When the Work Was New (It Was Easier To Do)

I've been digging through a box of old cassettes recently, and find myself again listening to the Golden Palominos—specifically, to their middle period, after the free-jazz phase but before the ambient funk of This Is How It Feels and their eventual transmogrification into, essentially, the backing soundscape for spoken-word artist Nicole Blackman: that is, to the albums Visions of Excess and Blast of Silence.

Forgotten heroes, these guys and gals. With the rhythm section of studio drummer Anton Fier and bassist/impresario Bill Laswell as the only constant, the Palominos were a master class, a revolving door, a songwriters' camp, a busman's holiday for musicians from a baffling array of sub-genres—legends and up-and-comers alike. And on these two albums, at least, it sounded like everybody was having fun (although the project would take on a doomier vibe in years to come, particularly when Blackman came on board). At the time, the band's sound was dismissed by some as downtown arena rock—Aerosmith for the avant-garde: similar charges were lobbed at PiL's generically-titled Album (which, according to the format in which you bought it, is also known as Cassette or Compact Disc), which was produced and arranged by Laswell. But the Palominos, everyone agrees, were Anton Fier's baby.

And what a baby! A project where Jack Bruce and Johnny Rotten could rub shoulders, and it could all sound of a piece, could all sound like a band—not like a collection of unrelated cameos (cf. the last few Santana albums).

Just look at some of the names here: Richard Thompson, Lydia Kavanagh, Jody Harris , Lori Carson, Bootsy Collins, Nicky Skopelitis, Michael Stipe, Arto Lindsay, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Don Dixon, T-Bone Burnett, Peter Blegvad, Robert Kidney, Amanda Kramer, Henry Kaiser, Bob Mould, Matthew Sweet, Syd Straw, and Bernie Worrell, among others: the collective résumé is nothing short of astonishing.

There are chops a-plenty on display, but this is no muso wankfest: it's all in service to the songs—mostly autumnal pop and rock that manages to sound both snarly and melancholy: originals written collectively by whoever happened to be in the room at the time, plus oddball covers by the likes of Little Feat and Moby Grape, even Ennio Morricone. Loose but expert: casual but not sloppy. Wonderful stuff. And the moment for work like this will, I think, not come again any time soon.