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by Evan Cantor
I sometimes wonder how marvelous it must be for so-called “solo artists” to do their thing. Independent of anybody else’s opinions, wishes and desires, the solo-artist can do as they like, collaborate with whomever they wish and create at will. In a band, one must deal with multiple points-of-view, numerous opinions, ego-driven differences, leadership struggles, musical and philosophical differences, wildly disparate kinds and levels of talent and general madness. Nonetheless, there are rewards in having a band and operating, to varying degrees, via “group-think”. Although I may have run Walls Of Genius relatively despotically in the 1980s, it would never have been what it was without “group-think”. We jammed, improvised, assembled and performed as a group. Nonetheless, a Walls Of Genius track was periodically something I made all by myself, something made by Little Fyodor alone, or that very rare something generated primarily by Ed Fowler, the third ‘founding’ member of the group. Since these “solo” creations became Walls Of Genius tracks, it provided a great variety of sounds and a great deal of freedom to create at will, regardless of “group-think”. This is one of the reasons that you never knew what you might hear when you saw the name Walls Of Genius. We relished that freedom and unpredictability. Of course, with time, certain of these elements became predictable. The classic Walls Of Genius ‘formula’ emerged, a melange of solo materials combined with the three of us improvising together. Little Fyodor would not have been Walls Of Genius all by himself and neither would I. So the unpredictable became itself predictable. I should note that veto power was invested in all three primary members of the group. Working to expand the limitations of 4-track technology, Fyodor and I would employ overdubs in tandem. Two persons recording on each track gave us up to eight things going on. Thus Little Fyodor assisted me with percussion, synth and background mania on various pieces. I provided some lead guitar, percussion and bass on a variety of Fyodor songs. We both provided back-up vocals for one another. A third approach was in true experimentation in which we very consciously worked together to create something unusual that reflected neither participant dominantly. A fourth was the Fabulous Pus-Tones, wherein Fyodor and I sang unhinged duets, mostly in the service of deconstructing old pop tunes but sometimes on originals like “I’m Falling In Love With Ellen”. Finally, a fifth approach was simply uninhibited improvisation by whichever musicians happened to be there that day. Such sessions could only exist as a result of a ‘group-think’ approach even if the thinking was unconscious, below the floorboards so to speak. 
It wasn’t always happy days group-thinking in the living-room studio. Little Fyodor wasn’t always overjoyed to play percussion on one of my Joe Colorado songs. For him, this could be like doing-the-laundry. It was just boring to do it, but he soldiered on in support of the larger project. I wasn’t always happy playing lead guitar or bass on Fyodor songs. He knew what he wanted, wasn’t happy until he got it ‘just right’ and I would get frustrated by the perfectionism. His approach was, and remains, sufficiently unique that it wasn’t always easy to adjust to it. Was I just a robotic bass player to be programmed? I soldiered on as well. In the long run, the results were good.
Group-think helped in assembling our albums and with the marketing of them. As a dee-jay with some years of experience, Little Fyodor always had a good ear for song order, so he organized as much of that as I did. When he thought I had gone too far with my obscene cartoons, he spoke up and I respected those wishes. Ed was most of the time blissfully unaware of the entire world beyond our living rooms. But finally he objected to the inclusion of my song “Ballad Of A Patriot” because it contained the refrain “so fuck you, Ronald Reagan”. He wanted to give our albums to his friends and family whom he thought would be offended. He was not concerned, however, about Little Fyodor’s multiple versions of “Everybody’s Fuckin’” on the Pussy Lust cassette album. Go figure, right? So the “Ballad” went to a compilation and didn’t appear on a Walls Of Genius album until 2017, as a bonus track on Bandcamp. Times have changed. Plus, since Ed doesn’t own a computer, he has little to say on matters involving the digital world. 
There were times when Group-Think broke down completely, especially in the case of ill-considered collaborations with outside musicians. Passive-aggressive manipulation proliferated all around and generated falling-outs. These relationships would have benefited greatly from actual “group-think”, if we had only been able to communicate more effectively. We were all young and inexperienced in this world, so what did we know? None of us can be blamed for having once been young and inexperienced.
What about artistic freedom? Because of the “formula”, we essentially had all the artistic freedom we might ever have wanted in a band situation. Nonetheless, with a ‘band’, you must subsume some of your own wishes and desires in order to reach a compromise with others’ wishes and desires. When Little Fyodor and I experienced artistic differences in ‘86, it never occurred to me that Walls Of Genius could be anything other than it had been, a group consisting of at least Ed, myself and Little Fyodor. It’s not like I “owned” the name Walls Of Genius. I could have, if I so wished, had Walls Of Genius “present” me as a solo artist, just as we had “presented” Little Fyodor (“Slither/Sloth”). But at that time, I had no wish to do so as I had lost interest in the avant-garde. And now that I am once again interested, I use the revived Walls Of Genius “brand” as my outlet for that expression, as well as nearly-conventional songs with rather pointed lyrics (i.e. “Make America Mexican Again”).
Make America Mexican Again
(Evan Cantor) Intro: D G A D (2x) (mariachi horns) 3/4 We are all rapists and criminals, now we can say it out loud D G, A D It’s no longer subliminal, we’re brown, illegal and proud. D G, A D There’s no way to keep us all outta here, D G go right ahead with yer wall A D You can pass more laws but for all you fear, D G It makes no difference at all. A D Let’s make America, F G Let’s make America, F G Let’s make America, F G >>Bb-Stop Mexican Again! (n.c.)-to break break: D G A D (2x) (mariachi horns) Aye aye aye, yo soy un gringo borracho D G A D Me gusto cerveza y tequila tambien D G A Me gusto margaritas y mescal Yucatan! A D Let’s make America, F G Let’s make America, F G Let’s make America, F G >>Bb-Stop Mexican Again! (n.c.)-to break break: D G A D (2x) (mariachi horns) California, Nevada and New Mexico, they used to be part of us D G, A D From the Oregon coast to El Paso, we ride in the back of the bus D G, A D We pick your veggies and we pick your fruit, D G We make your guaca-mo-lay A D In rags, in pee-jays and Savile Row suits, D G You know we are here to stay. A D Let’s make America, F G Let’s make America, F G Let’s make America, F G >>Bb-Stop Mexican Again! (n.c.)-to break break: D G A D (2x) (mariachi horns) (END G>D!)
Such songs have historically disturbed fellow members of my straight bar-band and folk-music ventures. For Little Fyodor, it’s a different ball o’wax. He has a successful avant-garde career as a solo artist. I imagine it’s more of a challenge for him to determine if-and-what he’d like to bring to Walls Of Genius that isn’t simply an extension of his successful solo career.
Ultimately, Walls Of Genius benefited, and continues to do so, from the fact that it is a group and no one individual’s solo project. The radical differences in our approaches created excitement and vibrating tension to Walls Of Genius. With Little Fyodor and me, it’s a little like the Lennon/McCartney dialectic. Or the Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald collaboration, voices like silk and gravel intertwined. When Fyodor and I get crazy singing together, channeling Wild Man Fischer and The Shaggs, it’s a unique thing unheard anywhere else, hence Walls Of Genius. Because there is a group dynamic, we are forced to discipline ourselves in our solo contributions. Although we had complete freedom to create such things, there’s only so much space available within the ‘formula’ for any one album. It’s possible that this categorization or pigeon-holing is antithetical to the project. Our beginnings emerged from the desire to cast away all discipline, to simply go wild and create, unhinged and uninhibited. Well, times changed and still do. In the process, I’d like to think we created our own tradition.
22 Comments
6/18/2018 04:08:47
GREAT insights Evan! As someone who has ingested heaping portions of WoG I enjoyed reading about the band's experiences and challenges with group dynamics and the benefits of, to use your term: Group-Think. It's interesting to hear how creative forces within a 'band' situation interact, butt heads, compromise, etc. You must have been and continue to do something right because the results have always been uniquely WoG. Oh, and I LOVE your 'channeling Wild Man Fischer and The Shaggs' analogy!!
Little Fyodor
6/18/2018 08:45:45
Well boy, I'd like to take this opportunity to say that if I ever actually likened playing on Evan’s songs to doing the laundry (Evan quotes me more directly as saying that in Hal's WoG archive), please allow me now to belatedly apologize! I actually don’t remember anything at all about being bored by the doing of that, myself. In fact, my memory is of being very much into it and of taking great pride when I thought I’d done a good job of it. I remember coming up with an organ line I was real happy about for a song Evan wrote for the next project that we never got to (so this was toward the end of that time period), and then being bummed and dismayed when Evan seemed to change the arrangement such that there was no longer a space for that part. Would I have felt that way if I considered my role in Evan's songs some obnoxious chore? Either I was in some retaliatory mood when I uttered that phrase (which does sound like my wording as I'd sometimes use that metaphor to describe a neutral sort of activity you did cause you had to but which wasn't especially good or bad, like I know I'd say a decent enough job was one that was no worse than doing the laundry!) or else maybe I was talking about something else and either we got our signals crossed at the time or maybe, just possibly, Evan’s memory has discombobulated the context after all this time? I do remember Evan telling me of his thoughts of converting us into a pure oldies cover band and how I thought that would be more like a job for me; that sounds to me more like the kind of thing I would have said that about. Well who knows at this point. I can remember a lot from the time but I don’t remember this particular conversation so I can't directly address why I would have said such a thing, I can only say that in fact I recall playing on Evan’s songs as enthusiastic ventures, never as some sort of pained obligation. For that matter, I also don’t remember complaining about Evan’s comics being too obscene! Well hey, it was a hectic time for a couple of inexperienced 20-something year-olds, and I know we didn’t always communicate very well. My apologies again for whatever role I played in that. Meantime, I hope I'm not muddying up a good, clean story about an ornery bandmate, and I’ll sure agree that something’s lost and something’s gained in all manner of musical arrangements one might find oneself in or seek out….
Hal McGee, EC Editor
6/18/2018 09:08:31
Interested readers can find Evan's previous quote about doing the laundry on this page of the Wog Archive: http://www.haltapes.com/do-not-write-below-this-line.html 6/18/2018 10:54:46
... besides GREAT insight to Walls Of Genius (whom I actually got to know in recent years - I don't know why they never made it my way in the old days) .. anyway .. "Make America Mexican Again" is one of the very rare GREAT examples of songs I was hoping to get these days - noone seems to do this stuff... 6/18/2018 23:02:28
I'm surprised you can't find such things LL. Here's one of those net-sized collections of recordings in which you might find what you're looking for -- this set was compiled by EC's own {AN} EeL (Neal D. Retke):
Hal McGee
6/19/2018 00:38:42
https://wallsofgenius.bandcamp.com/album/all-trumped-up-2017 6/19/2018 06:03:23
Thanks for the leads!
Evan Cantor
6/18/2018 12:56:08
yo Fyo! It's funny (laugh out loud peculiar) how memory distorts things. I don't recall ever suggesting that WoG become a 100% oldies cover band, but Lord knows what I might have said one stoned evening 35 years ago.... I'm glad to know you recall our collaborative work enthusiastically, as I also do--but, it would be dishonest of me to say that I had that same enthusiasm all the time back in the day. It wasn't always easy and I imagine that that speaks for both of us. What about Ed? Just getting him out of the house is a challenge anymore, so I imagine it wasn't always easy for him either, although he was never under the same pressure as you or I to create. Anais Nin writes of the guilt associated with not creating--perhaps we both suffer this same syndrome. (and greetings to Jerry & Litter!)
Fyo
6/18/2018 13:36:18
Oh yeah well there were definitely tensions and difficulties of various sorts going on at the time, and if your primary point was just to say that those existed then I could surely be seen to be quibbling to say well this wasn’t one of them per se, they were over other stuff. Playing in a band is an interpersonal challenge, not a doubt about it. I remember Charlie Verrette, after one of his many “Charlie band” lineups fell apart, saying that he admired bands like the Cars (whom I think he just pulled out of the air just cause they were popular at the time) just for being able to stay together long enough to get popular. I also recall a friend who went by Black Humour who released abstract “sound poetry,” as he put it, into the experimental cassette scene, but when I visited him it turned out he had some rock instruments setup in his basement which he said he used to make his own more rock-like music that he never shared with anyone. When I asked him if he ever played that kind of stuff with others, he said no because, and I quote, “Playing with people means arguing with people.” It’s a fine art to be able to do that and make it work. Another friend named Dick Turner stopped playing with other people after his band (he wrote all the music and enlisted the band members) turned on him and said they all got along with each other but not with him! Similar thing happened when Al Kooper got booted from the band he had founded to play his music and his concept of music (Blood, Sweat & Tears, of course). Being bandmates is fraught with similar issues as being roommates or lovers. Pros and cons, pros and cons, almost every decision one makes in life is fraught with pros and cons…. Y’know I once read John Kaye of Steppenwolf saying that the original Steppenwolf “was supposed to be a democracy” (the rock band PTSD and sarcasm almost jumped off the page even though I couldn’t hear his tone!) but he didn’t like being solo either cause he didn’t like having to come up with everything. He said he liked the new Steppenwolf lineup he had at that time cause everyone was involved and could contribute but he had the final say! Haha, well a lot of us would probably like to be in the situation where we have all of the authority but not so much the responsibility! But then we all still likely differ to various degrees in exactly what we’d ideally want, as well as in what’s available to us…. (No offense, but you told Jane Carpenter about your oldies cover band idea too, it was just an idea that caught your fancy for a time, but who knows, maybe it was only a week….)
Little Fyodor
6/18/2018 13:51:46
I'll note, without checking to confirm, that I believe most of the folks here at the Cottage are solo artists. OTOH, free improvisors almost by definition have to collaborate. I suppose one might imagine improvising via overdubs, but that wouldn't be the same in various ways. And free improvisation was (is?) a key aspect to Walls Of Genius, though not always of the pure Jack Wright-school sort..... 6/18/2018 15:42:31
Over the years, I've found that ALL the different groups I have been in have different dynamics -- I'm unable to really come up with generalizations that apply to all, because they've all involved combinations of different artists (maybe one generalization is that all the artists I've interacted with are individuals with individual quirks). I've been a group leader; I've been an equal collaborator; I've been a late addition; I've been a small voice in a crowd. These groups include Temporarily KY, -Ing, Disism, Herd Of The Ether Space, Turkey Makes Me Sleepy, The Magic Potty Babies, River Cow Orchestra, Basement Of Extra Power, and I have even recently been accepted as a member of Walls Of Genius! I have also done TONS of collaborations with other artists that have no official "group" names.
Chris Phinney
6/19/2018 11:52:05
Good article. Very interesting read, as well as the comments. My experience with bands first band The Skoptzies, Hawkwind influenced & other prog band's. We practiced all the time, either I or Dave Catching (Eagles of Death Metal) wrote the songs, we played out same set adding new songs of course, Dave & Kim bass player always had arguments boyfriend girlfriend see. We went thru 3 different drummers Pete McLean ( Alex Chiltons) cousin, Ross Rice (Human Radio) today playing bass with Frampton when On tour, Jim Mallory ( Suspicions) but we also used my drum machine as our drummers were always a day late & a dollar short, broke up when a few members moved to L.A. So I formed new band more space rock than previous, Viktimized Karcass we started out strictly improv no overdubs, then we started writing songs either Richard Martin or I, we practiced weekly, played same songs a little while at gigs & a mini tour or two midsouth. We tired of this quickly & went back to strictly improv no overdubs, same problem with drummers so again used drum machine on most, both these bands I did all the mixing, both bands did a lot of tapes, released on HRM or other labels, comp tracks on lots of tapes, few tracks on lp or cd (Karcass) any head butting were drummers not showing hence drum machine. Again broke up due to Roger Moneymaker ( Swinebolt 45) moved, but not before we could do a short lived band Planet Zero space rock no overdubs, we were a recording band only as the drummer would come from our of town Richard McCracken, & Carl Howard ( Nomusic) came from out of town, Carl did most of the mixdowns, band died as the traveling to record became problem Roger moved, personal issues we all had except bass player. 6/19/2018 18:26:36
Hi Chris!
Chris Phinney
6/19/2018 19:01:03
Hi Jerry, 6/19/2018 19:10:07
I can't do reel dubs. BUT... I do have a digital of Hear The Roar Of The Mountains and listening now to Skoptzies freaked out take on White Rabbit from 1984. I think the is the earliest music of yours I've heard!!
Chris Phinney
6/19/2018 19:09:30
Insert Seal where Deal is, if instead of twice & them instead of then, Damn tablet! to make sense of my babble.
Chris Phinney
6/19/2018 19:52:44
Cool On White Rabbit, it's a tripped out cover Kim sang. glad it's inspired you to do revisits of Karcass & Zero. I didn't mean I would send you reel to reel but cassette masters I made from the akai. Can you dub cassettes? If so I would be glad to send.
Jerry Kranitz
6/19/2018 21:02:48
Yes!! Tell you what, email me at spacerock@aural-Innovations.com and we’ll make arrangements. THANKS!
Chris Phinney
6/19/2018 21:09:04
You got it! I think that interview with Doug may be the one you sent me the Micros on to transcribe? 6/20/2018 03:41:24
That's it! I forgot you were the one who digitized it for me! (Gee... we sure went off on a tangent from the article. Hope that's ok :-) )
Hal McGee, EC Editor
6/20/2018 06:51:36
Generally, it is okay. EC is here to create contact and connections between the community members. This is your community. Do with it what you want. There are no rules for comments. One possibility for the future, though, is that if you are going to carry on a long tangential conversation you can carry it out via email. You can almost always find a community member's email address by navigating to their page via the PERSONAL PAGES tab: email addresses are near the bottom of the right-side-of-the-page biography sidebar on each personal page.
Chris Phinney
6/19/2018 22:13:26
Deed is done. Leave a Reply. |
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