#2 excerpted from “THE GET QUICK FILES: CHOOSE YOUR OWN CONJECTURE” as remembered by Mark Question
Drift/Pivot
1967 - 1969
By 1967, rock n roll had crawled out of its teenage jeans and was stumbling around in a technicolor loincloth lecturing the birds about The Cosmos while the rest of the world ate itself.
It started with Mitchell Joy telling Uncle Sam to shove it. January 3rd, Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys makes his stand, and by May 6, Mitch gets his own Greetings from Hell letter. His response? Jail. Five nights in a holding cell dining on green meatloaf and contemplating costs of morality and mortality...
Bail: $2,500.
Plane ticket halfway around the world to catch the start of the tour on time: $1,200.
And like every proper bluesman he paid his dues.
And he was 4 hours late.
A’Then — in the early misty morning hours of August 4, somewhere between Cannes and the end of the world, Erik Evol goes full French Connection in a rented Aston Martin. Witnesses say the car rolled three, maybe four times before plummeting down a 300-meter rocky terra gash like some (even more) mythic Icarus made of leather and ego. The wreckage crumpled into a ditch like a discarded Gitanes wrapper. He was trapped for three hours, slowly bleeding out and likely humming a brand new album of bangers to a choir of angels circling overhead like buzzards.
Eventually, two random drivers (Basque) — armed with crowbar and tire iron — pried him from the steel tomb and conducted him to hospital where his condition was classified as “scathing.”
Three days later, Coco and Mitch are still sipping absinthe in Copenhagen when they hear Erik’s not dead. Not dead after all. Not dead at all. Just disappeared. Word is he got up, unplugged himself, staggered out of the clinic like a morphine-transfused mummy, and — poof — vanished. No goodbyes. No forwarding address. Not even a note scrawled in scabs. Gone like a promise in the rain.
Four months later Cromicon began a process of assembling albums from the young band’s already ample archives of unused material and strategically releasing them to a hungry public. Mitch and Coco meanwhile occupied themselves with avant-garde musical side projects and enthusiastic forays into filmmaking.
And meanwhile releases from TGQ are selling like relics from a saint, each sleeve promising that the band still lives, somewhere... But by the bitter tail end of 1969 — the audience is still there, but they’re twitching for a fix now, waiting for something real to happen.
Something current.
The realization looms:
The sixties are over, man.
And so on the eve of 1970 the two remaining band members and S. True Smith (the group’s principal business manager and confidential advisor) agreed that The Get Quick had to either evolve — or join Brian Jones at the bottom of the pool.
February 1968
London Loses Joy
Montague Egg, Bop Signal
Flocks of fans descended on Heathrow today for a final glimpse as Mitchell Joy departed London for Philadelphia. The drummer, familiar to many, has spent the last three weeks freewheeling about town. Sighted arm-in-arm with Ann-Margret on Abingdon Road in Kensington as the couple shopped at Biba; and once again last Thursday briefly ducking into Abbey Road Studios.
Reportedly on a mission to win the part of French surrealist poet Arthur Rimbaud in the upcoming production of Christopher Hampton’s new play TOTAL ECLIPSE, Mitchell had to bow out at the last minute due to scheduling difficulties. John Grillo, cast in the role of Paul Verlaine, announced yesterday (somewhat chagrinned) that the part of Rimbaud has now gone to the notoriously volatile actor Victor Henry.
It has been rumored that Mr Joy was a wee bit disappointed with the final form of the play, feeling that several integral scenes were missing. Whether or not Mr Hampton has written the scenes in question remains unclear. Mr Joy had also been heard to complain recently about the British Theater in general and, specifically, Lord Chamberlain, the acting censor.
* * * * * *
March 1968
Hait Unveils Cerebral Celluloid Matter
Andrea Salomé, ArtBusters
Chopping Off Your Head, a documentary financed by — and apparently about — Christian Hait, was screened at the US Film Festival in Dallas TX on March 17.
It is being touted as fast-paced surrealistic travel film containing a scene with 300+lb female opera star Olga Christofski that is reported to owe a “sizable” debt to Italian director Frederico Fellini.
Hait claims it is: “[A movie] essentially about me... It’s a collection of thoughts... my thoughts. Every scene means something to me... although some of them, I can’t explain.”
Refreshing.
* * * * * *
August 1968
Joy Scores Again
Tricky Enright, Volcano Watch
Mitchell Joy, drummer of the rock group The Get Quick, whose solo instrumental piece “Subway Chimes” was used as the main theme for Warwülf: Beast Of Butchery, has been commissioned to write music for a new film by celebrated French director Jean-Philip Gagnon.
Literally translated, the title of the film is Seven Deadly Sins Of The Switchblade Sisters. While shooting is now near completion, Joy has been pressed to begin composing immediately.
* * * * * *
December 1969
The Get Quick Elects Evol’s Stand In
Max Salinger, The Dialectical
Mitchell Joy and Coco LeBree held a much-anticipated (and, by some fans, much apprehended) press conference yesterday to announce the addition of a new guitarist/vocalist to fill the void left by the “late” Erik Evol.
Despite rumors ranging from Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck to Donovan or Denny Laine, the new addition turned out to be a virtual unknown, friend of the band. The speculations by die-hard fans that the choice would be long-standing part-time member Christian Hait were quashed as Mitchell introduced “our good old friend and new bandmate, Reed Russolo.”
The twenty-something choice, a self-described “out-of-fashion beat poet and only occasional strummer of a busted gutfiddle,” was also on hand to answer questions.
As it turns out, not only does Reed work well with the two remaining members of the band, having known them for a long time and “vibed” with them many times before, he may have a lot to contribute. Apparently the new guy boasts a rather large collection of notebooks full of tone poems and automatic writing for possible use as song lyrics. But as we’ve seen, the band may be able to sustain themselves (and fans alike) on artifacts from the vaults for some time to come.
When Evol spoke in mid ’66 of the “ten albums-worth” of unreleased tracks the band had accumulated under his administration, the quip was taken as a monumental over-exaggeration. But, witnessing the band release three new albums of Evol material in the past two years, the speculation that they could last another five years at the top of the charts without ever entering the studio has become a reality.
All modesty aside however, Mr Russolo is far more than a mere poet — in fact he is a somewhat well-regarded professional composer. And a successful one at that, doing most of his work in the field of film soundtracks. So it is entirely possible that this new collaboration could be strangely fruitful.
The band’s main focus now, however — as they were quick to point out — will be concerts.
“It’s been a while,” LeBree stated. “We want to take the music to the people again. And now, with Reed helping us out, we will do just that.”