First of all, dear reader, an assurance: We are closer each day to fulfil what will be the second E.O. album, highly anticipated among approx. 150 or more rock music connoisseurs all over the globe. We did pre-mixes the other day, and to quote Dønne, that grand ol’ man of the Haderslev rockabilly scene – “this could be big in Germany.” True words, Dønne, true words.
With that said, let us now turn to the matter at hand.
In my forthgoing series of Artists That Signify That I Am Rather Old, we will to-day examine Ed Kuepper and Laughing Clowns.
At the end of the seventies, the Australian scene was overspilling with talent, as the cliché goes. The usual explanation is that Australia was caught between the AM-radio of the United States on one side, and the punk and new wave revolution through the ancient imperial ties with Great Britain on the other side. Radio Birdman and The Saints are often mentioned as the archetypal forerunners for the great mass of inventive Australian rock’n’roll that culminated with The Birthday Party (and all of its offspring, not lest the big E.O.-inspiration These Immortal Souls, with the only-all-to-mortal body of Rowland S. Howard in front), The (amazingly amazingly great great) Go-Betweens, The Triffids and so on and so on. And on the isles further south, The Verlaines and The Tall Dwarfs added their unique and oddly long lasting contribution to the global underground rock canon. The common clue here seems to be that all or most of these bands had the “The” in front of their names, as did The Beatles, those lovely fab-four.
(Time for a digression among digressions here: I remember, vividly, the day in 1973, when I was just a few years old, the earth-shattering news, mediated through my 10-year older brother, that The Beatles had been, in fact, dissolved for a number of years. My day of realization was spent in disbelief and depression in the kindergarten yard. How could anything as great as this just cease to exist? Though I never was a big, only casual, fan of Nirvana, I remember the same feeling when my guitar player phoned me and said that Kurt C. had shot himself in the head. Such a waste of talent. Two gifted singers I knew also disappeared in thin air. It does not make any sense to me, even after so many years.)
Boy, will I ever get to the point? I am not so sure. But I’ll try – I’ll give it a shot. It’s the least I can do.
The Saints was led by Chris Bailey and Mr. Kuepper, and eventually Mr. Kuepper left. I am not certain of the historical and biographical developments, but Mr. Kueppers next band, Laughing Clowns, made an everlasting impression on my 14 year old incarnation. L.C. was what could be described as “punk-jazz” – but not at all as in John Zorn or James White or anything to do with New York City in the late seventies.
In a way, Laughing Clowns canalized the idea of “jazz” – in these times an overused, commoditized term used to facilitate the selling of useless elevator music – Mr. Kuepper and Co. took the core idea of free form music to the underground music genres – but far from the stuck-up boredom of Zappa and the hoards of similar masturbating prog-rockers, polishing their horn for the benefit of paid groupies in the music business – the sordid lackeys of the late capitalist entertainment industry.
The highlight of Laughing Clowns short ouvre was the album Ghost Of An Ideal Wife — the album that made such an impression on me in my formative years, though my tiny shell was already hardened by the liberal suburban music library’s stock of Lydia Lunch, Butthole Surfers and Dead Kennedys – but the real shock of the album was the unbelievable musicality of the ensemble – and most of all, the way the toms and incredible saxophone (female, no less) – was mixed on top of everything else, including vocal and guitars (and what fantastic guitars!)
The way Ed Kuepper sing his sardonic misanthropic lyrics:
“grow old so gracefully / you laugh and say I must be kidding / It’s not within your CA-PA-BILITIES”
- tell us that there isn’t any hope here – the glass has been shattered, the mirror has been broken – now, the only out way is three feet backwards, against the wall – with the fly paper hanging down, that seems to say to much, just about ready to trap us small insects in its horrible inescapable glue-death.
Laughing Clowns opened a space of conflicted human existance, and as in a Borges short story, the vortex has never been closed, it just continues to ooze…
In a way, I can see how it inspired certain elements of Ensemble O. song writing. Similar to the inimitable Come, where there never is any resolution in any song, just further escalation, the end is left to the listener.
As the late Robert McComb sang, in his grave voice: “It’s a wide open road – and now you can go any place, that you want to go.”
What a golden promise, in these awful times.
Tania
