Red Krayola (originally Red Crayola) is an American experimental rock band from Houston, Texas formed in 1966 by the trio of singer/guitarist Mayo Thompson, drummer Frederick Barthelme, and bassist Steve Cunningham.

The group were part of the 1960s Texas psychedelic music scene and were signed to independent record label International Artists, subsequently becoming labelmates with the 13th Floor Elevators. Their confrontational, experimental approach employed noise and free improvisation. Barthelme said Red Crayola was "a name we took as a sort of parody of the clever California band names of that moment, a name that had come to us while trailing down Main Street in my roofless (courtesy of the sculptor Jim Love) blue Fiat" the name was also a homage to Thompson's mother Hazel's career as an art teacher. After going through an array of players, the band settled on Steve Cunningham (who previously collaborated with Malachi on the 'Holy Music' album) as their bassist who in September 1966 joined the band alongside his friend Bonnie Emerson and then later Danny Schact. This was the original lineup of the band: at that point Red Crayola was a cover band playing songs such as "Louie Louie", "The House of the Rising Sun", "Eight Miles High" and a fast version of "Hey Joe". Later, the band got a gig (with the help of Luana Anderson) at Mark Froman's club called Love, their main place to perform. They later garnered notoriety from clubs and venues as they were never booked twice.

The band recorded The Parable of Arable Land which sold around 50,000 copies when it was first released. Pitchfork noted "listeners weren't sure whether the racket was the result of sharp intellectualism, sheer incompetence, or buzzed-out substance abuse." A retrospective review branded the Crayola's "stripped down simplicity and caustic lyrics" as a rarely acknowledged precursor to punk.

After the original pressing for The Parable of Arable Land sold out, promoters were attracted to the band and they were invited to perform in the Berkeley Folk Music Festival where instead of playing songs that they had written before, they generated feedback and drones via a guitar amp. The noise was so severe that band was accused of killing a dog due to sheer volume.

In a 1978 interview, producer Lelan Rogers mentions that the reason the band never released a single was due in part to the controversy surrounding the sentimental lyrics in "War Sucks". Because of this, the album received little to no airplay as most radio stations refused to play the record. In the 2007 book "Eye Mind: Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators" author Paul Drummond mentions that the Red Crayola had recorded a session in February 1967 for "Dairymaid's Lament" backed with "Free Piece" to be released as a single, they were both songs that would later appear on their sophomore album, the session was produced by Bob Steffek who had a hit on Shazam Records with "Wild Woody"; however, the single was never released.

The album Coconut Hotel was recorded in 1967 but rejected by International Artists for its lack of commercial potential. It departed completely from the full-sounding guitar/bass/drums/vocals rock sound of Red Crayola's first album. The album was not released until 1995. During this period, the band performed concerts in Berkeley, California, and Los Angeles where their music resembled that of Coconut Hotel more than any of their other albums. These performances are captured on Live 1967. Red Crayola also performed with guitarist John Fahey and recorded a studio album of music in collaboration with him, but International Artists demanded possession of the tapes, they were then subsequently lost.

The band's second album to see release was 1968's God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It which employed new drummer Tommy Smith. Around this time, the band received a cease and desist letter from Binney & Smith, the company which manufactured Crayola crayons, which resulted in the band changing the spelling of their name to Red Krayola. Studio demos by the original Red Crayola were released on the 1980 compilation of International Artists rarities: Epitaph for a Legend. Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote that the album "bears precious little resemblance to anything else that appeared at the time; it would take a few decades of post-punk experimentalism before Mayo Thompson's vision would have a truly suitable context". The album garnered a few fans such as Greek composer Manos Hatzidakis and Joseph Byrd of the United States of America.

Barthelme later said, "In short, the Red Crayola was both a mockery of the California bands and the hippie culture, and an alternative to it, though of course, being as the audience was made up of hippies, nobody really noticed, and that was okay, too, because all we wanted to do was play the crack-ball stuff, be heard, attack whatever conventions were around, and have a good time doing it."

1970s–1980s

In 1970, Thompson and Barthelme formed a short-lived Houston band called Saddlesore with Cassell Webb; the trio released one single on the short-lived label Texas Revolution with "Old Tom Clark" on the A-side and "Pig Ankle Strut" on the B-side. (These songs would later be included on a Red Krayola compilation album released in 2004). Shortly after, the band split up and Thompson left the music business and pursued other projects until 1973 when he moved to England and joined conceptual art collective Art & Language. Upon their return in the late 70s, English post-punk group Gang of Four invited them to open for them due to the band liking their music as well as their shared left-wing political beliefs.

Thompson continued to make music, both under his own name and as the Red Crayola (reverting to the original spelling in Europe). The next incarnation of the group was a duo: Thompson and American drummer Jesse Chamberlain. The two recorded the single "Wives in Orbit" and the album Soldier Talk, with the latter featuring cameos by Lora Logic and members of Pere Ubu, both of which could be seen as musical responses to punk rock. His collaborations in the 1970s and 1980s read like a roll-call of the avant-garde and experimental artists and musicians of the era. Red Crayola teamed up with Art & Language in 1973, who Thompson described as "the baddest bastards on the block", for three LPs: 1976's Corrected Slogans, 1981's Kangaroo? (also featuring the Raincoats' Gina Birch, Lora Logic of Essential Logic and Swell Maps' Epic Soundtracks) and 1983's Black Snakes. Osees, Ty Segall, Primal Scream, and Animal Collective. Galaxie 500, Spacemen 3 and the Cramps covered their songs.

In 2007, Drag City released Sighs Trapped by Liars, another collaboration of Red Krayola with Art & Language, followed in 2010 with another, Five American Portraits, which consists of musical portraits of Wile E. Coyote, President George W Bush, President Jimmy Carter, John Wayne, and Ad Reinhardt, with vocals by Gina Birch. In 2016 came Baby and Child Care, recorded in 1984.

In 2025, The Red Krayola announced a new lineup and their first live performance in over a decade at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, supporting Cap'n Jazz on November, 21.

Influences

Founder Mayo Thompson drew inspiration from a wide range of sources, including modernist composition, jazz improvisation, and the free-form ethos of artists such as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Albert Ayler. In the same interview, Thompson acknowledged that mainstream figures like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan were “very influential” in shaping his thinking about sound and song structure. Later incarnations of the band incorporated elements of minimalism, conceptual art, and post-punk through collaborations with members of Art & Language, Pere Ubu, and The Raincoats, reflecting Thompson’s ongoing interest in avant-garde aesthetics and critical theory.

The Red Krayola have influenced a number of seminal alternative rock artists such as MGMT, Osees, Ty Segall, Primal Scream, and Animal Collective. Galaxie 500, Spacemen 3 and the Cramps covered their songs.

Discography

Studio albums

  • The Parable of Arable Land (1967)
  • God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It (1968)
  • Soldier-Talk (1979)
  • Three Songs on a Trip to the United States (1983)
  • Malefactor, Ade (1989)
  • The Red Krayola (1994)
  • Coconut Hotel (1995, recorded 1967)
  • Hazel (1996)
  • Fingerpainting (1999)
  • Introduction (2006)

with Art & Language

  • Corrected Slogans (1976)
  • Kangaroo? (1981)
  • Black Snakes (1983)
  • Sighs Trapped by Liars (2007)
  • Five American Portraits (2010)
  • Baby and Child Care (2016, recorded 1984)

Compilation and remix albums

  • Deliverance (1996)
  • Singles (2004)
  • Hurricane Fighter Plane (2006)
  • Fingerpointing (2008)

Live albums

  • Live 1967 (1998)
  • Live in Paris 13/12/1978 (1998)

Soundtracks

  • Japan in Paris in L.A. (2004)

Extended plays

  • Amor and Language (1995)
  • Blues, Hollers and Hellos (2000)
  • Red Gold (2006)

Singles

  • "Hurricane Fighter Plane / Reverberation" (1978)
  • "Wives in Orbit / Yik-Yak" (1978)
  • "Micro-Chips and Fish" (1979)
  • "Born in Flames / The Sword of God" (1980)
  • "An Old Man's Dream / The Milkmaid" (1981)
  • "Rattenmensch: Gewichtswächter / Zukunftsflieger" (1981)
  • "The Red Crayola on Forty-Five" (1993)
  • "4Teen / Stink Program" (1994)
  • "Chemistry / Farewell to Arms" (1996)
  • "Father Abraham" (1998)
  • "Come On Down" (1999)
  • "Stil de Grain Brun" (2002)
  • "Greasy Street" (2010)

References

  • The Red Krayola on Discogs
  • Thorough discography
  • The Red Krayola on Drag City
  • Piece Red Krayola's importance from NewYorkNightTrain.com