Drag City (Caroline)
2004
Singles
About This Album
The very notion of the Red Krayola putting out "singles" is a little surreal, since singles are by most definitions the most commercial face of the record industry. After all, if anything was consistent about the Red Krayola throughout their career, it was their uncompromising underground uncommerciality. Yet the band actually put out a good number of singles in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and 21 tracks from those releases -- some of them quite rare, and some them actually previously unissued -- are collected on this compilation. While it wouldn't be accurate to categorize this as a best-of, in its own way it reflects the band's evolution as well as almost any anthology could (though it doesn't have anything from their earliest, psychedelic-oriented recordings in the late '60s), Mayo Thompson being the only constant throughout their ever-changing lineups. Strictly speaking, not all of this is the Red Krayola, as the CD begins with an unreleased 1970 solo Thompson non-LP B-side, and both sides of the very rare 1970 single by Saddlesore (which included both Thompson and another early Red Krayola member, Rick Barthelme). Those three tracks are rather fried Texas acid-country-folk, but by the time of the next Red Krayola 7" (the live, unreleased "Wives in Orbit"/"Yik Yak") in 1976, Thompson was already onto the sound that would largely characterize his next two decades or so of work: jerky-tempoed, irregularly structured, at times jarring indie rock with oblique, discursive lyrics.
Track List (try tracks 2,4,8,18 and 19)

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