The Group as It Is Today

Background

This is a text authored by The Red Crayola in 1967. It appears to have been finalized on June 1, 1967 and mailed to Barry Olivier (producer of the Berkeley Folk Music Festival) the next day. It discusses the history of the band and explains how The Red Crayola moved from rock to playing freely improvised material. The Red Crayola's first album The Parable of Arable Land had just been released. Around this time the group were recording material for Coconut Hotel.

In 1968, the piece was reprinted in the second issue of Mother: Houston's Rock Magazine with minor edits. The liner notes for Live 1967 reprint most of that version of the article.

Text

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  The Red Crayola, 1967

THE RED CRAYOLA is comprised of (left to right in photograph) STEVE CUNNINGHAM, 18, who has studied philosophy at the University of St. Thomas. MAYO THOMPSON, 23, who has studied Art History at the University of St. Thomas and French at the Sorbonne. RICK BARTHELME, 23, who has studied Art at Tulane University, the University of Houston, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

(Once an audible circumstance occurs, that material which will have been registered in memory, may yield to executive and stylistic concerns, yet this static documentation of recalled impressions is necessarily subsequent to the continually changing instance of our music in relation to linear, sequential time. It is the case that we will make our music, period.)

The group as it is today was established in September, 1966. At that time most of the music (rock) was written by the group. By December, 1966, all of the group's material was original, including distinct sections of improvisation which in performance were begun freely by mutual assent. These "Free pieces" were a definite part of any performance, and while at the beginning were rock derivative, they gradually became freer as the members began to question the concept of rhythmic structure as well as dependence on traditional rock instruments. By February, 1967, these "free pieces" were the staple of the group and had been extended by inviting all interested parties to participate in performance. A minimum of control was exercised over this now companion group (The Familiar Ugly), and all unrehearsed activity was encouraged and accepted. While working with this performance-group structure, the group was approached by International Artists Producing Corporation and contracted to produce their first LP. In March, 1967, with The Familiar Ugly, the group recorded a three hour "free piece" and this forms the basis of the album, "THE PARABLE OF ARABLE LAND". Currently (June 1, 1967), the Crayola has returned to using three pieces (the original group). The present preoccupation is with sound as structural element and system simultaneously.

Notes

Rhythm deals with intervals which are set by duration of individual sounds. Indeterminate sounds, yielding to no directives in respect to length of the sounds themselves, are not concerned with honoring and correspondence with a recurring, designated beat. If a performance is actually a forward progression, correspondence is viewed only in retrospect. This has been true of all music and, in fact, of life itself. The distinction being that now the performer himself, aware solely of his presence, enjoys a disregard for any circumstances other than that which his presence addresses.

Rhythm deals with the arrangement of sounds, a regular or irregular "style" or "structure" which limits the number of possible products that may obtain. These limitations have occasioned the group's present disregard for a rhythmic base and have prompted a focus on the critical juncture that is sound proper. This focal change (accepting all products but not addressing them as determinate), leads to the recognition of all sound as unit, the integrity, all of which is preserved. The importance of this decision is that a new musical structure is implied, a structure based on sound in lieu of rhythm.

In the confrontation of one by a present circumstance, there is a de-emphasis on movement, a tendency toward immobility.

Music is that which is proposed as music.

We free the sounds and we free ourselves of responsibility to them or for them. Total irresponsibility (we possess nothing) allows music to be made in a measure of freedom.

What is not actual (physically current) is illusion. Illusion is born at the construction of a relationship between the present time and any other moment prior to the present time. It is reborn continually at each juncture of conscious necessity. Its food is literal sequence and asks only that it be questioned. Our concern is with that which is physically current.

Motion occurs as a mental process arrived at apart from the continuous now, which is the way the music occurs audibly. Audibility is then separate from motion. The music is heard now, and now, and now continually until it is heard no longer. Motion is an implication which is extra-audible, extra-musical.

Music is about itself. (We are not interested in portraying, conversing, filling, completing, interpreting, identifying, or conjuring.)

Music will be made, sounds will continue, whether we perform or not. In this understanding, we produce what we produce.

The music is made, desirous of a certain degree of attention. It can be dealt with as incidental sound, but the production derives from an intensity that the reception could emulate.

The primary characteristic of every production is its singularity and the attendant requirement to change, consistent with the intellectual-emotional process. The intensity of the process here is critical.