Caroliner
Encyclopedia
Caroliner, a group formed in 1983 in San Francisco, is an industrial
bluegrass
–experimental
–Noise
conceptual art
band that utilizes instruments from bluegrass and rock traditions, as well as homemade electronics and other modified instruments. In their live performances, band members play characters in an other-worldly pageantry, wearing elaborate homemade costumes and performing on a stage decorated with drawings and set pieces, all covered in day-glo
paint. The band has toured Europe, Japan, and North America.
When referring to the band as a whole, the Caroliner name stands alone (rather than the oft-used 'Caroliner Rainbow').
Alex Ross
of The New Yorker
noted:
In May, 2011, the band received notice on the Fox network cable program "Red Eye," where the host, Greg Gutfeld, lauded the group's work (between 9 and 13 minutes into the clip cited), calling it "brilliant" and "violently obscure."
Studio Albums
7" Singles
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
–experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
–Noise
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
band that utilizes instruments from bluegrass and rock traditions, as well as homemade electronics and other modified instruments. In their live performances, band members play characters in an other-worldly pageantry, wearing elaborate homemade costumes and performing on a stage decorated with drawings and set pieces, all covered in day-glo
Blacklight paint
Blacklight ink or blacklight-reactive Ink is ink that glows under a black light, a source of light whose wavelengths are primarily in the ultraviolet. The paint may or may not be colorful under ordinary light...
paint. The band has toured Europe, Japan, and North America.
Band Membership
Caroliner's members are, for all public intents and purposes, anonymous. The band itself has never officially disclosed any of its identities. Instead, nonsensical aliases are used, like Obsidian Skeleton, The Sickwood Adventure, and Cottypearile Weddingforke. The aliases are only used during interviews with the band; no credits appear on any Caroliner records.Band Name
The Caroliner band name changes from album to album, and tour to tour. For instance, the band's name on their 1986 album I'm Armed With Quarts of Blood is Caroliner Rainbow Stewed Angel Skins, whereas on 1995's Sell Heal Holler the band is called Caroliner Rainbow Customary Relaxation Of The Shale. The reason for this is unknown but could be connected to personnel changes within the band.When referring to the band as a whole, the Caroliner name stands alone (rather than the oft-used 'Caroliner Rainbow').
Press
Jamie Rake, in Sound Choice, described Caroliner's music as follows:- "Caroliner is the sound of atrophy, the noise of salvation and damnation's collision in a parallel dimension to purgatory, the random rumbling of the bowels of the universe turned inside out to become a semblance of music complete with lyrical vantage points so convolutedly arcane to make comprehending them impossible, save for the few gnostically inclined aspirants bent in similar psychic permutations."
Alex Ross
Alex Ross (New Yorker critic)
Alex Ross is an American music critic. He has been on the staff of The New Yorker magazine since 1996 and published a critically acclaimed book on 20th-century classical music in 2007, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century....
of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
noted:
- "On top of the visual extravagance, Caroliner has somehow forged an original musical style. The songs typically fuse together a grinding, relentless bass line, country-ish banjoBanjoIn the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
strummings, spastic vocals ranging across several octaves, a wheezing organ drone, and screeching violin tremoloTremoloTremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...
s. Despite the splintered aesthetic, a lumbering grandeur gathers ...... Space does not permit a description of the lyrics, which purport to interpret the prophecies of a 19th-century Wisconsin cow."
In May, 2011, the band received notice on the Fox network cable program "Red Eye," where the host, Greg Gutfeld, lauded the group's work (between 9 and 13 minutes into the clip cited), calling it "brilliant" and "violently obscure."
Discography
All of Caroliner's album covers to date are hand-assembled, rather than being professionally printed. The covers usually feature drawings of various sizes, glued onto the record sleeve, or whatever is used as a make-shift cover. Cover materials vary (even different copies of the same album are quite different), but have included fabric, diaper disposal bags, old record sleeves (spray-painted beyond recognition) and pizza boxes.Studio Albums
- (1985) Caroliner Rainbow Hernia Milk Queen - "Rear End Hernia Puppet Show" (Subterranean Records)
- (1986) Caroliner Rainbow Stewed Angel Skins - "I'm Armed With Quarts of Blood" (Subterranean Records)
- (1991) Caroliner Rainbow Open Wound Chorale - "Rise of the Common Woodpile" (Nuf Sed)
- (1992) Caroliner Rainbow Susans and Bruisins - "The Cooking Stove Beast" (Nuf Sed)
- (1992) Caroliner Rainbow Wire Thin Sheep Legs Baking Exhibit - "Strike Them Hard - Drag Them to Church" (Nuf Sed)
- (1992) Caroliner Rainbow Fingers of the Underworld & Their Unbreakable Bones - "The Sabre Waving Saracen Wall" (Nuf Sed)
- (1994) Caroliner Rainbow Scrambled Egg Taken For a Wife - "Banknotes, Dreams and Signatures" (Nuf Sed)
- (1994) Caroliner Rainbow Grace Blocks Used in the Placement of the Personality - "Rings on the Awkward Shadow" [double LP] (BullsHit)
- (1995) Caroliner Rainbow Customary Relaxation of the Shale - "Sell Heal Holler" (BullsHit)
- (1996) Caroliner Singing Bull of The 1800 Memorial Band "Our American Heritage, Vol. 1"' [live recordings] (BullsHit)
- (1998) Caroliner Rainbow Stand Still or Fight Beans and Sunstroke - "Lower Intestinal Clocks b/w Gut" (7" as a 12") (BullsHit)
- (1999) Caroliner -"Toodoos" (BullsHit)
- (2003) Caroliner Rainbow Brain Tool Imbued With Rust And Mold - "Wine Can't Do It, Wife Won't Do!"[double LP] (BullsHit)
- (2004) Caroliner - "An 1800's Affectuant In Instrumental Revue" (BullsHit)
- (2005) Caroliner Rainbow Solid Handshake & Loose 2 Pins "Transcontinental Pinecone Collector" (BullsHit)
- (2007) Caroliner Rainbow Snake Tailed Waxwalker / Caroliner Rainbow Cannon And Church Mister "Smoke Tour For Lunation" (7"as a 12"/Woodpatty Chickenclimber) (BullsHit)
7" Singles
- (1993) Caroliner - "Bead Trail to Jardunne" b/w "The Cooking Stove Beast" (Nuf Sed)
- (1993) Caroliner - "Legs Go, Mind Goes, Lungs Go" b/w "The Ballad of Hamdrags" (live) / River Wearing Children Limbs" (instrumental) (Vertical Records)
- (1994) (split) Caroliner Rainbow Tongue On The Fingermill of the Paste Demon - "Wrap Your Rattler, Bring Your Coat" or "The Bringing of Electricity to Monclova County" b/w Eeyore Ass Guzzler (a.k.a. Eeyore Power ToolEerie MaterialsEerie Materials was an independent record label started in the early 1990s, first based in Richmond, Virginia and later in San Francisco, California.- History :...
) - "Broken Fence of the Battered and Buried" - (1995)) (split) Caroliner / CulturcideCulturcideCulturcide was a Houston-based experimental punk band, active from 1980 to 1990 and from 1993 to the present day. They were notorious for their 1986 album Tacky Souvenirs of Pre-Revolutionary America, which earned the band a cult following, but also several legal threats.-Members:Perry Webb ; Jim...
(BirdmanBirdman RecordsBirdman Records is an independent record label based in South San Francisco, founded by former Warner Bros. Records A&R vice-president David Katznelson.-History:...
) - (199?) (split) Caroliner Rainbow Gumcuppers - "Fixing and Mixing Cracked Skulls" b/w Commode Minstrels in Bullface - "Theme From the Destruction of the Turd Man" (P Tapes)