The Parable of Arable Land

The Parable of Arable Land
Studio album by The Red Crayola (with the Familiar Ugly)
Released	June 1967
Recorded	April - May, 1967
Studio
Label	International Artists
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The Parable of Arable Land is the first album by the Red Crayola.

Track listing

Side A

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Free Form Freak-Out"	1:30
2.	"Hurricane Fighter Plane" (When the Ride Is Over You Can Go to Sleep)	3:33
3.	"Free Form Freak-Out"	2:24
4.	"Transparent Radiation" (Red Signs Out-Side, Which I Contain)	2:32
5.	"Free Form Freak-Out"	4:21
6.	"War Sucks" (You Remember What Happened to Hansel and Gretel)	3:38
7.	"Free Form Freak-Out"	3:09

Side B

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Free Form Freak-Out"	1:52
2.	"Pink Stainless Tail" (Seven Guest Are Quite Now, And Now Not Half So Much)	3:16
3.	"Free Form Freak-Out"	3:05
4.	"Parable of Arable Land" (And the End Shall Be Signaled By the Breaking of a Twig)	3:06
5.	"Free Form Freak-Out"	4:09
6.	"Former Reflections Enduring Doubt" (I Pass in a Rain That Is Always Too Soon)	4:57
Total length:		41:32

Background

• February 1967: recorded unreleased first single Dairymaid's Lament
• March 1967: performance at KNUZ Battle of the Bands gets the band signed to International Artists
• Song demo recording session
• April 1, 1967: Free Form Freak-Out recording session
• April - May 1967: Song recording sessions
• May - June(?) 1967: Coconut Hotel recording sessions
• Album is released June 1967

Further reading: Paul Drummond's booklet for the 2011 remaster

Liner notes

1967

General Fox (Lelan Rogers)

A glorious night, and I was "born again" to the music of the "Rebellation Generation". Rick, Steve and Mayo, "THE RED CRAYOLA" - had come to Andrus Studio with a few of their friends 50 friends to be exact, to record a FREE-FORM FREAK-OUT album. They brought with them their own form of music - a bell, buzzsaw, motor cycle, guitars, drums, organs, bottles, sticks, mouth bow, rocks, ballons, kazoos, flutes, piccolos, a hammer, jugs and just about every other item you can think of that makes noise, but then "Beauty is in the eyes of the Beholder" - And what is noise to one is Beautiful Music to Another" - I watched for two hours as a young man made his music by striking two match sticks together. He had apparently flashed - and to him this was his beautiful music - (His girl friend kept time by blowing in a pop bottle). Yes, this is a true - "FREE-FORM FREAK-OUT" album, but listen to "THE RED CRAYOLA" as they weave their own music in and out of the tracks. Listen, as "HURRICANE FIGHTER PLANE" takes you on a trip - as "TRANSPARENT RADIATION" tells you a personal message of todays REBELLATION GENERATION". "WAR SUCKS" speaks then "PINK STAINLESS TAIL" quote - "You speak soft of a Black Pink Stainless Tail". . . . . . . . Listen carefully to "PARABLE OF ARABLE LAND" - The ultimate in sound. The total expression of "THE RED CRAYOLA". Saving the best for last, listen to FORMER REFLECTION ENDURING DOUBT - The soulful song of the Album. Yes, INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS proudly presents "THE RED CRAYOLA" and wishes to take this opportunity to express The Red Crayola's thanks to their friends, "The Familiar Ugly" for its contribution to them.

Frederick Barthelme

Silence is the conceptual ideology in which sound is published. Music has to do with the publication of choices relavent to production. This LP evinces a series of choices taken by the group during the past eight months, already new choices have been made, this is a record.

Steve Cunningham

Rather than viewing the perforations of a player piano's scroll as stated areas allowing for the production of sound, regard the scroll itself as a process which accepts the determinations attendant to audition, yet contains even these, as well as silence, that they may occur. There are, then, no non-participating agents. The liberty of feeling, distinct from intent, affirms the musical process.

Mayo Thompson

Limited definitions define limit and one can go just so far. Here we go.

Personnel

The Red Crayola

• Mayo Thompson - vocals, guitar

• Steve Cunningham - bass
• Frederick Barthelme - drums

The Familiar Ugly

Main article: The Familiar Ugly

Additional musicians

• Roky Erickson - harmonica, organ

Technical

• Lelan Rogers - producer
• Walt Andrus - engineer
• Frank Davis - engineer

Cover art

Cover design by Flash Graphics (George Banks).

Release history

1978 ad

	Date	Label	Format	Catalog
US	1967	International Artists	Stereo LP	IA-LP 2 STEREO
US	1967	International Artists	Mono LP	IA-LP 2 MONO
UK	1978	Radar Records	Stereo LP	RAD 12
US	1979	International Artists	Stereo LP	IA-LP 2 STEREO
UK	1988	Decal	CD	LIK 20
US	1993	Collectables	CD	COL-CD-0551
IT	1999	Get Back	LP	GET533
IT	2002	Sunspots	CD	SPOT 507
US	2009	International Artists	Stereo/Mono LP	IA-LP-2 Mono
UK	2011	Charly Records	CD	SNAX621
UK	2011	Charly Records	MP3 (Stereo/Mono)	SNAX621
UK	2014	Charly Records	Stereo/Mono LP	CHARLY L 142

Retrospectives

Mayo Thompson, 2023

International Artists signed us after our first producer, Lelan Rogers, heard us play in a mall as part of a battle of the bands staged by a local top-40 radio station. The idea is what you hear—the facts—freakout—song—freakout—song et cetera. It’s an historical record of what we were doing, incorporating what was going on while we were doing it. It represents our inquiry into what all it is possible to take for music. As for conceptual, the concepts involved are artful but, no, I don’t see it as conceptual art.

[Having Roky Erickson on the album] was Lelan Rogers’ idea—turned out nice. He was a gifted instrumentalist and a powerhouse singer. Lelan brought him to the studio one night—him and Tommy Hall, The 13th Floor Elevators jug player. Roky listened and understood right off. He overdubbed his parts in no time. Steve knew him and the other Elevators from working as John Ike’s drum roady. Rick and I had never met him or any of them. I think he had fun. He wrote me a letter later—addressed to “Juno”—for the label to give me—they told me about it but never delivered it. I don’t know why not. Maybe it had something to do with the Elevators being in trouble with the law.

Mayo Thompson, 1996

The first album had a lot of tunes that wouldn't have been called "industrial" then. But looking back on it now, they seemed to anticipate a lot of that kind of stuff. How did the ideas for those arrangements come about?  It was pretty different from anything else around that era, on what was nominally a "pop" record.

[...] At the time, everybody was making it up as they went along. The first album is mono—the stereo is simulated [on the Free-Form Freakout tracks]. It's a trick. It wasn't electronically reprocessed—it was like two tape recorders with one master tape (here), and one master tape (there), and then you'd put your thumb on that one occasionally and slow it down, so that, ooh, the ground gets a little weird. Really ad hoc—all by the ear. How does it work?  How can it work?  What can you make it do?

Mayo Thompson, 2005

For the longest time, I couldn't listen to The Parable of Arable Land at all. All I could hear was my voice going to that strange place at the end of the first line on "Hurricane Fighter Plane". Nobody ever sang an interval like that in rock 'n' roll. I always knew my voice should have gone somewhere else. But where should the voice have gone? I guess I've been trying to find out ever since.

Audio interview with Haydn Larson of the Familiar Ugly, 2023

Text interview with Hadyn Larson of the Familiar Ugly, 2024

Reviews

Berkeley Barb

July 21, 1967

Ed Denson

Their first lp was released by that strange Houston company International Artists, who also record the 13th Floor Elevators, and it is selling far more than it should because it looks like a rock lp and the liner notes, which are deceptive, make it sound sort of like the mothers or something else which is recognizable.

Basically they went into the studio with a lot of people and recorded it. Most of the "other people" are just background noise, and they represent, as does the record, a certain stage in the experimentation, which is more or less successful depending upon your intellectual framework.

I like two cuts very much: "War Sucks" and "The Parable of Arable Land", and no doubt so will you about the third time thru. It took me that long.

Chicago Seed

July 1, 1968

This is probably the freakiest album ever recorded. Released around the end of last June, it made it to Chicago sometime this spring. The Crayola specialize in shifting from chaos to structured runs, while the Ugly (I hope that they'll pardon me for becoming familiar_) play such background instruments as coke bottles, motorcycles, buzzsaws and kazoos. "Hurricane Fighter Plane" has the freakiest lyrics ever, and the combined group makes the ultimate statement on violence in "War Sucks". Forget General Fox's stupid liner notes and pick up on it. Highly recommended for listening to when stoned, especially for the amazing channel separation.

Record Mirror

October 28, 1978

James Parade

Radar Records reissue

It's difficult to say who 'Red Crayola' or 'The Familiar Ugly' for that matter, actually are. They reportedly turned up at "Andrus studio" one night in '67 to record an album of Free-form Freak-out (yes, they're serious, though it sounds more like a fourth-form fallout to me).

Heavy, far out, cool and all that, but the resultant album is exactly what you'd expect. It reinforces the idea that psychedelic means, 'lots of bells' and that youth's ideals soon give way to the two 'R's, rationalization and reality.

But back to, er, conceptual ideology. Groove No 1 is titled, 'Hurricane Fighter Plane', (when the ride is over you can go to sleep).

Imagine yourself in a sitting-room with the Beatles' 'Revolution No 9' on the mono with 'Custer's Last Stand' on the telly, both turned-up full vol and this is as near a sonic description as you'll get. As the yankees start to lose the battle, 'Transparent Radiation' starts which is almost a normal song. A blues harp blows alongside a voice terribly like Talking Heads, David Byrne (is it him?) the total effect not unlike some Roxy Music opus, (remember this is '67) and 'War Sucks', with the odd raga weaving in and out closes side 1.

Side two is generally incomprehensible except that the title track recalls the sound of horned beasts sowing seeds somewhere in the far east.

Overall, the record serves a purpose as a document of the period but really has little relevence to post-punk, still apathetic Britain, and no sign of a messiah yet.

Afficionados of John Cage will love it and Virgin would've been ecstatic had they have been around then. I'm sending this copy to Steve Hilliage.

Also, don't buy it because it's on Radar because their credibility fades daily and there are still to many good young English bands to be signed yet without recycling modern kitch with various mortals blowing in bottles whilst playing buzzsaws. In fact, it's so perfect it could all conceivably be a joke. S.M. gives way to T.M. And I actually like 'Tanz Der Youth'. Ouch!

Slash

May 1979

Z

Crazy Texan youth in the summer of Sandoz. Having a psycho wigout party, bringing their own noisemakers and their Owsley truths, having no rules except the ones invented by the whims of a sugar cube. No conventions, no restrictions, and if that sounds like that cliche "anarchy," yes this "rebellation generation" knew the essence of that word a lot better than most of your drugstore nihilists. Through the chaos three crayolas play six 'songs' — leaking and swirling through treatments, shifters, delays, rhythm and structure barely held together by lysergicized hands and voices, finally, inevitably disintegrating into another 'free form freakout.' You can forget those puerile cliche putdowns of 'peace and love' — these people really were making an attempt to destroy any cages of flesh or spirit, they were trying to break down more barriers than most of the current zipper pinned media idols know about. And forget the stupid attempts to recreate the period like 'Hair' — this was a time that could never be prolonged or duplicated. It was too over the edge — only Mayo Thompson has crawled out of the warp intact. A great document, and it sounds like they had one hell of a party that night. Wish I could have been there.

Howl

1988, no.1

acg

Immer noch ein Meilenstein, sowas wurde in dieser Form seither nicht mehr gemacht (frühe Amon Düüls vielleicht ausgenommen). Beinharte Undergroundband schleppt ihren Fan-Tross mit ins Studio (vielleicht sind sie ihn auch nicht losgeworden) und spielt mit ihnen ein 6-Song-Psychedelic-Trip-Album ein. Daraus erheben sich wie weise alte Helden diese großen Songs, "War Sucks" (übrigens viel härter 15 Jahre später von Really Red für ihre Höllen-Abschieds-LP "Rest In Pain" eigespielt), "Transparent Radiation", "Hurricane Fighter Plane". Monumente, die mit den Füßen im Urschlam stehn, während ihre Arme mit großen Gesten in den Wolken wedeln. Einen Kopf haven sie auch, der ist texanisch wütend und sie können auch ihre Instrumente spielen (die 1.LP war nämlich uuuärrgh). Alles auf trancehafte, stammesusikhafte Weise. Ein Meilenstein, wie gesagt.

Stereo Review

November, 1992

Steve Simels

The Wire

May 1999

The latest reissues of two heady, early examples of Mayo Thompson's psychedelic improvisational unit, The Red Crayola, in full flight this time come on fashionable 180 gram pure virgin vinyl. Of the pair, the group's 67 debut, The Parable of Arable Land (Get Back GET533 LP) best retains its deserved cult status. Housed in a sleeve doodled by an acid casualty, its collection of surreal songs is made wilder by the inclusion of several "Free Form Freak Out" intermissions, courtesy of the creative Crayola commune The Familiar Ugly. 32 years later, the resulting chaos still sounds satisfyingly strange. [...]

Pitchfork

February 9, 2004

Alex Linhardt

Uncut

August 2011

David Stubbs

Whatzup

April 12, 2017

Dennis Donahue

Perfect Sound Forever

2023

Kelechi Wisdom