Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Helioween

Boo! Let us close out the month of October in the appropriate style, with a 40th anniversary Halloween concert guaranteed to make your hair stand up without the use of product.
This one does the trick for sheer, riveting and 100% sincere weirdness, and I've optimized it a bit to deliver it in its finest fetter.
It was taped in a tiny club in Philadelphia on Halloween night of 1978. What I'd have given to have been there, but I was only 12.
Two of the tracks were, at one time long ago, issued on vinyl. One found its way onto a compilation a few years ago, but the other is still sadly missing in the digital era.
I'm just grateful that this tape exists, given that this period of Sun Ra, with its warped-to-the-power-of-disturbed forays into funk and disco, is my personal preferred.
Just Sonny's ridonkulous declamations that bookend the set are worth the price of admission alone, but the whole 45 minutes of this little event are must-hear-radio.
I took the liberty of declicking the more egregious LP sizzle on the first track, which is a vital slice of the concert and comes from one of the man's most out-there records, still never reissued after 40 years.
I also added, as a bonus cut, the A-side of an obscure single that I'm almost completely certain was recorded at this gig, which I feel really rounds the thing out.
All in all this is a tape that can't be described in words, except to say that the music contained herein could not be more better suited to today's festivities.
Sun Ra & his Arkestra
Grendel's Lair
Philadelphia, PA
10.31.1978

01 The Sound Mirror/Mayan Temples
02 Halloween In Harlem
03 The Shadow World/Dave Gold announcement
04 Strange World/Black Myth
05 UFO
06 Door of the Cosmos
07 We Travel the Spaceways
08 On Jupiter/Cosmo Drama (Prophetika 1)*

Total time: 44:47
*A-side of a 1982 Saturn label single, likely recorded at this show in 1978

Sun Ra - keyboards, vocals 
Marshall Allen - alto saxophone, oboe, vocals 
Danny Ray Thompson - baritone saxophone, vocals 
Eloe Omoe - bass clarinet, vocals 
Ben Henderson (Jaribu Shahid) - bass, vocals
Stanley Morgan (Atakatune) - congas
James Jacson - Ancient Infinity Drum, vocals
Luqman Ali - drums
Richard Williams - electric bass 
Dale Williams - electric guitar
John Gilmore - tenor saxophone, vocals
Eddie Gale - trumpet , vocals 
Michael Ray - trumpet, vocals 
June Tyson - vocals, percussion
Craig Harris - trombone
Vincent Chancey - French horn
Oscar “Bobo” Brown - bass

master cassette, sourced from ESP Radio's Sun Ra tribute
This comes from Michael D. Anderson's exquisite "ESP Radio" Ra podcast, and little more is known about it except the date and venue. I pieced together the personnel from our friend, the internet.
That about does it from me for October... I hope I passed the audition. See you all in November with yet more autumnals for your thumbnails, and be sure to save some candy for tomorrow! 
But before you get down to the sugar orgy, be sure to roll up this Blount I have posted and let it freak your treats real sweet! The heliocentric power of Sun Ra commands you!--J.
5.22.1914 - 5.30.1993