Laser Pace - Granfalloon (Takoma - 1974) Wow!

Holy shit, I suspected that had to be a Buchla or something equally exotic, so bizarre were those sounds! Not that I really know what the hell I'm talking about; but I completely agree with the "death of synthesis" sentiment.

Anyway: Cool record, JC! Thanks for getting in touch.

so, wait, that link up there that says side 2 is all of side 1? oh god, i'm so confused. i thought it was all of side 2. i don't know what the heck we were doing.

as far as pitch and all that, i have no idea. i have a brand new turntable. it sounds good to me. we put it right into the computer and into audacity.

I think it's side 2! I thought I heard all eight songs.

okay, it is side 2. and it ends with scatter. phew. i just downloaded it again.

About the Buchla. It played in Quadraphonic Sound! Too bad it had to be tracked in stereo. Doug still has the multitracks from the sessions. I always thought it would be really cool to remix the album 5.1 in surround sound.

Also, Sky Fell (Too) is one of my two vocals on the record. I think I began the composition of that song while I was in Vietnam in ‘68. I know it was finished while i was serving in Germany in 1970. D. Distorto got co-writer credit for the improvised bass solo at the beginning of the song that he played reluctantly (and brilliantly) at my urging. D: “Was that what you wanted?” JC: “Absofringinlutely.”

Yeah, great point about synthesizers aren't meant to imitate other instruments; Brian Eno also said in the 70s that he was determined to stay away from that (and also from the synth as just one more instrument, which was why he sat behind the sound board at Roxy concerts and used the synthesizer to texture the overall mix), and I think it was Chick Corea (or maybe Herbie Hancock) who said he finally realized he had to give up treating it as piano or organ, and start from scratch, which is what Miles was trying to get him to do.

In about ‘71 or ‘72 Doug bought a Buchla synth from Morton Subotnik. It was the one used to record “Silver Apples of the Moon.”

!!! wow

I loved what Herbie Hancock was doing with the band "Sextant" when he had Patrick Gleason doing all the synth stuff. It was textural and environmental, not necessarily tonal. Catching that band live was like the best psychedelic experience you could ever have without drugs! That's the stuff we loved!

JC

Patrick Gleason! Yeah, forgot about him--wonder what else he's done...also that guy, Roger Something? who did the album Cosmic Furnace, and worked with Todd Rungren, I think.

And speaking of Silver Apples Of The Moon, Chris, did you listen to the band Silver Apples? Or United States Of America?

who's chris?

is the roger you're talking about Robert Margouleff of TONTOS Expanding Headband (with Malcolm Cecil)?

That would be Roger Powell. And "Chris" is presumably Mr. Christensen.

Catching that band live was like the best psychedelic experience you could ever have without drugs!

Sextant is pretty good WITH drugs too!

And speaking of Silver Apples Of The Moon, Chris, did you listen to the band Silver Apples? Or United States Of America?

No, I don't know Silver Apples, but I bought The Unites States of America when it was originally released; I still have my copy of it. Was it Joseph Byrd that was in that band? I know Doug and he became friends years later........ something in the back of my mind says he did something for Takoma, American Band Music, or something like that... Music Box? Shit! Things are getting cloudy in here!

And yes, Sextant was good in an altered stage of consciousness as well........

JC Aka: "Chris"

I think there is still some confusion over what's been posted. if someone has all eight tracks can you reup them as a zip file? this music is incredible.

best as I can tell from comparing titles with the tracks Colin posted, the file Scott put up labeled Side 2 contains Closet Casualty, Avatar, Whoever You Are You, and Sky Fell

the 4-minute file labeled Side 1 is only the song Endless

and then Colin also posted Oh Yeah and Redemption ... no Scatter

(so either Colin's titles are all wrong or the stickers on Scott's LP are on the wrong sides, basically ... both totally possible. hope this helps get things straightened out. sorry if I am just being dense.)

Was it Joseph Byrd that was in that band?

yep Joseph Byrd was in USA ... not sure if he ever recorded for Takoma but he did a post-USA record for Columbia called "The American Metaphysical Circus" under the name Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies

dmr, the full side i have posted up there is definitely the 2nd side. disregard any tags or anything. so, if you just download colin's first four songs and my second side, you'll have the whole album.

Not if Colin's first four songs are mislabeled! The four songs in the full side you uploaded match the songs that Colin has labeled with side 1's song titles.

Are the track times on the LP anywhere? If you could post them, that would help with the confusion.

i have to join the admirers crowd.amazing.
the first song sounds to me like an underground,progressive,more eccentric version of steely dan .

all right, let me put it this way, this is what i actually posted:

side 1

closet casualty (maureen o'connor)

http://wvvy.org/listen/content/laser-pace-side-1.mp3

side 2

endless (maureen o'connor)

oh yeah? (w.g. christensen)

redemption (maureen o'connor)

scatter (d.distorto)

http://wvvy.org/listen/content/laser-pace-side-2.mp3

i mean, that's what you'll hear if you download those links. you'll miss three songs on the first side after closet casualty.

The four songs that you have listed as Side 2 are the same as the four songs that Colin has given Side 1's song titles. Do you have the track times?

only 158.50 $ on ebay

thanks guys for the uploads; not feeling this except for "Sky Fell", and the odd groove here and there between the wankery, but i'm hung over so who knows. i'll listen to side 2 later.

xpost John introduced himself as John "Chris" Christensen and that's the name on his myspace, so that's why I addressed him that way. How did this get on folkiecentric Takoma, did Fahey sign yall up? (Since some of his own 60s-70s albums featured electronic experiments, I thought maybe--?)

$124.01 from Vinylstorage in Italy!

Laser Pace was invited to be on Takoma by John Fahey.
John and Doug Decker worked together on a lot of projects with Doug as his engineer of choice. There is a letter that I wrote to Acoustic Guitar Magazine a while back that details the revolutionary way that Doug approached recording Fahey's guitar. Anyway, they were compadres! When Doug told Fahey about our project he wanted to hear it. Fahey described it as "Running through an electronic jungle."

JC

love this record! far too few people used the Buchla in a rock / songs context. the only other band I can even think of that did was Chrome, and that was later.

some non ILMer tried to DL this from me on slsk last night. the word is out.

ILMer? DL? I think DL must be downlaod.... Translate please?

JC

that's d-o-w-n-l-o-a-d. Where's my spellcheck!
JC

Geez, ILMer= I Love Music. Pardon my geezerness!
JC

Joseph Byrd put out a record on Takoma called Yankee Transcendoodle. It's solo synthesiser classic Americana. It doesn't measure up to the rock band records, imo.

The mp3s I uploaded were from soulseek, so dmr is probably right that they're mislabeled. Sorry for any confusion!

OK, due to various confusions I've only heard five of the eight tracks, but I'm remedying that right now!

There is an awesome instrumental on here called "Scatter" that sounds like King Crimson + Can + PIL

And it reminds me of this band here:

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/43549.jpg

Right, I'm still confused:

1. I assume first mp3 from http://wvvy.org is the track "Closet Casualty"?

2. I assume second mp3 from http://wvvy.org is Side 2, i.e, the following tracks: Endless / Oh Yeah? / Redemption / Scatter

3. If that is the case then the tracks on C0L1N B's upload are wrongly titled?

4. So the first four tracks are actually Side 2 and the remaining three tracks are Side 1?

5. In which case one track is missing? And that track is "Sky Fell"?

... oh and...

the first song sounds to me like an underground,progressive,more eccentric version of steely dan

OTM!

I believe that is the case.

will someone just please upload the whole thing again with all the tracks ?

...

could someone start peeling this orange for me?

OK, so this is doing some pretty good internal damage to my cortexes. Which file has "Scatter" in it? That's apparently the last track I need.

I thought it was in the side two file Skot posted but after all the confusion I doubt everything.

The Side 2 that's the length of a whole side or the Side 2 that's only one track?

The former.

The missing track is "Sky Fell"

I read about this thread on Ned's blog (which I never read). It's famous now.

As I said earlier, I told Keith of AnthologyRecordings.com about this thread, and now John Christensen says that Keith sent him a contract, which John is passing along to the other Laser Pace alumni. So maybe we'll soon have a nice download of the whole platter, served up piping hot (but meanwhile, *listen* to what Skot and C0L1n have offered and stop whining)

WTF...I don't see any whining on this thread.

It's not whining, dow, just some justifiably honest confusion! We've all heard the music at least and know that this = roxor, so no worries.

Really, like I mentioned in my blog post (thank ya Rockist), more than anything I'm just tickled pink at how neat the Net can be for this kind of thing. From barely known obscurity to prospective reissue with the involvement of the original band in under three weeks.

the whole 8 tracks are on soulseek now anyways

Been looking for a few days, no luck yet, but they'll show up eventually I'm sure.