Red Crayola
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The Red Crayola was a psychedelic, avant-garde rock band from Austin, Texas, in the late 1960s made up of art students, and led by singer-guitarist and visual artist Mayo Thompson. Their work predated punk and the no wave scene in 1980s New York City.
Thompson has continued using the name, in its legally-required permutation "Krayola," for his musical projects since.
However the spelling, Mayo Thompson and his revolving door of bandmates make some of the strangest music ever to grace this earth. Musically, the band often manages to be both rhyhmically very loose and tight at the same time. They are also, of course, generally avant garde to the extreme, which occasionally leads to some humurously negative reviews from Pitchfork Media. One such critic said: "It's a band that has no idea how to play its instruments. In fact, they don't even know what instruments are, or if the guitarist has the ability to remain conscious long enough to play whatever it is a 'note' might be." Adding, "This is a band that was paid ten dollars to stop a performance in Berkeley. If Berkeley's not having it, you know you're in for rough sledding."
But, as entertaining as the review is, the band is often simply better than that. They are tighter, more musically engaged (though certainly out there) and have detectable rhythms more often than not. They made true noise rock, true psychedelia and occasionally even true folk/country songs and instrumentals in a DIY-punk fashion.
The Red Crayola created a psychedelic album, Italic textParable Of Arable LandItalic text in 1967, following the social trends of the time. However, the next album, Italic textGod Bless The Red Crayola And All Who Sail On HerItalic text changed the approach completely. Instead of the fashionable psychedelic approach from their first album, the band took a more basic, constructive approach simply using Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar and Drums. The later albums include collaborations with bands such as Pere Ubu.