio album by
Red Krayola
ReleasedMay 1968
Recorded7 February – March 8, 1968
StudioGold Star (Houston, Texas)[1]
Genre
Length37:20
LabelInternational Artists
ProducerRed Krayola (Mayo Thompson)[4]
Red Krayola chronology
The Parable of Arable Land
(1967) 		God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It
(1968) 		Corrected Slogans
(1976)

God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It is the second commercially released studio album by the American avant-rock band Red Krayola.[5] It was released in May 1968 by the independent record label known as International Artists.[6]

Background

[edit]

In 1968, the band received a cease & desist letter from the Binney & Smith company, the manufacturers of Crayola crayons; in compliance, they changed their name from "Red Crayola" to "Red Krayola". This left them with two different names for all their commercially released 1960s studio albums. Mayo Thompson said, "When we signed with International Artists, we scared them to death, 'cause we said 'We want to change our name on every record!' And they were like, 'Oh, no.'"

After Red Krayola's performance at the Berkeley Folk Festival the band recorded tapes with folk guitarist John Fahey, which record label International Artists demanded they have given to them. Mayo Thompson later felt at "loose ends" and decided to go on a trip to Los Angeles, where he worked with Joseph Byrd of The United States of America as well as running into Nico, who had just left the Velvet Underground looking for musicians for her next solo album, Thompson did not work with her as he said "she was not interested in what I was doing". [7][8] At this time, Frederick Barthelme left the band to pursue writing and conceptual art in New York City (working for a brief period at the Kornblee Gallery) and was replaced by Tommy Smith.[2][7]

Recording and production

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In an interview, Mayo Thompson said, "A lot of it was written on the fly, on the feet".[9]

Thompson said his label wanted another album due to the success of their debut, "but they wanted to know what the songs were, and I didn't want to tell them everything. So I played some tunes for them. Went in and made a demo". The album was recorded in one month, mostly on four-track. The group was left to their own devices; there was no use of artificial reverb on the record until the very last track, "Night Song".[9][10][11]

"Say Hello to Jamie Jones" and "Green of My Pants" were the first two songs they recorded, and they were both done in a single take. On the 17th, Mayo and Steve came back for an overdubbing session, and on the 18th, they cut "Leejol", "Victory Garden", "Music" and "Free Piece". Between the 20th and the 23rd, the album's remaining tracks were recorded, and by the end of the month, they had been edited and mixed. The album was finished on 9 March and submitted to Columbia Studios in Hollywood on the 25th for mastering on vinyl after Mayo returned to the studio to record more material during the first week of March.[10]

On producing the record, Mayo Thompson remarked, "I’m credited on God Bless The Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It [1968]. I played a role and so did Steve but we weren't the producers. It was Jim Duff".[12]

Thompson claimed that the band "eschewed all technical embellishment" for recording.[9][10][11]

Reception

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Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[13]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[14]
Pitchfork9.5/10[15]
Spin Alternative Record Guide9/10[16]

The album failed to live up to the commercial success of The Parable of Arable Land: it sold only around 6,000 copies and was dismissed by most critics.[17] The Chicago Seed reviewed it on July 7, 1968. They compared the record to their debut and disliked the change in direction:

Unfortunately, the Crayola has fallen prey to the same exhaustion that seems to have hit so many other interesting groups. The handball noises in "The Shirt" are poor compensation for the absence of the Familiar Ugly.[18]

The band fell out with International Artists, and as demands grew for Tommy Smith elsewhere, they could not play the songs live as intended. As a result, they disbanded. Steve Cunningham moved to Vienna in 1969 to study linguistics whilst Thompson moved on to other endeavors.[19][2] Thompson formed a new incarnation of Red Krayola in the late 1970s.[20]

Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote, "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".[13] Additionally, Deming would assess the opening track as "sounding like a post-punk experiment from late-'70s London".[21]

The Spin Alternative Record Guide called the album "superb", describing it as "small songs full of quiet terror and acoustic confusion".[12] Dave Marsh wrote in the 1983 Rolling Stone record guide "As a psychedelic novelty (from Texas yet), the Crayola was a late-Sixties amusement – the only band in the world ever to record a motorcycle live in the studio. That was on the inaugural disc, Parable. With God Bless, the joke had already worn thin, but after Radar reissued the first two albums in England, a band of arty post-punk minimalists attempted to carry the tradition onward, with particularly insipid results".[22]

Pitchfork's Alex Lindhart wrote, "For all the laudations heaped upon the Krayola by the punk and post-punk crowds, it might as well be bootleg Einstürzende Neubauten at its grimiest atonality and infuritating double integral time signatures".[2] Lindhart added "the Krayola's legacy is surely bolstered by their location in rock history – simply put, this was likely the most experimental band of the 1960s".[2]

Texas Monthly wrote, "With no song topping 3 minutes. A generation on, [the] album would be a blueprint for punk rock".[23]

Galaxie 500 covered "Victory Garden" on a 1990 single.[24]

As part of the 2011 CD reissue booklet Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 (who remastered the album as well as their debut at New Atlantis studios) said: "Nearly every track, recorded in '68, seems to presage the whole of independent music from '75 thru to, well, now!" also comparing portions of the tracklist to artists such as Syd Barrett, Richard Hell, Tortoise, Animal Collective and the Monochrome Set. Additionally, he noted that Thompson, "somehow forecast his work with Pere Ubu".[10][11]

Joseph Byrd[25] of the United States of America called "Listen to This" his favorite song on the album, he recalled attending Red Krayola rehearsals before forming his own group.[26]

Notable fans of the album include Manos Hatzidakis[27] and Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT.[28]

God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It was placed at number 185 on Uncut's "The 500 Greatest Albums of the 1960s" list.[29]

Keith Connolly of Bomb remarked that God Bless sounded like it was predicting bands such as the Minutemen, Unrest, Bastro and Gastr Del Sol.[12]

Track listing

[edit]

All tracks are written by Red Krayola

Side A
No.TitleLength
1."Say Hello to Jamie Jones"2:30
2."Music"1:00
3."The Shirt"2:30
4."Listen to This"0:04
5."Save the House"1:24
6."Victory Garden"1:48
7."Coconut Hotel"1:22
8."Sheriff Jack"2:12
9."Free Piece"2:18
10."Ravi Shankar: Parachutist"2:09
11."Piece for Piano and Electric Bass Guitar"0:45
12."Dairymaid's Lament"2:30
Side B
No.TitleLength
1."Big"1:37
2."Leejol"2:40
3."Sherlock Holmes"2:55
4."Dirth of Tilth"1:26
5."Tina's Gone to Have a Baby"1:49
6."The Jewels of the Madonna"1:29
7."Green of My Pants"3:00
8."Night Song"1:52
Total length:37:20

Personnel

[edit]
Red Krayola
  • Steve Cunningham – fretless bass guitar, cover design
  • Tommy Smith – drums, cover design
  • Mayo Thompson – guitar, piano, vocals, cover design (credited as producer on the vinyl disc as well as the rest of the band on the liner notes but the LP was actually produced by Jim Duff)[12]
Technical personnel
  • Jim Duff – Engineer, producer
  • Fred Caroll – Engineer
  • Dennis Collins – Engineer
Additional personnel
  • Chorus Singers – Mary Sue, Dotty, Pat Pritchett, Barbara Metyko, Elaine Banks, Carolyn Heinman and Candy
  • Holly Pritchett – vocals on "Big"
  • Dick Wray – back cover photographer (of Mayo and Steve)
  • Guy Clark – back cover photographer (of Tommy Smith)

Release history

[edit]
Region Date Title Label Format Catalog
USA 1968 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It International Artists Stereo LP IA-LP-7
USA 1968 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It International Artists 8-Track Cartridge Stereo IA-LP-7
UK 1979 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It Radar Records Stereo LP RAD 16
UK 1988 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It Decal Stereo LP LIK 29
USA 1993 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It Collectables CD COL-CD-0555
France 1995 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It Spalax Music CD 14898
Italy 1999 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It Get Back Stereo LP GET534
Italy 2002 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It Sunspots CD SPOT 521
Italy 2006 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It Get Back Stereo LP GET90534
UK 2011 God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It Charly Records CD SNAX631CD

^a This release includes extensive liner notes, including interviews and photographs

References

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  1. ^ Bradley, Andy; Wood, Roger (April 1, 2010). House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292719194 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ a b c d e "The Red Krayola: The Parable of Arable Land / God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It". Pitchfork.
  3. ^ "The Red Krayola – God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic". AllMusic.
  4. ^ "BOMB Magazine | Mayo Thompson by Keith Connolly".
  5. ^ Jasinski, Laurie E. (February 22, 2012). Handbook of Texas Music. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 9780876112977 – via Google Books.
  6. ^ Kenny, Glenn; Grant, Steven; Robbins, Ira (2007). "Red Crayola". Trouser Press. Retrieved May 26, 2016.
  7. ^ a b "Mayo Thompson Interview Part 1".
  8. ^ "Mayo Thompson: The Man from Mars". Larecord.com.
  9. ^ a b c "Mayo Thompson: Red Krayola recording history".
  10. ^ a b c d God Bless (2011 CD Booklet).
  11. ^ a b c "The Red Krayola – God Bless The Red Krayola And All Who Sail With It – Soundohm". www.soundohm.com. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  12. ^ a b c d "BOMB Magazine | Mayo Thompson". BOMB Magazine. Retrieved 2023-04-23.
  13. ^ a b Deming, Mark. "God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It – The Red Crayola". AllMusic. Retrieved December 10, 2014.
  14. ^ Larkin, Colin (May 27, 2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857125958 – via Google Books.
  15. ^ Linhardt, Alex (February 9, 2004). "The Red Krayola: The Parable of Arable Land / God Bless The Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It". Pitchfork. Retrieved December 10, 2014.
  16. ^ Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. 1995. pp. 322–323.
  17. ^ "- BookmarkAuthorizationFailure".
  18. ^ Crimbring, Donna; Remp, Dick; Casey; Smith, Paul; Rosenfeld, A. L.; Lynch, Jayzey; Tassel, Dennis V. A. N.; Valerie; Eliot; Ho, Sandi Momi; Wells, Jim; Filth; Abe; Wasserman, Harvey; Feldman, Eugene P. R.; Filth, Common; Samberg, Paul; Moon, Simon (1968). "The Seed". Seed.
  19. ^ Leach, Jasper; Minor, Joel (2016-09-22). "FORTUNE, FATES, AND RANDOM CHANCES: The story of Mayo Thompson's Corky's Debt to His Father". Southwestern American Literature. 42 (1): 24–53.
  20. ^ "The Red Krayola Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  21. ^ The Red Krayola – The Parable of Arable Land/God Bless the Red Krayola & All Who Sail with It Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic, retrieved 2023-05-03
  22. ^ The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon and Schuster. 2004. ISBN 9780743201698.
  23. ^ "Mayo Thompson Pays Off Corky's Debt". Texas Monthly. January 13, 2020.
  24. ^ "Red Crayola (Red Krayola)". Trouser Press. Retrieved 2023-04-23.
  25. ^ "Joseph Byrd interview". www.cloudsandclocks.net. Retrieved 2023-05-02.
  26. ^ Breznikar, Klemen (2013-02-09). "The United States Of America | Joseph Byrd | Interview". It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine. Retrieved 2023-05-02.
  27. ^ "O Μάνος Χατζιδάκις και η αμερικανική ψυχεδελική σκηνή των '60s | LiFO". www.lifo.gr (in Greek). 2021-10-31. Retrieved 2023-04-23.
  28. ^ Blog, N. M. E. (2010-12-21). "100 Greatest Lost Albums – This Week's NME". NME. Retrieved 2023-04-23.
  29. ^ Robinson, John (2022-10-27). "Introducing our Quarterly Special Edition: The Greatest Albums Of The 1960s". UNCUT. Retrieved 2023-04-23.
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