The United States of America - Gifts and Creatures

The United States of America – Gifts and Creatures

(soniclovenoize “Second Album” reimagining)

Side A:

1.  Kalyani

2.   You Can’t Ever Come Down

3.  Tailor Man

4.  Nightmare Train

5.  Osamu’s Birthday

6.  Do You Follow Me

Side B:

7.  No Love

8.  The Sing-Along Song

9.  Perry Pier

10.  Invisible Man

11.  The Sub-Sylvian Litanies

12.  The Elephant At The Door

13.  The Sing-Along Song (Reprise)

Happy Fourth of July!  This is a reimaging of a possible second album from psychedelic-pop visionaries The United States of America.  Using a combination of solo recordings from band-leaders Joseph Byrd and Dorothy Moskowitz, as well as a few outtakes from the debut United States of America album, we will attempt to make what a theoretical sophomore 1969 album by the band would have sounded like.   All tracks have been volume adjusted from the best sources and crossfaded into two continuous LP sides of music. 

To put it simply, there was never a band like The United States of America, nor there ever will be again.  Formed by young ethnomusicologist and Fluxus art movement centerpiece Joseph Byrd and his former-partner Dorothy Moskowitz in 1967, the pair were somehow equally influenced by John Cage and The Beatles.  After composing a set of material with Byrd on keyboards and Moskowitz on vocals, the duo recruited the rest of the band from musicians whom they knew and performed with in the Los Angeles art, experimental and scholarly music scene: Gordon Marron was recruited to play an electrified violin through a ring modulator; African-drum student Craig Woodson was recruited to play a drumkit amplified by a number of contact mics; modern classical bassist Rand Forbes played fretless bass, often through a fuzz pedal.  The quintet was also joined by Marron’s friend Ed Bogas, who supplied additional keyboards.  Young art students who essentially wanted to create a rock band—despite being totally unfamiliar with the medium—were also highly tapped into revolutionary 1960s politics and the counter-culture, and sought to subvert the establishment by ironically dubbing the band The United States of America. 

After recording a demo in September 1967, success was found fairly quickly as The United States of America were signed to Columbia before they even performed their first show!  After touring with Richie Havens and The Troggs, the group began recording their self-titled debut that December with Moby Grape producer David Rubinson.  Cracks already began to form in the unit, as Rubinson allegedly attempted to elevate Moskowitz to being the star of the show; likewise, creative differences between Byrd and the union of Bogas, Marron and Rubinson put a strain on the recording sessions.  Regardless, the sextet and it's producer created an album unparalleled in its fusion of rock music, experimental electronics, counter culture social commentary and genre hopping from pop to Dixieland to sound collage.  Released in March 1968, the band followed its release with another tour with The Troggs and The Velvet Underground. 

Despite being on the cusp of fame, the band quickly disintegrated.   Unfortunate circumstances shadowed the tour, including audience hecklers, a random attack on Byrd by unhip locals and a literal backstage fistfight between Marron and Byrd.  Columbia records had a difficulty in marketing the musical (and literal) revolutionaries and the band wondered if they were “selling out to the man”.  Internal band dynamics began to reach a breaking point as each tried to vie power of the band from its originator, Byrd.  After an additional recording session in May 1968 for a follow-up single “You Can Never Come Down”, the band called it quits that summer, with Byrd walking away from the creature he created (or fired from the band, as he claimed!).  Not surprisingly, additional demo sessions with Moskowitz and a backing band of session musicians were recorded in late July still under the name of The United States of America, indicating Columbia’s desire to continue the moniker with Dorothy as the centerpiece.  These recording of two Moskowitz originals “Tailor Man” and “Perry Pier”, as well as a third penned by Kenneth Edwards of Linda Ronstadt’s band Stone Ponies, “Do You Follow Me”, were decidedly more commercial-sounding, featured a standard rock instrumentation rather than the guitar-less and cutting edge sound of The United States of America.  Regardless, nothing came of these recordings, which were shelved after the band’s break-up.

Meanwhile, the outcast Byrd struggled to find direction.  Salvation came when Columbia Records, recognizing him as a genius despite the failure to market and keep his band alive, offered him the chance to make a second album, this time a solo effort in which he (allegedly) had total creative control.  Like Moskowitz just recently prior, Byrd gathered several session musicians—dubbed The Field Hippies—and recorded a song cycle of hastily-written material under the working title Gifts and Creatures, using a new version of the unused United States of America single “You Can Never Come Down” as a centerpiece.  Although the sessions were difficult and Byrd had to utilize a series of female vocalists in obvious mimicry of his departed muse Moskowitz, the resulting album The American Metaphysical Circus was somewhat of a sequel to the sole Unites States of America album.  Again mixing experimental rock and pop with Dixieland and gospel, the album began with a suite of songs designed to replicate an LSD trip, followed by a suite of sharp-tonged songs dedicated to President Lyndon B Johnson and concluding with another suite parodying the decaying older generation and their early retirement farms.  Released in 1969, the album miraculously became a cult hit and remained in the Columbia Masterworks catalog for over 20 years, despite being too rock for the classical crowd and too arty for the pop crowd.  Both The United States of America and The American Metaphysical Circus became cult classics of the psychedelic 60s, remaining hidden gems of the era, waiting patiently to be discovered by music aficionados over the next 50 years. 

Even through the album title’s implication and the obvious continuity of band-leader Byrd, The American Metaphysical Circus wasn’t quite the sequel that these second-generation United States of America fans hoped for.  While having some musical similarities, The Field Hippies seemed to go on tangents that circled Byrd’s own fascination with traditional American music and his study in ethnomusicology.  And of course, the obvious lack of Dorothy Moskowitz strong yet cool voice, replaced by ragtag facsimiles Christie Thompson, Susan de Lange and Victoria Bond who simply could not hit the mark.  Is there somehow a way to reconstruct the album to make it more a proper encore to The United States of America?  

For my reimagining, we will use the core of The American Metaphysical Circus, but patch in the original United States of America recording of “You Can Never Come Down”, the three Moskowitz-lead United States of America recordings from 1968 and two outtakes from the self-titled 1967 sessions in order to make it a more appropriate follow-up that will almost solely feature lead vocals by either Dorothy or Joseph.  Sources are simply the 1996 One Way Records remaster of The American Metaphysical Circus and the 2004 Sundazed remaster of The United States of America, the later featuring a number of the required bonus tracks for this reimagining.  We will call the album Gifts and Creatures, the original, intended title of The American Metaphysical Circus, with cover art featuring imagery from The United States of America’s live shows in 1968. 

Side A begins with The Field Hippy’s “Kalyani”, but is hard edited into the USofA’s “You Can Never Come Down”, ideally establishing the intent of this reimagining.  Crossfading back into the outro of The Field Hippy’s version of the same song, we go directly into Moskowitz’s “Tailor Man”, followed by The Field Hippy’s “Nightmare Train”.  Next is The United States of America “Osamu’s Birthday”, an outtake from their debut album, with Moskowitz’s “Do You Follow Me” closing the side.

Side B begins with another outtake from the first USofA debut, “No Love”, going directly into The Field Hippie’s “The Sing-Along Song”.  Moskowitz’s “Perry Pier” follows and then edited into The Field Hippy’s “Invisible Man”.  Now, we could not have a United State of America album without a sound collage, right? If I may be so bold, what follows is my own creation from previously heard sound elements, ideally creating a reappropriation of several themes on the album into a new context, in which we will call “The Sub-Sylvian Litanies”.  We will use the most USofA-sounding selection from The Field Hippies as the epic track to conclude the album; hopefully there is a suspension of disbelief as we feature a lead vocal by Susan de Lange instead of our beloved Dorothy. 

What is the result of Gifts and Creatures?  While defiantly an interesting experiment of what could have been, two things become quite obvious.  Firstly, both Dorothy and Joseph seemed to depart from the experimental rock of their debut album, with Moskowitz leaning towards the female soft-rock singer-songwriter territory and Byrd towards ethnomusicological pursuits.   Strangely enough, those two sounds seems to match fairly well and make a cohesive album, despite it not really sounding like a true USofA album.  Which leads us to the second point: the truth is, the trinity of Marron’s modulated violin, Forbes’ fuzzy bass and Woodson’s electrified drums seemed to be the USofA’s secret weapon, and what stylistically set the band apart from their contemporaries.  Aside from the two songs that feature them, they are sorely missed from this reimagining of a sophomore album. 

Regardless, I hope you enjoy the album (that admittedly simply originated as a little experiment of my own), and make your Fourth of July an American metaphysical circus!

Sources used:

Joe Byrd & The Field Hippies - The American Metaphysical Circus (1996 One Way Records CD Remaster)
The Unites States of America - The United States of America (2004 Sundazed CD Remaster)
 

 
flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR, Audacity & Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8
*md5, artwork and tracknotes included

The Flaming Lips - 7 Skies H3 (100-minute edit)

The Flaming Lips – 7 Skies H3

(100-Minute Edit by soniclovenoize)

Disc One:

1. I Can’t Shut Off My Head

2. Meepy Morp (Calliope Trance with Major and Minor Celestial Sections)

3. Radiation Wind

4. Battling Voices From Beyond

5. Electronic Toy Factory

6. In A Dream

7. Metamorphosis

Disc Two:

8. Requiem

9. An Outpouring of Immaculate Light From The Heavens Consumes Your Body

10. Meepy Morp (Reprise)

11. Riot In My Brain!!

12. 7 Skies H3 (Main Theme)

13. Can’t Let It Go

This is my own unique edit of The Flaming Lips’ epic 24-hour song, “7 Skies H3”, edited to the length of a 100-minute double-album.  Each of the song’s fourteen movements were extracted from the 24-hour piece to represent a “song” on the “album”; each song was then edited down to an appropriate length for that particular song in the context of a double-album.  In effect, some tracks act as mere transitions to others, while some tracks remained epic in scope (in the context of a double-album anyways).  While similar to the band’s own official 50-minute edit released on limited edition vinyl for Record Store Day in 2014, my 100-minute edit is twice that length and much more inclusive; not only allowing specific songs a more epic breath that they deserved but including music that was completely removed from the RSD release altogether.  All track segues are intact and this album plays as a continuous 100-minute piece--although one could separate tracks 1-7 as Disc One (49 minutes) and tracks 8-13 as Disc Two (51 minutes).  All official song titles are used except for the unnamed movements, which will default to the long-held fan-chosen titles.    

By the 2010s, The Flaming Lips have reached a mid-life crisis.  They had already made their cherished acid-punk indie releases in the 1980s; they already had their breakthrough noise-pop hit in 1993 with “She Don’t Use Jelly”; they already made their self-serving experimental four-disc 1997 album, Zaireeka; they had already made their critically acclaimed symphonic-pop masterpiece The Soft Bulletin in 1999; they had already managed the trick of gaining mainstream success while still retaining their core audience with Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots in 2002; they had already made a complete musical about-face into dark, hypnotic Krautrock for Embryonic in 2009.  If they refuse to break-up, what does a band who has already done everything do next?  The answer: whatever the fuck they want.

This of course meant a series of bizarre EP releases throughout 2011 which included: a song meant to be played on 12 different cell phones simultaneously; recordings released on flash drives encased in marijuana-flavored gummy skulls; and a six-hour song released inside a strobe light toy.  While one could perceive this as pure gimmick, this observer saw it as a result of the combined boredom with the typical rock-band archetype and the realization of ultimate artistic freedom, something earned after 30 years of making music.  But it was that six-hour song, “I Found A Star On The Ground”, that set a new bar for the band searching for something interesting to fill their time in 2011: how does one top a six-hour song?  With a 24-hour song, of course!

“7 Skies H3” tells the story of a protagonist whose love commits suicide, and the listener embarks on a psychedelic journey through his grief process as well as a musical representation of her afterlife.  The song—becoming an insane challenge for Flaming Lips fans to even listen to it in its entirety—was released to a limited edition of 13 copies on Halloween 2011, encased in an actual human skull.  It was also broadcast as a live webstream, which continually (and to this day) plays the song indefinitely.  While detractors found even more gimmick to condemn, there was one thing they could not argue: “7 Skies H3”contained some of the best music The Flaming Lips ever produced. 

Unfortunately, much of that great music was lost to it's own daunting massiveness.  Does one really have the time, energy and will-power to sift through a literal day of music to appreciate the highlights?  Some fans did... notably StrangePets who made both a 90-minute and 213-minute cut of "7 Skies H3" (which urged me to do the same!).  The Flaming Lips probably took notice, and issued their own condensed 50-minute version as an exclusive Record Store Day release in 2014.  Their "distillation" RSD cut showcased some of the most interesting music they'd made in their 30 year career as a standalone album, rather than a 24-hour endeavor.  Unfortunately not all of the magical moments from the full endeavor made the cut, notably the atmospheric interlude of "Radiation Wind", the quaint chaos of "Electronic Toy Factory", the ending jam of "Requiem" and it's following "The Other Side", and the driving ecstatic jam of “An Outpouring of Immaculate Light From the Heavens Consumes Your Body” and it's singular rainstorm breakdown.  And criminally, the centerpiece of 7 Skies H3--the seven-hour emotionally-catastrophic sound-experiment "Metamorphosis"--was reduced to a trite five minutes and lacked any of the nuances that made it one of The Flaming Lips' masterworks.  Is it possible to make a concise 7 Skies H3 as a typical album that could not only be enjoyed in one sitting, but also retain the aforementioned epic attributes?  I have found a run-time that precisely doubles the RSD release is the perfect length, assembled as a double LP--discs timing 49 and 51 minutes respectively--while still edited for continuous play just as the original 24-hour song. 

Disc One

1.  “I Can’t Shut Off My Head” [7:45]

My 100-minte edit of 7 Skies H3 begins with one of the four lyric-based compositions that explains the concept of the album itself.  While the original full-length version of “I Can’t Shut Off My Head” contained eight verses and ran 25:39, the Record Store Day edit cut it down to three verses and running at 8:23 (as well as adding superfluous echo onto Wayne’s vocals).  My edit is structured similarly as the RSD edit, as I chose to include what I felt were the three best verses (1, 2 & 4) as well as an instrumental introduction.  Additionally, each verse was edited down from seven to five lines, omitting the two weakest lines of lyric for each verse.  The instrumental passages were then edited to match the length of each verse.  Because of this, my edit is a bit more concise than the official RSD edit, clocking in at 7:45.

2.  “Meepy Morp (Calliope Trance with Major and Minor Celestial Sections)” [3:15]

Following is what fans called “Calliope Trance with Major and Minor Celestial Sections” but was officially titled “Meepy Morp” on the RSD record.  Originally an hour in length, I have reduced it down to just over three minutes to keep the album moving, featuring three different sections of the piece to give a feeling of variation as the instrumental progresses. 

3.  “Radiation Wind” [2:36]

An officially unnamed track “Radiation Wind”, originally running 37 minutes and not appearing on the RSD version at all, is reduced to a two-minute interlude before the battle begins. 

4.  “Battling Voices From Beyond” [4:02]

The epic “Battling Voices From Beyond” was a grueling two hours and 37 minutes on the original 24-hour "7 Skies H3".   While it was edited down to 3:05 on the RSD vinyl, my edit is a paced 4:02, which showcases several of the interesting sounds that dance around the pounding main vocal riff. 

5.  “Electronic Toy Factory” [2:27]

Another track that was completely omitted from the 50-minte RSD edit, the 10-minute and unnamed “Electronic Toy Factory” (featuring the experimental duo Pitchwafuzz), is edited down to a reasonable 2:27, acting as simply a linking track between two main selections.   

6.  “In A Dream” [6:28]

The original version of the second of four lyrical songs ran an hour and 4 minutes, which was edited down to a feasible 4:51 on the RSD release and included additional vocal overdubs to smooth of the mix.  Here I present a more hypnotic 6:28 mix, organized into two verses. 

7.  “Metamorphosis” [22:27]

The massive centerpiece of 7 Skies H3 is “Metamorphosis”, which originally ran seven hours in length!  It was reduced to an anticlimactic five minutes on the RSD edit, fading out at the end of side A.  With a theoretical double-album format, we can allow “Metamorphosis” to retain its true epic proportions.  My edit spans a reasonable 22:27 and features my favorite elements of the original seven-hour piece.  It is meant to be the conclusion of the first disc of this theoretical double album. 

Disc Two

8.  “Requiem” [5:15]

The second disc begins with the third of four lyric-based compositions on the album, which is also coincidentally the mid-point of the 24-hour "7 Skies H3".  Originally spanning 23:20—essentially a 3-minute song with a 20-minute jam—the RSD release unfortunately exorcised the ending 20 minutes completely.  Here I have restored the ending jam, although only keeping about two minutes of it for the sake of emotional finality for the song. 

9.  “An Outpouring of Immaculate Light From the Heavens Consumes Your Body” [25:58]

The series of musical movements which follow are mostly absent from the RSD edit, what Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne describes as “the other side of this long journey through death”, and seems to musically depict the significant other's journey in the afterlife. It starts with the unnamed but aptly fan-titled “The Other Side”; originally clocking in at over an hour, an edit of the serene piece eventually found a way onto 2013's The Terror as the outro to "You Lust".  Because of this, I have excluded “The Other Side” from my edit of 7 Skies H3 in the name of redundancy. Next is the unnamed yet fan-titled “An Outpouring of Immaculate Light From the Heavens Consumes Your Body” (but described by Wayne as a “Bb chord with varying accompaniment”, which would also suffice as a title, I suppose), originally spanning three and a half hours and also completely missing from the RSD release.  In reality, the movement is a loop of the same 26-minute no-wave jam in Bb with different sets of embellishments upon each repeat (with one even being played backwards!).   For my mix, the piece is introduced by one of the greatest moments of the original 24-hour edit: a between-rotation breakdown of a rainstorm, ticking stopwatch and chiming keyboards.  I then have included a complete rotation of the full 26-minute jam. 

10. “Meepy Morp (Reprise)” [2:42]

“Meepy Morp (Reprise)”—also known as the fan-titled “Movement of Celestial Bodies”—was originally two hours and 15 minutes in length, although it is simply a loop of the same eleven-minute piece.  On the RSD edit, “Meepy Morp” is paired down to a short, two-minute interlude.  I have made a similar edit, but allowed the piece to continue for another 40 seconds to create a logical outro to the instrumental. 

11.  “Riot In My Brain!!!” [4:32]

The destructive noise jam “Riot In My Brain!!!” originally totals an exhausting hour and a half, but was trimmed down to a digestible 4:28 on the RSD release; I have made a similar edit. 

12.  “7 Skies H3 (Main Theme)” [6:26]

The gorgeous main theme to 7 Skies H3 (fan-titled “Forever Floating”) drifts on for two hours and 12 minutes and includes three movements; the RSD release condenses it down to 6:26.  I have made a similar edit, giving each of the three movements about two minutes of time.  Coincidentally, my edit runs the same length of the RSD release! 

13.  “Can’t Let It Go” [6:08]

The closing song—the fourth lyric-based composition—originally ran eight minutes in length, with the RSD release not bothering to edit it at all.  Here I have trimmed it down to 6:08, with numerous edits in the ending outro.  In effect, the build-up is no longer gradual, but immediately apparent and the track is perceived as more bombastic to end this amazing 100 minutes of music.    

 

Flac/shn --> wav --> mixing & editing in SONAR & Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8

*md5, artwork and tracknotes included