Fingerpainting - Revision history

Dotclub: /* Spex */

2025-11-16T03:37:34Z

Spex

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:37, 15 November 2025
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	=== Spex ===		=== Spex ===

			September 1999<ref>https://archive.org/details/spex-1999-09/page/63/mode/1up</ref>

	Felix Klopotek		Felix Klopotek

	~~September 1999<ref>https://archive.org/details/spex-1999-09/page/63/mode/1up</ref>~~

	=== NY Rock ===		=== NY Rock ===

Dotclub: /* Earpiece */

2025-11-16T03:37:23Z

Earpiece

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:37, 15 November 2025
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	also included (with the package i purchased) is a [[Come on Down (single)\|second cd]] with just one song, "''[[Come on Down\|come on down]]''", which is a much cleaner recording, and a rather fetching tune, with very arresting production. upon repeated listening, i perceive a reference to debilitating habits, with mayo wrapping things up by asking, "when are you going to come on down?". but that could just be where i am at.</blockquote>		also included (with the package i purchased) is a [[Come on Down (single)\|second cd]] with just one song, "''[[Come on Down\|come on down]]''", which is a much cleaner recording, and a rather fetching tune, with very arresting production. upon repeated listening, i perceive a reference to debilitating habits, with mayo wrapping things up by asking, "when are you going to come on down?". but that could just be where i am at.</blockquote>

			=== Spex ===

			Felix Klopotek

			September 1999<ref>https://archive.org/details/spex-1999-09/page/63/mode/1up</ref>

	=== NY Rock ===		=== NY Rock ===

Dotclub: /* Press kit */

2024-08-07T14:25:23Z

Press kit

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:25, 7 August 2024
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	<gallery mode="packed">		<gallery mode="packed">
	File:Fingerpainting-press-kit1.jpg\|		File:Fingerpainting-press-kit1.jpg\|
			File:Fingerpainting-press-kit2.jpg\|
			File:Fingerpainting-press-kit3.jpg\|
			File:Fingerpainting-press-kit4.jpg\|
	</gallery>		</gallery>

Dotclub at 14:24, 7 August 2024

2024-08-07T14:24:12Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:24, 7 August 2024
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	== Background ==		== Background ==
	~~[[File:Fingerpainting-press-kit1.jpg\|thumb\|Page from the Fingerpainting press kit]]~~

	* Rerecordings of some of the band's earliest songs		* Rerecordings of some of the band's earliest songs
	* Album structure mimicking {{RLink\|Parable}}		* Album structure mimicking {{RLink\|Parable}}
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	<gallery mode="packed">		<gallery mode="packed">
	File:Fingerpainting-press-release.jpg\|<ref>https://www.ebay.com/itm/296424249062</ref>		File:Fingerpainting-press-release.jpg\|<ref>https://www.ebay.com/itm/296424249062</ref>
			</gallery>

			=== Press kit ===
			<gallery mode="packed">
			File:Fingerpainting-press-kit1.jpg\|
	</gallery>		</gallery>

Dotclub: /* Press release */

2024-08-07T14:22:57Z

Press release

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:22, 7 August 2024
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	=== Press release ===		=== Press release ===
	<gallery mode="packed">		<gallery mode="packed">
	File:~~The~~-~~Red~~-~~Krayola-postcard-front~~.jpg\|~~Front~~		File:Fingerpainting-press-release.jpg\|<ref>https://www.ebay.com/itm/296424249062</ref>
	~~File~~:~~The-Red-Krayola-postcard-back~~.~~jpg\|Back~~
	</gallery>		</gallery>

Dotclub: /* Personnel */

2024-08-07T14:22:25Z

Personnel

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:22, 7 August 2024
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	* Concept was [[Albert Oehlen]]'s idea		* Concept was [[Albert Oehlen]]'s idea
	* {{RLink\|Fingerpointing}}		* {{RLink\|Fingerpointing}}

			== Ephemera ==

			=== Press release ===
			<gallery mode="packed">
			File:The-Red-Krayola-postcard-front.jpg\|Front
			File:The-Red-Krayola-postcard-back.jpg\|Back
			</gallery>

	== Personnel ==		== Personnel ==

Dotclub at 22:45, 7 September 2023

2023-09-07T22:45:37Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:45, 7 September 2023
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	[[File:Fingerpainting-front.jpg\|thumb]]		[[File:Fingerpainting-front.jpg\|thumb\|{{MediaLink\|YouTube=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lDkBOFcwPe1CE0WydkLAUKPQIfVEyA3Ro}}]]

	== Track listing ==		== Track listing ==

imported>Dotclub at 01:53, 3 June 2023

2023-06-03T01:53:07Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:53, 2 June 2023
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	The music seems to randomly ebb and flow. The group will fall to pieces at strange intervals, which is disarming when your ear is trained to expect certain cadences and climaxes. The songs are tracked individually but untitled. Thompson's fragile voice nervously shuffles along with the jangly yet distant guitars, bringing the Velvet Underground to mind. This is not the kind of music you can stop and come back to later in the middle; it's almost certainly a one shot deal- you either sit through it all in one listen or you don't bother at all, and depending on your tolerance for badly produced free form freakouts you'll either be consumed or enraged.</blockquote>		The music seems to randomly ebb and flow. The group will fall to pieces at strange intervals, which is disarming when your ear is trained to expect certain cadences and climaxes. The songs are tracked individually but untitled. Thompson's fragile voice nervously shuffles along with the jangly yet distant guitars, bringing the Velvet Underground to mind. This is not the kind of music you can stop and come back to later in the middle; it's almost certainly a one shot deal- you either sit through it all in one listen or you don't bother at all, and depending on your tolerance for badly produced free form freakouts you'll either be consumed or enraged.</blockquote>

			=== Earpiece ===
			Summer 1999<ref>http://white-rose.net/earpeace2a.html#the%20red%20crayola</ref>

			b.wildered<blockquote>''fingerpainting'' is the brand-spanking newest, and within, the revisitation and revision of the past continues. firstly, the participants credited include [[Frederick Barthelme\|frederick barthelme]] and [[Steve Cunningham\|steve cunningham]] of the 1967 lineup, as well as folks like [[David Grubbs\|david grubbs]], [[Tom Watson\|tom watson]], [[Stephen Prina\|stephen prina]], [[George Hurley\|george hurley]] and [[Albert Oehlen\|albert oehlen]]. five more or less songs are interspersed with 1999 versions of the ''[[Free Form Freak-Out\|freeform freakout]]'' segments delivered by ''[[The Familiar Ugly\|the familiar ugly]]'' on ''[[The Parable of Arable Land\|the parable of arable land]]''. one of these segments is titled "''a sow with an abbess's bonnet is sitting on four rock-objects and singing along with them. the song sounds like a cheater, and is imprisoned in a striped toy box because its aims are not recognizable. on top of the box is a head that could be elvis's, if he had survived this.''". the song "''[[Vile Vile Grass\|vile, vile grass]]''" is an old one, having been released on the (bootleg?) ''[[Epitaph for a Legend\|epitaph for a legend]]'' [[International Artists\|international artists]] label compilation in a different version. there are lots of ringing guitars, bleating analog synths and muffled drum machines, produced in much less clear manner than the past couple of studio the red krayola releases, perhaps due to the mixing of tracks recorded over many years? that is only a guess.

			also included (with the package i purchased) is a [[Come on Down (single)\|second cd]] with just one song, "''[[Come on Down\|come on down]]''", which is a much cleaner recording, and a rather fetching tune, with very arresting production. upon repeated listening, i perceive a reference to debilitating habits, with mayo wrapping things up by asking, "when are you going to come on down?". but that could just be where i am at.</blockquote>

	=== NY Rock ===		=== NY Rock ===

imported>Dotclub at 01:23, 3 June 2023

2023-06-03T01:23:23Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:23, 2 June 2023
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	== Retrospectives ==		== Retrospectives ==
	[[Mayo Thompson]], 1999<ref>The Wire, January 1999, pg.10</ref><blockquote>The next record is called ''Finger Painting'' and it's modelled on ''[[The Parable of Arable Land\|Parable]]''. It features new recordings of the rejects from the Parable sessions, and freakouts with today's line-up. It is now something like [[The Familiar Ugly]] in that we can have completely terrible stuff happening onstage and still get away with it!</blockquote>[[Tom Watson]], 1999<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20010702024914/http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/1999-06-10/music3.html</ref><blockquote>The basic song structures were done in an afternoon with me and [[David Grubbs\|David]] [Grubbs] and [[Mayo Thompson\|Mayo]] [Thompson] playing three guitars, trying to synchronize with rhythm tracks from [[Albert Oehlen\|Albert]] [Oehlen]. But there are also bits from live performance, little parts he might have asked me to play at a show two years ago, and there's a lot of collage work, using digital tape the way people used to use analog tape. There was a lot of compiling of bits and pieces from different sources, so I have a feeling this record was something Mayo had considered for a long time.</blockquote>[[Mayo Thompson]], 2010<blockquote>''Fingerpainting'' and ''[[Fingerpointing]]'' are based on ''[[The Parable of Arable Land]]'', they’re structured in exactly the same way. Freak-out, song, freak-out, song, like that. The material that’s on ''Fingerpainting'' is material that we didn’t record for ''Parable of Arable Land'', it’s material that dates from those days. Like ‘[[There There Betty Betty\|There There, Betty Betty]],’ that’s a song from that time, and ‘Shadwell’ is something that we recorded together as well. That was when we had stopped playing songs altogether. That’s like the time of ''[[Coconut Hotel]]'' and the time in Berkeley, when we were playing at the Berkeley Folk Festival, we did that stuff with Fahey. We were playing what we called feedback music, and [<nowiki/>[[Frederick Barthelme]] and [[Steve Cunningham]]] were involved in that. [...] On ‘Shadwell,’ they appear [...] that’s the period piece. And there’s also, that piano player that you hear in the background of ‘Shadwell,’ the last thing that you hear on ''Fingerpainting''—it’s not on ''[[Fingerpointing]]''—that’s [[Bobby Henschen]], the piano player I worked with in ’71. Rick [Barthelme] and I worked with him in Houston together. That’s an album that’s made out of material that comes from 40 years ago. It wasn’t 40 at the time, it was made in 1999. And ''[[Fingerpointing]]'' was [[Jim O'Rourke\|O'Rourke]]’s mix of the same material, which when I first heard it I thought, ‘No, this is not what I had in mind.’ I wanted something that was more actually one-to-one with the first record.</blockquote>		[[Mayo Thompson]], 1999<ref>The Wire, January 1999, pg.10</ref><blockquote>The next record is called ''Finger Painting'' and it's modelled on ''[[The Parable of Arable Land\|Parable]]''. It features new recordings of the rejects from the Parable sessions, and freakouts with today's line-up. It is now something like [[The Familiar Ugly]] in that we can have completely terrible stuff happening onstage and still get away with it!</blockquote>[[Tom Watson]], 1999<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20010702024914/http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/1999-06-10/music3.html</ref><blockquote>The basic song structures were done in an afternoon with me and [[David Grubbs\|David]] [Grubbs] and [[Mayo Thompson\|Mayo]] [Thompson] playing three guitars, trying to synchronize with rhythm tracks from [[Albert Oehlen\|Albert]] [Oehlen]. But there are also bits from live performance, little parts he might have asked me to play at a show two years ago, and there's a lot of collage work, using digital tape the way people used to use analog tape. There was a lot of compiling of bits and pieces from different sources, so I have a feeling this record was something Mayo had considered for a long time.</blockquote>[[Mayo Thompson]], 2010<blockquote>''Fingerpainting'' and ''[[Fingerpointing]]'' are based on ''[[The Parable of Arable Land]]'', they’re structured in exactly the same way. Freak-out, song, freak-out, song, like that. The material that’s on ''Fingerpainting'' is material that we didn’t record for ''Parable of Arable Land'', it’s material that dates from those days. Like ‘[[There There Betty Betty\|There There, Betty Betty]],’ that’s a song from that time, and ‘Shadwell’ is something that we recorded together as well. That was when we had stopped playing songs altogether. That’s like the time of ''[[Coconut Hotel]]'' and the time in Berkeley, when we were playing at the Berkeley Folk Festival, we did that stuff with Fahey. We were playing what we called feedback music, and [<nowiki/>[[Frederick Barthelme]] and [[Steve Cunningham]]] were involved in that. [...] On ‘Shadwell,’ they appear [...] that’s the period piece. And there’s also, that piano player that you hear in the background of ‘Shadwell,’ the last thing that you hear on ''Fingerpainting''—it’s not on ''[[Fingerpointing]]''—that’s [[Bobby Henschen]], the piano player I worked with in ’71. Rick [Barthelme] and I worked with him in Houston together. That’s an album that’s made out of material that comes from 40 years ago. It wasn’t 40 at the time, it was made in 1999. And ''[[Fingerpointing]]'' was [[Jim O'Rourke\|O'Rourke]]’s mix of the same material, which when I first heard it I thought, ‘No, this is not what I had in mind.’ I wanted something that was more actually one-to-one with the first record.</blockquote>[[Mayo Thompson]], 1999<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20010702024914/http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/1999-06-10/music3.html</ref><blockquote>The alternation isn't quite so coherent, on-and-off. There's only a couple of instances where you get a pure blast from the past, so to speak. The rest of the time you might find--if you cared, or knew, or if it mattered, even--that it's embedded in other kinds of material recorded at other times and other places. All the tunes are vintage material--'[[Bad Medicine]]' is a tune that [Steve] [[Steve Cunningham\|Cunningham]] had when we met him. But the recordings of the songs are all contemporary versions, handled in a certain way. There is obviously a game of alternation being played: This is a song structure, this is another kind of structure--what kind of structure is this?"</blockquote>

	== Reviews ==		== Reviews ==
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	June 10, 1999<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20010702024914/http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/1999-06-10/music3.html</ref>		June 10, 1999<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20010702024914/http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/1999-06-10/music3.html</ref>

	Franklin Bruno		Franklin Bruno<blockquote>[...] The Red Krayola's new double positive, Fingerpainting, may surprise (and initially frustrate) fans of the band's guitar-driven, song-centered work on Chicago indie Drag City, which started releasing Thompson's records in 1994--about the time he took a teaching position at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design after two decades in Europe. The first clue that something's up is the record's personnel. The current core participants are all present, but so are founding members [[Frederick Barthelme]] and [[Steve Cunningham]], with whom Thompson recorded the band's debut, [[The Parable of Arable Land\|Parable of Arable Land]], back in 1966. Typically, the packaging (and Thompson) are slightly mysterious about who played what--or when. The disc opens with "[[George III]]," a minimal guitar piece recorded in England in the '80s, which cross-fades into "[[Bad Medicine]]," a mangled blues with bad-trip lyrics ("How can I keep you around in the state you're in?/You're bad medicine, baby") and MIDI rhythms constructed by [[Albert Oehlen]], a German visual artist who's been a Krayola associate since the mid-'80s. After this, there's a burst of clattering improvisation, topped with Art Center colleague [[Stephen Prina]]'s calm repetition of what Thompson has just sung. Similarly, sometime vocalist [[Sandy Yang]] (who came into the fold as an Art Center undergrad) begins wailing the lyrics to "[[There There Betty Betty]]" immediately after the "straight" version is finished. And so it goes, song and nonsong interrupting one other for the length of the disc, all with a smudged, gestural quality befitting its title.

			In this way, Fingerpainting is consciously modeled after Parable, which alternated acid anthems like "[[Transparent Radiation]]" with sprawling "free" tracks performed by the core trio plus the [[The Familiar Ugly\|Familiar Ugly]], a loose amalgam of Texas hippies who congregated around the band early on. On Fingerpainting, the "open sections," as Thompson now calls them, include unreleased material from the original Barthelme/Cunningham/Thompson era, but the record's running order isn't as simple as old noise/new song.

			[...] In a sense, Fingerpainting extends Thompson's collaborative ethos by forcing disparate periods of the band's history into dialogue with one another. It's a challenging piece of work, but a rewarding one: Once you get past their peculiar handling, the songs stick in the head (especially "[[Vile Vile Grass]]"), and after a few plays, even the most difficult sections reveal a wealth of structure and detail. It's too restless and irreverent to be termed a "career retrospective," but it is something arguably more worthwhile: an extended inquiry into what it might mean to file three decades in the contested space between popular music and contemporary art under one slightly silly two-word name.

			[...] It might be interesting to know that [[Bobby Henschen]] was a jazz pianist (still active in Houston) who the band knew in its early days or that his contribution to "Filthy Lucre," which ends the album, dates from the early '70s. But you don't need this information to get the point of superimposing Henschen's florid, expressive piano cadenza and Oehlen's implacable MIDI beat--two utterly incompatible ways of organizing sound--each pointing out the other's limitations. Still, Thompson sometimes speaks of Fingerpainting as if it were a full-dress cover version of Parable of Arable Land.

			[...] The differences between the Red Krayola circa 1966 and 1999 may have less to do with the sounds it makes than how it talks about them. On Parable, these open sections were identically titled "[[Free Form Freak-Out\|Freeform Freakout]]," a trippy description Thompson seems to regret, but on Fingerpainting, each gets an elaborate title that mocks the possibility of giving a rational account of such abstract music. The funniest, in its entirety, is: "A Sow with an Abbess's Bonnet Is Sitting on Four Rock-Objects and Singing Along with Them. The Song Sounds Like a Cheater, and Is Imprisoned in a Striped Toy Box Because Its Aims Are Not Recognizable. On Top of the Box Is a Head That Could Be Elvis's, If He Had Survived This." Stranger still, the title is actually a useful guide for listening. The cheap-sounding keyboard that runs through the piece could well be compared to "a striped toy box," and the strong backbeat that ends it could, conceivably, have something to do with Elvis. [...] Fingerpainting includes a manifesto of sorts as well, but it's cagier, rather than Cagean, a punning take on the universalist tone of free-jazz liner notes [...]</blockquote>

	=== Drawer B ===		=== Drawer B ===

imported>Dotclub at 00:54, 3 June 2023

2023-06-03T00:54:49Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:54, 2 June 2023
Line 45:		Line 45:

	== Retrospectives ==		== Retrospectives ==
	[[Mayo Thompson]], 1999<ref>The Wire, January 1999, pg.10</ref><blockquote>The next record is called ''Finger Painting'' and it's modelled on ''[[The Parable of Arable Land\|Parable]]''. It features new recordings of the rejects from the Parable sessions, and freakouts with today's line-up. It is now something like [[The Familiar Ugly]] in that we can have completely terrible stuff happening onstage and still get away with it!</blockquote>[[Mayo Thompson]], 2010<blockquote>''Fingerpainting'' and ''[[Fingerpointing]]'' are based on ''[[The Parable of Arable Land]]'', they’re structured in exactly the same way. Freak-out, song, freak-out, song, like that. The material that’s on ''Fingerpainting'' is material that we didn’t record for ''Parable of Arable Land'', it’s material that dates from those days. Like ‘[[There There Betty Betty\|There There, Betty Betty]],’ that’s a song from that time, and ‘Shadwell’ is something that we recorded together as well. That was when we had stopped playing songs altogether. That’s like the time of ''[[Coconut Hotel]]'' and the time in Berkeley, when we were playing at the Berkeley Folk Festival, we did that stuff with Fahey. We were playing what we called feedback music, and [<nowiki/>[[Frederick Barthelme]] and [[Steve Cunningham]]] were involved in that. [...] On ‘Shadwell,’ they appear [...] that’s the period piece. And there’s also, that piano player that you hear in the background of ‘Shadwell,’ the last thing that you hear on ''Fingerpainting''—it’s not on ''[[Fingerpointing]]''—that’s Bobby Henschen, the piano player I worked with in ’71. Rick [Barthelme] and I worked with him in Houston together. That’s an album that’s made out of material that comes from 40 years ago. It wasn’t 40 at the time, it was made in 1999. And ''[[Fingerpointing]]'' was [[Jim O'Rourke\|O'Rourke]]’s mix of the same material, which when I first heard it I thought, ‘No, this is not what I had in mind.’ I wanted something that was more actually one-to-one with the first record.</blockquote>		[[Mayo Thompson]], 1999<ref>The Wire, January 1999, pg.10</ref><blockquote>The next record is called ''Finger Painting'' and it's modelled on ''[[The Parable of Arable Land\|Parable]]''. It features new recordings of the rejects from the Parable sessions, and freakouts with today's line-up. It is now something like [[The Familiar Ugly]] in that we can have completely terrible stuff happening onstage and still get away with it!</blockquote>[[Tom Watson]], 1999<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20010702024914/http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/1999-06-10/music3.html</ref><blockquote>The basic song structures were done in an afternoon with me and [[David Grubbs\|David]] [Grubbs] and [[Mayo Thompson\|Mayo]] [Thompson] playing three guitars, trying to synchronize with rhythm tracks from [[Albert Oehlen\|Albert]] [Oehlen]. But there are also bits from live performance, little parts he might have asked me to play at a show two years ago, and there's a lot of collage work, using digital tape the way people used to use analog tape. There was a lot of compiling of bits and pieces from different sources, so I have a feeling this record was something Mayo had considered for a long time.</blockquote>[[Mayo Thompson]], 2010<blockquote>''Fingerpainting'' and ''[[Fingerpointing]]'' are based on ''[[The Parable of Arable Land]]'', they’re structured in exactly the same way. Freak-out, song, freak-out, song, like that. The material that’s on ''Fingerpainting'' is material that we didn’t record for ''Parable of Arable Land'', it’s material that dates from those days. Like ‘[[There There Betty Betty\|There There, Betty Betty]],’ that’s a song from that time, and ‘Shadwell’ is something that we recorded together as well. That was when we had stopped playing songs altogether. That’s like the time of ''[[Coconut Hotel]]'' and the time in Berkeley, when we were playing at the Berkeley Folk Festival, we did that stuff with Fahey. We were playing what we called feedback music, and [<nowiki/>[[Frederick Barthelme]] and [[Steve Cunningham]]] were involved in that. [...] On ‘Shadwell,’ they appear [...] that’s the period piece. And there’s also, that piano player that you hear in the background of ‘Shadwell,’ the last thing that you hear on ''Fingerpainting''—it’s not on ''[[Fingerpointing]]''—that’s [[Bobby Henschen]], the piano player I worked with in ’71. Rick [Barthelme] and I worked with him in Houston together. That’s an album that’s made out of material that comes from 40 years ago. It wasn’t 40 at the time, it was made in 1999. And ''[[Fingerpointing]]'' was [[Jim O'Rourke\|O'Rourke]]’s mix of the same material, which when I first heard it I thought, ‘No, this is not what I had in mind.’ I wanted something that was more actually one-to-one with the first record.</blockquote>

	== Reviews ==		== Reviews ==
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	This sounds like a work in progress. all Red Krayola discs do, though, and I can handle that. Just another missal to the warped masses. I'm already craving another hit.</blockquote>		This sounds like a work in progress. all Red Krayola discs do, though, and I can handle that. Just another missal to the warped masses. I'm already craving another hit.</blockquote>

			=== New Times L.A. ===
			June 10, 1999<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20010702024914/http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/1999-06-10/music3.html</ref>

			Franklin Bruno

	=== Drawer B ===		=== Drawer B ===