SAY CLYDE, HAVE YOU HEARD THE

Part Two by TOM MILLER

As I mentioned ages ago, Paul Thornton and Jim McCarthy had tried to enter the normal musical world with the Dick Watson Five, and Paul had made an attempt even earlier with a few pseudo Del Shannon/Gene Pitney singles. None of this really went anywhere, however, and instead of continuing to wander around the bottom of the music business, they went completely in the other direction, forming a group that would probably alienate everyone who heard them and not caring if it did. (Actually, that was probably a good career move. Aside from Doug Sahm, no one ever got anywhere pretending to be English.) If they hadn't done this, if they kept on playing "the hot sounds," they might have made their mark on history with a track on Pebbles, Volume 396, but they rose above the realm of the obsessive record collector into the lands of legend and psychosis with the release of the first Godz album, recorded on an extravagant budget of whatever change Bernard Stollman had in his pocket that day. Contact High With The Godz, from 1966, is a very different record from Godz 2. It's much looser and more casual, with almost none of the tenuous connection with the outside world that they have on the later record. There are no pop songs, in fact there are few recognizable songs of any type. There's "1+1=?," a folksy song that's vaguely in 3/4 time, though I don't think anyone told bassist Larry Kessler, who plays so far ahead of the beat that he's probably already in the next song, and there's a version of Hank Williams' "May You Never Be Alone" that would be perfectly straightforward if it weren' t for Jim playing Albert Ayler licks on a plastic flute. Ascending a few rungs on the ladder of strangeness, we find a few semi-songs; tracks that sound improvised but they're sort of catchy and not at all difficult to hear. "Lay in the Sun" was ESP's choice for a single. It has plenty of unique touches. The lyrics consist of "All I want to do is lay in the sun" repeated over and over, and the nearly yodeled vocal must have sounded strange, but it's reasonably in time, in tune and even somewhat melodic, plus there are a few nice harmonica solos. It lifts a concept from Albert Ayler in the way it goes from a straightforward beginning to a more frantic, free-form ending, but it's done without harshness or dissonance. If this were the strangest they ever got, no one would have looked twice and the band would have been remembered as nothing more than an eccentric part of the folk scene. (That's right, I said the folk scene. "Come On Girl, Turn On" sounds a lot like a jug band and that's the real root of the Godz sound. A bunch of m usicians improvising within the song structure, rather than taking endless solos. As Jim put it, "Everybody's playing something different, but it all goes together.") Finally, we come to the really bizarre stuff. "White Cat Heat" is the best known song on the album. They start out by meowing while Jay strums a minor chord on the autoharp. then the bass and drums come in, the music becomes wilder and the meowing becomes hissing and screeching. Listening to it, you can't help but imagine a catfight in the studio, the band scratching and clawing each other. (They didn't really. How would they have kept playing their instruments?) There's also "Na Na Naa." Remember the things I said about "Where?" "Na Na Naa" is similar, but maybe trying to reach a different god. If "Where" is a spiritual quest, "Na Na Naa" is a wild ritual, full of speaking in tongues and frantic dancing. By the end of the song, Jim's eyes have rolled back into his head and he's chanting with total abandon. The Godz' live show was probably best represented by that sound, almost totally improvised, where they would start out softly and build to a peak. Numbers like "White Cat Heat" always went over great with their audiences. (The ones who knew what to expect, anyway.) That one was actually their audition piece when they tried to get a regular gig at the Night Owl. The result was that they got a few weird looks and the Lovin' Spoonful got the gig. The improvisation didn't end with the songs either. When they started out, they didn't have any drums, so Paul improvised a kit out of some pots and pans. One night, Jim needed a guitar pick, so he improvised one out of a razor blade. At their very first show, Jim got caught in a mike chord and improvised a new way to get off the stage. Just a bunch of guys having fun, but every so often they'd break out of their casual atmosphere into a blaze of intensity. Those are two things we need more of in music. Most bands are too self conscious to have much fun onstage, and too few bands have enough passion for a blaze, or even a spark, of intensity. The first two Godz albums are the reason they became the legend that they did, and they're the only albums by the original quartet. Some time before the third one was finished, Jay Dillon left the band because they were becoming too slick. Of course, slickness is in the ear of the listener. Since Jay was responsible for the Godz' least listenable moment, "I Want A Word With You," his ear probably listened differently from most. This is where things fell apart. While watching the back of Jay's head grow smaller, the Godz stopped being a band. The Third Testament is their White Album. Everyone is working on their own songs, sometimes with help from the others. Jim's songs make up half the album and, for the most part, they're solo acoustic performances of straightforward pop songs. Some of them have potential. For instance, "Ruby Red" could have been an intense "Soon The Moon" type piece if the whole band had played on an electric version. Still, it's more conventional than anything they'd recorded previously. Luckily for us, he doesn't completely play it straight. "Like A Sparrow" is a playful bit of overdubbing that goes for the "Live in Jim's Living Room" feel of the first album. Even further from the mainstream was "I Walk Alone," which Jim decided to record without having actually written it. He had a few lyrics and a melody he liked, so he went into the studio hoping something would come to him on the spur of the moment. Nothing did, so he just moaned along for a verse. Somehow, it worked and gave the Godz their strongest emotional moment, having a haunting effect, sort of like a white, folk John Lee Hooker. Larry is more Godzish on his solo track, "Womban," where he elaborates upon the theme, "Woman, I love you." over a percussion backing with a few electric guitar chords and occasional shouts in the background. As a contrast, Paul's entry into the world of creative expression, "Walking Guitar Blues," is his declaration of allegiance to the "one man, one guitar" tradition. Squint closely at Paul's music and you'll see Hank Williams at the roots, both in the vocals and in the directness of the lyrics. That's not to say he has the lyrical genius of Bocephus' dad, and it would be nice if he broke into a yodel every now and then, but Paul comes across as the ideal drunken subway minstrel: simple, primitive, and honest. Plus, he doesn't ask for change or smell bad. It's not "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," but if you have two and a half minutes to kill, you could do worse than taking this glimpse into his mind. A few tracks come closer to the old Godz sound. "Quack (I'm a Quack)" and the alphabet stuff look back to "White Cat Heat," except they replace the intensity with goofiness. The band also gets caught up in the spirit of the times on a few tracks. In other words, they bring a bunch of their friends into the studio, then they all get stoned, make a lot of noise for half an hour and edit it into several tracks. They're nothing that would make you throw your AMM records away, but they do have their rewards. I prefer "Eeh Ooh," mainly because it's ten minutes shorter, but also because it has some nice clanging guitar that foreshadows Sonic Youth and because Jim gets into that psychotic, eyes-rolling-back-into-the-skull vocal thing he did. (When I asked Jim, he wasn't sure whether the electric guitar was played by himself or Mike Berardi, a local guitarist who is definitely playing the jazz licks toward the end of "First Multitude.") The longer track, "First Multitude," has a lot of doodling around, but there are moments when everyone finds a groove and it all makes sense. Maybe its not the same kind of sense it does when everyone's playing the same riff or jamming on a blues progression, but there's beauty in the way all the parts come together according to their own logic. The piece also includes the funniest line in The Godz career. About 8 minutes into it, a voice breaks through the chaos and exclaims, "You know something? Music's better than it used to be." Third Testament was their last release for five years. During the interim, they played once or twice as a trio and there were a few solo gigs. For the most part, however, they concentrated on their day jobs. Their next album, Godzundheit, came out in 1973, despite the CD's claim of "previously unreleased material." It's the middle of the singer - songwriter era and the Godz have embraced it wholeheartedly. Paul's picked up a bit of lyrical technique along the way, but otherwise he hasn't changed. He's still writing earnest pledges of devotion to the principals of peace, love, and freedom. Larry's still the strange one of the group. "Take The Time" sounds like an outtake from Skip Spence's Oar with its rhythmic changes and raspy vocals. His other major contribution, "Women of the World," written with Paul Thornton, may be melodic and atmospheric instead of experimental and abrasive, but it's an odd record nevertheless. Jim's still the pop rock influence in the group. "Dirty Windows" is more uptempo than the other originals of the period and has the catchiest melody on the record. It also features an extended guitar solo from Bob "Bingo" Gallagher. As far as I know, his only appearances on record were this and a few cuts on Alien, but he had everything a 70s guitar hero needed, a good tone, a sense of melody, a Beckish flow, and a few good ideas in his solos. 25 years later, Clapton makes records that veer between pleasant and mediocre and, at last report, Mr. Gallagher resides in a teepee in upstate New York. I'm not even going to try to figure that out. There's also a fun cover of "Jumping Jack Flash," and a dull cover of Hank Williams' "Weary Blues," but the real reason to hear the album is the brilliant, "Whiffenpoof Song." Actually released as a single right before the third album and included on Godzundheit at the insistence of Lester Bangs, it's the toughest rock and roll that the Godz ever recorded and a true garage band classic. The track starts out with an electric guitar strum and a plaintive, "We are poor little lambs who have gone astray," then going into the band bleating over a pounding rhythm track. There's none of the looseness of the earlier records; the bass and drums are together and in time. Paul even sounds like he could have taken over for Keith Moon, had the opportunity presented itself. Not bad for someone who only took up the drums because no one wanted to be stuck with them. Speaking of the Who, there's some Townshend type rhythm guitar bashing in the wild parts and some of Mr. T's talent for making pop out of chaos. The bleating isn't haphazard noise, but rather hooks in the style of the "ba-bas" in "Happy Together." Suddenly, it dies down, then it returns more powerfully than before. All great rock has a charge to it, something that says, "Forward, forever forward." This is great rock. Just in case you think it was an accident, let's give Paul Thornton the last word on the song: "You've got to be together to get all those baas in the right place." Here on Earth, that's it; four Godz albums. However, when ESP reissued them on CD, they seemed to be doing it from some parallel reality where things were different. In 1973, Jim also released a solo album, Alien. The only other God on it was Paul Thornton, who occasionally shook some maracas, and no one tried to say otherwise. When it came out on CD, though, ESP tried to cash in on the vast commercial potential of The Godz' name and called it a Godz album. The line in their sampler, Boots and Roots (which includes "Whiffenpoof Song" in case you don't feel like paying full price for a 29 minute CD) is that it's "basically a Jim McCarthy solo album." That must be why it was originally released as one. Anyway, Jim's still immersed in the singer - songwriter genre. It has some pleasant moments, but it has almost nothing to do with the Godz' sound. The only exception is the free form grunts and moans that Jim does at the end of several songs. Nothing's as wild as "Na Na Naa" here, nothing's even close, but don't forget that in the arena where Jim was working, his fellow gladiators were such vocal savages as James Taylor and Melanie. It's all a matter of perspective. If I came to the album after listening to "Fire and Rain" or something, I'd probably think that the ending of "Word of Honor," sounded like two barbarians at the gates of civilization, their jaws dripping with blood. James Taylor fans aren't the ones who are going to hear this album though. As a Godz fan, it sounds like a nice moment that vaguely is reminiscent of the old stuff. Bob Gallagher plays some fantastic guitar though. When I talked to Jim, he told me two of his favorite artists were Jackson Browne and Gary Brooker. Jackson Browne explains the change in genres and Brooker explains the arrangements on Alien. It's dominated by a piano/organ combination with less electric guitar than I'd like. (Bingo's solos on a couple of songs are it.) It's a nice sound, especially on "We Love You," probably the prettiest song Jim has ever done, but it's not The Godz. The distance between the two is the distance between "Guide Me To Your Love," and "Where." The newer song is about a spiritual quest, "Where" was the quest itself. I suppose that after seven years of people looking at you as in idiot savant and saying "Isn't this great, it's so inept," that it's only natural that you'd want to prove you can play "right" too. Well, he did that and look where it got him. 25 years later, the early albums are still remembered fondly and this one is lost to the past. It's a pleasant way to spend 40 minutes, which is more than I can claim for Godz Bless California. Originally released as by the "Thorton Fradkin Unger Big Band," this album has very little to do with the original group. Mainly, the album is a showcase for Leslie Fradkin, who arranged the whole thing, plays almost everything, and wrote and sang three songs. It's early 70's mellow rock with occasional vaguely psychedelic overtones and a bit of a country feel. Paul got a few of his songs in and they sound the way they always do. The best one is "Milady" which has a decent melody and the minimalist lyrics of The Godz' glory days. The most interesting thing about the album is the guest artists. The McCartneys add backing vocals and bass to the title track and their drummer at the time, Dennis Seiwell, shows up on it as well. Jazz bassist Richard Davis, who had recently made the transition from playing free jazz with Leroy Jenkins to backing Van Morrison on Astral Weeks, plays on the Pearls Before Swine-ish "Christopher's Sorrow." Finally, local New York headcase David Peel does one of his own songs, "To Err is Human." My guess is that he was added to give the record a touch of the old Godz weirdness, but the song is just weird, not especially interesting or inspired. The standard knock on the early Godz is that "anyone can do it." True, but not that many can do it well. They did in 1967. No one does here. That's the end of the Godz' recording history, but there was a brief postscript in 1993. After the albums were reissued, a new version of the group including both Jim and Paul got together briefly. On the downside, Paul was playing guitar, not drums, and Leslie Fradkin played too dominant a role. (Giving credit where it's due, Fradkin did instigate the reunion.) Unfortunately, this lineup only lasted for one show. For the most part, they kept to the sound of Godzundheit and after, but they did do "Radar Eyes," "Whiffenpoof Song," and "Permanent Green Light." I can't remember a thing about the rest of the show, but those songs were magical. After 15 years of living with the mystique, I was seeing them become real. The legend was right in front of me and when the show opened with Fradkin hitting the opening chords to "Radar Eyes" on his Rickenbacker, the tremolo turned all the way up, it was like seeing The Beatles at the Cavern. After that, things just wound down. Before they could play another gig, Jim left the band for artistic reasons. Under Fradkin's leadership, they were becoming too rehearsed and polished. Besides, the two of them didn't like each other much. The band did a couple more shows where they didn't do "Radar Eyes" or "Whiffenpoof Song." They did add a nice Byrdsy arrangement of "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," and, oddly, they continued doing Jim's "Dirty Windows," but no one showed much interest and they disbanded. Around the time of the final show, Jim played a short solo set at a club in the West Village for Dawn Eden's birthday party. For "Where," "Dirty Windows" and a song I've forgotten, he was backed by Dawn's mother and myself on percussion. Afterwards, we were joined by a dozen or so assorted revelers on meows for "White Cat Heat." If only the reunion had been done in that spirit. Jim was singing "White Cat Heat" and when I talked to Paul outside CBGB Gallery before they played for the last time, he broke into an impromptu version of "Riffin'." The attitude of the early records wasn't gone. Maybe the reunion would have worked if, as they considered, Jim and Paul got together with Larry and they emphasized that attitude instead of the later stuff. Instead of the early 70s mellow sound, they might even work with some of the musicians they influenced, like Sonic Youth or John Zorn. (When I played both The Godz' and Sonic Youth's "Permanent Green Light" for a free jazz musician friend of mine, his reaction was, "Same sound, The Godz have a hipper drummer." Zorn was a tiny bit jealous when I told him about backing Jim. He got to play with Yoko so I guess we're even.) Unfortunately, it never happened. They lost interest and went their separate ways. Larry made a record on his own that included a remake of "Radar Eyes," Jim became a professional photographer to some acclaim, and Paul..... I really don't know what happened to Paul, but if there's ever another reunion, I wouldn't be surprised if he's behind it. He didn't seem like the type who'd ever give up on music. (Hmm, they'll need a lead guitarist, wonder if either of them still has my number.) ON TO PART TWO

NEWS  ~   BIOGRAPHY  ~   DISCOGRAPHY  ~   LYRICS  ~   RESOURCES