Partial obituary prematurely composed in response to the imagined death of Mayo Thompson

No one's going to be doing an obit on him on the late news. He's not going to be inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. He's not going to be awarded a post-humous Grammy, or a post-humous Lifetime Award for Services to Music, and the anonymous remaining members of The Red Krayola aren't going to accept it on his behalf.

But he's arguably - demonstrably, even - a greater musician than any of say Brian Wilson, Lennon and McCartney, Zappa and the Mothers, Beefheart, Klaus Dinger or Michael Rother, Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison or Mo Tucker, Conny Plank or Conrad Schnitzler, Roky Erikson, Ralf und Florian, Van Dyke Parks, Eno, Mobius or Rodelius, Uwe Nettlebeck and Faust, David Bowie; anyone who set out at roughly the same time and who did something significantly weird; something outside of the pantheon, of the expected, of the projected trajectory of rock music.

I realise that this is a very big call, but I stand behind it 100%. And the good thing is, he's not even dead; I couldn't imagine a greater opportunity to laud the man and his work. So yeah. Mayo Thompson and Red Krayola = good. Bloody good, in fact. As Ritchie Unterberger puts it (on allmusic.com), Thompson "seems as concerned with deconstructing the language of 'rock' music as with actually expressing himself within it. This makes Red Krayola's catalog challenging, often difficult listening. Its saving grace is the quirky charm of Thompson's songs and vocals, with a whimsical humor and open-mindedness rather atypical of avant-rock."

Over the course of nearly forty years, Thompson has created a legacy of wonderful music in a series of superb recordings. He has also recruited a diverse succession of excellent musicians to play with him - a few being Gina Birch (the Raincoats), Epic Soundtracks (Swell Maps), Lora Logic (X-Ray Spex) and latterly, the perennially multi-faceted Jim O'Rourke. He has himself played in the legendary Pere Ubu for a time, in the 80s.

Apparently you wanna know where to start. I wouldn't go past God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It (1968, highlight Victory Garden, surely the only love song penned in the voice of Eva Braun and sung to Adolf Hitler); Kangaroo (1981, highlights Portrait of V. I. Lenin in the Style of Jackson Pollock Pts. 1 & 2 and Born to Win (Transactional Analysis With Gestalt Experiments)); Black Snakes (1983, highlight The Sloths); and the Blues Hollers and Hellos EP (2000, highlight Container of Drudgery).

Also check out the internet to find out lots of information about new releases of old, unreleased Red Krayola material, including the astonishing 1977 album Corrected Slogans. You'll also be able to read all about how the company that makes Crayola crayons forced Thompson to change the band's name from The Red Crayola.

photo by James Welling.