Laser Pace - Granfalloon (Takoma - 1974) Wow!

I'm planning on interviewing Maureen and Doug soon, and have ideas about where to place the results...

i'm glad you're finally doing it. took you long enough! :))))))))))))

rest in peace, maureen. so glad to have known you. you were truly special and an inspiration.

Absolutely.

I was listening to Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies today, and searching provided this thread, which I had never seen. What a great series of conversations and events! And I'm listening to Laser Pace now, and it is blowing my mind.

this is finally happening. very happy. only took 10 years. nice to talk to doug today. did i mention that there is an unreleased second album? but first things first. i wish you guys could have met maureen. she was so awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYLzbR-EEiY

She was indeed.

it's coming! a mere ten years after this thread started. it pays to be patient. get yours on Record Store Day!

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https://scontent.fbed1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/29468339_10156743730907137_6350818970591875468_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&_nc_eui2=v1%3AAeEypmhChZribfbxU0ErxJZ4GFcJLGOuzhVnwxBYmEY5baoIkZlx43CmJq-iQIxcPU8cnBGXel5AznUEeOsillOuaGWc0-oduKggU89Ptf3izA&oh=3907c61bcb78c6190e509b337b8898bb&oe=5B2F549B

awesome

i am a proud owner of the CD reissue thanks to you

wow!! awesome skot

i swear off RSD every year and then there's always one thing that gets me out....

you should be able to get it from Feeding Tube direct after RSD if you don't see it in a store. or Forced Exposure. pressing of 500.

Amazing work indeed. :-)

WOW!
great work

!

you the man, scott

liner notes by me and doug decker and also chris who posted on this thread so many years ago! his piece on the band is amazing and hilarious.

just really happy to have it happen for real. and really happy that more people will be able to hear it. listening now and it sounds great.

Picked up a copy at Cheapo today
What an amazing, demented record

Good job on the liner notes skot

thanks!

oh shit i gotta pick one of these up just for scott's notes

i mean also for the record itself

i was chatting a little with byron coley at his feeding tube table at wfmu. he said the reissue did really well -- he sold them all out. so grab one from a record store if you see it.

One unending tautology that kicked around the early pirate community was whether or not something was worth pirating automatically gave it cred. So with that in mind, I noticed that a lossless copy of the 2008 remaster was made available on D3m0n01d. (and no it's not me)

I don't listen to extreme music as a matter of practice, but sometimes things come up on shuffle that provokes reactions in surprising ways. For example, side one of the first Flying Saucer Attack album: I've often noticed that when people don't know that it's playing, some will go to the window looking for a car accident. Spacemen 3's Dreamweapon unyielding frequencies will sometimes crush anothers and they just have to get out.

And then there's Granfalloon. No other album clears a room full of humans faster than this. Even the most experienced Diamanda and Jandek listeners accelerate from "what...is...this?" to "what the FUCK is THIS?" zero to one hundred instantly. Awhile back, I was in a line of cars all charging and within seconds of a Granfalloon coming on, the cars on either side of me rolled their windows up.

I think the last time I listened to the album start to finish was when I bought the reissue. Ever since then - it's just there on my phone and whenever one of these tracks come on it's always "oh shit, hold on!!" like some big psychic rollercoaster. Ride it if you dare; I'm glad it exists. Well done everyone!

Still hoping for release of thee follow-up!

yeah I picked up the feeding tube reissue mostly because of the John Fahey connection, there really truly is nothing like this record

Amazon has Feeding Tube vinyl (currently 1 copy) and digital:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/611uEjTBZjL.jpg

Editorial Reviews
Special Thanks to all who helped with this recording and release. ************************************** from the WOW! Blog: Fantastic stuff! i haven't even listened to the second side yet and i'm already in love. Just amazing. Why isn't this album world-famous? did maureen o'connor ever do anything else? i can't find much info. 'avatar' is the jam! Even the lyrics rule. More later. ............ Describe please! ........... punk prog noise. Intense space mellotron stuff. Electronic fx all over the place. Tons of synth/electronics in general. But also awesome guitar action. The only guitar listed is maureen's and if she played all this stuff then she should be on some list of gods. She sings a little like Anisette from the Savage Rose. But her vocals are also heavily processed for maximum whatthefuckness. Some of the electroprog moments remind me of Ubu in a big way. This was recorded in 1973. D.Distorto on bass. The drummer used to be in the garage band The Opus 1. he mentions the record in an interview on-line: ................... The bass playing is so Ubu too. There is an awesome instrumental on here called 'Scatter' that sounds like King Crimson + Can + PIL. Until it turns into freeform jazz piano/sleighbell/electronic nod-out acid jam. Then it becomes something else entirely. My fave lyrics: 'Cherish and hold the time scrape off the cream it'll be so clean as you glide into a void so strong vessels bursting from the shit you brought along.' .......... man, i don't know what her voice sounds like. It's crazy. Anisette is just the closest i could come as far as a comparison goes. .......... actually david thomas is a pretty good comparison! i wonder if those guys were fans. Sure sounds like it.

the feeding tube reissue common as pyrite out here. i had one for a real long time because when i play downtempo records i generally also end up playing drifty krauty prog along the lines of sensations fix, maybe the more ambient gong or soft machine type records. i was always in a panic though because it was imperative to get out of the mix before the vocals started, every time i forgot about the singing it was like in a movie when someone interrupts an opera and the band stops and it's dead silent except for the twang of a breaking harp string as everyone turns to look ....

there's been a glut of 70s uhhh free folk type private press from educational programs. like a community college in imperial valley decides to put out a record as a semester capstone for the music majors with ppl taking electives doing session work for course credit. or high school jazz bands doing covers of heavy 70s rock. i really want to thank granfalloon for teaching me not to look twice at those records

sorry laser pace*

http://www.elkbugles.com/2018/12/the-unexamined-life-is-not-worth-living.html

https://www.discogs.com/release/4956461-Mohs-The-Unexamined-Life-Is-Not-Worth-Living

^^ i've seen people trying to hock this for $500 (or $1000, but they're drop shipping) which makes sense if it includes the amazing hand typed liner notes you can check out at discogs

parts sound like stone harbour other parts sound not good

Found a Takoma copy of Granfalloon yesterday in the wild for $15. Pretty stoked about it, even if I’m fairly sure I’ll play it once and hate it.

Turn It UP!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qVjQ993nOk

woah! look at this from the comments on that youtube upload:

@jason698
8 months ago
Sounds like they were listening to a lot of Zappa when they made this.

Reply

The Gladiator Of Rock
·

2 replies
@thegladiatorofrock1572
@thegladiatorofrock1572
8 months ago
F. Zappa was already a legend "Laser Pace" They arrived later, but very good. I greet you✌

Reply

@jchris3227
@jchris3227
8 months ago
Nope - although we were very aware of Frank, our influences were extremely diverse. I can’t really point to one point of reference….it was all over the place. Our ears were open, and we cut a few more commercial songs and then dumped them. Avatar was originally a straight ahead rocker and was morphed and warped at our final recording session which also included Scatter, which was a concept by D. Distorto — it was then it improvised in three connected sections and some overdubs added for flavor. All the other pieces were practiced, rehearsed and arranged by Distorto, Maureen, and myself over a period of months; tweaking and tweaking until we could play them effortlessly in the studio and embellish as we wished so they’d still be fresh. By the way my credit was W.G. Christensen, not VW. I was avoiding Union conflicts. John “Chris” Christensen

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Didn't see that last, thanks! John "Chris" Christenen also joined us way upthread, setting off first attempt at reissue (I told the Anthology Recordings dude about Granfalloon and he got excited but yadda yadda anyway LP eventually got it remastered and reissued on FT), and was informative as always---queried about his previous combo Opus 1 he also provides a chronicle of all or many other bands he's been in on this page (which incl link to interview all about Opus 1)
https://garagehangover.com/opus1/
--ending with this comment:

t seems that something I’ve done in every decade since the sixties has seen renewed interest this past year. Domenic Priore’s book has a couple of paragraphs about Opus 1. SJ McParland has interviwed me extensively for his book on Mustang Records/Bob Keane/Bobby Fuller; it’s due out in ‘08. 1974 band Laser Pace’s album Granfalloon will most likely be reissued through Anthology Records in ‘08 due to an recent internet feeding frenzy.
My ‘94 CD “Songs from The Xenozoic Age” by Christensen/Schultz is finally seeing wider release, and I am putting out a complete unreleased album by Hot Food To Go, recorded in ‘84; it’s called “Adrenaline Drum.”John “Chris” Christensen

And indeed, both of those albums are on YouTubeMusic, Apple, and others.

Granfalloon is still available as download on Amazon, which currently also has a few copies of the LP.