Customer Reviews

Parable of Arable Land

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the real deal, a living artifact from the psychedelic
sixties before the fruit turned rotten. No need to worry
that the "freeform freak outs" are too chaotic and unlistenable...
oh no...they have an organic "tribal" feel that's genuine
hippie culture; and the actual songs are all good, notably
WAR SUCKS...always relevant in the history of mankind.

Originally released in 1967,as this is the long running band's very first effort.Highly under-appreciated 'experimental psych' in which as for the few other Red Crayola CD's I've heard,this one is probably the best.'The Parable...' employs weird and unconventional sounds of jugs,sticks,flutes,kazoos,etc.Hard to believe,but the band actually STILL exists today.Well,at least singer/songwriter Mayo Thompson is active with putting out new releases and touring occasionally.A couple of the tunes that I was sort of blown away with were "Free Form Freakout","Pink Stainless Tail" and "Transparent Radiation".Might be too strange for some.Line-up:Mayo Thompson-guitar&vocals,Steve Cunninghan-bass and Rick Barthelme-drums.Might appeal to fans of Skip Spence,Quicksilver Messenger Service,Pere Ubu,Syd Barrett and 13th Floor Elevators.Let your freak flag fly!

I was organizing my cd's the other day & had already finished when I had stumbled across "Parable of an Arable Land". I had forgotten to secure a space for the Red Krayola so I filed them after the Zombies. It seems fitting that they would be somewhat outside of the alphabet, because I know so few bands that were influenced primarily by themselves. No one sounded like them at the time, and come to think of it, no one really sounds like them now -- though you hear their influence. Most music on the fringes is drenched in melancholy or madness. I didn't detect either on this album, it seems joyfully detatched, resolutely/confidently weird. When I played the album it had the brief, but compelling effect of making every thing else I had ever heard sound corny. "Hmm?". It was the same reaction I had a few years ago when I played it, which was the same reaction after I first bought it. I think the album is like a treasure more than anything, one I don't want to spoil with over-listening & analysis. I never seem to have to play it more than once, then I file it away, this time a little past the "Z's" to be listened to again in a few years.

I have to disagree with comment[s] dissing "the deluges of tuneless noise between tracks". The Free-Form Freak-Outs are what make this record so special. The original Red Crayola included not only art-rock legend Mayo Thompson (later of Pere Ubu and other adventuresome combos) but also Rick Barthelme, brother of celebrated PoMo writer John, and later a succesful author in his own right... The boys were acquainted with John Cage, who may have influenced the Free-Form Feak Outs. In any event, the Freak Outs , which are based on the band's friends -- here dubbed "The Familar Ugly" -- showing up in the studio with anything they have that makes noise and whanging away, are not as totally random and aimless as they may first seem. The musicians in the band add just enough material over the top of the chaos to give it some direction, combined with some judicious sound mixing. In other words, if you actually listen to this stuff, it starts making a kind of sense after a while. To my ears, this is one of the few truly successful attempts to create an extended sonic form from psychedelia. When most rockers tried to get psychedelic at length, they got too precious or pretentious.

When the songs emerge from the din they're pretty darn cool too. "War Sucks" indeed.

By the way, you may also see the Decal import which combines 'Parable of Arable Land' and 'God Bless the Red Crayola' on a single CD. I don't recommend it because 1) the disc deletes the Freak Out after War Sucks, detracting from the experience and making the track listing on the label incorrect, and 2) 'God Bless' isn't that good anyway.

First of all let's remember that Red Crayola originally shared the International Artists record label with the 13th Floor Elevators. That alone would be enough reason to buy this CD. But the music here is so on the money for its period, hits the unexpected highs so well and represents so many themes current with the late 60's (especially War Sucks! which is the great unheard anti-war song of the period) that this CD becomes a must purchase. If you're really going to get a true feel for the beginnings of psychedelic music, the cornerstones came not from California and certainly not from England, but from of all places TEXAS. Get used to it - L.A. wasn't the whole 60's music world by a long shot, and these free form freakout musicians show that to be true. Trust me, this is the real thing, and note that this was an EXTREMELY rare LP even in its heyday. Buy it and listen to it with appropriately altered conciousness.

Great driving music. Yeah, you'll get there, only a little bit faster than you originally anticipated dude! ('cause this is, like how you've always, like, dreamed, like, psychedelic rock should sound like, man) Turn off the carborator and turn on the band named after a crayon. All songs are good but the following are golden: "Pink Stainless Tale", "Transparent Radiation", "Hurricane Fighter Plane", and "Former Reflections, Enduring Doubt." [...]

P.S. Nobody Loves Me.

P.S.S. I wrote this review when I was drunk; probably thinking it was real funny. Sorry that it isn't. But it is a great unnoticed rock album. Also recommended for those more inclined to listen to Will Oldham or 1970's era Bob Dylan: Mayo Thompson's solo LP "Corky's Debt to His Father".

the music here is awsome and insanely psychedelic at it's best. i was surprised however at one thing. the cd is listed as a 5 track disc. however track one is: freeform freakout/hurricane fighter plane/free form freakout/transparent radiation/free form freakout/war sucks. track two is freeform freakout/pink stainless tail. track three is free form freakout/parable of arable land. track four is free form freakout/former reflections enduring doubt while track five is a faded in continuation of track four. while i love the cd that little fact about track four fading out and track five, the continuing of track four, fading in is a little distracting. i am aware that it could just be the copy that i have but would be shocked if everyone that has this who would check closely would find the same thing.

Mayo Thompson and the first incarnation of the Red Krayola in collaboration with the communal, borderline cultish hippie assemblage the Familiar Ugly. Instrumentation that includes chainsaws, motorcycles, soda bottles, and even one person on matchsticks. Mayo Thompson, Rick Barthelme, and the handful of more traditional musicians (including appearances by the Thirteenth Floor Elevators' Roky Erickson), manage to provide some, albeit limited, cohesion to the caucophonous splendor, bringing some of the free-form freakouts dangerously close to the level of "song." The group was signed by International Artists in 1966 when Lelan Rogers witnessed a Krayola performance at an Austin, Texas, shopping mall. Rogers was more intrigued than impressed by the ragtag lot that "barely knew how to play their instruments." This album is the only surviving documentation of the Familiar Ugly era of the band; it is a slice of underground history and a savory morsel for all with a penchant for wierdness. Fans of the Brockett Hudson will adore this vanguard of avant-folk-psych.

The Red Crayola were one of the greatest psychedelic bands of the 1960s and probably of all times. They played extremely wild and cacophonous music that was decades ahead of its time. They predated Germany's expressionistic rock (Faust) and the American new wave (Pere Ubu). Their "freak outs" were closer to John Coltrane's free-jazz and to Jackson Pollock's abstract paintings than to rock and roll.

Their leader, Mayo Thompson, is a composer who ranks among the greatest living musicians (classical, jazz, rock). His revolutionary compositional style had few stable coordinates. His pieces float not because they are ethereal but because melody and rhythm are left "loose". They are organisms that rely on supporting skeletons that are falling apart as they move.

Thompson placed his art firmly in the iconoclastic tradition that Frank Zappa had just founded, and simply increased the amount and the speed of noise. Parable Of Arable Land (1967) is one of the milestones of rock music, a carousel of savage harmonic inventions/sabotages.

Although it was listed at #44 on Joe S. Harrington's Top 100 Albums ten years ago and similarly praised by Piero Scaruffi, I had never been tempted to listen to "The Parable of Arable Land" until very recently, as if under inspiration to discard prejudices inherited from my teenage years.

It is often said that "The Parable of Arable Land" was the strangest album released in the experimental 1960s, and later became influential on a large number of "space rock" bands in the 1980s and 1990s, most especially Spiritualized. Whilst other writers like Scaruffi and "janitor-x" have not encouraged me in recent years to check out Spiritualized and similar groups, in recent days I have often felt the need to counter fears about many critically acclaimed records, and I checked out a copy of "The Parable of Arable Land".

On the whole, I do not have really positive emotions about my experience with "The Parable of Arable Land". In essence, the recording is a concept album about the effects of war on ordinary people, moving from the pilot's experience in "Hurricane Fighter Plane" to the farmer's in the title track. In fact, the lyrics are very quirky and intelligent, though Mayo Thompson's inability to sing with any power above the lowest register really does not help his articulation of them, nor the strange humour they possess, especially in the way he imagines the experiences of being a fighter pilot.

The songs themselves, as is well-known, are divided into ordinary "songs" and a "free form freakout" intermixed with or preceding each track. The free-form freakouts were considered very adventurous for their time by the few musicians who heard "The Parable of Arable Land" before the 1980s, but with hindsight they lack either sheer power or slow-burn development that the best epic songs have. Instead, they are noisy and dense beyond any necessity, which might have shown to many what could be done with exotic instrumentation in a rock format. However, the sheer density is such that one cannot hear any individual instrument at all. Moreover, the songs proper have very unconventional structures placed around psychedelic rock of a fairly typical character. These actually do manage to be interesting since they can take very unexpected turns, notably on "Transparent Radiation" and "Pink Stainless Tail", where softer passages contrast very well with soulful choral parts that are in no way conventional choruses. The problem is Mayo Thompson's voice - which, like Syd Barrett's, was totally unsuited to the music it was trying to sing. He sounds OK when he sings in the very lowest register, but when he tries to go to pitches any higher he sounds tuneless and totally muted as if he is trying to sing higher than he is naturally able. For instance, "Hurricane Fighter Plane" cannot develop the dynamics it should at the end of each verse, but seems to lose intensity.

All in all, this is a fascinating record that may well have offered new experiences of what rock was capable of, but it is not something that is really even memorable, because intriguing, even entertaining lyrics are spoiled by poor singing and pointless jamming.