Monday, July 03, 2023

Bulbous Creation: You Won't Remember Dying 1970 (2011 Reissue)

 

A Kansas-based obscure rock band whose music was a downbeat mixture of psychedelia and


hard rock, Bulbous Creation would have to wait until many years after they broke up to receive any recognition outside their home town. The Bulbous Creation album sat unreleased until 1995, when collector and archivist Rich Haupt ran across a copy of the session and gave it an unauthorized release on his Rockadelic Records label. The low-key release built a cult reputation for Bulbous Creation's lean but powerful, doomy music and expressive lyrics.
                                     

Bulbous Creation were formed by bassist Jim "Bugs" Wine and guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Paul Parkinson, both of whom grew up in Prairie Village, Kansas, a town about ten miles from Kansas City. Parkinson took up guitar in his early teens and played in a handful of ad-hoc groups during his high-school days, most featuring his good friend Wine on bass. In 1966 Wine went into the military, and he

settled in Kansas City, Kansas upon his return three years later. Wine was keen on starting a band, and a newspaper ad brought him together with a talented guitarist, Alan Lewis, and a capable drummer, Chuck Horstmann. However, the band needed a boost with its songwriting, and after Wine ran into his old friend Parkinson, he was soon invited to join the group and contribute lyrics and vocals. (A fifth member, keyboard player Lynne Wenner, occasionally joined the group on-stage.) Lewis was keen on naming the new band Bulbous, which didn't sit well with his bandmates, but when someone suggested tagging Creation onto the moniker, the group agreed on the new name.
                           

The ongoing efforts of record collectors and rock & roll archivists from the mid-'70s onward suggests that nearly every American city of any size had at least one band that was too weird for the locals in the

'60s and/or '70s, and in Kansas City, Kansas, that honor was proudly held by Bulbous Creation. In addition to having a name that either sounds like a joke or something Robert Pollard would have coined for one of his Guided by Voices Suitcase tracks, Bulbous Creation's compelling eccentricity is confirmed by the eight-song album the group recorded one day in 1971, not long before they broke up, insuring the band's magnum opus would not be heard for decades.
                          

(The album sat unreleased for years until it was given an unauthorized release in 1995, with the Numero Group finally pressing a band-approved version in 2014.) In many respects, Bulbous

Creation sound like a bent but reasonably typical rock band of the day on You Won't Remember Dying; the melodies evoke a time when psychedelia was drifting out of consciousness and tougher hard rock sounds were taking their place, and both are clearly part of Bulbous Creation's aural formula. Guitarist Alan Lewis was presumably familiar with Tony Iommi's style, but rather than create a crushing wall of riffs like Black Sabbath, Lewis left enough open space to make the songs feel spare and evoke a feeling of vague dread.
                                

Bassist Jim "Bugs" Wine and drummer Chuck Horstmann similarly held down the rhythms while giving themselves lots of breathing room, which left plenty of space for vocalist and songwriter Paul Parkinson, a bitter semi-hippie moralist who offers up fearlessly doomstruck poetry about drugs

("Hooked"), war ("Fever Machine Man"), God's judgment ("Under the Black Sun"), and Satanism ("Satan" -- no one said the guy was subtle). Since finances dictated that Bulbous Creation's album be recorded in a single day, You Won't Remember Dying sounds more like a demo than a finished product, but the band's merger of the trippy and the heavy still communicates clearly, and Parkinson's dramatic lyrics are evocative and full of fury that seemingly embraces and rejects the counterculture at the same time.
                                 

You Won't Remember Dying was doubtless a bit much for the kids in Kansas City, Kansas in 1971, but

decades later, this band sounds like they could have been onto something rather remarkable, especially if they'd had more time and better help in the studio; as it is, this is still an utterly fascinating artifact of a shadowy period in the freak scene. Cancer claimed the life of Alan Lewis in 1998, and in 2001 Paul Parkinson succumbed to leukemia.
                      

Bulbous Creation – You Won't Remember Dying
Label: O-Music – OM 71019
Format: CD, Album, Reissue 2011
Country: Germany
Released: 1970   
Genre: Rock
Style: Acid Rock, Hard Rock

TRACKS


01. End Of The Page    4:48
02. Having A Good Time    4:08
03. Satan    6:05
04. Fever Machine Man    6:30
05. Let's Go To The Sea    8:27
06. Hooked    4:06
07. Under The Black Sun    3:14
08. Stormy Monday    4:46

LINE - UP

                               


Paul Parkinson (vocals, guitar)
Jim "Bugs" Wine (bass)
Alan Lewis (lead guitar)
Chuck Horstmann (drums)
Lynne Wenner (keyboards, live)

END OF THE PAGE    LYRICS

                       


Time has come together, breath of fresh air to our song
We die quickly from the looting, we have done
Make the life you live become more than just a game
Give the world a chance to think, and live up to it's name
                   

Can you see the stars at night
To make a certain wish?
Can you find the ocean
Through the fields of dying fish?

Is the air you breathe a colour you can not explain?
Is the place you spend your days a safe place to remain?
Take my hand and make a stand against this life of death

Tell the people, make their choice while they still have on left
Do you want to die, before your children reach the age?
Or are the words you said today the ending of the page?

Take my hand and make a stand against this life of death
Tell the people, make their choice while they still have on left
Do you want to die, before your children reach the age?
Or are the words you said today the ending of the page?

SATAN   LYRICS
                        


Satan, got a hold of me
Sayin', what to do

Satan, ain't going to be
Where you want me to

You been running too long
Yeah

Satan, get out of my head
Leave my thoughts alone

Satan, you been misled
Can't make me your whore
                      


Devil, will you leave me
Ohh

Satan, Prince of dark
Calling shots on me

Your Satan, made your mark
Get out of my way

Satan, oh my Satan
Bye

Satan, I'm in my price
Always running still

Satan don't waste your time
Waiting for the kill
                       

Run until you snap
Yeah

Satan your eyes are black
The colour of your doom

You're Satan, love you lack
Will lead you to your doom

Blood inside your eyes, Eyes

Satan, your evil ways
Take you to despair

You're Satan, aha,
your done days are scattered
Everywhere

Die, fallen angel,
Die
at

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