More Caroliner Rainbow

Part of a long line of avant-garde weirdoes from the Bay Area, Caroliner -- aka Caroliner Rainbow -- often described itself as "industrial bluegrass," which was likely the closest anyone ever came to pegging their uncategorizable sound. Their songs were rooted in 19th-century Americana and the sort of primitive folk found on the Harry Smith Anthology, but usually came wrapped in a thick crust of experimental noise and a bone-dry, dadaist sense of humor. Their records were just as likely to recall musique concrète or early industrial as country, folk, and bluegrass; everything in between was fair game as well, from early jazz to Eastern music to electronics. Their arrangements tended toward the minimal -- usually centered around banjo, violin, organ, and bass -- but often veered into noise-rock or elaborate orchestrations as well. Often sung by tape-altered voices, Caroliner lyrics were littered with pioneer and cowboy imagery from the Old West, but from a distinctly twisted perspective, with a flair for the macabre. The results often drew comparisons to Bay Area peers like the Residents and Sun City Girls, not to mention Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 (with whom they shared personnel); other commonly cited influences were Throbbing Gristle and Captain Beefheart, and members of Mr. Bungle was rumored to be involved with Caroliner as well.

Although Caroliner didn't guard their identities as jealously as the Residents, they were perhaps even more obscure in practice. Members did hide behind an ever-shifting array of ridiculous stage names, and the band's name changed from album to album -- the first two words were always Caroliner Rainbow, followed by an inscrutable phrase from one of the album's lyrics or titles (Caroliner was the official fallback name, however). Their live performances were low-budget theatrical extravaganzas with elaborate costumes and Day-Glo stage decorations augmented with blacklight. Their albums were released on vinyl only, usually on the Nuf Sed label, and were pressed in limited quantities. Each album was packaged individually with its own handmade art and hand-written lyric sheet, and usually arrived in some found-object packaging (pizza boxes and diaper disposal bags were two of the most notorious). In keeping with their Western Gothic concept, Caroliner even created its own mythic folklore to explain their origins. The group claimed to have inherited its entire repertoire from Caroliner the Singing Bull, a magical 19th-century creature whose owner took it from town to town, where it performed and learned new songs from the locals. When the owner was forced to eat the bull one lean winter, the remnants of its carcass continued to sing.

Caroliner was founded in San Francisco in 1983 by a lead singer commonly known only as Grux (though he, too, switched aliases at will). The original band was a trio including a percussionist who played a bucket, but the ranks soon swelled to normally include six to eight members at a performance or recording session. Personnel came and went freely, and those who stayed changed their aliases from album to album. Their first record, Rear End Hernia Puppet Show, arrived around 1985, and kicked off a rise to local-legend status that peaked by the early ‘90s; their reputation slowly spread to a wider experimental-music audience, helped by periodic tours of the U.S. and one of Japan. Their next three albums -- I'm Armed With Quarts of Blood, Rise of the Common Woodpile, and The Cooking Stove Beast -- were generally noisy affairs, but their fifth, Strike Them Hard, Drag Them to Church, began to bring out their quieter, folkier side, resembling an Asian-tinged Palace. The orchestrated yet chaotic The Sabre Waving Saracen Wall came next, followed by Banknotes, Dreams and Signatures, which featured one of the band's most-quoted songs in "Old Eggwipe" (about a horse that was half scrambled eggs). By this time, some of the band was also active in a side project called Commode Minstrels in Bull Face. Eighth album Rings on the Awkward Shadow was a double LP, and was followed in 1995 by Sell Heal Holler, the notorious diaper-bag album. The live compilation Our American Heritage, Vol. 1 appeared in 1996 or 1997 and wound up with greater distribution than most Caroliner releases. Lower Intestinal Clocks & Gut featured two side-long tracks, and was followed by the quiet and haunting Toodoos in 1998.

Cheated by an unscrupulous printer during the production of Lower Intestinal Clocks & Gut, Caroliner temporarily went bankrupt and was forced to take a four-year hiatus. During that time, several members embarked on independent side projects; Grux performed with Rubber O Cement, while Chris Cooper started the solo noise project Angst Hase Pfeffer Nase and also played with Deerhoof. Guitarist Brandan Kearney, who'd played on the vast majority of the band's records, joined Amarillo Records honcho Gregg Turkington in the mock death metal band Faxed Head. Caroliner finally returned in 2002 with the double LP Wine Can't Do It, Wife Won't Do, and embarked on their first tour of the new millennium. ~ Steve Huey

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