THE LOUNGE LIZARDS – The Lounge Lizards (Editions EG – EGS 108/LP-1981)

Label: Editions EG ‎– EGS 108

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US Released: 1981

Style: Avant-garde Jazz, No Wave, Free Improvisation

Recorded at CBS Recording Studios in New York on July 21-22, 28-29 1980.

Mixed at CBS Recording Studios in New York on August 6, 14-15 1980.

Design – Peter Saville

Photography By – Fran Pelzman

Engineer – Frank Laico, Ted Brosman

Recorded By – Teo Macero

Mastered By – Gc

Mixed By – Don Puluse

Producer – Teo Macero

Pressed By – Hub-Servall Record Mfg. Corp.

Matrix / Runout (Runout area side A Var.1): ESG - 108 - A STERLING HuB

Matrix / Runout (Runout area side B Var.1): ESG - 108 - B STERLING Gc HuBre

side1:

A1 - Incident on South Street   (John Lurie) .............................................................. 3:21

A2 - Harlem Nocturne   (Earle Hagen) ...................................................................... 2:04

A3 - Do The Wrong Thing   (John Lurie / Steve Piccolo) .......................................... 2:40

A4 - Au Contraire Arto   (John Lurie) ......................................................................... 3:22

A5 - Well You Needn't   (Thelonious Monk) .............................................................. 1:55

A6 - Ballad   (John Lurie) .......................................................................................... 3:25

A7 - Wangling   (John Lurie) ......................................................................................2:58

side2:

B1 - Conquest of Rar   (John Lurie / Evan Lurie/ Anton Fier) ................................... 3:14

B2 - Demented   (John Lurie) ................................................................................... 2:02

B3 - I Remember Coney Island   (John Lurie) .......................................................... 3:29

B4 - Fatty Walks   (John Lurie) ................................................................................. 2:52

B5 - Epistrophy    (Thelonious Monk / Kenneth Clarke) ........................................... 4:15

B6 - You Haunt Me   (John Lurie) ............................................................................. 3:40

Personnel:

John Lurie – alto saxophone

Evan Lurie – keyboards

Steve Piccolo – bass

Arto Lindsay – guitar

Anton Fier – drums, percussion

The Lounge Lizards is the first album by The Lounge Lizards. It features hectic instrumental jazz. The songs are mostly composed by band leader and saxophone player John Lurie. The album artwork was designed by the English graphic designer Peter Saville.

The Lounge Lizards were an eclectic musical group founded by saxophonist John Lurie and his brother, pianist Evan Lurie, in 1978. Initially known for their ironic, tongue-in-cheek take on jazz, The Lounge Lizards eventually became a showcase for John Lurie's sophisticated compositions straddling jazz and many other genres. They were active until about 1998 with the Lurie brothers as the only constant members, though many leading New York City based musicians were members of the group.

The group's name was borrowed from American slang. A lounge lizard is typically depicted as a well-dressed man who frequents the establishments in which the rich gather with the intention of seducing a wealthy woman with his flattery and deceptive charm.

At its founding, the band consisted of John Lurie and Evan Lurie, guitarist Arto Lindsay, bassist Steve Piccolo, and percussionist Anton Fier. They released a self-titled album on EG Records in 1981. The album included two Thelonious Monk covers, but as one critic noted, "the two aforementioned Monk covers seem a strange choice when you actually hear the band, which has more in common with sonic experimentalists like Ornette Coleman or Sun Ra."

By the mid-1980s, a new line-up included bassist Erik Sanko, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, guitarist Marc Ribot, saxophonist Roy Nathanson, and percussionists Dougie Bowne and E.J. Rodriguez. This group recorded various live and studio albums and showcased John Lurie's increasingly sophisticated and multi-layered compositions.

Note:

In 1998, the band released Queen of All Ears on John Lurie's Strange and Beautiful Music label and had added Steven Bernstein, Michael Blake, Oren Bloedow, David Tronzo, Calvin Weston, and Billy Martin. "The Lizards' music isn't jazz," said Fred Bouchard of JazzTimes, "but it is intelligent and rhythmically and harmonically interesting (it ain't rock either, in other words) and, despite the ultra-hip trappings, it has an almost innocent directness that can transcend stylistic prejudice."

Recent years have found the Lounge Lizards less active. John Lurie has been occupied with painting, while Evan has worked on The Backyardigans, a children's show that highlights multiple musical genres.

If you find it, buy this album!

THE GOLDEN PALOMINOS – The Golden Palominos (CEL 6662 / LP-1983)

Label: Celluloid ‎– CEL 6662

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: France / Released: 1983

Style: Avantgarde, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Radio City Music Hall Studio/NYC and OAO Studio/Brooklyn

Mixed at RPM Studio/NYC and OAO Studio/Brooklyn

Design [Layout] – Jan Luss

Photography By – Thi-Linh Le

Engineer – Don Hünerberg, Martin Bisi

Engineer [Assistant At RPM] – Mike Krowiak

Mixed By – Anton Fier, Bill Laswell, Martin Bisi

Executive-Producer – Karakos, Roger Trilling

Producer – Anton Fier, Bill Laswell

Producer [Associate] – Arto Lindsay, Martin Bisi

Repetiteur [Vocal Coach] – Peter Blegvad

Matrix / Runout (A-Side Runout, Etched): Cel 6662 A

Matrix / Runout (B-Side Runout, Etched): Cel 6662 A

side 1:

A1 - Clean Plate   (Fier, Lindsay) .............................................................................. 6:32

A2 - Hot Seat   (Fier, Noyes, Miller) .......................................................................... 5:13

A3 - Under The Cap   (Fier, Lindsay) ........................................................................ 5:32

A4 - Monday Night   (Fier, Lindsay) .......................................................................... 6:29

side 2:

B1 - Cookout   (Fier) ................................................................................................. 4:38

B2 - I.D.   (Fier, Lindsay) ........................................................................................... 6:45

B3 - Two Sided Fist   (Fier, Lindsay, Frith) ................................................................ 7:42

Musicians:

ARTO LINDSAY – vocals, guitar

ANTON FIER – drums, oberheim DMX, percussion

FRED FRITH – guitar, violin

BILL LASWELL – bass guitar

JOHN ZORN – alto saxophone, clarinet, game calls

NICKY SKOPELITIS – guitar on "Monday Night" / "I.D."

THI-LINH LE – vocals on "Monday Nigh''

MARK E. MILLER – vocals on "Hot Seat", turntables on "Hot Seat" / "Monday Night"

DAVID MOSS – percussion on "Clean Plate" / "Under the Cap" / "Two Sided Fist"

MICHAEL BEINHORN – drums and Oberheim DMX on "Hot Seat", piano on "Cookout"

JAMAALADEEN TACUMA – Steinberger bass guitar on "Clean Plate" / "Two Sided Fist"

ROGER TRILLING – tape on "Cookout"

The group first featured drummer Anton Fier, singer-guitarist Arto Lindsay, saxophonist John Zorn, bass guitarist Bill Laswell and violinist/guitarist Fred Frith. Their self-titled debut album was released on New York's Celluloid Records in 1983, and featured guest appearances by bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, percussionist David Moss, turntablist M.E. Miller and others.

Arto Lindsay / Anton Fier

For twenty years, the Golden Palominos have been musical chameleons, continually changing lineups and styles. The only constant has been drummer Anton Fier, whose vision and interests have steered the group through two decades of music making.

The Golden Palominos were formed in the early 1980s, as a joint project, by drummer Anton Fier and noise-guitarist Arto Lindsay. Fier came from Cleveland where he had played with new wave cult band Pere Ubu. In 1978, he left Ohio for New York City. Once there he moved through various bands including a band he formed himself, the Feelies and the Pedestrians. At the end of the 1970s, with Lindsay and John Lurie, he co-founded the Lounge Lizards, a band that played an indescribable combination of noise, rhythm, and jazz. “Actually, when I first started playing with the Lounge Lizards, Arto and I wanted to call the band the Golden Palominos,” Fier told Down Beat’s Bill Milkowski. “We liked the name but Lurie didn’t.” Lindsay, Fier said, was the reason he joined the Lounge Lizards. So when Arto left the band, Fier did too and decided the next step was for the two of them to form a new band together, which they were able to name the Golden Palominos.

The group’s first incarnation was as a super group of the late-1970s New York downtown improv scene. Its participants included luminaries such as saxophonist John Zorn, guitarists Fred Frith and Nicky Skopelitis,and bassists Bill Laswell and Jamaaladeen Tacuma. The music the band made was a marvelous combination of incongruous styles. On the one hand, the music was improvised, free, uncontrolled even. Lindsay, the Palominos de facto frontman, played chunks of noise on his 12-string guitar which he deliberately refused to tune and squawked out truncated, nonsensical lyrics, while Zorn was as likely to accompany the band with bird calls as with his horn. On the other, when the band played it locked into a throbbing, unrelenting funk groove driven by Tacuma and Laswell’s basses and Fier’s unerring backbeat.

The group gave a series of critically well-received concerts in the New York City area in 1982, and in 1983 released a record, simply titled Golden Palominos, on Bill Laswell’s Celluloid label. The New York Times lavished praise on the album. Down Beat called it “a masterpiece…an enormously important and satisfying album” and gave it five stars, the magazine’s highest rating.

If you find it, buy this album!