Thee Fourgiven - I sympathize For now, perhaps the most exciting news from the book… two absolutely amazing albums…
This is the first one… and the first episode of the Rev… let’s listen to a couple of tracks…
THEE FOURGIVEN – It Ain't Pretty Down Here (Dionysus)
Does anyone remember Donovan's Fairies?
Forget Wikipedia, it won't help.
They were a cover band from Los Angeles dedicated to reviving old junk from the Seventies. Old glam rags, musical and otherwise.
We're in the mid-Eighties and the Fairies dress like Turbonegro, but back then that look wasn’t appreciated by anyone.
During their concerts at the Cavern and Spaceland, insults often fly, sometimes even worse.
Nobody will ever talk about them, except to say bad things.
So why am I telling you about them?
Simple.
First, because I have, to put it like a certain someone, a “venereal admiration” for all Z-list bands. Those with no one on their side.
No record label with a mansion and a mistress in Malibu, not a John Peel, not even a second-rate Usuelli or Scaruffi.
Often without even a crumb of self-esteem.
Second, because if you look to the right and left of the stage during a Donovan's Fairies gig and if you know a bit about rock 'n' roll features, you’ll recognize two key figures in the story I’m about to tell.
One has a raven-black bob so thick it looks like a comic strip from Rudi Protrudi.
Only he’s a real flesh-and-blood person named Lee Joseph.
The other is a scruffy ex-punk whom some remember seeing in action in Indiana’s punk clubs with a group of goofballs called Gizmos, and who now hangs around Los Angeles venues. His name is Rich Coffee.
The lives of the two intertwine around that of Shelley Ganz, the prophet of the garage sound in Los Angeles, who was then firmly leading the Unclaimed machine.
Lee and Rich lend their services to the King but bring forth other creatures.
For Lee, they are the Yard Trauma; for Rich, the Fourgiven, and they live in the same cage, built by Mr. Joseph himself and called Dionysus Records.
Born as an irregular label for the release of some pirate cassettes in the record store Lee runs in Tucson (the Roads to Moscow, NdLYS), in November 1983 it becomes a legitimate label with the release of the first 45 rpm by the Yard Trauma.
