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

Who says the world isn’t flat?

Good ol’ DC captures the spirit of the season…

See you next year, with a brand new album!

Simon at the desk. It is actually a very large mouse, but hey, that’s Pro Tools for you. It is capable of doing something called “Vegas” which is totally cool and awesome, but unfortunately it is not possible to describe this phenomena – that’s how wild it is. He also plays guitar in the upcoming docu “E.O. – behind the music” or “tears before laughter” or maybe it was “turds on the run” or smthng… Pic by Mikkel, probably.

- Slavoj Zizek

All you daughters and sons
who are sick of fancy music
We dig repetition

- Mark E. Smith

Hey. Somebody is making a mini-documentary about E.O. Watch this space.

Quite recently, in the middle of the night, the drummer texted me: “What is the palace on the cover of Barely Real?” Like this is a completely normal question a graphics artist, employed in the Copenhagen City government, breadwinner and responsible for three kids, would send early a Sunday morning. (I wrote it was Herrenchiemsee, but it’s not.)

Actually, Codeine was closer in spirit to the drug ketogan than the opiate of the band name. Ketogan is what you get when you no longer can’t stand morphine after an operation. Morphine makes you sick, you get nauseous, and you trip – little annoying displays of fireworks on the backside of your eye, as you look out the window across Nørrebro from the 13th floor of Riget, wide awake at 3 am. Ketogan is like a baseball bat to the head, except you don’t feel it –  you don’t feel anything at all.

I remember my brother had been jotting down a few lines on a piece of paper: “I feel like string, I feel like nothing…” Codeine hit a certain Scandinavian existential angst better than most artists in this depressed corner of the world.

Chris Brokaw came to Cph to mix the second Naked album. We sat in Anders and Vanessas bedroom, and I asked him about the chords of “Power Failure,” a song off Comes first album. I was sitting next to my idol, and he was showing me how to play this fucking greatest song I loved so much. Then he asked me about the chords of a Naked song. I felt so proud – I had made it, somehow. We didn’t talk about drums so much.

(Digression: Some years later, Come was playing at Loppen with us, just across the street of Anders and Vanessa, and Sune Wagner was living in the flat below. All of a sudden, pre-gig, “Off to One Side” was coming through the floor – I pointed to Chris and said – “Oh, he’s playing your song…”)

Sometime around 2001, posters went up in Cph announcing a “Codeine Jam” gig at this cafe at Nørrebro. We were a little perplexed about this – who could this be, surely we would know them from around town? We turned up at the gig, and a bunch of young kids were performing a one hour show of impeccable renderings of Codeine songs – it was wonderful, true to the originals, without pandering, just pure existential angst and beauty, slow, slow drums and lonely guitar strumming.

There was a certain hairstyle popular among the young men in Cph at that time, sideburns and ponytails – not a beautiful sight, and most of the Codeine Jammers on stage were sporting this peculiar hairdo. Because of this, I recognized one in band behind the counter of a hot dog stand at Trianglen a couple of weeks later.

I approached him, a bit shy, intrigued about their motivation and skill in realizing these wonderful songs. “So, what was that thing with the Codeine Jam?” “Ah, you know, it was just something we did.”

Me and the hot dog guy never got further than that. In some ways, it remained a mystery, since none of these people surfaced on the Cph scene later on. Or maybe their hairstyles and glasses were changed to something different. I don’t know. But a few people recognized the same beauty and cold despair in Immerwahr, Engle and Brokaws’ songs that we felt – it happened out of nowhere and disappeared again, without a trace – like in a Codeine song.

Tania

Recorded by Mr. Götz.

Next week on channel E.O.: An even earlier demo of same song!

(Hey #ows! You guys rule!)

Dale Crover of the Melvins, a metal group that is releasing a mini-album through  [Toyota] Scion next year, said he had no qualms about the deal. The band has full artistic control of its product, and with Scion’s money it has also been able to make music videos, something that he said his band had rarely had the budget for.

“I am really glad that a company like this is interested in art,” Mr. Crover said. “It’s a way to continue doing what we do and make money doing it.”

Good to know that Toyota is interested in art. Can’t wait to see the video! Perhaps the beauty above is the new “Melvins-car,” sort of like ZZ Top and so on…

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