Recorded live in Venice Beach, California and at the Berkeley Folk Festival, Berkeley, California in June and July 1967.
A strange archival release of '60s maverick psychedelic band Red Crayola. This double CD represents a vital missing link in the group's three-decade history. On its first album, THE PARABLE OF ARABLE LAND, Red Crayola linked rock songs with bursts of frenzied group improvisations called "Free Form Freak Outs." Their live sets were said to have consisted solely of noise, and this set provides the proof.
On both the concert tracks, the band indulges in earsplitting feedback for its own sake, even more abrasive and austere than anything the Velvet Underground, The Mothers of Invention, or The Grateful Dead did in concert at the time. The radio broadcast included here of their Berkeley Folk Festival appearance finds a bewildered broadcaster assuming that the band is tuning up and will be starting their set momentarily. The audience response is predictably chaotic. The tracks recorded in hotel rooms and with John Fahey are considerably more sedate, similar to the instrumentals on the lost COCONUT HOTEL album (also issued by Drag City). Any lover of experimental music should appreciate LIVE 1967, and hardy Red Crayola devotees will not be disappointed.

The Wire (02/99, p.56) - "...LIVE 1967 is a confrontational document to set alongside BOB DYLAN 1966 and The Stooges' METALLIC KO..."