#1 excerpted from “THE GET QUICK FILES: CHOOSE YOUR OWN CONJECTURE” as remembered by Mark Question 

FREQBEAT!
1960–1966

So here’s the deal: You wanna hear about how The Get Quick arrived in the UK? I’m not talking about how they arrived — I’m telling you how they detonated.

The year was 1962, the Summer of Sweat, and while the British were ironing their suits, polishing their brogues, and brushing their greasy pompadours down into shaggy mop tops, The Get Quick were busy frying minds in, of all places... SOUTH AMERICA — yeah, that’s right, miles away from music press, record executives, or any semblance of a career plan.

See, even then, to the boys in the band the “Who How Where When” of it all was just a state of mind — to be ignored. Geography was a joke to these kids. They weren’t interested in charts or trends. They craved combustion. They were addicted to noise. When they played they wanted the stage to look like it had been hit by a lightning storm.

Their live show was part magick ritual, part munitions display — flashing strobes and smoke bombs were de rigueur. Mitch Joy bashing his skins to oblivion and threatening any passing piano with bodily harm, and guitar throttling wizardry from Erik Evol that sounded like a rabid chimpanzee being electrocuted in E7#9.

Cromicon Records — an obscure Scottish record label (and rumored shadow company for more nefarious enterprises) so new its office stationery still smelled vaguely like smoldering trees and squid — signed them in what could only be described as a whirlwind courtship of superfluous adjectives and ample Champale.

Then came ’63 and their single “POP!” — and if you think that title’s ironic, that’s because you’re a coward and a square, son. This song was a grenade lobbed into the powdered wig salon of pop music. A three-minute whoop and squall recorded under the guidance of Fabian Kevorkian, renowned rock n roll producer and impresario, who was formerly a mad BBC sound effects technician who used to mic up badgers for radio dramas. The cavalierly egomaniacal Kevorkian practically invented accidental genius and wound up capturing a sound that was equal parts jet engine, soul scream, and exploding paint box.

Erik Evol wrote it. Of course he did. The guy was half juvenile prophet, half holy delinquent, and had a knack for turning sugar into shrapnel. With “POP!” he carved his name into the granite face of rock history using nothing but a plectrum and a snarl.

And suddenly The Get Quick weren’t just a band — they were a headline, a problem, a sensation.

The years that followed? Madness. Beauty. Implosion. Reinvention. Fistfights in dressing rooms. Lysergic marmalade on toast. Carnaby Street tailors begging for payment. A musical arc that rose like a phoenix, spun into a flaming helix, and then nose-dived into the glorious bonfire of true mythic rock n roll martyrdom.

Because make no mistake: The Get Quick weren’t just another hairy pop combo in tight trousers. They were a movement, a mirage, a Molotov cocktail lobbed at the very idea of reality.

As so, their story doesn’t adhere to sense, doesn’t follow a line, oh no — it’s a blazing scorch mark across sky, aiming to set the stars on fire!

So come with me and we can watch them fly. And cheer when the universe goes up in flames...

July 1962

The Get Quick Get Banned

Val Easton, Snarl!

Following riots prior, during and after their first live concert in Thailand, the country’s leaders announced the show would also be the band’s last. After a brief fracas between band members and Thai authorities, it is reported that Coco LeBree (bass guitar) and Erik Evol (guitar) were temporarily held in a government detention tank, allegedly for their own safety. The third member of the band, Mitchell Joy (drums) eluded the military roundup and hot-footed it to the US Embassy, where he, and members of the band’s entourage, awaited their friends’ release — which came nine hours later.

* * * * * *

April 1963

Founding TGQ Member Dead At 21

Luc Duroc, Die Ampersand

Having suffered a brain hemorrhage 18 hours prior, former bassist and original member of The Get Quick, Joshua Hamish Major died, aged 21, in the arms of his Venezuelan fiancée, sculptress, June Caruso, in the back of an ambulance speeding him to a Caracas hospital. Since leaving The Get Quick last year, Major had reportedly been writing a political novel in his adopted city. It has been speculated that Major’s untimely death may have resulted from an incident outside a Philadelphia dance hall fourteen months previous when he was savagely kicked in the head by an unidentified Disc Jockey.

* * * * * *

May 1964

CHAMPS Of The CHARTS:

TGQ Continue To Crush All Competition!

David Webb, Far-Out

The Get Quick has pulled off an unprecedented coup in the music industry, covering all top five spots on the singles chart. Their newest single “Crêpe Suzette” debuted at No. 1, knocking their own “Snap Shots” to No. 2; a second brand new-comer, the inscrutable “Free Lunch” at No. 3. Meanwhile “Honeycomb” and it’s B-side “Bikini Boys” round things out at the fourth and fifth spots respectively.

Not content to merely dominate, The Get Quick singles also hold positions 16, 44, 49, 69, 78, 84 and 88 on the same Hot 100. The group accounted for 60 per cent of all records sold in Asia during November, according to industry sources.

Meanwhile Mitchell Joy’s first book, Hey Man, Lay Off My Suitcase, has won the prestigious Foyle’s Literary Prize in Britain. And there is talk of a solo album in the works from the charismatic drummer, hopefully to be released sometime next year.

As for the group, their meteoric rise to the top continues unchecked, with now-obligatory riots accompanying their live appearances.

Security battled with 8,000 Get Quick fans inside Empire Poll, Wembley during the “Ready Steady Go Mad Rave Mod Ball.”

Outside police arrested a battalion of thirty warlike bikers.

December 1964

Merry Christian Hait!

Admiral Fudge, Soft Landing

Following one-nighters in New York City (December 21) and Washington D.C. (December 22), Christian Hait’s production of “The Get Quick’s Holiday Cabaret” — a variety show of music, dance, laughs and puppets — begins its run at The Rook Ballroom, Center City from December 24 until January 11.

Apart from the bill-topping Get Quick (who also act in comedy sketches) the show features The Royal Flushes, Allen And The Chessmen, The Dark Horsemen, plus light entertainment from New York's Merry Gentlemen and puppet group The Siblings featuring Martin Kaye.

With a top ticket price of $2 (75p) all available 100,000 tickets were sold by yesterday afternoon.

* * * * * *

February 1965

TGQ-Mania? No Parlous Vous!

Doctor Alcazar, Sporeprint Quarterly

The Get Quick picked the Hugo Theater, Versailles, Paris to warm-up prior to their shows at the world-famous L’Olympia Theater with Lola “I Wish I Had A Lollipop” Maltroit, France’s most popular “pop” diva.

The following evening (16th) GetQuick-Hysteria was not evident in Paris when Le Quick attempted to impress bourgeois L’Olympia patrons on the first night of their three-week run.

Erik Evol reportedly introduced a new song into the repertoire called “So Long . . . And Thanks For The Croissants.”

* * * * * *

August 1965

Rock & Roll Riot Out Of Control!

Polly Brewster, Happenstance

Britain’s largest rock n roll riot ever erupted when The Get Quick and The Surgical Sins played The Empress Ballroom at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool before a crowd of 9,000 fans, which included many drunken Scots on holiday.

When troublemakers spat at Coco LeBree’s mohair boots mid-show, Erik Evol put down his guitar and lashed out with a cricket bat (a recent gift from his Lordship Sir Wilford Wilmsey) braining several of the hooligans. But the horde of bloodthirsty Scots could not be quelled and The Quicks were forced to flee the building.

Police, and even some spectators, claim that the band themselves should be held responsible. Witnesses cite the group’s performance of their more aggressive material (songs like “Yellow Jackets,” “MotorPsycho,” “No Action,” and “Moral Panic,”) as intentionally designed to rouse the more militant factions of the audience, creating an unruly mob.

“The crowd was like a gigantic time bomb, in danger of exploding into a frenzy of destruction at any moment,” reported a concerned parent, who was reluctant to give her name but happened to be in attendance. “I wonder if it is such a good thing to allow the youth to congregate in this manner,” she speculated.

“There was a line of pissed Scot rockers near the front of the stage, just looking for trouble,” reported Justine Brawn, 16, of Bristol. “But the band were baiting them and…I don’t know, I guess things just got out of hand. But…that’s just rock and roll.”

Indeed.

September 1965

Dig This JOY

Flashgun Casey, Sliced Bread

Mitchell James Joy, drummer of The Get Quick has released something other than a fart today, in the solid form of a solo album. DIG THIS NOISE is the name of the effort, and the public will decide if it is an improvement in the output of our favorite time-keeper.

* * * * * *

September 1965

TGQ Movie: A Western?

Dash Dixon, Blast-Off

The Get Quick are expected to begin filming a western next year. It will be based on the book Etidorhpa by John Uri Lloyd, written in 1895 and published by the author. It is reported that the band will not play themselves, but rather take on the roles of characters in the story—with a minimum of singing. The majority of the music will be an incidental score composed by the boys. On the soundtrack it is reported that the band will be performing as musicians as well as conductors. It will undoubtedly be issued in album form by Cromicon Ltd.

* * * * * *

February 1966

TGQ: “Chew On This, America!”

Montague Egg, Bop Signal

A major US manufacturer of bubble gum is introducing a new series of Get Quick cards to be included in packs of gum.

There will be a set of 66 cards, which, when all fitted together, will make a 3ft square replica of the cover of the group’s much-anticipated new album FRAME UP.

* * * * * *

March 1966

Get Quick Movie Nixed; TV Show A Go

William Dodd, Insect Choir

“ETIDORHPA” the unpronounceable film that The Get Quick’s publicity machine kept spitting out (and the public couldn’t seem to swallow either) has been abandoned in the light of new news that the band has signed on to do a television series with a major American network.

AMERICAN WRANGLERS is the title of the show, which is said to combine the Western, Espionage, and Sci-fi genres.

“It will be an action/adventure showcase featuring a variety of fisticuffs—from jujitsu to slaps and cat-fights—as well as excessive explosions and dynamite detonations during every episode,” says Erik Evol.

“There will be some screwball comedy thrown in there too,” adds Mitchell Joy. “That’s kind of our trademark, don’t you know, a certain sense of the absurd.”

“And of course, no episode will be without several beautiful guest stars,” points out bassist and bachelor-at-large Coco LeBree. “There will be a strong undercurrent of romance every week. But, as our characters’ work requires them to ‘live as if every day may be our last,’ they are, regrettably, unable to pursue lasting relationships.”

July 1967

The Get Quick’s Rococo Reverie

Versailles-by-Way-of-Carnaby

Lucien Bratt, Orpheus Illustrated

If you’ve recently felt the air in London shimmering with perfume and peculiar elegance, blame The Get Quick. No longer merely sharp-dressed upstarts of the rhythm & truth scene, the trio have fully swanned into their baroque fantasia — a phase with the bouquet of dried roses, resonance of a thunderstorm caught in a harpsichord, and the bearing of King Louis XVI turned loose in a King’s Road boutique.

In this newest incarnation, Coco LeBree floats like a duchess in exile — half courtesan, half psychedelic sorceress. Their stagewear includes ostrich-plumed opera coats, lace cravats (gender-defiant and glorious), and an ankle-length mirror-embroidered gown said to be stitched from discarded theatre curtains and Bedlam hallucinations. Coco’s voice — airy, tremulous, precise — glides over arrangements that could be Bach if he’d been born inside a shifting kaleidoscope.

Erik Evol strums a guitar dusted with glitter and revolver grease. In concert, he wears a seven button waistcoat and a frown reportedly stolen from the V&A. His playing evokes cathedral ruins and fairy-tale funerals; he often inserts snippets of baroque fugues into psych-pop rave-ups, disorienting and divine.

And behind it all, Mitchell Joy keeps court with a regally stoic presence — his drums disguised beneath a new army of gold-painted timpani and antique bells. His sense of rhythm has grown mischievous: he no longer keeps time so much as toys with it, like a jester teasing a sundial.

Their newest material—culled from hushed sessions in sunlit conservatories and ruined abbeys — feels like the soundtrack to a masquerade inside a music box. Songs like “Floral Arrangements for a Dying Age” and “Coin for the Oarsman” blur melancholy with opulence. Gossamer strings, woodwinds like sighing nymphs, backwards harpsichord flourishes: each track a decadent pastry laced with something... narcotic.

This is not the British Invasion. This is the Versailles Velvet Occupation — lace cuffs dripping candle wax, powdered faces peering through paisley veils. It’s Bacharach gone baroque, Gainsbourg on laudanum, a moonlit waltz for the end of an Empire.

And as London melts in the long summer of 1967, The Get Quick are not keeping up with the times — they’re seducing them into a plush chaise longue.

Which doubles as a coffin.

* * * * * *

August 1967

TGQ Say: Shah Bet!

Hal Croves, The Viewpoint

The Get Quick have been invited to play at the Shah of Persia’s coronation in Teheran next month. They would be flown to Persia on October 23 and stay at the royal palace for five days. The group had reportedly planned to holiday during this period, but are likely to accept the invitation—especially since it came from the Shah himself. Sounds something like a holiday anyway, doesn’t it?

* * * * * *

September 1967

TGQ To Tour! On Bail

Tricky Enright, Volcano Watch

Mitchell Joy shelled out $1,200 for a private transatlantic jet flight to Dublin, Ireland, to join the rest of the group in time for the first night of European tour. Erik and Coco had arrived a day earlier, unsure if their bandmate would be free to join them. Mr Joy had already been in custody for five days charged with avoiding the draft and refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance.

“I can’t recall the melody,” he is reported to have said at a closed court hearing in LA. Cheeky, isn’t he? Citizen Joy was released on bail but will face the judge again when the group returns to Philadelphia after the rest of their European dates.

November 1967

Where Is Erik Evol?

Chuck Backus, Plagues & Carnivals

A mystery is deepening over the whereabouts of Erik Evol, who three months ago completely vanished from the public eye (and even private eyes are reported to be at a loss). It all started with a motor crash along the southern coast of France on the fourth of August. Sustaining several broken vertebrae, a concussion and a number of possible skull fractures, it was made clear from the first that at least a couple of days’ convalescence would be necessary before the resilient Evol could resume his normal engagements.

However, after checking himself out of hospital the morning of the fifth Evol did not return to friends or family, but completely dropped out of sight. Many of his closest relations appear perplexed and distressed, stating that they do not know where he is or even how severely he was injured.