The 1985 Project Part 27: The Golden Palominos - Visions of Excess

Who remembers that one time when Richard Thompson played guitar behind Jack Bruce?

It’s been a few weeks since I mentioned I’m taking a look once per week at albums released in 1985, beginning with the 40 top finishers in that year’s Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll.

After a few decades have passed, it’s hard to remember exactly how I became acquainted with every record I ever owned. I know I had the first self-titled Golden Palominos album as early as 1983. But did I buy it because I had already heard Bill Laswell in his own project Material? Or did I pick up a used copy of the Material album because I had already bought the Golden Palominos? (Or did I buy Material because it had Nona Hendryx, on it and I had just heard her latest album? Or was that vice versa?) (Special note about the Material One Down album I just realized – Whitney Houston sings on it, several years before she became a star.)

At any rate, familiarity with that first Palominos record did nothing to prepare me for Visions of Excess, the second album. Anton Fier was still playing drums – this was always to be his project. Bill Laswell still held the bass chair. But Fred Frith and John Zorn were gone, and if you know those two musicians at all, you know that they have distinct styles of playing which dominate whatever they do.

Instead, Visions of Excess has Fier and Laswell working with a revolving cast of musicians and singers. And what a cast – many of these were already faves of mine, including Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Richard Thompson, Chris Stamey of the dB’s, Bernie Worrell of Parliament-Funkadelic, and John Lydon of Public Image, Ltd. But that’s not all – just because I wasn’t familiar with them didn’t mean guitarist Henry Kaiser, vocalist Jack Bruce, jazz great Carla Bley, and vocalist Syd Straw were chopped liver. Jody Harris played guitar on all but one cut, too – I think I’d seen the Raybeats live by this time, but didn’t realize he was the same guy yet.

This time, instead of noisy scronky avant-garde music, the Golden Palominos were going for a twisted form of pop rock that I could easily get behind. Anton Fier’s drums were heavily produced here – all the 80s techniques were applied to get a monstrous sound from the guy who led the band. But he never played the kind of rhythms that made that seem excessive – with his oddball fills and choppy beats, it all just seemed to work hand in hand with the thick mix of guitars, keyboards, and vocals on each track.

There is no question that I played side one all the time when this album was new, and pretty much left side two to the dustbin of history. Michael Stipe sings the first three tracks on the record, and one of them, “Boy (Go),” is something he should consider among his greatest performances. With Richard Thompson’s guitar licks commenting on each line Stipe sings, the song is as mysterious as the images that tumble out of his mouth. It’s also catchy and enchanting in a way no other Golden Palominos song would ever be.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the rest, which may not have the hooks of the first track but which make up for that with imagination and zeal. “Clustering Train” is another written by the team of Fier, Harris, and Stipe – here the lyrics are just as evocatively leaping around as on “Boy (Go)” but without a strong melody or Thompson’s guitar brilliance, it relies completely on atmosphere and sound. But heck, it works just fine in that regard.

Then comes a cover of Moby Grape’s “Omaha.” In 1985, I had never heard Moby Grape, and I don’t think I encountered them for a couple years afterwards. Remember, in those days, out of print records were often very hard to find. So, I fell in love with this classic song in this crazy-quilt take featuring Henry Kaiser on lead guitar and some oddball percussion breaks. Now it’s been so long since I had heard this version that I recognize just how weird it is compared to the original. (Note: we have now mentioned three Golden Palominos who never played together on their records who would later form a supergroup called French Frith Kaiser Thompson.)

John Lydon steps in to sing “The Animal Speaks” accompanied by Fier, Laswell, Harris, and Worrell. (Note: Laswell would produce the next Public Image, Ltd. Album, Album, which also featured Worrell, and which came out at the beginning of 1986.) I always assumed this was a fairly typical Lydon song of the time – he certainly sings it with the same kind of wobbly attack he brought to the PiL songs on that album. But I learned today, thanks to the internet, that it was actually a cover of a song written by Robert Kidney of a group from Ohio called the Numbers Band which among other famous former members included Chrissie Hynde’s brother Terry on saxophone. Thus ended the side of the record I knew intimately all those years ago.

Flip the album over and we discover Jack Bruce is singing and playing harmonica with Richard Thompson dimly mixed but firmly backing him up on guitar. Syd Straw makes her first foray into my consciousness here singing backing vocals – I know I gave her terrific debut solo record a few years later a chance because of her association with this album. In 1985, I was unfamiliar with Cream – I must have heard at least a couple of the hits, but not enough to know who sang them. So I figured Bruce was just some old guy from a rock world before my time. (Note: Laswell would bring Bruce’s erstwhile bandmate Ginger Baker into the PiL project.) I’m not sure this is a particularly strong song, but Bruce’s harmonica playing is excellent, and it holds interest throughout.

Next up are two tracks sung by Straw. The first, “(Kind of) True,” sounds like Chris Stamey contributes the guitar riff, though since Harris is credited as one of the writers, maybe it’s him. Thompson is on the track as well, so that’s a pretty strong guitar line-up. This song also contributes the album title, though I’m guessing it’s from somebody getting the words mixed up – Straw sings: “A woman of excess with visions of success.” I like “Buenos Aires” better – here Nicky Skopelitis replaces Stamey, and the melody is simultaneously old-fashioned like the forties and modern. Also, Carla Bley’s organ brings a little churchiness to the heavily syncopated drumbeats that dominate the song.

Finally, we come to “Only One Party,” sung with guitar by Arto Lindsay. The electronic drum parts and Lindsay’s skronky performance feels more of a piece with the debut Golden Palominos album. He was on that record, too. The energy here is wilder than the other tracks on Visions of Excess, but there’s nothing wrong with ending a record this way.

I remember this album sold okay in the indie record store I worked in at the time. It clearly resonated with the critics who heard it. There were several more Golden Palominos records afterwards with continuously changing performers, but this is the one that garnered the most attention. I think it holds up fine.

I’ll say 8 out of 10 points.