Fingerpainting
Track listing
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "George III" | 1:50 |
| 2. | "Bad Medicine" | 3:30 |
| 3. | "A Hybrid Creature of Greed, Ignorance and Powers of Comprehension Plays a Vaulted Drum Kit. The Playing Corresponds Completely to the Event. There Are Entrances and Exits. And There Is Gravitation, Where It Is Needed - Tears for Example" | 2:22 |
| 4. | "There There Betty Betty" | 2:29 |
| 5. | "The Greed of a Clarinet That Is Puffy from Crying Gets Tossed in Butter and Spread by Notes. This Process Depresses the Entire Orchestra So Much That It Only Plays Behind a Golden Partition. The Partition Is Decorated With Semi-Precious Attractive Diamonds" | 4:41 |
| 6. | "Vile Vile Grass" | 2:31 |
| 7. | "A Sow With an Abbess's Bonnet Is Sitting on Four Rock-Objects and Singing Along With Them. The Song Sounds Like a Cheater, And Is Imprisoned in a Striped Toy Box Because Its Aims Are Not Recognizable. On Top of the Box Is a Head That Could Be Elvis's, If He Had Survived This" | 5:48 |
| 8. | "Mother" | 2:16 |
| 9. | "Out of a Trombone That Is Divided Lengthways by a Partition of Gold Sound Seven Violins of Dynamite That Are Cut Sideways into Thin Slices. They Are Played by the Thrown Out Ex-Members of a Very Bad Band and Blown Up" | 4:17 |
| 10. | "In My Baby's Ruth, Sandy's Drums With David & Shadwell, Filthy Lucre" | 15:02 |
Background
- Contains many of the band's earliest songs
- Album structure mimicking
The Parable of Arable Land - Concept was Albert Oehlen's idea
Fingerpointing
Personnel
Musicians
David Grubbs, George Hurley, Elisa Randazzo, Albert Oehlen, Stephen Prina, Mayo Thompson, Tom Watson, Sandy Yang
Sampled musicians
Frederick Barthelme, Steve Cunningham, Bobby Henschen
Cover art
Designed by Christopher Williams. There is evidence to suggest the artwork was created by Sandy Yang.
Retrospectives
Mayo Thompson, 1999[1]
The next record is called Finger Painting and it's modelled on Parable. It features new recordings of the rejects from the Parable sessions, and freakouts with today's line-up. It is now something like The Familiar Ugly in that we can have completely terrible stuff happening onstage and still get away with it!
Mayo Thompson, 2010
Fingerpainting and Fingerpointing are based on The Parable of Arable Land, they’re structured in exactly the same way. Freak-out, song, freak-out, song, like that. The material that’s on Fingerpainting is material that we didn’t record for Parable of Arable Land, it’s material that dates from those days. Like ‘There There, Betty Betty,’ that’s a song from that time, and ‘Shadwell’ is something that we recorded together as well. That was when we had stopped playing songs altogether. That’s like the time of Coconut Hotel and the time in Berkeley, when we were playing at the Berkeley Folk Festival, we did that stuff with Fahey. We were playing what we called feedback music, and [Frederick Barthelme and Steve Cunningham] were involved in that. [...] On ‘Shadwell,’ they appear [...] that’s the period piece. And there’s also, that piano player that you hear in the background of ‘Shadwell,’ the last thing that you hear on Fingerpainting—it’s not on Fingerpointing—that’s Bobby Henschen, the piano player I worked with in ’71. Rick [Barthelme] and I worked with him in Houston together. That’s an album that’s made out of material that comes from 40 years ago. It wasn’t 40 at the time, it was made in 1999. And Fingerpointing was O'Rourke’s mix of the same material, which when I first heard it I thought, ‘No, this is not what I had in mind.’ I wanted something that was more actually one-to-one with the first record.
Reviews
Aiding & Abetting
June 7, 1999
The usual large conglomeration of fine folks backing up Mayo Thompson (though Jim O'Rourke is on holiday), producing the usual twisted Red Krayola fare.
On this disc, Mayo reaches back and takes some songs of his from yesteryear and gives them a new spin. The sound is much more electronically dominated. I know, that was always there, but it's like the issuance of those old Moebius-Conny Plank-Mayo tapes inspired the guy to dig into that side of things more.
Who knows? I've given up trying to guess anything when it comes to the Red Krayola. Much better to just sit there and let the looniness wash over like a comfy blanket. There is method to the madness, but madness it is. Music for the discerning lunatic. I'm happy to count myself among those folks.
This sounds like a work in progress. all Red Krayola discs do, though, and I can handle that. Just another missal to the warped masses. I'm already craving another hit.
Links
References
- ↑ The Wire, January 1999, pg.10