MGM called it "the sound heard 'round the
world." Rolling Stone's review by Jon Landau said the sound was "kerplop."
In castigating the MGM albums, Landau presented what quickly became the
Final Word on the subject: there was no Boston rock scene; the Boston Sound
was pure hype; the bands weren't very good; the music was "derivative."
That view has gone mostly unchallenged
since 1968. Landau, a Bostonian, positioned himself as a purist and went on
to a very successful career as a rock critic. He later became Bruce
Springsteen's producer and manager, remaining a partisan of that elusive
musical quality known as authenticity.
However, as Fred Goodman documents in his
1997 book The Mansion on the Hill, purism and authenticity are not
always pure or authentic, and Landau has stepped over a number of corpses on
his way to the top. Ultimate Spinach was one of his first victims. Despite
strong sales of their records, the band's reputation was severely damaged.
In retrospect, it's clear that Ultimate
Spinach deserved a much better fate. The Bosstown hype was not their idea,
and their records are some of the best psychedelic music available then or
now. Their brief time in the spotlight brought them not well-earned glory
but unexpected trauma, which fractured an already-fragile band.
In contrast with the collectivist spirit
of the 1960s, Ultimate Spinach was not so much a group effort as the vision
of one man. Ian Bruce-Douglas was the leader, lead singer, and songwriter.
He even designed his own clothing for use on stage. He played numerous
instruments and wrote sprawling, cosmic liner notes for the first album.
Both Ultimate Spinach (MGM E-/SE-4518, 1968) and its successor,
Behold & See (MGM SE-4570, 1968), can be considered concept albums,
unified by the darkly utopian vision and domineering personality of
Bruce-Douglas.
Unfortunately, the "Bosstown" controversy
took a psychological toll. Squabbles with band members and strong-willed
producer Lorber led Bruce-Douglas - at the ripe old age of 21 - to leave his
own band after Behold & See was released. In 1969, Lorber, who owned
the rights to the band's name, released a third and final Ultimate Spinach
album (MGM SE-4600, self-titled, like the first album) with Ted Myers as
lead singer and songwriter. By then, only singer Barbara Hudson remained
from the original band.
Ian Bruce-Douglas has been in and out of
the music business since his departure from Ultimate Spinach. His only album
since then is In the Valley of the Shadow, a 1988 cassette-only
release by his band Azlbrax (Intergalactic IRC-001). In the Valley
sounds quite different from Ultimate Spinach, but once again Bruce-Douglas's
personality ties everything together. As usual, his vision is simultaneously
upbeat and apocalyptic - one might even say tortured.
Today Bruce-Douglas lives in the Fort
Lauderdale (Florida) area and records music in his own studio. He
occasionally plays locally with his long-time bassist, Caryn Beth Spring.
All three Ultimate Spinach albums have
been reissued on CD twice. First came the Big Beat label with a straight
reissue of the first album in 1995 (CDWIKD 142) and altered versions of
Behold & See (CDWIKD 148) and the third album (CDWIKD 165, rechristened
Ultimate Spinach III) in 1996. A box set containing all three albums
appeared in 2000 (Akarma 121/3). In the box set, the albums appear in their
original form except for Behold & See, on which the masterpiece "Jazz
Thing" is still represented only in an edited version. The box set also
includes a few mono mixes as bonus tracks. The noticeably unpsychedelic
cover art of the box set shows a ‘Jaws’-like shark gobbling massive
quantities of spinach. Presumably this is intended as a wicked visual pun,
but by whom? And who is the shark supposed to be? Assuming Alan Lorber had
approval over the cover art, he may be making a rare ironic comment about
the music industry, or perhaps about Jon Landau or the rock press.
Bruce-Douglas views the shark as Alan Lorber himself--but that would imply
that the image was planted as a sort of inside joke by somebody at the
record company.
In addition to the Big Beat individual
issues and the Akarma box set, there is The Very Best of Ultimate Spinach
on Varèse Sarabande (302 066 237 2, 2001), another anthology on the same
label called The Best of the Boston Sound (302 066 235 2, 2001), and
a 1996 Big Beat anthology called Bosstown Sound, 1968: The Music & the
Time (CDWIK2 167). The latter volume includes three tracks from the
first two Ultimate Spinach albums, while The Best of the Boston Sound
only includes one such track (the classic "Hip Death Goddess").
The reissues have sparked new interest in
the band and especially its founder and main creative force. However,
Bruce-Douglas is not happy with the reissues, which have reopened some old
wounds and prompted complaints by reviewers (and Bruce-Douglas himself)
about the alteration of Behold & See from its original form.
The Big Beat version of the album is
billed as the "director's cut," and the director is Alan Lorber. "Visions of
Your Reality" from the LP is not included; the sequence of the songs is
altered; and "Fragmentary March of Green," "Jazz Thing," and "Mind Flowers"
are edited. Bruce-Douglas objects to this, claims he was not consulted about
the reissues, and has only disdain for Lorber, whom he sarcastically calls
"The Creative Genius," borrowing a line from the immodest liner notes of the
original LP release of the first album.
The following interview provides
Bruce-Douglas with a forum for telling his own story, which has not often
been heard since the meltdown of 1968. In the process, he settles scores not
only with Lorber but with Jon Landau and some bandmates. This not being a
news story, the individuals in question have not been contacted to reply to
Bruce-Douglas's complaints. Alan Lorber's side of the story, or at least
part of it, is available in his self-penned liner notes for the various CD
reissues.
The interview is edited, with Ian
Bruce-Douglas's approval, from numerous e-mail exchanges in 1997, 1998, and
2001 and from an in-person meeting in 1998. Contrary to rumor, "The Old
Bastard," as he calls himself, is alive, well, and making music three
decades after the meteoric rise and fall of Ultimate Spinach. He is
cantankerous, opinionated and blunt, but also generous, funny, and still
visionary and ambitious (he calls his company Intergalactic Productions!).
He can be reached by e-mail at <azlbrax@hawkaccess.com> and has a grand,
illuminating website at <www.ultimate-ian-spinach.com>, complete with a
recipe for Ultimate Spinach Lasagna!
PT: When and where were you born?
Ian Bruce-Douglas (IB-D): I was born on
October 7, 1946, at the Bolling Air Force Base hospital [in Washington,
D.C.]. I spent most of my first twelve years on a five-acre farm in Fairfax
County, Virginia. Growing up as an only child and living in the country may
have a lot to do with the fact that I became creative and very solitary as I
matured. As an adult, I became an amateur naturalist. I'm still a hell of a
lot more comfortable exploring a rain forest or jungle than going to a mall
or a party.
PT: In an old article it says your name
was originally Wise.
IB-D: My birth name was Ian Bruce Douglas
Wise. I'm descended from an old Southern family. In fact, there's still a
Wise County, Virginia, named after Henry A. Wise, who was Governor of
Virginia, who signed the death warrant for John Brown after Harper's Ferry.
He was a Confederate general who served as Robert E. Lee's personal
aide-de-camp, and he was renowned for his temper. (Who does that remind you
of?) I'm also descended from "Devil-John Wise" of the Shreveport, Louisiana,
Wises. His temper was even worse than Henry A.'s. Obviously, I'm not ashamed
of my heritage. I only shortened my name because my first serious girlfriend
suggested it. "Bruce" and "Douglas" are distant relatives from Scotland.
Let's face it - my mother didn't do me any favours giving me three first
names. Anyway, I've been Ian Bruce-Douglas a helluva lot longer than I was
Ian Bruce Douglas Wise. And frankly, I doubt the rest of the Wises are
losing any sleep over my dropping the name. I mean, would you want to
have to claim me as a family member?
PT: How did you become interested in
music?
IB-D: I was always interested in music. My
mother had been an opera singer in Italy before World War II. My father had
been a band leader before he became a bomber pilot and career Air Force
officer. So there was lots of music around my house - everything from big
band music and opera to a great deal of orchestral and classical music. On
my own I became fascinated by the local "race" stations and preferred that
to the rock and roll my contemporaries favored (Elvis etc.) I started piano
lessons at age 5 and wrote my first composition ("Desert Plains") at age 6.
I even wrote out the music with big goose-egg notes.
Eventually I found my dad's old guitar in
the attic and figured out a couple of chords on it. Then my parents shipped
me off to military school, where I saw a student get up on stage at one of
our dances and perform a couple of Buddy Holly tunes. That's when I decided
I wanted to touch and excite others the way others' music had touched and
excited me.
I attended Berklee School of Music [in
Boston] on a Down Beat [magazine] scholarship when I was 16. My
parents insisted that I finish high school, and I ended up starting at the
University of Virginia with nonmusical goals. I was miserably unhappy and
only found solace when I would pick up a guitar, go off somewhere alone, and
play. I started writing again at that point. I was heavily influenced by
those who were touching me - Bob Dylan and Richard Fariña particularly.
Finally, I got so depressed that I tried
to kill myself and was sent home from school on a medical leave of absence.
Music-making sustained me through this period. I began seriously supporting
myself teaching and performing. This led to The Big Split between my parents
and me, although I ended up going to help them out when my father hurt
himself. That led to my creating the Underground Cinema just to keep from
going crazy while staying with my parents.
PT: Who was in the Underground Cinema?
IB-D: The Underground Cinema consisted of
Keith Lahteinen (drums), Richard Nese (bass), Geoff Winthrop (guitar),
Barbara Hudson (vocals), and me. This devolved into Ultimate Spinach. We
recorded the first album, and right after its completion Keith was smart
enough to quit. He was replaced by Russell Levine. We also added Priscilla
DiDonato to fatten the live vocals because we had done a lot of vocal
overdubs on the album that we couldn't reproduce with the original five
members. We began our tour to coincide with the release of the first album,
January 6, 1968. Before we recorded the second album, Priscilla was replaced
by Caryl Lee Britt [misspelled ‘Carol’ by Lorber in the Behold and See liner
notes]. Right after that I replaced Geoff with Jimmy Thompson [a former
member of the Boston power trio Butter]. Then Jeff ["Skunk"] Baxter [later a
member of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers] replaced Jimmy. And I replaced
Richard with Mike Levine. A couple of months after the second album was
completed, I fired myself - August or September of 1968, if memory serves.
PT: Was Steve Cataldo in the Underground
Cinema?
IB-D: Steve Cataldo was involved in my
very first effort to put a band together on Cape Cod [Massachusetts] in
1966. I didn't really know how to run a band. It fell apart quickly. This
may have been the Underground Cinema, but it had nothing to do with the
band that devolved into Spinach. The personnel on the first Spinach album
are the same people who were in the Underground Cinema.
PT: On the New England Teen Scene
Unreleased compilation CD [Arf! Arf! AA-060, 1996], there are three
demos credited to Underground Cinema, featuring you and Skip Tull.
IB-D: That's not the Underground Cinema.
PT: Who was Skip Tull?
IB-D: He was a would-be musician I met at
one of the open mikes at the Unicorn Coffee House [in Boston] before I
formed the Underground Cinema. I think he may have been a rich kid who
enjoyed hanging around crazy musicians like me. I barely remember doing
demos with him. He either paid for them or worked some sort of deal for the
studio time. We drifted apart soon after that.
PT: Was Steve Cataldo or Richie Bartlett
involved in the Skip Tull sessions?
IB-D: No. Tull came up after my first
abortive attempt to start the Underground Cinema, which included Cataldo. I
don't know why Richie Bartlett's name keeps coming up. I don't think I ever
met him. [Note: Bartlett and Cataldo were mentioned as possible early
members of the Underground Cinema and Ultimate Spinach in the liner notes to
New England Teen Scene Unreleased - GB.]
PT: Why was the name changed to Ultimate
Spinach?
IB-D: When Amphion Management picked us up
and Alan Lorber agreed to produce us, I changed the name for "luck" - after
ingesting some LSD, painting myself with a green Magic Marker, staring at
the results in a mirror, and exclaiming "Whoa, that's Ultimate Spinach!
Ultimate Spinach is me!" I liked the sound of the words, so I decided to use
it.
PT: How was Ultimate Spinach "discovered"?
IB-D: We played at the Unicorn six nights
a week, plus a matinee on Sundays, for $60 each. We'd been hired on the spot
after doing a Monday night open mike hosted by Dick Summer, a dj at [Boston
radio station] WBZ. We left the audience yelling for encores and throwing
flowers on the stage after we did "Hip Death Goddess" or "Mind Flowers." One
of the waitresses told her ex-husband about us. That was David Jenks. He was
a fine graphic artist who did the cover of Behold & See. He and Ray
Paret were just forming Amphion and looking for acts to manage. Ray was
student entertainment director at MIT [the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, in Cambridge]. They came to hear us and immediately wanted us to
do a demo for them to shop. Ray came from a rich family and got all his rich
friends to invest in Amphion so he could buy studio time and get us real
equipment. I didn't really take them seriously, especially when Ray told me
we'd have a record deal before the end of the year. But they were attentive
and helpful, so I let them do their thing. I guess Lorber was a family
friend or something.
PT: What was it like to work with Alan
Lorber?
IB-D: He was a fledgling producer, way out
of his element dealing with a madman like me. He was coming from a
background as an arranger for people like Paul Anka and some of those
horrible sides where they took perfectly good soul singers, laid on heavy
doses of strings, and made them acceptable to white folks. So his whole
background was very stylized and greatly removed from the psychedelic
experience that was beginning to permeate the music. I remember him as a bit
of a cold fish. I was a second-string John Lennon type back then and would
frequently play the clown. I never got the guy to crack more than a smile.
Never shared a meal, a drink, or a joint with him. Here was a man who was
intimately involved with my music, yet he never visited my home. I was only
at his apartment once for five minutes. He always wore suits and ties. When
he first came to hear us at the Unicorn, we sat and talked afterwards. I
could have sworn that he told me that I'd be involved with the album from
start to finish. Yet, when we were done recording, he basically dismissed me
and mixed it as he saw fit.
PT: I've always liked the Ultimate Spinach
albums.
IB-D: There's no accounting for one's
taste, is there? Unfortunately, I outgrew the music almost as fast as I
wrote it, and I really hated the wimpy production. In fairness, I will say
that the CD reissues do sound much punchier, and closer to my original
vision, than the originals. I'm still not too happy with the bulk of my
writing. Some things never change, I guess.
PT: What do you think about the
alterations to Behold & See in the CD reissues?
IB-D: Well, I have always thought that
"The Creative Genius" [Alan Lorber] is totally arrogant in claiming that he
has some special insight into how my songs were supposed to sound. How the
hell would he know? He never was interested in my vision of these songs.
With all the grace and style of a bull in a china shop, he slapped those
albums together - both the originals and the reissues - and marketed the
hell out of them with no regard for artistic creativity or integrity, just
maximum profit: his! He has never sought out my input on any of these
reissues. In fact, I only discovered that they had been released by
accident. Certainly not from him. I suspect that he was very disappointed to
discover that I'm not dead!
PT: Surely you don't mean that literally.
IB-D: Yes, actually, I do. There are still
a lot of questions about his business dealings with me that need answering -
questions that would likely never get asked if I were incorporeal.
PT: There is now a Very Best of
Ultimate Spinach compilation CD and a three-CD Ultimate Spinach box set.
Also two Bosstown compilations on which Ultimate Spinach appears. Have you
seen all those? Any comments about them?
IB-D: How many ways can one keep
rereleasing those albums? What "The Creative Genius" lacks as a producer or
person of any creative vision, he certainly more than makes up for as a
totally exploitive, self-serving marketing genius. The only way another
release of those albums would have any legitimacy would be for him to let me
remix and remaster them. That's the only way the public will ever hear those
albums as I intended them. Who cares what he thinks they should sound like?
Frankly, I would warn everyone not to buy these re-reissues. I consider them
nothing more than a scam for profit.
I'd be embarrassed to tell you what kind
of royalty checks I've received. Even though I wrote all those songs and
thought up the band's name, he owns it all. When Bryna [Golden] from the
Babylonian Tiles started using the name "Hip Death Goddess" as her alter-ego
stage persona - with my blessing, incidentally - he totally freaked and
threatened the poor woman with all kinds of legal horrors if she continued
doing so. Which is when he suddenly trademarked "Hip Death Goddess"!
PT: Have you approached Lorber about
remixing and remastering the albums?
IB-D: No.
PT: Would you still be interested in doing
it at this point?
IB-D: Not unless I was paid properly, and
from my experience, I don't think that's very likely. He clutches everything
"Spinach" with the tenacity of a death grip.
PT: What were Lorber's contributions as
producer?
IB-D: As I've learned my producer's skills
over the years, I've come to realize that he really wasn't a very good
producer. I really hated the way the albums originally sounded. I literally
couldn't stand to listen to them for years after the fact. But [as I said]
he's a marketing genius. The fact that he took Spinach and Orpheus as far as
he did proves this. Neither band had anything exceptional going for it,
although Orpheus was certainly a much more polished and commercial affair.
Spinach was intended to sound gigantic: walls of amps and speakers. Even
though we weren't in the same league, I heard more of a fat, Jimi Hendrix
sound - really aggressive, punchy bass and drums. Instead we ended up with
this thin, mid-rangey bubblegum sound. [Lorber] did such a sloppy editing
job that there is at least one place (in "Mind Flowers") where you can hear
the splice point because the tempo and pitch are slightly different - even
in the CD reissues. We did have a wall of sound on stage. We had an
endorsement deal with Ampeg and got to use prototypes of the first
transistorized amps before they were on the market.
PT: What did Lorber contribute musically?
IB-D: He was certainly a better
sight-reader than I was. One of the few real production moves he did was to
totally rearrange "Pamela," including a bit of J.S. Bach at the beginning.
He tried to get me to sight-read it, but frankly I froze up. So he played
the right hand while I bumbled with the left. Actually, "Pamela" was the
only tune that got any real creative input from Lorber. I had written the
entire tune in the up-tempo rock beat of the middle sections. He insisted on
turning parts of it into the a cappella sections that ended up on the
recording. I could never decide whether I liked his ideas or not. One thing
that wasn't his fault - I really hated the sound of my voice. At least in
the last thirty years I've learned how to control it so that I can pretty
much sing whatever I'm inspired to.
PT: One of the criticisms of Ultimate
Spinach was that you started touring before you had polished your act by
gigging locally.
IB-D: That's inaccurate. We played
extensively for several months before we recorded the first album. The
problem was that we started our tour for the first album at the Fillmore in
San Francisco and didn't play well. Bill Graham called us the worst band
that ever played there. I agreed and said so to Graham.
PT: Why was it that you "fired yourself"
from the band?
IB-D: After the fact, I realized I had
given up all control of the band when I signed the various contracts. In
order to hire or fire, I needed permission of our managers, our producer,
his business manager, and one band member. The trick was getting that band
member's vote, because nobody really liked me and no one wanted to be
responsible for canning a fellow band member. When I quit, technically I had
to fire myself and get all those permissions. By that point everybody was
happy to see me leave, so no problem. Lorber kept me under contract for
several years after I quit. He released everybody else who quit or was
fired. Legally I wasn't allowed to perform or record without his
involvement. I did one demo for him, but he rejected it. I decided to sit
out the contracts rather than give him more control over me.
PT: You're very hard on Lorber, but in his
liner notes to the CD reissues he's complimentary toward you. Do you have
anything good to say about him?
IB-D: As I've already said, he's a very
poor, sloppy producer more interested in cranking that "product" out,
factory-style, than in setting any production standards. At least, that's
how it was with the Spinach sessions. As a self-serving promoter and
marketer, however, he's a genius.
PT: What do you remember about the members
of Ultimate Spinach?
IB-D: Richard Nese and Geoff Winthrop came
from Cape Cod. Barbara Hudson was an amazon - very tall, 18, fresh out of
high school. She was one of the more pleasant people in the band. If she
hated me as much as some of the others did, she at least kept it from me. I
met her once for coffee a couple of years later. She was still the same
pleasant individual and actually seemed glad to see me! Everybody in the
band was married except Barbara and me. Keith Lahteinen was from Hyannis
[Massachusetts]. That's him singing on "Dove in Hawk's Clothing." He
introduced me to Richard and Geoff. By the way, "Winthrop" wasn't Geoff's
real name. Can't remember what it was.
PT: In an old magazine article there is
the name Jeff Cahoon. Is that him?
IB-D: Yes. Both Jeff and Keith altered
their names. Keith's last name was actually Lahtien (not sure of the i and e
placement). Jeff was every bit as surly as he looked in our publicity
pictures. He and Richard were the primary bitchers in the original band. We
nearly came to blows on more than one occasion. They'd sit backstage at the
Unicorn between sets, sucking down the beers and sulking, brooding and
complaining. Keith had the good sense to quit after we finished the first
album and before we toured. I suspect he could see this wasn't going to be a
happy family. He was a hell of a nice guy with a good job as a surveyor and
a really lovely wife. The weasel I hired to replace him, Russ Levine, ended
up being one of the biggest snakes in the grass. He was another reason I
quit. He gave me a tab of what was supposed to be pure LSD. Later I heard he
had been bragging that he really gave me LSD laced with strychnine to try to
short-circuit me! Very nice. I think he's now a network executive in Los
Angeles. When we added Jeff Baxter, he and Levine became fast friends. Jeff
used to brag how he'd tried to "accidentally" brain me with his guitar when
we played in Miami.
PT: Those are serious charges. How sure
are you about them?
IB-D: As sure as I am that I'm sitting
here answering your questions.
PT: Do you remember who told you? Was it
more than one source, or only one?
IB-D: Multiple and varied sources,
actually. Evidently the two of them had become great buddies and were
bragging to anyone within earshot.
PT: Did you ever talk about it with Levine
and Baxter?
IB-D: No, but I'd sure love to! Nothing
would please me more than to have the opportunity to "thank" each of them
for the wonderful experiences I shared with them.
PT: Why didn't the band members get along
better?
IB-D: Besides being terribly naïve, I was
also inept as a bandleader. I didn't understand the concept of auditions. I
picked most of the band members because they were friends of a mutual
acquaintance and played an instrument. The only person I heard before the
fact was Barbara, because she attended the same open mikes at the Unicorn
that I did. Besides that, I was terrible at organizing and running the band.
I wanted to write the songs and direct the arrangements, but I also wanted
us all to be friends. So I was very weak about exerting control. I let a lot
of bad playing slip by, including my own. Spinach gave me a lot to ponder.
Eventually I turned into a pretty good bandleader. I ran my later bands
firmly and took responsibility for my decisions. I found good players who
were motivated by satisfaction rather than pay-by-the-note. Wonder of
wonders, we all became good friends. We genuinely liked and respected each
other.
PT: Did Ultimate Spinach do any covers?
IB-D: No.
PT: Tell me about the covers of "Hip Death
Goddess."
IB-D: Two groups do covers of "Hip Death
Goddess" - the Babylonian Tiles and Lithium X-mas. The Tiles are a
goth-psych band from Los Angeles. [Their] version comes closest to the
original - except, frankly, I think it sounds better! Bryna Golden's vocal
is far superior to Barbara Hudson's and I only wish I had had Bryna's eerie
styling when I originally recorded it. Too bad this version probably won't
be released because of contract hassles with their former label [note: it's
available on the compilation Saints & Sorcerers Volume II, Saint
Thomas STP 0044, 1998; Bruce-Douglas wrote liner notes for the Tiles' album
Teknicolour Aftermath, Pangea OM2021, 2000 - GB]. Lithium X-mas did a
very different and more original version of the song, which I also like very
much [on their Helldorado CD, Direct Hit DH-011, 1993 - GB]. Even
though the chick singing lead sounds kinda snotty!
PT: Did you write "Hip Death Goddess"
especially for Barbara Hudson to sing?
IB-D: Absolutely not! In fact, I had
written it months before I even put the band together. Let me put it this
way: my vision of the Hip Death Goddess was a slinky, slim woman - quite
beautiful, although severe and bored-looking, wearing the latest
designer-label black evening dress. She would be the kind of creature who
used to frequent the psychedelic clubs, looking like a pale ghost in a black
sheath dress, the kind of female who could intimidate the average man with a
look that would leave him feeling quite insecure and unworthy. Poor Barbara,
while a nice enough person to deal with, was none of the above!
PT: You mentioned that Keith Lahteinen
sang lead on "Dove in Hawk's Clothing." Do any of the other males sing lead
on anything, or is that always you?
IB-D: Jeff [Cahoon/Winthrop] and Barbara
sang harmonies on my lead vocals. I alone added extra vocal overdubs in the
studio, which was the reason I brought in another singer, to help make the
live versions sound more like the recordings. No one else sang.
PT: Did you use any session musicians on
the records?
IB-D: No, we didn't use any outside
musicians.
PT: What are your favorite Ultimate
Spinach songs?
IB-D: Generally I liked the second album
better, even if I wrote a bunch of it in the studio between takes. On the
first album, I think "Hip Death Goddess" and "Your Head Is Reeling" are the
purest and least derivative. I also liked the two instrumentals ["Sacrifice
of the Moon" and "Baroque #1"]. On the second album, "Fragmentary March of
Green" and, again, the instrumental parts were OK.
PT: Was the second album written after the
first?
IB-D: Yes. Except for "Mind Flowers," all
the second album material was written after the first album.
PT: You used the word "derivative." That
was the same word used by some reviewers to criticise Ultimate Spinach.
IB-D: To some degree my early music was
derivative, but not intentionally. Like all musicians, I was influenced by
other music. I hadn't really found my own voice yet. Were my lyrics and
liner notes pretentious? For many years, Jon Landau and other critics had me
believing that. But the recent interest in me and those albums has caused me
to reevaluate things, and the answer is an unequivocal no. My lyrics were
the direct result of my experiments with psychedelics and psychotropic
plants. The experience was overwhelming and profound. It forever altered my
perceptions. My words were all sincere and heartfelt. Essentially, I bared
my soul and spirit. I tried to reach out and touch others who might have
experienced similar things. According to most of the mail from my listeners,
I succeeded. If anyone was pretentious, it was Landau and his ilk. How could
someone like him possibly understand or relate to my experiences? The fact
that he could write what he did only proves he was an ignorant young man
pretending he knew what was going on.
PT: Lorber mentions in his liner notes
that you were influenced by Kenneth Patchen, and the first LP was dedicated
to Patchen and Dick Summer. Was Patchen a significant influence?
IB-D: Here's another example of the
arrogance of this self-proclaimed "Creative Genius." What the hell would he
know about my influences? It's not like we ever hung out and had any kind of
real conversation. Was Patchen an influence on me? Not really. What he was,
was a dear man I became "pen pals" with, via his wife Miriam. Someone had
turned me on to his poetry several years before I started Spinach. I was so
moved by it that I was compelled to write him a letter. I never expected to
hear back from him and had written the letter more to get it out of my
system than anything else. I just don't write "fan letters." I've only ever
written Patchen and Andrew Wyeth, the painter - who also replied. Several
months after writing Patchen, I was surprised to receive a letter from
Miriam. I didn't know that poor Kenneth had been rendered paraplegic by a
botched surgery. He went through excruciating pain whenever he picked up a
pen. So, Miriam had taken to writing what he dictated, most of the time.
Evidently, my letter to him touched them as much as his poetry had touched
me, and we began a long correspondence. I never met them in person, although
we did speak on the phone a few times. The most touching thing I remember
about the Patchens was when I wrote to tell them I was getting ready to
marry my first wife - the "Pamela" on the first album. In a previous letter,
I had expressed an interest in reading one of his novels, which were very
hard to find. After my marriage announcement, I got a package from them -
Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer, which was very nice. The best part was
when I opened it, because Kenneth had inscribed it to me in his own hand,
which was very distinctive. I was touched by this gesture, especially
knowing the pain that [it] must have caused him. Miriam told me he refused
to take painkillers because he didn't want to dull his creative mind. In
describing this to you, I'm having second thoughts. Yes, maybe Kenneth - and
Miriam - Patchen influenced me more than I realized!
PT:
Did you borrow the Erik Satie figure in "Baroque #1" from "The Masked
Marauder," by Country Joe and the Fish?
IB-D: The funny thing is that I wasn't
influenced by Country Joe, even though I can see why people would think so.
I wrote "Baroque #1" before I even heard of that band. I think the truth is
that Joe McDonald and I both derived our idea from listening to Satie's
Gymnopédies. But I consider much of the Spinach music to be derivative
of the music I liked. Listening to it years later, I certainly hear those
influences. Also, I had been experimenting with the same psychotropic
substances as a lot of other folks. I think the psychedelic commonality was
in trying to reproduce that overpowering, immense roar that was part of the
experience. Which is why God invented Marshall amps.
PT: You guys never released a single. Why
not?
IB-D: Lorber definitely wanted to release
a single - "Funny Freak Parade" or "Plastic Raincoats," I think. I just kept
fighting this because he wanted to market us as G-rated psychedelic
bubblegum. I was more interested in projecting the dark side of the hippie
movement. I really pissed Lorber and MGM off when we were on The Pat
Boone Show. I wanted to do "Your Head Is Reeling" and raised hell until
they allowed us to do that instead of "Freak Parade" or "Plastic Raincoats."
Ol' Pat has been carrying on bland conversations with Moms Mabley and some
squeaky-clean actress and out we come, looking like something from a bad
acid trip and start singing these dark lyrics with feedback guitars. Lorber
never said anything to me about it, but his business manager - I think his
name was Ed Abramson - got in my face a month later. That was the first
reason I decided to quit the band.
PT: Were you close with the other "Bosstown"
bands?
IB-D: I'll be honest with you. Except for
hearing Orpheus's single because it was getting local airplay, I've never
heard much of the music from the other bands. The more the whole mess turned
into an utter miasma, the more I insulated myself from external input. I do
remember feeling that the Spinach albums had to be the worst of the lot. But
then I was too personally involved to be more objective. Orpheus was the
only Boston band we shared a stage with, and that was only once or twice in
Boston, never on tour. Before we were "discovered," as the Underground
Cinema, we spent the summer of '67 as the main house band at the Unicorn,
along with the J. Geils [Blues] Band, the Ill Wind, and Streetchoir. We also
opened for name acts playing the Boston Tea Party.
PT: How did the whole Bosstown debacle
affect you?
IB-D: The thing that really hurt was the
sense of betrayal I felt from the public. Even before we were signed to do
that first album, we were already well-received in Boston. Those were
encouraging times, and that continued after the first album was released.
After the album hit the charts we started to get negative publicity. Things
really hit the fan when Landau decided to "expose" the so-called "Bosstown
Sound" - and, of course, Spinach. His article was thoughtless. He provoked a
mindless mob reaction against us. Suddenly we were no longer loved. People
thought we were in on the hype. That's when Landau called my music
derivative and pretentious. The mob took up that cry. I survived, of course,
but the whole thing left me unwilling to put myself in that line of fire
again. What angered and hurt me most was that this fool Landau never once
attempted to communicate with me to find out how I felt about things. If he
had, I'd like to think he might have been a whole lot fairer to the bands.
We were the real victims of the charade. He made a rush to judgment. To this
day I denounce him for this. He hurt a lot of people.
PT: How did you feel about the version of
Ultimate Spinach that carried on after you left?
IB-D: Ted [Myers] was pleasant enough,
although I must admit that I found his girlfriend a whole lot more
interesting! I did find it funnier than hell that Lorber tried to plug the
leak of my quitting by bringing Ted and Tony Scheuren in. Let's face it -
Ultimate Spinach was my personal vision, even if ultimately it became my
personal Frankenstein's monster!
PT: Ted told me that Tony died a couple of
years ago.
IB-D: I'm sorry to hear that. He was
always a very pleasant, unassuming, low-key guy. He was originally one of
our roadies and one of the few people I didn't have conflict with in the
Spinach organization.
PT: What did you do after Ultimate
Spinach?
IB-D: I tried to quit music. I've worked
on a lot of blue-collar jobs: floor washer, taxi driver, construction,
warehouseman, long-haul truck driver. I also spent some time as a mercenary
shortly after I quit Spinach, until I was shot and almost bled to death.
PT: A mercenary? Really? From your songs I
get the impression of a pacifist.
IB-D: I tried being a pacifist for awhile,
but it never really took. I accept the world for the violent place it is and
deal with it accordingly. Given a choice, I always prefer peace and
solitude, but I won't suffer bullies or predators. I've been against most of
the wars that have occurred during my [50+] years because most are about
politics and business, not moral issues. My reasons for becoming a mercenary
are very involved and personal. I will say that it was a necessary rite of
passage for me. My experiences were enriching in their way. Put in
shamanistic terms, I have suffered "the Little Death" and survived.
PT: How about musical ventures after
Ultimate Spinach?
IB-D: After Spinach, I dropped out of the
picture for about a year. When I dropped back in, I started the Ian
Bruce-Douglas Apocalypse, a power trio. I played organ and guitar. I'm proud
to say I overcame the hostility generated in the Rolling Stone smear.
We became very popular around Boston and did concerts in support of the
Black Panthers. After that came Copperhead [not the same as the John
Cippolina band - GB], which was my first horn band. This evolved into
Copperhead II, one of my better bands - four saxes, bass, drums, and me on
acoustic piano and electric guitar. A very satisfying experience - really
hot musicians who kept me on my toes. The music had a definite funk to it.
Then I spent some time gigging around with my bassist, Augustine Antoine,
from the Copperheads - basically doing "unplugged" originals. After this I
just gigged around as a side player in a bunch of bar bands. Then I moved to
New Orleans. My biggest deal there was Lord of Light, which went through
several incarnations. We were the house band at one of the nastiest clubs in
the city. The final version of that band wasn't very satisfying, and I got
tired of running a band. For awhile, I hired out as a musician. Then I got
disgusted with music, period. I spent the next couple of years working
blue-collar gigs.
In 1980, I moved to south Florida with the
idea of starting a lawn-care business, but there were already thousands in
the yellow pages. So I started giving private music lessons, which led to a
piano bar gig and becoming a full-tilt lounge lizard. I also put together a
number of commercial cover bands and graduated from clubs to private parties
- hated every moment of it. Some friends encouraged me to put together
another band. That was Bloodlust - me on piano, Randy Ball on guitar, Caryn
Beth Spring on bass, and sometimes Marilyn Ann Howman on synth. We couldn't
find the right drummer, so eventually I decided to program a Roland TR-808
for the drum parts. We had a spec deal with a studio to do an album, but
they went out of business and left us with three or four incomplete
recordings. That tore the band apart. [Note: Bloodlust released one 45 -
"Lonely No More"/ "Song for the Dead and Dying," Intergalactic Bicycle-Demon
ibd 111, 1986, with picture sleeve - GB.] After licking my wounds, I put
together a full-fledged MIDI trio - Azlbrax - with Caryn Beth Spring on bass
and vocoder trigger and Dona Maggio (then later Debra McKinnon) on synth. I
played synths, sang, and programmed everything else. The sound was
intentionally huge and bombastic. Almost more symphonic but set to rock/funk
rhythms.
PT: What does the name Azlbrax mean?
IB-D: When we were in Bloodlust, I used to
use the expression "fire, brimstone, and azlbrax." Caryn suggested Azlbrax
as the name for the new band.
PT: What have you been doing since
Azlbrax?
IB-D: I took a couple of years off and
didn't play at all. Lately I've begun to write a lot again, in a minimalist
style. Caryn has begun learning the stuff. In the near future I'll begin
building a new band. As soon as I finish remodeling my studio and upgrading
my recording system to HDD-based, I plan to start work on three different
albums: acoustic guitar-based songs, band-oriented songs, and an
instrumental album. I may even record a symphonic work. I'm open to go
wherever the Spirit leads me.
PT: On your website you mentioned that you
were thinking about an anthology to be called Ian Bruce-Douglas: The
Post-Spinach Years. Is there any news on that, or on the possibility of
the Azlbrax cassette being reissued on CD?
IB-D: Unfortunately, my website
<www.ultimate-ian-spinach.com> is overdue for a major updating. I hope to
make some major changes there shortly, after I reregister my domain name.
It's coming due, and I could just about imagine "The Creative Genius"
waiting impatiently to try and scoop that up too! As for any forthcoming
recording projects, that's kind of a tough one to answer. Frankly, I'm not
really sure I want to release my stuff to the public anymore. While I'm very
gratified by all the e-mails I've been getting from all over the world, I've
been disappointed that the only thing anyone seems interested in is Spinach.
I've posted some sound-clips of a few of
the kinds of things I'm writing these days. I've gotten very little
feedback, positive or negative, about any of this - stuff I consider so far
superior to anything I wrote for Spinach that it's not even in the same
universe. So, if the public isn't interested in the really good music I've
been composing, why should I bother releasing it? I'm still pondering all
this, of course, but at the moment I'm more inclined to record my stuff and
just archive it. With a little luck, in another 20 to 30 years someone else
will "rediscover" my music. I will become another Famous Dead Artist, and
those archived recordings can be released then. Kind of an estate for my
heirs, if you will. If I release anything at all, I would be more likely to
release some of my instrumental stuff.
PT: What reactions have you gotten to your
website? How did the voting turn out for favorite Ultimate Spinach songs?
IB-D: My site has been online less than
two years [as of December 2001] and I just passed the 3,000 visitors mark.
Which means that I've been averaging a steady three or four visitors daily.
Not bad for a minor, mostly forgotten cult icon! The feedback has been very
supportive. As for the song votes, unfortunately I lost several hundred of
them when the PC they were stored on crashed. However, I know that "Hip
Death Goddess" is probably #1. "Mind Flowers" and "Your Head Is Reeling"
have also received a lot of votes. So has "Pamela," which kinda surprises
me. Otherwise, it's been the instrumentals on the second album that get a
lot of votes ["Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse" and part 3 of "Suite:
Genesis Of Beauty"]. One thing that was very cool and pleasing to me was
that one person voted for a couple of the sound-clips from the Azlbrax album
- "Song for the Dead and Dying" and "Spider Chant." I suspect that was
someone I know just trying to cheer me up. Well, it did!
PT: Any final thoughts about your place in
musical history?
IB-D: For whatever reason, the Spinach
albums did a lot better on the charts than any of the other Boston bands,
even Orpheus. In that sense, we were the most successful of those bands. But
as far as Spinach goes, I doubt that anybody could be more critical of it
than I am. That's why I'm pleasantly shocked to find that there's still
interest in that music and its creator. I've written a handful of songs that
I'm really proud of. I guess my biggest fear has always been that I'd die
without the world ever hearing this stuff, and I'd be stuck with nothing
more in my musical epitaph than "creator and songwriter for Ultimate
Spinach."
I'm just not the stuff a real "star" is
made of. I may be intense, but I'm not really on an "Ego Trip." By the way,
did you know I coined that phrase back in 1967? I really don't remember it
existing before I used it as a song title. My contribution to
twentieth-century culture!
Ian Bruce-Douglas was interviewed by:
Gary Burns. Feature written and directed by Phil McMullen. Artwork: Iker
Spozio © Ptolemaic Terrascope, 2001