CHRISTOPHER on
Metromedia
Below is a stream of
consciousness recollection of the Christopher days as told by their bass
player, Doug Walden. Doug (guy in the middle on the LP cover) is not only a
cool guy but also fortunate enough to having seen the 13th Floor Elevators
live on several occasions.
CHRISTOPER IN L.A & ELSEWHERE we (christopher)played gazarri's on the strip for about a month, played a little concert in el monte, backed up three dog nite in an armory in vegas, played with taj mahall in san antomio on the way back to texas.. got our shit "together" at love street. we were out of houston. me and the guitar player are all thats left of the band(richard avitts) and he doesn't have the same memories of the band that i do.. of course, he has small children and is a caretaker in a church and tunes piano for a livin, and i'm still tryin to play the blues and such...i ran into the guitar player a couple of years back when roger maglio of gearfab was about to re-release the album.. RECORD CONTRACT & RECORDING as far as beautiful lady goes, it's the song that got the recording contract.. the guy from metromedia heard it and thought it had promise.. before, all the groups material was done in the jam mode.. three pieces gave us a lot of flexibility.. bass held down the progression, guitar sailing over the top of vocals and doug tulls drums rock solid in the back.. sorry to say, we let doug tull go, cause of his inability to drum in any thing but 4/4.. we were experimenting in a lot of time changes... we didn't have any songs written, but with a three piece band, we had a lot of room for improvisation... when we found a groove, the singin would start... every song was different and was never sung the same way twice, till we got in the studio.. SLEEVE PHOTO & BIKER LOOK oh yeah.. the sleeve design.. good call.. it was taken at the headquarters of the barons of earth( a motorcycle gang we had ties with). the round room was the opening scene in peter fonda's "the trip".. we played a lot of biker parties..they had this stuff they called barons punch, which consisted of everyone dropping their stash in a sparkletts water bottle and we'd drink from it all nite.. the acid and assorted drugs got a little crusty in the bottom,hehe i think the angel dust finally got to doug tull, as he first tryed to commit suicide in the middle of us doin the album.. he finally made it back in texas DRUGS in response to the acid question, the first i ever did was supposedly from sandoz labs, the most we ever did(was from cal, thru las vegas) was mini barrels.. little fat pills.. we'd cut em in half and sell em as 4 hit tabs..(but the band(united gas/christopher, with me , doug tull((of josephus)) and richard avitts )would take from 1 to 10 barrels and go out and play. MORE DRUGS & MORE ALBUM COVER & HANGING OUT WITH ROKY i've done butt loads of acid, but the only three day trip(from one tab) was stp..but who knows.. didn't you read the warning labels? my last acid hits was forever recorded on the christopher album cover... the cover pic's were taken at the san souci temple of love and immortality ( the san souci arms. in the phone book, but it was captured by the "barons" of earth, a mc gang in la...) it was vacant and they ran power and water to it and called it their own) we took the promo shots and the album pics there.. i lived off olympic next to a power station.. on acid you could feel the electricity in the air.. i kept beggin my wife to make the sun go down, please.. al lot of years searching for the door, and for the last 10 or so trips, knocking at the door, and hopeing no one would answer, if you know what i mean... traded psychedelics for pcp.. which was my favorite for a long time... reminded me of the trip in austin, when roky said.. oh look, here come the giant spiders, and walked on like they were supposed to be there, and were on time for the party.. ah yes.. the good ol bad ol days.. some time i'll share the really weird pcp trips.. more religious undertones than anything i ever experienced.. EVEN MORE DRUGS did i ever remember things before they happened? no.. not on drugs.. although, when trying to quit drugs, i had deja vu flashes all day long for about 4 months.. was workin for allied van lines moving the shell oil co. into new buildings in houston... you cant imagine how many shell signs have had the letter "S" drop off... what a bad year that was...i put my bass guitar(a 1957 jazz bass, with a dragon carved in it and the frets cut off by barney kessel in la.) in the closet for a year.. i thought it was an instrument of the devil.. my bro and my old road manager, george maxie(later worked for zz) brought me an ounce of mescaline.. a couple of hits and i was feeling better almost immediately, and headed off to play the "devils music" again....i showed you mine, now you show me yours..i am not an advocate for drug use of any kind.. for all the insights and bliss, there was an equal amount of hell to offset it.. woke up in a soho dorrway, a policeman Knew my name .. he said," you can go sleep at home tonite, if you can get up and walk away... ... i remember throwin punches around, and preachin from my chair.... TV APPEARANCE how does one go about tracking down footage of the larry kane show? christopher did an appearance on the show (or some "teen" show) in houston in about 70 or 71 i think!
© Lama
Sivart Doz 2002