Rev Ola

JOE FOSTER
talks about rev-ola records, curt boettcher, alex chilton, kim fowley, west coast pop art experimental band, jonathan richman and the wonderful world of exotica.

Rev Ola records have released unknown treasures galore over the past few years. From Jonathan Richman to Alex Chilton to Curt Boettcher to Leonard Nimroy (!), the world is your oyster. Just look at the Rev Ola discography. How eclectic can you get? If you haven't got one Rev Ola release in your record collection then you are missing out on so much.

Ready Steady Go spoke to Joe about the magical world of Rev-Ola, his involvement with many of the releases he has been dealt with over the years and the work of the bands he has featured. Such as the Millennium, Alex Chilton, Kim Fowley and Jonathan Richman.

All Rev-Ola releases are lovingly packaged with extensive sleeve notes. In most cases many of these releases are completely unknown pleasures. When most of them were originally released they sold next to nothing.

"Well most of these re-issue labels are based on just exploiting catalogue and money for old rope really. Ours comes from; we'd all make tapes for each other. Favourite albums or rarities somebody has. These things would make their way all round the world, different tapes made by people. We just thought well, it would be just as easy to licence some of this stuff and just put it out. Present it to the world as it were!"

"Oh well, I mean, I do most of it really. I do all the research and stuff, master everything up, sort the artwork and everything. It's all down to me at the end of the day. Of course there are a lot of people who help with stuff but it's down to me. It's like if I was A&Ring a particular artist it'd be down to me in that way to get it sorted".

"Just like great records, people on the label and other people suggest stuff sometimes. We'll look into it. People come to us with things. Things like Yma Sumac that was a car boot sale album really.

"I've spoken to all the guys in the band, spoke to Steve Clarke who was the original manager of the original Production Company and various other people. There's a guy in London actually at Our Price, who works in the returns department, he was the Tape Op on quite a lot of sessions. He worked at Columbia. I know exactly the working procedure they followed on their earlier stuff. It was like a sweatshop or a supermarket! Monday and Tuesday they'd cut all the band tracks at Gary Paxton's house and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday they'd do all the vocals at Columbia.

"The Millennium was intended to be a proper band whereas Sagittarius was a studio project which was basically the earlier thing, The Ballroom, had fallen apart. They put together a new line up during those sessions but basically all the same people. They were paid session fees to keep them going to until they all sowed it up, the songs and so forth and then went on and did the other thing".

"They (The Millennium) were very much supposed to be a live band, They were all given roles. Michael Fennelly would have fronted the band live, Joey Stec would be lead guitarist, Curt playing keyboards, acoustic guitar, the other two playing electric guitar (Sandy Salisbury, Lee Mallory), drummer (Ron Edgar) of course, bass player (Doug Rhodes). They all had stuff to do but it became apparent that they wouldn't be able to pull this off live, it just wouldn't work!

"The demos they actually did for the album we're all recorded live, the original songs on the equipment that was built for the Music Machine album because half of them were in the Music Machine. I've got the stuff and it is just all live, off the floor. 1,2,3,4 off we go, it's fantastic, really, really good. Presumably at one point they realised they wouldn't be able to actually pull it off. Five front men, it's not really a good idea for a band!"

"According to Gary Usher, Brian Wilson was absolutely gob-smacked by the tracks that had been put down for the Ballroom album. Couldn't believe it, some of the stuff that was being put down. He was at those sessions. The weird oscillating stuff is stuff that Brian Wilson had. He leant it to Curt Boettcher to use. He was using it on the first sessions for Good Vibrations, he was using this weird oscillating thing which you can vaguely hear it but it didn't quite do so they used a Theremin instead".

"Prelude is basically when they finished most of the album it was realised everybody had songs but Douglas and Ron didn't have any songs and they thought well, (it's) a bit unfair really! So they said, look why don�t you guys write something, an instrumental or whatever you like and just record it. So they just went in themselves with Keith (Olsen) and went in separate rooms to get the separation and did the harpsichord and drums and overdubbed the other stuff on it. By the time they'd finished putting all the effects on, mixing it and everything they thought, 'Gosh this is fantastic it's got to be the opening track on the album".

"It was the kind of thing, the way it came about is the way that if there's a b-side by some famous band and it was written by the bass player and the drummer kind of thing! It's like not very good, that's the kind of thing. That's what they had in mind, 'well you know put it somewhere on the album, if it's not much good no one will notice if it's not really terrible', that kind of thing. So it was total fluke really. They just came up with a really quite an odd piece of music. Because that drum patterns really ahead of it's time. It's the kind of drumming that people do now!"

"We've got the Ballroom album and it's been remastered and restored. Well we've remastered it just the way Curt would have done it. I questioned people about it. I said, 'hang on some of these tracks sound a bit odd, how would you remaster it?' and 'well he had a particular way of doing it, like this way�' So we based it around that. A couple of tracks that were supposed to be on the album the tapes have completely disappeared, so what we did is got all the various things which were recorded from that period right through to Sagittarius period which were never used. Some of them were demos, some of them outtakes. It's difficult to tell because the way that they record is they would start off with a demo. Sometimes there would just be guitar and a voice demo and they would build the track up from there. There's a take of 'Keeper of the Games' which is on the Sagittarius album and it is the same song, it's just without the overdubs. It's the same take, it's the same drums, vocals and guitars, it's just they overdubbed tons of stuff on top of that. (It was) an odd way of working. They'd often do that, they'd have a demo or half the tracks of the Sagittarius album are stuff that was done for the Ballroom, they just re-mixed it in stereo and overdubbed. That was a working method for them. Partly because they were always compelled to re-use their old tracks by Columbia because they'd paid for them but that's what they did all the time. It was like, we can reuse this, we can put more drums on it, do more vocals. Which is actually quite difficult to do!"

"They'd start off with a demo and think well we're not going to get a feel like that again. What we'll do is, we'll put three lots of drums and some strings, harpsichord, five double tracked vocals, backward this and that, loads of effects and you'd end up with stuff on the Millennium album."

"There are hours and hours. To start with Michael Fennelly and Lee Mallory have got about 25 tracks each of demos of songs they wrote, performed by various line ups of the band and various friends of theirs as well. Quite often guys from The Poor would play on things. So there's that to start with. There's about another 12 hours of material that's part of Curt Boettcher's estate from demos by band's he went to school with that he recorded to the last things he did like really strange dance records. Tons of stuff on there, there's stuff by everybody! There will be two (CDs) for sure, I would think, of purely the Millennium, probably another two or three of the other stuff. It's all of a quality that compares with the stuff that they are known for! It's all as good. A lot of the songs are actually even better songs. There are tracks that they recorded for 'Midnight Cowboy', which weren't used, which was quite bizarre. Basically their publisher had a row with the film people and he was told to fuck off! 'I don't know how to say goodbye' was the song, which was John Barry's choice for the title song. There was another one as well 'The Lord must be in New York City' which was written by Harry Nilsson, which is how he got the soundtrack. They wanted to include him somewhere but they didn't like his songs, so they got him to do 'Everybody's Talkin'".

"The time was gone, basically it was a whole world of people who, when Brian Wilson went to bed, the leader of an entire movement, it just all collapsed, they collapsed. The idea that you could have immensely complicated baroque sounding records it was like no, everybody wanted to wear a checked shirt and have a beer and play endless guitar solos. There was no space for it. The thing is the guys in The Millennium, they could never look the part. However much they had a go, they were all like small, cute looking guys who should be in a pop group and however much they could actually do that kind of stuff if they wanted to it, don't look right. They looked silly".

Joe says all the surviving members of the Millennium are still working. Joey Stec is involved with music production, Doug Rhodes does restoration on early 20^th century opera acetates and plays in a strange trad jazz band. Lee Mallory is playing the folk clubs again after a recent illness, Sandy Salisbury writes children's books and Michael Fennelly is considering singing again but feels slightly bitter after his past solo endeavours didn't work out.

"The 1970 record came about when Primal Scream were recording at Ardent. Our friend Tim was over with them and he is very much a big record fan and he just started interrogating people about the stuff. He's got no shame, he says, 'I've heard about this thing, Alex often talks about it, he says it's crap, are there any surviving tapes?' Eventually they dug up some mono dubs which were really good and I played them on a Radio Scotland programme we were doing and there was a good reaction to them and we thought okay we'll do them".

"Then the original producer resurfaced, he's the studio manager at Compass Point. He's got a collection of vintage equipment. And he said, 'well if you send it down, when I've got a week or two off I'll do some stereo mixes of it, the way it should have been. So he did that and did a blinding job. It's a great album, slightly split personality because it's like it's three separate albums with the kind of soul pop album he started to make for Atlantic. Then when he became really pally with Carl Wilson (of the Beach Boys) he decided to make an album that he felt would be suitable for Brothers records. Then when that kind of looked like it didn't look as if it was happening he just started to making that slightly not right in the head, Alex Chilton version of a pop album!!!"

"There was actually other stuff on the tapes which were even crazier which Alex thought, 'oh no wait a minute'! There was an incredible long version of 'Talk Talk' by the Music Machine with people doing incredible piss-take kind of solos all over the place. Ridiculous wiggly, wiggly solos in places where they shouldn't be and you could hear people laughing at each other and stuff! It was like, what an extraordinary thing to do!"

"He'd just left the Box Tops and had a job at Ardent and he was hanging out there and started putting Big Star together really. Once it started falling to bits he thought okay we'll do Big Star. It worked out pretty well I thought but Alex wouldn't agree! He thought the entire thing was a dogs breakfast and he could well have done without the suffering!"

"The compilation (Mondo Hollywood) covers from 1965 to 1971 or something and the two albums were recorded in 1968. He was the phantom of Hollywood, he was hanging out with everybody! He had a house that he rented for people to stay at. He used to take in lodgers, he had The Doors, Steppenwolf, Michael Lloyd (West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band). Michael produced the Osmonds later".

Kim Fowley was instrumental in forming Michael Lloyd's influential band, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Joe takes up the story.

"Bob Markley, was a guy whose family were quite big in oil. They always had tons of money and he actually made a couple of singles as a kind of teen idol kind of guy, no one was interested and they had this beautiful house like 'party central' up on the hills."

"On the first Yardbirds tour they'd been really fucked over various places and when they got to Hollywood Kim was doing their publicity in America and he thought, 'Oh God, it's abysmal, what's happened to them?' "

"They must just wish they never come, What can I do? Lets put a brilliant party on for them make them feel like stars. Where am I gonna put it on that's not going to cost me anything? Bob Markley's house!!! And he rang up, 'Listen Markley, we're gonna get the Yardbirds, this famous band, there's gonna be chicks all over the place, you won't believe it, it's going to be fantastic'"

"So they had the party and Kim was trying to get Michael Lloyd and the Harris brothers, 'The Rogues' a deal, trying to get something going for them. Markley came up to them and said, 'listen I think this is the thing to do now, be in a pop group. You get all the chicks, you get all the attention and everybody thinks you're brilliant".

"And he said, 'God, I'd like to be in a band. How can I get a band together, what would I do? Maybe I should find a band and join it".

"And Kim said, 'Well I've got a band for you, here they are look, these three guys, they'll be your band!".

"Yeah, no problem. Listen, we'll go out tomorrow. We're going to get Rickenbackers, Vox Amps all that kind of stuff, we'll get all that, no problem".

"And they just did it" continues Joe, "They recorded their first album at Michael's house basically, he had a home studio".

The primitive and exciting results of which can be found on the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band Volume One released on Sundazed. Bob Markley though had the last laugh on everyone when he eventually assumed total control over the band taking all the credit despite the minimum of musical input into the band. The rest of the band we're to young to know any better.

"He's just brilliant, he's a genius. You can't really say what is brilliant about the guy, he just is. Every different thing he does is like really self-contained and not all that connected to what he did before, except it's him. He's a personality like George Formby or something. It doesn�t matter what he does. You see a crummy George Formby film and it's like, 'God this is like an abysmal 30's comedy film and it's not very funny. All the actors are terrible, they're all supposed to be from Wigan and they all talk with a strange theatre accent', but the man himself it's like he's jumping out of the screen. It's like this guy's superb but I just don't like what he does but if I did, I'd think he was brilliant! Jonathan Richman's like that. A larger than life figure. It doesn't matter what he does, it doesn't really matter whether you like it or not. He is superb that's all there is to it".

"Well it's fascinating. A window into a lost world! It's serious in its way. It's like ambient music, it's there. It's a lifestyle music. In a way what I like about it, it's not the kind of, thick bastards jumping into a pit and chicken dancing, kind of music. It's adult music. You listen to it or you don't listen to it. You like it or you don't like it. It's not in your face. But at the same time it can be deeply strange in some subtle way. You listen to something like Yma Sumac album and you think, 'what on earth possessed anyone to make this record? It's the most bizarre think I've ever heard'. Yet, it was successfully marketed to people who would buy a Frank Sinatra record. So obviously, there was something about those people that craved for something strange. A lot stranger than what people would by today. Perhaps people have become less open-minded over the years".

Many warm thanks and best wishes to Joe Foster for this more than illuminating chat. Hope to hear more stuff from Joe in the future. Watch this space!

Rev Ola is now back in business! Following the demise of Creation Records, Rev Ola was sadly no more but thanks to Cherry Red, the classic re-issue label is back in business. Hooray!

It had to happen!.....the return of the label of Eclecticism with a capital 'E' (actually a whole bagfull).....from the dubious musical pleasures of William Shatner and Robert Mitchum, to the exotic delights of Yma Sumac and the Shaggs, to the exquisite sounds of Fred Neil and the Millennium, Revola has always been a box of surprises..always ahead of the game with a pinch of humour and a unique worldview...now relaunched in conjunction with Cherry Red by label founder Joe Foster, (also in his time a cofounder of both Creation and Poptones) it is set to continue to unearth the unexpected..... the odd.... and the downright classic..... brought back to life in it's usual state-of-the-art manner..... Revola is back with a vengeance..... or something......
with many hot releases planned as well as some of the out of print Rev Ola releases hitting the streets once more.

http://www.revola.co.uk/

You can buy some of the latest Rev Ola releases by clicking on any image below. Keep checking back for all the latest Rev Ola releases!


Sandy is well known as a member of softpop kings THE MILLENNIUM and BALLROOM, and a collaborator and song-writing partner of legendary producer CURT BOETTCHER. This is a superb collection of demos and works in progress from 1966-69. The bonus track "All I Really Have Is A Memory", is a hidden nugget which gives the Left Banke a run for their money.	Lee Mallory, solo performer and member of the MILLENNIUM and SAGGITARIUS, helped CURT BOETTCHER and GARY USHER define the Soft-pop California style. This collection of demos from 1966-70, features members of the Millennium and other friends including Randy Meisner (later of the Eagles) and Rusty Young (of Poco).	For those who like bands like Big Star, Teenage Fanclub, Jellyfish & The Wondermints, this should be a great budget priced discovery.