The Golden Palominos
Vision Of Excess

THE REVIEW

I can't remember his name, yet meeting him was important. He was the only person with whom I could share my new musical discoveries, situated at the crossroads of fringe music. Together we went to Mestre to see Masada, I believe it was the mid-nineties and it seemed to me that everything Zorn did was pure gold.

One day, he gifted me a cassette, I remember this well, with the first self-titled album by The Golden Palominos recorded on it. What a thrill, what a lightning bolt it was to hear that madness of sounds and rhythms trapped in the car's cabin. And immediately, I put the crazy performers of that masterpiece on the music Olympus: Anton Fier, John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Arto Lindsay, and Fred Frith.

Then things change (a little)...

And Anton Fier does what, he changes everything and invites some very respectable people to join the new The Golden Palominos and births a terrible album of not too bizarre pop rock. A declining John Lydon and a Michael Stipe who within a few years would explode with R.E.M. (just to mention the two most famous), to sing boring music nobody needed. Fortunately, he leaves the last song to Arto Lindsay, just to get rid of the bitter taste.

Why, I wonder, would someone who played with The Lounge Lizards, Pere Ubu and conceived a brilliant album like the aforementioned debut of The Golden Palominos do this? Perhaps he wanted to climb the charts? I doubt it.

And then maybe he lost his way as his boring solo albums demonstrate (see Blind Light/Dreamspeed).

I really don't think he managed to do better in the other Golden Palominos albums. I stopped at this, and you?