#3 excerpted from “THE GET QUICK FILES: CHOOSE YOUR OWN CONJECTURE” as remembered by Mark Question
Rock Proxy
1970 - 1972
When Erik Evol banana-peeled off the edge of the Riviera and straight into the mythological bloodstream of rock n roll, Cromicon Records thought the ride was over. Curtains. Lights out. Cue the harp music and file the paperwork. But instead, Evol’s disappearance had the opposite effect — like hoovering an anthill of granulated Elvis, it brought the whole circus back to hyper-sharp focus. Because nothing boosts record sales like a good, juicy death trip.
Suddenly, The Get Quick were everywhere — on bootlegs, airwaves, t-shirts, bumper stickers, and in the fevered fantasies of thousands of teenage dream casualties. “Posthumous” albums stitched together from Evol’s old demos and abandoned session tapes were released in a ritualistic procession, each one hailed “a revelation,” “a resurrection,” “a lost masterpiece” — when in reality half of them were just Erik scatting into a tape recorder while trying to tune a sitar. But that didn’t matter. The myth was alive. The cult was swelling. The Get Quick were bigger dead than they’d ever been alive.
Meanwhile, Mitch and Coco kept the flame smoldering, reinventing themselves as multimedia manipulators — doing cameos in tv and film, staging one-off concerts for live radio broadcasts, and collaborating on experimental tape-loop operas nobody asked for. The band was dead, sure, but they were also everywhere at once. And there to stay — like a mess of glitter in a shag carpet.
Enter S. True Smith, the band’s long-suffering manager, carnival barker, and occasional stage magician. By ’69 he’s got a plan — not just for a revival, but a full-blown resurrection. All he needs is a new messiah, or at least a kid who can hold down a groove and carry a tune.
That guy was Reed Russolo. Known for wearing chain-gang jumpsuits and a guitar technique that had more in common with conjuring demons through a toaster than playing notes, Reed stepped in as the third leg of the tripod war machine. The Get Quick Mk2 was born, and they hit the road with a vengeance — an hour and a half of classic TGQ hits, turbocharged with new arrangements and enough strobes to trigger nationwide seizures. The press called it a “comeback” — the fans called it a “second coming.”
And behind the scenes? Mitch, Coco and Reed were writing. A new album. A real one. None of this Frankenstein-outtakes stuff. Fresh songs, fresh blood, fresh madness. By 1971, they were riding high — critics slobbering, fans rioting, money rolling in faster than their accountants could skim.
They had a good solid run. Some even say great. Some hipsters go so far as to declare “The Russolo Years” The Get Quick’s finest era. But rock n roll, ever the jealous mistress, demands a sacrifice.
August 3, 1971. Mid-show. A freak electrical surge sizzled through Reed’s mic stand, his hand, and his entire nervous system. Switch flicked. Reed drops mid-riff, face-down in a puddle of feedback and drool and vaporized potential. The crowd thinks it’s performance art — until the paramedics rush in. The spell is broken... Russolo has gone the way of the dodo.
And in the wake came Sympathetic Nervous System — the band’s boldest, weirdest, and likely final album. The artwork on the inner sleeve (rumored to depict the autopsy of Western civilization) got it banned in multiple countries. Meanwhile, Mitch got called before the draft judge again (the U.S. military had apparently not gotten the memo about him being a national treasure). Jail loomed. Joy stuck to his guns. Figuratively, of course.
But by now The Get Quick had finally become what they always seemed destined to be:
A legend smothered in scandal, soaked in feedback, and buried alive under the weight of their own glory.
The future? Postponed.
The band? Suspended.
The flame? Flickering.
But somewhere out there in the sticky sonic bardo, the once-and-future king was stirring... listening...
March 1970
The Experimenters Become The Experimented
Douglas Spaulding, McGill Daily
In recent years The Get Quick have sometimes been accused of being too “experimental” during their live performances. Though I believe it’s obvious that they realize the majority of their fans show up to hear the hits, not artsy twattle. After all, their first order of business with Reed Russolo was to embark on a lengthy “Greatest Hits” tour, when half of the music press seemed to forecast the band taking a left turn into instrumental soundtrack production. So in my opinion, The Get Quick have always known exactly what their fans want, and they make it their business to give it to them.
However, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that a considerable portion of TGQ’s fan-base in Montreal has dwindled. Unfortunate, and far from being any fault of the band. They previewed their new North East tour last Thursday at McGill’s Sports Centre, in a brick-and-scaffolding cavern resembling a 747 hangar, and the sound quantity was appalling. When pressed, the university’s social secretary confided that this was the first time they’d used the Sports Centre for a concert (in contrast to the customary smaller, more comfortable, and acoustically adequate Shatner Building), and they hadn’t tipped the band’s management wise to the fact that the show was, in effect, AN EXPERIMENT.
I’d imagine that only those intimately familiar with TGQ would realize how well they played. Though concealed beneath a bed of distracting technical problems, I could tell that they’ve bonded into a genuine band, as opposed to the uneasy rock-by-numbers performing group of last year. Helpfully augmenting the trio was long-time friend and frequent collaborator Christian Hait, who multi-tasked on organ, guitar and bass.
Daringly enough, they began with four or five numbers from DEAL. ME. IN. and only halfway through the set did they perform the well-known “Down in a Hole.” What a shame the audience couldn’t hear the words to “You’re Free,” “Loose Lips” and the superb “Vegas Angel.”
Some observations: Reed Russolo is growing in stature as a rock & roll guitarist, the instrument becoming more and more an organic extension of his body, and his exchanges with guest Christian Hait (accompanying on organ) on “Orange Marmalade” were thrillingly histrionic. Coco LeBree also swapped his instrument out with Mr Hait; and LeBree’s extravagant lead vocal sorties, freed from her bass, added a lot to their already considerable visual appeal. They closed with “Strut!” which ensured a tumult of applause — which was rewarded with encores of “Pop” and “Now Sound.”
These boys sure know how to milk an audience, and at adequate venues they’ll surely sound exceptional.
* * * * * *
March 1970
The Get Quick — Full Of Hot Air
Marie Bonaparte, The Union des Étudiants
On their inaugural jaunt The Get Quick Mk2 have decided to employ the oldest human-flight technology — touring Northern Europe in a hot air balloon!
Mitch, Coco and Reed will travel in a small wicker gondola suspended by a 100,000 foot envelope.
Mitchell Joy, who recently got his United States pilot certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration, will be at the helm.
“We’ll try not to get too high,” remarked LeBree dryly. But the well-prepared ballooners have the oxygen they’ll need if their flight exceeds an altitude of 12,500 feet.
The road crew and equipment will rendezvous with the band at the gig stops, while S. True Smith shadows the craft over land and sea with a back-up supply of propane tanks.
A pre-launch party will be held this Friday with a gig at The Moon Room, Portsmouth, with lift-off (at an undisclosed locale) to follow at dawn.
There are scheduled concerts in Glasgow, Copenhagen, Brussels and Cherbourg with time allotted in-between for set-downs at impromptu gigs locations.
Eyes to the skies.
* * * * * *
April 1970
Der Get Quick Vs. Die Frau
Jim Divo, The Neoist
Word is out on the sect of German “fans” who want all concerts to be free. This is what has been happening with increasing frequency as of late: Upwards of 1,000 troublemakers gather at the hall and, upon seeing the entrance fee, proceed to provoke one another into damaging property.
The latest band to suffer the clan’s calamitous antic, is the equally unpredictable Get Quick.
“Those [kooks] had battering rams in Heidelburg,” claimed The ’Quick’s bassist, Coco LeBree, “and they were trying to get at the band! We saw a car with a loudspeaker on top being driven around by this insane woman. She was barking through a microphone, broadcasting through the loudspeaker, organizing the riots! She was at Hiedelburg and in Hanover too!” The bassist then unwisely added, “We had no weapons on us because we had flown in.”
The renegade female — rumored to be Regina Engelmann, a member of so-called “Diamond Dogs” who claim to be rock & roll freedom fighters — successfully fled the scene before police arrived.
Reed Russolo (who claims to be a native Philadelphian of German and Spanish extraction) explained, “At Hanover we were about four flights up they were throwing lumps of concrete up at the windows! This ain’t rock and roll, this is...”
The sensitive new tub thumper was speechless.
* * * * * *
May 1970
TGQ And Italy: A Real Gas!
Rosemary Tonks, Nation Of The Seahorse
The Get Quick were playing to a crowd of over 15,000 at Vitorelli Stadium in the Tuscan region when the group’s set was disrupted by several tear-gas canisters soaring across the stage. Police wielding batons and soldiers lobbing the canisters charged between the band members on stage and the audience. A massive riot promptly ensued.
Before the band even arrived, a showdown was brewing: Outside, the stadium was ringed by hundreds of police and trucks full of reinforcement awaiting any sign of crowd trouble. Then, early in the show, with scarcely any provocation, they went into action—and this led to a full-scale riot from which the band and their entourage barely escaped intact, and during which some of the group’s equipment was severely damaged.
To the United States press group band leader Mitchell Joy confided: “It’ll be refreshing to come home, for some air-conditioning and a beverage with ice... and bourbon.”
* * * * * *
July 1970
Score For TGQ Mk2
Sir Ralph Rumney, Box Huckleberry
The Get Quick is at the top of the charts again thanks to a tune penned by the band’s newest member, Reed Russolo. The track, entitled “Vegas Angel,” but known to concert fans as “Sweet Sister,” rocketed to the number three position virtually overnight. The song had gone over well with audiences all throughout the band’s most recent European engagements and had quickly become a staple in the set, being played most every night —sometimes as part of the encore.
“The kids recognize it from our shows,” commented Reed, “that’s why it’s selling, cause we, like, pre-sold to the fans on our last tour.”
Now, among fans and critics alike, there is no longer any doubt that The Mighty Get Quick can — and will —continue the reign of success they experienced under the leadership of the late, great Erik Evol.
* * * * * *
November 1970
TGQ Mk2 Review
Rosemary Tonks, Nation Of The Seahorse
Now on the eve of their second album release – already widely acclaimed – Reed Russolo’s TGQ are currently touring the land. And I’m betting they’re going to be a smashing success if Sunday’s Providence Town Hall gig was anything to go by.
It was the first time I’d gotten a chance to witness the new incarnation — and I was dying to really dig them. But somehow the spectacle left me cold — that is apart from the few times the band dropped the showmanship antics and electronic wizardry and got on with the music. Reed is an interesting instrumentalist and Mitch and Coco have solidified their reputation as one of the fiercest rhythm sections in rock and roll history. And when they’re all on target and steaming ahead nothing can stop them.
But I’m willing to accept that the entire concept of TGQ Mk2 is completely beyond me ’cos the Providence kids really got off on them.
Ah well, The Get Quick couldn’t remain critic’s darlings forever.
* * * * * *
December 1970
Evol — Out Of The Past
John Reid, Silverado Squatters
The recent success in Germany of a rather cobweb-coated recording of Erik Evol’s song “Tomorrow” by The Get Quick has, at least, proved the track to be a worthy conversation piece. Recorded nearly five years ago for Cromicon, the single has remained in the catalogue ever since.
Amidst autographing the limbs of young girls at Lou Reed’s recent London Rainbow gig, Coco LeBree was quoted as saying that he found the record “rather nostalgic, and a tad ghastly — like ‘Frosty the Snowman.’” While the other rock and roll Reed (Russolo, that is) bed-ridden with flu, opined over the telephone that he considered it “a charming kindergarten sing-along.”
Mitchell Joy had no recollection of the track and does not listen to German radio.
* * * * * *
December, 1970
TIGHT NEW TGQ ARE TWICE AS TOUGH
Chaim Wittzel, Zounds
DEVOUT DEBAUCHERY is on the rise again, as The Get Quick are off on a month-long US tour, kicking off from Dartmouth College last week. The new news in TGQ world? Well, Mitch’s had a haircut, Coco wields a new axe, and the audience is now full of teenage Reed Russolo look-alikes.
As for the music — tighter than ever, and most of it new. The band is all muscle now, twice as tough and strong as they were even three months ago. There aren’t many groups that would chance opening a concert with nearly an hour of new songs, and then throw in their hit singles as encores. Of course, The Get Quick have always been one of a kind.
There’s a new depth in their playing now: Coco LeBree rocks a double-neck guitar, bass on the bottom and 12 string up top; Reed’s slide guitar slashes and soars; Mitchell’s drums thunder, and Christian Hait’s organ and percussion pulse through everything. The “old” numbers are so reworked and transformed that it’d be really nice to have them re-recorded — “Ace Face” attacks like never before. The material from the new album sounds even more impressive. The variety of textures, the dynamics, and the interplay between the performers seemed charged with electricity. “Strut!” and “Vegas Angel” hit you like lead fists, but Reed’s recitation of “Morbid Cupid,” clutching his guitar in one hand and the microphone in the other was mesmerizing.
Recalling the taciturn Russolo at his first press conference, it’s a marvel how far he’s come. I would’ve thought it hard to imagine a band being this good after less than two years together; but they’re really firing on all cylinders now.
* * * * * *
January 1971
Get Rich Quick
Lancaster Vane, Littlecote Academy
The Get Quick has now sold over five million Cromicon albums since the company stepped up their distribution 4 years ago — the exact figure up to the beginning of January being 5,056,400. And, during just the past year, they’ve also sold over a million singles in Britain alone (1,024,068), plus a total of 120,000 eight track cartridges and cassettes. To these astounding figures must now be added the runaway sales of the pre-Russolo, Evol-penned “Tomorrow” single, which are now in the region of 250,000.
It should be noted that general practice within the recording industry used for the purposes of gold record qualification calculates an album as being equal to six single units. On this basis TGQ have sold nearly eight and a half million units in Britain alone, in less than three years. This easily makes the band the biggest record seller in the country since the peak period of The Beatles. In view with the personal and personnel events of the last few years, this clearly makes The Get Quick the most UNSTABLE outfit to ever maintain such an amazing run of ongoing sales and success.
Meanwhile, British sales of The Get Quick’s latest album, Busted Flush, are fast approaching 200,000.
* * * * * *
February 1971
R. Russolo Vs S. True
Dick Turpin, Goof Rag
Reed Russolo has slammed his band’s recording company and their own long-time financial advisor, S. True Smith, claiming that neither wanted his new single for The Get Quick, “Turtles,” to be released.
“After ‘Vegas Angel,’” (the album’s only single) “S.T. said he didn't want another single released to detract from sales of the next album,” Reed explained, “but I’ve more or less prevailed and the single will come out — although he has pretty much disowned it. The band will pay for all the advertising, but S.T. promised to pick up the tab if the single cracks the US Top 10.”
* * * * * *
March 1971
Cutting Le Cheese With Coco LeBree
Katherine Feltcher, Mad Platter
Coco LeBree vaults from the bright, mirrored bathroom in a panic. Its moments before the scheduled arrival of the vast white coach charted to bear his band round the country for the next few months and Coco hasn’t finished packing. On the peach velvet loveseat sit a pile of fab-looking outfits, lavender flamingoes and key lime cologne, and as he dodges about looking for some snazzy stage-boots, we conduct a guerilla-style interview. Focus under pressure, it’s all part of being in The Get Quick, which yours truly is just beginning to appreciate.
Coco explains that immediately after arriving from America eight weeks ago the band commenced a rigid schedule, which has hardly let up for a moment. When they weren’t recording new tracks they did their drills, pills and Mexican pop, rehearsing selected material in preparation for the upcoming 10-week tour of Britain and Europe.
“I understand now why Elvis lived the way he did. I personally never foresaw myself in a situation where pressures were such that I’d only be able to make it round to dinner with a friend maybe twice a year. Peanut butter and pig’s feet are making me totally drool right now.”
Coco says it was a real gas recording tracks for this album. “It’s a bit of a patchwork, really. I like the rawer stuff, myself.” Lofty ambitions aside, sometimes, he explains, it’s just fun to bang it out like they used to — like a genuine rock and roll outfit. “That’s where we came from, and we’ve got to keep our chops up.” Coco goes on to stress the importance that not a single thing ring false with TGQ Mk2, because he feels that old fans seem to be turning a newly-appraising eye on the group. “Can’t let ‘em down,” he grins.
Coco is also keen to do a solo album now round, about September. “It will be a hotplate of revved-up rockers. Some old ravers perhaps — numbers that people will walk around humming for years and something lit up to put on that will get your blood up.”
The lads learned a great deal from their last tour and have new approaches to combat the pitfalls of concentrated roadwork. Now they've worked out a quicker, slicker show for the British tour — with 50 percent new material. The band’s stage equipment and newly augmented light show have doubled in size. TGQ’s entourage now consists of two drivers, three lighting people, four roadies and a road manager. And S True Smith, the group’s overseer and director of finance, plans to shadow the tour in a chartered invisible plane.
* * * * * *
April 1971
TGQ Embark On “Mammothgon” Tour
Christian Venius, The Lost Legion
The Get Quick have mobilized a massive musical caravan for their 1970 World tour, which opens in Germany at the end of this month. Operating under the title of “Mammothgon,” the production is described as the most ambitious spectacle ever undertaken by a rock group. The presentation will involve the transportation of 50 tour personnel and 20 tons of equipment valued at 750,000. Two 40-foot articulated trucks will carry the specially designed proscenium, a Roman-style arch and a special “tribal yet futuristic” stage which will be erected at every performance.
And S True Smith, the group’s overseer and director of finance, plans to shadow the tour in a flame-retardant gladiatorial two-horse chariot.
* * * * * *
July 1971
TGQ Hysteria! (Still?!)
Max Vogel, Young Continentals
On their current UK tour, The Get Quick are turning the musical clock back to the early Sixties. Scenes of unbridled hysteria and chaos unparalleled since the days of Beatlemania accompanied their gig two nights ago at Gaumont Gliderdrome. More than 50 people fainted — and some have yet to re-awake.
Maura Tinkerbaulz, 15, of Wolverhampton, had to be taken to hospital after somehow being catapulted from the balcony in the excitement — her condition as of this morning was reported as: STILL MANIC.
Extra police were drafted in to cope with a crowd of more than 5,000 who came from all parts of the country.
Lipstick smokescreen.
* * * * * *
August 1971
A Quick Shocker: Russolo Dead!
John Richard Fade, The Continental Op
Fans of the pop group The Get Quick were blindsided by a devastatingly tragic event that occurred yesterday on stage at group’s gig at Cambridge University’s Coming-Out Ball.
Formerly known as TGQ’s “newly recruited” Reed Russolo, the band-member promptly became the “electrocuted” Reed Russolo as he touched a faultily connected mic-stand when he attempted to address the audience during the group’s set.
Unfortunately Russolo, thrown into the air by the current, managed to land with his guitar still in contact with the mike-stand. Coco LeBree reportedly received shocks and minor electrical burns as he tried to pull his bandmate clear. Coco eventually managed to kick the guitar away, his mohair boots impeding further injury. But for Reed, alas, it was too late and mouth-to-mouth respiration failed to resuscitate the young Spaniard.
He was pronounced dead on the scene.
Mitchell Joy, whose close friendship with the deceased had long predated Russolo’s joining the band, was taken to a local hospital and placed under sedation.
* * * * * *
September 1971
TGQ Album Banned
Leon Kestrel, The Pale King
Dubbed by many “the clear album,” in light of the fact that the record has been issued on a transparent disc inside a clear plastic sleeve (information is provided on a folded insert) — the new TGQ album SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM has now been banned in China. Over 400,000 copies have been pressed and dispatched, but distributors are refusing to handle it, alleging that the poster included in the sleeve contains subversive messages. Arrangements are now being made to re-release the album with an altered version of the offending poster, which is reportedly identical to ones released in Britain and America, and contains a long poem penned by the recently deceased Reed Russolo.
* * * * * *
October 1971
No Joy At The Box Office
Sandra Sylvester, Left Yegg
Production on the film JEDEDIAH STRONG, based on the colorful life of frontiersman Jedediah Strong Smith, has been quashed. The film was to star Mitchell Joy, drummer of The Get Quick, as Strong, a French-American Basque trapper, hunter and fur-trader whose explorations helped open the American West to settlement by eastern emigrants.
The funding reportedly dropped out after the studio realized they had been beaten to the punch by two other upcoming films: MAN IN THE WILDERNESS, starring Richard Harris as a scout who undertakes a mammoth cross-country trek after being severely mauled by a grizzly (an episode from the real-life adventures of frontiersman Hugh Glass); and JEREMIAH JOHNSON, starring Robert Redford and reportedly based in-part on the action-packed life of legendary mountain man John “Liver-Eating” Johnson.
Mitchell Joy is reportedly bitterly disappointed, as this was going to be his first top billing in a major motion picture. But those inside the industry also remember how he’d lost a lead role in Martin Ritt’s THE MOLLY MAGUIRES after Richard Harris signed on. That film, concerning a violent secret society of Irish-American miners battling exploitation, was a story close to Mister Joy’s heart, being both an Irish-American and a Pennsylvanian. And there is also the fact that Joy’s idol and acting mentor Charles Bronson was born and raised in a impoverished Pennsylvanian mining town.
“I hold no animosity towards Mister Harris at all,” Joy has stated. Although unsubstantiated rumor has it that he has been spotted out in London with Mary Reece-Williams, who, until only just recently, was known as Mrs. [------- ------].
* * * * * *
November 1971
Jailbird Joy
Inez Novarro, Yellow Wallpaper
Photo caption: Mitchell Joy — Sentenced (to “sing-sing” for 3 yrs.)
Citizen Mitchell James Joy of the popular rock group The Get Quick will not have to fight in Vietnam after all. He’s been opposing military service for nearly four years because of his views and, at one time, it looked as they might cost him a term of incarceration.
But, at a final court hearing yesterday, he was put on probation for three years and fined $4,000 — one proviso being that, during the next two years, he must sing regularly at veteran’s hospitals, orphanages and women’s prisons.
“Avec pleasure,” Mr. Joy is reported to have replied.
The band, never ones to waste a single breath, are expected to resume their obscenely ambitious Mammothgon Tour — despite the recent demise of their frontman — with added support from loyal sideman Christian Hait and new recruit, multi-instrumentalist, Toby Element.
* * * * * *
December 1971
Wild Mystique, Menace, & Madness: TGQ Go Kiwi Krazy
Following the phantasmagoric wreckage left by the last gasp of Reed Russolo, The Get Quick swerved again, issuing their next transmission in the form of a velvet-wrapped dagger: a soul-stained rendition of “Cry Me Some Soul,” excavated from a tattered Solomon Burton LP discovered in a broken jukebox at the back of some Blackpool gin palace. “We weren’t sure if we could make it ours without sounding like ghosts haunting a Burton record,” Coco LeBree admitted to Melody Tracer at the time. “But in the end… I think you can still smell our fingerprints on it.” Released July ’65, the single's A-side marked an unexpected detour—a lush, melancholic drift through amber soul.
The B-side, by contrast, hit like a boot to the teeth. “Cut The Buzz,” a scorched-earth studio jam birthed in a single, adrenaline-laced take, fuzzed with broken valves and jittering feedback. Mitchell Joy later claimed it had been recorded under “the influence of Brazilian jungle vine and industrial adhesive fumes.” In Disc Weekly, he clarified, “Yeah, it’s quieter than folk think we are. That was the point. We needed to prove we could whisper while holding a knife.”
The single rattled its way up to #2 in New Zealand, a curious success — and just in time for the fractured band to obliterate expectations with the now-infamous jack-knife kiwi jaunt at the tail end of their 1971 tour.
Whatever dreamy illusions the single conjured were ripped to shreds the moment The Get Quick landed on the tarmac in Wellington. “GET QUICK RIOT IN OPERA HOUSE—POP SICKNESS ON STAGE” blared the Auckland Truth. The paper alleged that band members were found “passing around a bottle of duty-free absinthe and reading from The Book of Lies moments before showtime.” In New Plymouth, it all came unglued: folding chairs were hurled like discus weapons, props combusted into towering flames, and backup singers fled mid-song.
The central chaos-engine? Percussionist and general saboteur Toby “Trace” Element, who reportedly howled through half a bottle of “psychic gin” before crawling onstage dressed as a bellhop and demanding to polish the audience’s shoes mid-set. During a rival’s set, Element allegedly laid carpet down before crooner Donny Swoop and heckled him to walk “like a proper geezer.” When the singer refused, Element set the carpet ablaze with a flaming newspaper, cackling something about “liberating the ghost lice in the rugs.”
In Christchurch, the Evening Vibe reported: “Their show felt less like a concert and more like a violent séance conducted by runaway mentalists. Clad in what can only be described as bombsite fashion, they resembled five delegates from an anarchist’s waking nightmare.” Coco LeBree reportedly popped balloons with a switchblade, Christian Hait brandished a cardboard sword, and Element eventually let loose with a toy machine gun modified to fire glitter and shrapnel. When it broke, he smashed it on the edge of the stage, then lobbed it into the crowd like a cursed relic.
Backstage? Worse. Much worse.
Element had, for reasons unknown, become obsessed with a dead toad he’d named Ahmed. He carried it from gig to gig, feeding it whiskey and quoting Shakespeare. According to Christian Hait in Ugly Phases: “We were trying to keep him in check — his drinking, his mania. At one point we locked the dressing room. He tried to break the door down with an axe. Like, literally. Just hacking at the door, grinning. And then that night — he sets the bloody stage on fire. Just torches made out of newspapers and God-knows-what. The fire brigade showed up. Chased him around the stage with extinguishers like some deranged panto.”
The tour ended with Element being deported “for reasons unspecified,” and the band being banned from every civic venue from Invercargill to Auckland. The Get Quick’s response? They cut a flexi-disc apology, overdubbed with the sound of burning furniture and distorted laughter, then mailed it to local papers under the pseudonym The Get Bent.
* * * * * *
February 1972
THE GET QUICK: 1971—THE LONG CRASH
Man O Man! What a wild and crazy couple of years The Get Quick have had. And the final few months of 1971 certainly seemed like the turd on the top of the cake.
The orgy of headlines splashed across Australasia's conservative broadsheets was enough to get the band exiled from New Zealand for life. Tabloid hysteria over alleged onstage blasphemies, trashed hotel suites, and occult-suggestive theatrics culminated in a full ban—no encore, no appeal. The tour ended in classic TGQ fashion: drummer Mitchell Joy was removed from the outbound flight after a scuffle with the pilot — fortunately, before takeoff. In a typically barbed statement to Melody Hammer, Joy bit back: “These tales of us being zonked zombies and nodding through the sets are rubbish. Five papers said the crowds went bananas. There’s truth and there’s propaganda. Guess which sells faster.”
Indeed, a column in the New Plymouth Daily News lent some credibility to Joy’s defense:
“The Get Quick detonated the venue. A storm of R&B and ritual. There was nothing dainty about it, and thank heavens for that. Electric delirium, uncanny showmanship, and drumming that bordered on supernatural. Toby Element’s stunt with the burning newspaper? It was either pure genius or absolute madness — or both.”
Despite the band’s fondness for chaos, it was becoming clear that Element was drifting into liability territory. Increasingly, local substitutes were asked to step in when Element failed to surface, or worse, arrived in a fugue state and attempted to play standing in a bucket of fire. Still, he managed to complete most of the remaining tour dates.
Straight off the road the band (reasonably or unwisely) dove straight into sessions for their next album.
Recording got off to a rocky start — by day three Element had officially been booted. “We love the man,” said Mitch to Disc Weekly, “but he had ideas about the band that were more... ceremonial than musical.” Element responded via Sounds & Scandals: “Yes, a policy disagreement. Apparently my personal visibility was threatening their group identity. Funny, I wasn’t trying to upstage anyone in any malicious way. I just thought that being non-invisble was the point.”
The band reportedly spent 34 straight hours in the studio shaping their warped grooves and shadowy lyrics, struggling to conceive a pop single to catapult them back into the charts. Despite positive blurbs from journalists allowed advanced access to the sessions — “an apocalyptic midnight mass, simmering with tingling menace” * — the band soon fell into a directionless daze and, on New Year’s Eve, Joy and LeBree decided to shelve the project indefinitely.