Thursday, July 10, 2008

the red krayola



detail from jan van eyck's, giovanni arnolfini and his wife, 1434. Tempera on wood.
Texan, Mayo Thompson is very much a maverick genius in the same mould as Roky Erickson of the 13th Floor Elevators. The Red Krayola's sound - oringinally Red Crayola until a threatened law suit - is a much more proto-punk experiment, however, than the Elevators' psychotropic blend of Buddy Holly on mescalin and testosterone fueled dance-floor delinquency.
Mayo later briefly formed part of Ohio's Pere Ubu. Moving to London sometime in 1976, he became involved with Geoff Travis's distribution business at the mighty Rough Trade Records.

Written by Steve Cunningham; Tommy Smith; and Mayo Thompson.

This is a love affair I've never tired of.

THE RED KRAYOLA: THE JEWELS OF THE MADONNA from "God Bless The Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It" LP (International Artists) 1968 (US)

REISSUED ON CD

1 comment:

ib said...

I have a flexi copy of the Krayola's "Hurricane Fighter Plane" that came free with a magazine on yellow plastic.

It might've been "Zig Zag" but I don't remember. It also contained "Reverberation" by the 13th Floor Elevators, and was a different version of the track which appeared on 1967's "Parable Of Arable Land".

You had to place a 2p coin on a circular section marked on the plastic to prevent the stylus from skipping. Most of the time you had to stack two or three coins on top to get the frigging thing to play, but it was definitely worth it.