If you've seen The Historical Romance, the effervescent eighth issue of Your Heart Out (which can be downloaded free here), you'll know that one of the stars of the show was Mayo Thompson.
Starting with first hearing the Red Krayola do Hurricane Fighter Plane when Radar reissued the early Texas psychedelic/punk records in 1978, tracing Mayo's re-emergence at the height of the punk explosion in London, his close involvement with Rough Trade related activities, via his recordings/productions with the reignited Red Krayola, plus Raincoats, Essential Logic, Blue Orchids and so on, his contribution has been immensely invaluable. Drag City did a great job recently of salvaging a lot of the Red Krayola records from that era, and certainly the singles collection and Kangaroo are essential to say the least.
It's easy to forget Mayo was also closely involved with Pere Ubu during that time too, playing on The Art of Walking and Songs of the Bailing Man. These are fantastic records. very odd records, but fantastic nevertheless. I still don't think the world's caught up with them yet. And this performance of Birdies shows how out on their own they were. Looking at the group I'm reminded of a line by The Fall: "You don't have to be strange to be strange ..." And you get a good view of Mayo Thompson's back ...
Starting with first hearing the Red Krayola do Hurricane Fighter Plane when Radar reissued the early Texas psychedelic/punk records in 1978, tracing Mayo's re-emergence at the height of the punk explosion in London, his close involvement with Rough Trade related activities, via his recordings/productions with the reignited Red Krayola, plus Raincoats, Essential Logic, Blue Orchids and so on, his contribution has been immensely invaluable. Drag City did a great job recently of salvaging a lot of the Red Krayola records from that era, and certainly the singles collection and Kangaroo are essential to say the least.
It's easy to forget Mayo was also closely involved with Pere Ubu during that time too, playing on The Art of Walking and Songs of the Bailing Man. These are fantastic records. very odd records, but fantastic nevertheless. I still don't think the world's caught up with them yet. And this performance of Birdies shows how out on their own they were. Looking at the group I'm reminded of a line by The Fall: "You don't have to be strange to be strange ..." And you get a good view of Mayo Thompson's back ...
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