The Gories and a Rubber Biscuit

"It's a new world every heart beat.”―Joyce Cary

The Gories, A Beatle and the Art of Washing Windows Pt. 1

When I tried to sign The Gories to Warner Bros. Records they had already pretty much broken up. I did not know that at the time, and to be honest, it is not a main driver of this story. But years and years later, after many reformations and tours, Gories guitarist Dan Kroha told me that when I reached out to him, the band was on fumes. But who is going to turn down found money, right?

I first heard The Gories from their In The Red Records seven inch Here Be The Gories over at label boss Larry Hardy’s apartment in 1992ish. Those two songs were a perfect starter into the group’s primitive blues fused rock ‘n’ roll, with Gorie Dan Kroha taking lead vocals on both the A and B side. The Gories had two singers, Dan and Mick Collins, the former a nasally classic Back From The Grave garage vocalist, the latter a bastard belter grandchild of the Stax era, coming up out of Detroit instead of Memphis. When Larry introduced me to The Gories, they already had two long-players out and a few singles. The albums: the phenomenal lo-fi-fuzzy debut House Rockin’ on the equally phenom Crypt records (who had released the Back From The Grave compilations of lost 60s garage goodness that would be a blueprint for so many bands to come) and the cleaner, Alex Chilton produced follow-up I Know You Fine But How You Doin’. I was wayyyy late to the house rockin’ party but fell instantly in love with their sound.

Larry Hardy was the one who introduced me (and eventually the rest of the world) to the then current exciting garage rock/underground psych movement that was spawning in different pockets of the country. Bands like The Cheater Slicks¹, The Bassholes, The Night Kings…The Gories! Larry’s passion for this music was inspiring, was infectious, and so far ahead of its time. Garage rock was at least ten years away from blowing out of the back ally club scene into more tastemaker heights. The Gories, like most of the other bands back then, featured no bass player, just guitars and drums. The guitars were often cheap (not anymore) Japanese models or cheap (not anymore) Fender Mustangs and sang blissfully rank sounds when plugged into a fuzz pedal. Tuning was not top of mind: noise and drive and swagger was, and like The Sonics and The Troggs before them, the rock was primal, plugged deep into the Good Rockin’ Tonight/Bo Diddly/Chuck Berry origins of the genre, full of sweat and sweet melody, with a deep care not to care. Anarchy in the USA.

I made a first-look deal with In The Red Records at Warner Bros., a deal where Warners could hear the records the indie label was about to release to determine if there was a band to upstream. Thus, Larry and I had listening sessions more than a few times in Lenny Waronker’s office, Lenny being the president of the label, playing him the upcoming releases. It was incredible hearing The Cheater Slicks come out of the same system in the same office where Lenny would listen to mixes of records he was producing, where he built the Burbank Sound with hits like Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown and Maria Muldaur’s Midnight at the Oasis. Lenny totally “got” the artistry behind the noise and grunge we played for him, and Lenny totally got the uniqueness of soul/blues/trashy sound of The Gories and the Otis Redding stylings of Collins; he knew that the outsiders sounds of today could be a public defining sound for tomorrow (Lenny was one of the most musical and open-minded record executives I ever met, which makes sense given the incredible amount of legendary artists developed by the label under his tenure).

After one of our listening sessions, I asked Larry to connect me to The Gories, leading to a call with Dan Kroha, to talk about doing a demo tape deal with Warner Bros. A demo tape deal is a pretty simple concept: the label gives the artist a sum of money to go into the studio and cut some tracks. The label then has a certain amount of time (usually 3-6 months) to sign the band without any other outside label competition. After that time is up, if no deal is agreed to, the demo belongs to the band, and they are free to do with it as they please. Danny was a little head-scratched regarding a major label’s interest in their far-out music, but within the span of a few phone calls seemed to think a demo deal (with his band that really no longer existed) might be a good idea.

The money a label invests in a demo tape deal usually starts at about 5K and can go up to much more given the artist needs and desirability. But when I asked Dan how much they wanted for The Gories deal….he said, “How about $500?” $500??? $500. For $500 he could fix some equipment, and I would get to hear three newly recorded songs. A crazy small amount of money (But given I would never get even one song, definitely still not a bargain. But again, I did not know that at the time). After making sure $500 was all they really needed or wanted, I hung up the phone and started working on an internal demo tape deal memo, which I would need my boss’ sign-off on before I could reach out to one of the label’s lawyers to craft a contract. My boss, the great Roberta Petersen, was not in town. And given the low low low money involved in the deal, I thought it would be just as easy to get Lenny to sign off on it. He had already been introduced to the band and would be happy to help move this micro deal forward.

The A&R department was on the bottom floor east corner of “The Ski House” aka the Warner Bros. Records home office in Burbank, and Lenny’s office was on the top west side. I sprinted up two flights of stairs and across long hallways to get to his office, with youthful excitement carrying me all the way. I stormed passed Lenny’s assistant Gayle, which was something I commonly did when wanting to bum rush The President (Roberta had taught me that technique early on). But this time she tried to stop me: “Hey David, you can’t really go in there right now. Lenny is…”

But it was too late. I barged into Lenny’s office, just to look up and realize he wasn’t there. In fact, there was someone else sitting behind Lenny’s desk. Instead of finding Lenny in Lenny’s office, I was face to face with George Harrison…

End of part one. Stay tuned for part two sometime this week.

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Arthur Sze receives poetry lifetime achievement award from Library of Congress

Sze is a pretty remarkable poet and so much deserves this prize. Some of his poetry below. Tricycle published a wonderful interview with him, digging into how he works with Chinese poetic traditions as well as exploring some of his themes…

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Route from the 1969 Movie Easy Rider

This is a great piece of research documenting the places where Easy Rider was filmed, what they looked like then, what they look like now. Makes me want to grab a helmet and start trekking down to Mardi Gras.

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Planet Puppet: A weekend at the ventriloquist convention

Oh yeah: “Dicky’s daddy’s hand was shoved somewhere near Dicky’s brain stem. My throat was in my stomach. Their hearts were in vaudeville. But we were all in Kentucky. Side by side by side, we stood near the entrance of the Vent Haven Ventriloquist ConVENTion — the annual international hajj for ventriloquists — where dummies condomed nearly every right arm. Dummies were rising from zippered suitcases, lifted from velvet-lined trunks, coffined on banquettes with protective canvas bags on their heads, like prisoners expecting execution. Dummies congested every visible cranny of the Erlanger Holiday Inn in a huge interspecies fiesta of dwarves, worms, baboons, children, et cetera.”

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Harlan Ellison’s Unfinished Business

David Ulin reports on the final installment of Ellison’s Dangerous Visions trilogy, just published over 30 years…late? And six years after Ellison’s passing. A great read.

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Greg Dulli at the Lenegan tribute concert

Dave Gahan, Josh Homme, Chrissie Hynde, & More Honor The Late Mark Lanegan At 60th Birthday Tribute

Write up on the recent star-studded tribute concert in London to Mark Lanegan…with videos as well. Looks to be a most excellent occasion to celebrate of the great voices of that generation.

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2024 ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research

The Association for Recorded Sound Collections has announced the winners for their awards in the field of research. I love these awards because they bring to attention music books and research that I had no idea of. I knew of Will Herme’s Lou Reed book, which everyone tells me is excellent, which won for Best Historical Research in Recorded Rock Music, Joel Selvin with Chris Strachwitz’s photo book Down Home Music (sensational), which won a certificate of merit in the Best Historical Research on Record Labels category and John Szwed’s Harry Smith book, which won a certificate of merit in the Best Historical Research in Recorded Country, Folk, World, or Roots Music. But now I have a list of many other great deep dives that I need to know more about…

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Old Souls: Jim Tucker on Children’s Memories of Past Lives

As my thoughts on the human soul is constantly evolving, this interview blew my mind. Jim Tucker has spent his entire career studying a field that many view as nutty: the potential that we have led past lives and our soul finds its way into new physical beings after it is released from the last. Not only is Tucker’s research so very compelling, but his meditation on how we can actually affect the future and the past in ways he has no idea about…mind blowing stuff, regardless how you fall on the overall belief of the premise.

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This year’s winner for fake art award revealed

Real news. Yes, real news: 'Wonga Woman', 39, was awarded first prize for her work entitled “Tax in Creases” - a crumpled white shirt with tacks sprinkled into the creases.

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The "Logical Absurdity" in the 30 Year Partnership of Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood

Logical Absurdity is the latest exhibition from a 30-year artistic collaboration between Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood presented by Tin Man Art…“The creatures,” said Yorke, “really felt like the abstracted, semi-comical, stupidly dark false voices that battled us as we tried to work.” This output, which Donwood referred to as ‘the steampunk engine’ was essentially tethered to Radiohead’s sound, “all I had to do was find a way of extracting what the music looked like from the music.”

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Bulls-Eye

By: Arthur Sze

Along the Pojoaque, cottonwoods form a swerving river of gold—

a plumber’s daughter returned your call to say her father died—

that moment slipped like water between your fingers—

like light yellowing during an annular eclipse before it whitens into daylight—

you tremble at the surge of yellow-gold light at your fingertips—

the stretch of desire in your body like stringing a bow—

you love how she gathers herself then gazes point-blank into your eyes—

a Himalayan crane’s-bill opens violet flower after flower before the oncoming frost—

at Troy, you ignored the ruins and marvelled at how silt from two rivers had distanced the sea—

they brag at building the largest sandcastle on a beach—

you grieve at the thought of deep-sea mining—

we pick a few blood-red strawberries among the desiccating leaves—

as sunlight heats a wall, you see how red petunias in a pot survive a freeze—

water rises in a stone fountain and spills over the rim—

you drink the candlelight before shimmering into flame—

you take off, like a shaggy coat, what the world thinks and warm yourself at an outdoor fire—

nocking an arrow, you thrill at the anticipation that spreads to your fingertips—

you fly straight into the bull’s-eye of the day—

Winter Solstice

By: Arthur Sze

My shadow lengthens in the driveway—
this morning I was going to repair
the slanting posts to that split-rail fence;
instead I scanned through binoculars

for an indigo bunting—now a gathering
darkness constricts what I can do;
in the little daylight left, I grieve
that I attended to things that had

no sliver of success: if I spotted
a bunting at a feeder, would it have—
blue, blue deepening then rising
into quetzal green—flared me

before it vanished? When I stop luring
a flash of success, misfortune
will stop pursuing me; now I stand
near a bonfire in the street, warming

my hands and face, but my feet
in boots numb; I think, no, I should say
I am thought; the yellow sunlight
grows hair, the black leopard

of night cracks a fibula in its maw;
and when the North Pole reaches
its farthest point, what if that distance
seizes and sizzles into a habit of mind?

Painting by Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood

1. You can read Tom Shannon from the Cheater Slicks’ picks on re his favorite soundtracks in the last Signal.