Walls Of Genius Scrapbook on one big page
1. cover—the bumper sticker came from “Warning”, an Alaskan zine that reviewed the cassette culture.
2. back cover—the bumper sticker came from Ned Ludd books, an environmental book distributor run by Dave Foreman of Earth First! It refers Joseph Malthus, whose experiments with too many rats in one cage gives us the dystopian adjective “Malthusian”.
3. inside cover liner—compiled February 1988—this is a cut-out face that I made. It’s very much like the ones I made for the Live Improvisations cassette cover-art.
4. Rumours of Marriage flyer, performance in Louisville, CO, April 3, 1982. We played a show in a record store. One of only two public performances. The other was at a Boulder party of Buddhists. Rumours of Marriage played on the back porch while a bunch of folks sat indoors listening to Pink Floyd.
5. Rumours of Marriage—from top left clockwise—Riann Thonesson, lead vocals (w/autumn trees behind); Ed Fowler (partying in drag with unidentified women at a telethon party); Stand In The Yard (the band that predated RoM, Mikal Bellan, Brad Carton and Ed Fowler); Mikal Bellan (w/black Les Paul); Mikel Bellan (“At Moss”). The list of songs was a set-list from Rumours of Marriage.
6. Publicity photo for Walls of Genius, taken in the back yard of the People’s House (Dena Zocher’s residence, Denver); from left to right, Ed Fowler, Dena Zocher, Evan Cantor, David Lichtenberg. The other photo is of a cut-out face that I had posted by my desk at work (Trust Company of America, Boulder, CO). Then there is some excerpted material from Johnny Rocco.
7. At the top is a cartoon of Natasha Brown, then a cartoon of Ed Fowler (“Not bad, evan”) beside a photograph of Natasha Brown. “Patti’s slip was showing” is a cartoon of Patti Young from the Trust Company of America. It is not an actual caricature, however. Photograph shows my musical set-up at the Eldorado Springs house (Spring-Summer 1983). At the bottom are four caricatures of Walls of Genius players, from left-to-right, Ed Fowler, Evan Cantor, David Lichtenberg and Dena Zocher. Dena’s caricature is less distinctive because at the time I drew this I had no photograph of Dena and had only seen her a few times, partying and jamming.
8. top photo is view of the road to Eldorado Springs, tucked in front of the canyon you see in the distance. There is a photo of Natasha Brown and a cartoon of Ed (spewing a musical note). A cover of the original Walls of Genius cassette is included.
9. Top photo is a promo photo of WoG, from left-to-right David Lichtenberg, Ed Fowler and Evan Cantor. The photo was taken in Ed’s apartment on Dahlia Street in Denver. The lower photo pre-dates Walls of Genius, taken at one of Ed Fowler and Glenn Swanson’s “Telethon Parties” (see Jerry Lewis poster in photo). From left to right, back row: unknown balding guy, Glenn Swanson, M.L. Swanson, Ed Fowler. front row: Bud Dent, unknown blond woman, Roger Boraas. There are also some cartoons of Ed Fowler and a few cut outs from cassette material.
10. Three photos of the inside of the Eldorado Springs house (where many of the early Walls Of Genius tapes were recorded), plus a sheet of photos of Evan Cantor taken in a photo booth. Note the making of funny faces.
11. Photos, from top left clockwise: Leonid Brezhnev eyes actress Jill St. John with Joel Haertling doppelgänger looking on (Joel Haertling, later of Architects Office). David Lichtenberg in Eldorado Springs house. Another view of the open space to the east of Eldorado Springs. Pot plants I tried to grow in the Eldorado Springs house (the cats eventually tore them up, so there was no harvest). Ed Fowler posing in Dena Zocher’s jumpsuit with basketball at one of the Telethon parties (pre-WoG).
12. cassette insert for Almost Groovy! plus a cassette cover for Cultural Sabotage and a photo of a Colorado welcome sign. Note the fabulous misspelling of the unattended vehicle sign photographed for Cultural Sabotage cover (Evan photographed this sign at an overlook in Canyon De Chelly National Monument, Arizona).
13. Photos: from top clockwise: David Lichtenberg hams it up for the camera; Ed Fowler’s painting of “The Flaming Jerks”; Dena Zocher studying some material intensely while a giant black balloon floats in background (pre-WoG, from Telethon Parties); A Telethon party pic (back row, unidentified guy, unidentified bearded guy, Marsha Wooley; front row, M.L. Swanson, Glenn Swanson, Ed Fowler, Dena Zocher); Marsha Wooley with some kind of pole stuck between her legs; Dena Zocher posing with Tony The Tiger (photo used for the cover of WoG 0011, The WoG Sampler!).
14. Photo of the Eldorado Springs house; spray-painted cassette labels for merchandise; flyer for “The Flaming Jerks” at the Brillig, 9/25/83. Cartoons, from left-to-right, are Evan, David, a drunken smiley-face, and Ed.
15. photo at top is likely the May 1, 1983 blizzard at my end of the dirt road in Eldorado Springs. I was flabbergasted by 2-feet of snow on May Day and called in to work to tell them I couldn’t get out because of the snow. I finally got the car out to the main road by mid-afternoon. The next day at work, my boss gave me holy hell about it. “You live in Colorado now!,” she hollered at me, “You can’t just not come to work because of snow!” The drawing labeled “Quadrofeonia” was made by Chris Norden. The cartoon of Fyodor with the legend “eat turds” is my drawing (Evan Cantor). The drawing “MAD world of Fyo” was made by Chris Norden. These cartoons came from “The Little Fiodore Chronicle, Man”. For whatever reason, I had drawn all these caricatures of Little Fyodor and Chris joined in the fun when he was visiting in Eldorado Springs that summer 1983. The Runaway Trucks flyer was for the performance at the Brillig on July 31, 1983.
16. The title of the chronicle was drawn by Chris Norden. “Color Me Red” is Evan’s caricature of Ed Fowler.
17. “The Mad Fyodor” is Evan’s caricature of Little Fyodor. The small “Fyodors” around the bottom were drawn by Chris Norden.
18. program from The Festival Of Pain, February 3, 1984. David Lichtenberg and Evan Cantor performed as “The Fabulous Pus-Tones”.
19. Westword, Feb 15, 1984, article about Festival of Pain. “Mt. St. Feodor’s” was drawn by Chris Norden.
20. Flyer for Festival of Pain. The Small Appliance Orchestra was an ad hoc band which included Wax Trax record store owner, Duane Davis. Wax Trax always supported the alternative scene in Denver. There was some friendly and some not-so-friendly competition between scenes in Denver and Boulder that reflected historical animosities between the two communities. David and I didn’t buy into this crap. When we heard about the Festival, we managed to get in at the very last minute, part of an effort to connect with alternative musicians in Denver. Evan Cantor brought his Sony 2-track to record the Festival, but the recordings were mostly ruined by Joel Haertling repeatedly whispering the words “Architects Office” into the microphones. One of our reels is marked “Neil Feather”, who was a participant in the Festival also. It is possible that this reel is a recording of Neil’s work at the Festival or live at KGNU radio.
21. “Wailing Walls of Genius” was a promotional advertisement drawn by Evan Cantor that was never used. For mostly obvious reasons… Below the cartoon is a photograph of David Lichtenberg on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. The photograph to his left is of Scott Childress, one of Evan’s co-workers at the Trust Company of America, also in Rocky Mountain National Park. The “You Die!” cartoon, drawn by Evan Cantor, is a caricature of Scott Childress. “Robinson Crusfyo” was drawn by Evan Cantor. The other small drawings in the middle bottom are David Lichtenberg’s work.
22. “Surfin’ Califyonia”, “Ah ain’t no Fyo head” and “Fy(wh)o” were drawn by Chris Norden. “Let Idiocy Reign” is a self-portrait by Evan Cantor and was used as the second page of the Cultural Sabotage cassette insert.
23. Fur Balls From Outer Space flyer for performance at the Brillig, June 3, 1984. The pictures of the surprised motorists came from a book I had called “Sportsmanlike Driving”. We had Hoffman & Johnson open for us. Evan had heard their “taxicab” comedy routine at the open stage at Pachamama’s Coffee House. Peter Johnson still lives in the area, has a long history in local theatre and also apparently worked with Firesign Theater folks.
24. upper left is a clipping from Westword, 5-30-84 announcing the Fur Balls From Outer Space performance. To the right of that is an advertisement for “the Brand of the Bozo”, which likely appeared in Option magazine. Bottom left is another advertisement featuring our release Crazed To The Core. Bottom right is a cartoon of Little Fyodor by Evan Cantor. Also appearing is a spray-painted cassette label for The Many Faces Of Mr. Morocco.
25. This is Helen Broderick’s poem “The Cowboy”, inspired by sexy radio talk on Davide Andrea’s KGNU radio show “Go For It”. This was a call-in radio program, a kind of free-expression free-for-all. Evan Cantor often called in using the voice of Roy Watkins from Mud Flats, Wyoming. “Roy” would rail against all the pinheads and assholes in the world, issue negative judgments regarding current musical styles and whatnot. Helen began calling the show, using the voice of “Veronica”, a ‘cowgirl’ who had a crush on Roy. This dialogue went on for some time and was far more satisfying sexually than when Helen and I actually got together to explore the physical manifestation of all our radio talk. The photograph shows some of my musical set-up in the Hall Of Genius and artwork on the wall, including the Hilton Sutton ‘Prophecy’ poster, which was so serious it was ridiculous, and some drawings by Leo Goya in the upper right.
26. a drawing by Evan Cantor on a napkin—this guy is throwing money away. It was never used, but survived the ages anyway.
27. Top photo is the Hall of Genius, 2473 20th Street, Boulder, Colorado.
Here is how the house appears now, in 2014.
Here is the floor plan.
The fellow in front of the Elvis poster is unidentified. The photo to his right is Andrew Brennan, who lived in the basement of the Hall of Genius for a time and would later be photographed as the “Son of Madness”. Andrew was a pianist who had written an entire sonata that he could play on demand. The Fyodor “fuck you!” cartoon was drawn by Evan Cantor.
Here is how the house appears now, in 2014.
Here is the floor plan.
The fellow in front of the Elvis poster is unidentified. The photo to his right is Andrew Brennan, who lived in the basement of the Hall of Genius for a time and would later be photographed as the “Son of Madness”. Andrew was a pianist who had written an entire sonata that he could play on demand. The Fyodor “fuck you!” cartoon was drawn by Evan Cantor.
28. Here we have three promo photos that were never used. Top left is Evan Cantor, top right is Ed Fowler and bottom pic is David “Little Fyodor” Lichtenberg.
29. Flyer for “the boulder independent poets” performance at the Brillig, April 19th, 1984. The special guest mystery poet was Carol LaMela from Ward, Colorado. The digs at Naropa had to do with Leo’s unsatisfactory experience with a poetry class there. The very famous beat poet Allen Ginsberg gave Leo a hard time both about his clothing and the non-commercial qualities of his poetry. Leo was also disgusted by the constant required meditation and dropped out of the class.
30. This is a rejection letter from Ralph Records. “We ain’t signin’ nobody right now.”
31. This is a rejection letter from Rough Trade Records. Steve Montgomery apparently enjoyed the tape we sent but thought us too literary for Rough Trade’s audience. The matchbook is a promotional item from “Objekt”, a west-coast zine published by the same folks as the band The Psyclones, Brian Ladd and Julie Frith.
32. Poem (or lyric sheet) of “March Of The Lost Wormsouls” by Evan Cantor.
33. “All His Millions” is a representative piece of paper with a proposed band name on it, this one taken from Dostoyevsky. “Dracula & His Victim” is artwork that appeared with the WoG song of the same name on the Objekt Compilaton. The list of addresses is just part of the material from that compilation. “Potato Patti” is a cartoon drawn by Evan Cantor.
34. Architects Office flyer for performance at Kakes Studios, March 6, 1984, made by Joel Haertling.
35. “Minus 180 see?” cartoon of Little Fyodor drawn by Evan Cantor. The flyer below was page 2 of a cassette insert for the later discontinued title The Guilt Vs. Time Money Complex. This is dated 1983.
36. Westword, 9-12-84, clipping about Crazed To The Core. The cover of our catalog “The Bane of The Buffoon” has a drawing by Evan Cantor. The list of tunes on the right is a j-card insert for WoG’s Embarassing Moments Cassette (sic, I didn’t know how to spell embarrassing. How embarrassing!).
37. A page from “The Bane” catalog. The text is derived from an early review of the Beatles, but we plugged in the name Walls of Genius.
38. Roy Watkins’ erotic poem for Helen (see #25). This was part of the sexy back-and-forth radio chat between “Roy” and “Veronica” on Davide Andrea’s Go-For-It program. The poem was written by Evan Cantor for his ‘avatar’ Roy Watkins.
39. Cartoon of Brad Carton by Evan Cantor. Lower left, Ed Fowler poses with Elvis Broncos portrait. Lower right is Frank Zygmunt, one of our earliest fans. Frank supplied us with items he found in dumpsters, most memorably the out-of-tune auto-harp used on some recordings and the huge plastic sheet that provided a nice whoo-whoo sound, featured a lot in the Miracle recordings. Frank is still around in Boulder, pursuing bio-diesel and other environmental concerns.
40. “Fyodor’s Mantra” is a cartoon drawn by Evan Cantor. As we were both frustrated horny young men, it could well have been my own mantra. The photograph shows the Dokorder and Teac mixer used to make the lion’s share of Walls of Genius recordings. This photo is from the Eldorado Springs house.
41. Cassette inserts and labels.
42. Photos by Evan Cantor—top left, Looking up the staircase to the KGNU radio studios with the ghostly building across Broadway reflected in the doorway’s glass. Top right, Vanzetti (Tom Marziale) who hosted a punk-rock show. Lower right, Vulture (Kevin) of the punk band Dead Silence. Vulture also put together the compilation cassette A Peace of Mind on which Evan’s WoG composition, “Ballad of a Patriot” (depicted in the reel to reel box slideshow as “Fuck You, Ronald Reagan”) appeared. Lower left, David Lichtenberg at the KGNU controls.
43. More photos by Evan Cantor—top left, Vanzetti’s friend “Sacco” of the Sacco & Vanzetti show. Top right, some punk-rockers at the radio station. Lower right is Riff Randall, who would perform with WoG on occasion. Lower left is Stacy Benedict, whose voice provides the narration on the WoG title “Letter To Dan Fogelberg”. The letters originated from a deluded woman who was writing to Fogelberg care of the Hotel Boulderado, where David worked as the night clerk. Fogelberg did not live at the historical hotel, so David just collected this series of amazingly delusional letters. We were impressed by both the absurdity and sincerity of them and later created the piece with Stacy reading the letters. She was the later inspiration for the title “I See Your Name In Menus”. Stacy had a radio show at KGNU.
44. Top left is a picture of Evan at Whiteoak Canyon Falls in 1979, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, that pre-dates WoG. The only reason this photo is in the scrapbook is because I put it there to show what I looked like in those days. The photo to the right is of Evan Cantor at the Hall of Genius, wearing the same sweater. Bottom is a j-card insert for The Mysterious Case of Pussy Lust and a Walls of Genius “authentic” sticker. We took the castoff sections of cassette labels, marked “authentic” on them and then affixed them to all of our cassette albums. For the Pussy Lust inserts, I had grabbed a huge catalog of swimsuits from the University of Colorado Recreation Center, my current employer. I cut out the pictures and glued them onto the inserts, so every single one of them was unique.
45. “Off Beat”, from Westword 3/26/84, clipping about Pussy Lust release. Top right is a j-card insert for Before… And After. Cover of the “The Gift Of The Geek” catalog. The swirly art may have been drawn by Leo Goya.
46. top right: Westword, 12/12/84, advertisement for Pearl Street Music Hall featuring Walls of Genius performance on 12/13/84. On left is a ticket to another show at Pearl Street Music Hall (1308 Pearl St, Denver) featuring Walls of Genius with Fish Music and the trees. Fish Music appeared with a giant fish tank full of dead and dying fish. They played for so long and so boringly that by the time headliners Walls of Genius took the stage at 1am, hardly anybody was left in the place. One of the remaining audience members was Jimi West from the Denver punk band the Roktots, who called out for “Magic Carpet Ride”. We hadn’t rehearsed it, but what the hell, I launched into it. Then Ed stopped and said, “That’s not how it goes”. Ah Hell!! So I launched into “Born To Be Wild”, a song we were more familiar with. There is also another advertisement for WoG on this page, which likely appeared in Option magazine. Also another j-card insert for Pussy Lust.
47. The story of “Pussy Lust” from the catalog, written by Evan Cantor.
48. “Hey Jocko, Let’s get blitzed”… this was a page from the TKE fraternity newsletter that Evan still received in those days. That’s where all our Ronald Reagan photographs came from also, since he was a TKE brother.
49. Poetic gems from Ed Fowler. Robin James’ Cassette Mythos invitation. A photo of David wearing a headband bearing the legend “Jock Itch”. Offbeat, in Westword 12/11/84 clipping about Before…And After release.
50. Promotional photos never used. A repeat of the photo of my musical stuff in the Hall of Genius.
51. Flyer for Walls of Genius and Zozobra at the Taste Of Denver (2217 Welton, Denver), Friday, October 11, 1984. The Taste Of Denver turned out to be a gay bar and the audience wasn’t expecting Walls of Genius strangeness. My memory is that we were received politely but not entirely enthusiastically. This show marked the first appearance of our final, and most “set”, lineup, with Timm Lenk on drums and Riff Randall (real name Randall Cunningham) on percussion. This event also marked the very first meeting of Little Fyodor and Babushka (Lauren Swain), who may have been the only person in attendance neither already a friend nor a bar regular. She came out because she thought “Walls Of Genius” sounded interesting. She danced to us for a bit, likely the only one to do so, and David thanked her as she was leaving. She later told David that she thought he was a lawyer who had gotten sick of it all.
52. J-card inserts for Wanna Beer? Also Westword clipping, 5/15/84, regarding Madness Lives compilation and the 4/20/84 riot at the Peace Concert at the bandshell in Boulder’s Central Park. Evan was at that concert and reports: The riot was precipitated by the Boulder police who came rolling in with riot gear and dogs to stop the concert at 6pm sharp. The punk band on stage requested that they be allowed to finish their set as they had gotten started late, but the police said “no”. Next thing you know, the police had the musicians in manacles and were carting them off the bandshell stage. Then, all hell broke loose. People were running willy-nilly in every direction as the police tried to gather up miscreants for arrest. As I was calmly watching this unfold, a police officer tapped me on the shoulder and said “you’re coming with me”, pointing to open beer bottles on the bleacher beside me. I probably did drink a beer. Whoo hoo. He had my drivers’ license in his hand when we heard a monumental screaming noise from Canyon Boulevard. We turned our heads and saw the rear axle falling off the back-end of a Winnebago which was racing down Canyon Boulevard with a shower of sparks flying behind it. The cop said “Shit!” and the kid standing in line next to me with a cooler of beer dropped the cooler and took off running. I couldn’t leave. The cop had my drivers’ license in his hand. He cited me for open bottle and then I went home. Many years later, when called for Jury Duty, the Assistant D.A. asked me if I had ever had a “very good or very bad experience with Boulder law enforcement.” I told this story and was not chosen to serve on a Boulder County grand jury. Whew!
53. J-card inserts for the release Live Improvisations; program for “Space Probe”, a live performance at the Brillig in May 1984. David takes credit for the name “Space Probe”. There is also a clip from Westword, April 3, 1984 about the “Sunday Associates” show at the Art Cinema in Boulder that featured performances by both Walls of Genius and Architects Office.
54. Flyer for Tidal Force 2 show, featuring Walls of Genius at Folsom Stadium, Room 173 (Boulder), May 3, 1985. Yes, we played the stadium, albeit underneath the bleachers in an interior room. This is the show that was so infamously videotaped. Doll Parts was Charlie Verrette's Boulder band that included Lynn Ablondi. Charlie was very proud that he had once played in a Boulder band called The Dancing Assholes. Both Charlie and Lynn, and possibly others from Doll Parts, participated in Architects Office. One of my reels is marked simply "C.V.", meaning Charlie Verrette.
55. Here are clippings from the WoG California excursion. One is from the LA Weekly advertising WoG’s June 2, 1985 show at the Anticlub in Los Angeles. The other is a San Francisco paper “The Calendar” with our show at the People’s Theatre Coalition at the Fort Carson Center in North Beach in San Francisco, Wednesday, June 5, 1985. The Anti-Club show was a kind of disaster. We were top-billed, but did our sound check first and then had to move everything off the stage. By the time we played in the wee hours, we had no decent sound and couldn’t hear Ed’s guitar at all. It was rather disappointing. There are also photographs—Upper photo is Little Fyodor with Evan spinning in the background, which was used as the basis for Slither artwork. The artwork on the wall in the upper right in that photo is by Leo Goya.. Below is a photo of the Monkey Head guitar (assembled by Ed Fowler) outside Ed’s apartment on Dahlia Street in Denver (The Museum Of Unnatural History). Also a photo of Evan Cantor contemplating a snow shovel at the Hall of Genius, another photo that was never used.
56. Intersection for the Arts flyer for the program that featured WoG show on 6/5/85 in San Francisco.
Editor's Note: View additional materials for the Language is the Enemy program in San Francisco
Editor's Note: View additional materials for the Language is the Enemy program in San Francisco
57. Flyer for the 6/5/85 show. I played this show with a bass amp that had the name “Tom Fogerty” spray painted on the back. David and I stayed at William Davenport’s place in the Mission district. This show went very well and we enjoyed it greatly. (Note: we were also scheduled via Objekt to play a show in Eureka, California, but the promoters had trouble locating a venue, so it had been cancelled prior to our visit).
58. partial clipping from a Boulder Daily Camera article about Walls of Genius.
59. More promo photos that were never used.
60. flyer printed on CU (Colorado University) Recreation Center’s Gestetner mimeo-copy machine for WoG and Miracle jam, August 24th, 1985. This was the same mimeo machine that provided the machine-rhythm track for “Four More Years” on Before…And After.
61. poster for “Living Anthology” that featured Walls of Genius on August 18th, 1985 performing at the Boulder Center for Visual Arts. Hopefully we flipped the wigs on all the chi-chi arty-farty Boulder types in this scene.
62. “Dogshit Drool”, original poem and artwork by Evan Cantor.
63. Xeroxed copy of Evan Cantor’s face. Little Fyodor has a reaction to Ed Fowler’s fish painting, a promo photo that was never used. lower left, funny face drawing by Evan Cantor.
64. Flyer for Soul Merchants and WoG performance at Littleton Town Hall, Littleton, Colorado, 11/30/85, Walls of Genius’ final performance. Photo is George Stone, of Miracle.
65. Walls of Genius’ flyer for the Littleton Town Hall show, with a photo of Little Fyodor at that show performing with a sombrero. “Mission From God” was a riff on the Blues Brothers. I don’t recall why we thought this would be our farewell concert, but we did promote it that way. The dissolution of WoG occurred in halting steps and perhaps by this time, I didn’t want to do any more live shows. Evan opened the show as "Wally Bob Colorado", wearing a long-hair wig and cowboy hat, playing country versions of well-known punk-rock songs, including "Anarchy In The U.K.". He was received warmly enough by the punk crowd.
66. Photos from the Littleton Town Hall show: upper photo, from left-to-right, Timm Lenk on percussion, Little Fyodor at the microphone, Riff Randall on the drums, Evan Cantor playing white Fender bass and Ed Fowler playing white Fender Stratocaster guitar. Lower left, Evan Cantor burns a smurf on stage in an overturned trashcan cover for the performance of “Burning Smurfs”. Lower right, Little Fyodor serenades the audience.
67. Off Beat, Westword 10/30/85 clipping about WoG and Miracle. A scrap of paper (“Moronica”) with proposed band names. J-card insert for Raw Sewage Volume 1. January 1986 clipping from Audience regarding WoG performance with Miracle at The Pirate Contemporary Art Oasis in Denver, Feb 1, 1986. Leland Rucker currently (March 2014) writes a weekly column regarding medical marijuana for The Boulder Weekly.
68. top photo: Joe Ketola lower right: George Stone lower left: Leo Goya All participants in Leo Goya’s free-jazz improv project “The Miracle”. Joe Ketola had inherited a funny little house at the “downtown” cross-roads in the old mining village of Eldora, Colorado, up the road from Nederland. He and Leo were hosting free-jazz jam sessions at the place (“The Gold Miner”). In Eldora, the snow doesn’t fall, it flies horizontally through town and the locals call it “Hell-dora”. Joe used to say, “Of all the places in the world for me to inherit a house, it had to be Eldora!” A bunch of us would often Nordic-ski at the Hessie Trailhead just around the corner and then come back to Joe’s place to jam and party ad infinitum. The Hessie Trailhead is now a sacrifice zone to tourism.
69. upper photo: Jeanne Strzelewicz, The Miracle. lower photo: Leo Goya Also cover of catalog
“A Tale of Two Twits”.
“A Tale of Two Twits”.
70. From catalog, fake article about Ed Fowler’s guitar playing, based on an article about Alex English of the Denver Nuggets (NBA basketball).
71. page full of reviews that was in the catalog.
72. photos by Evan Cantor of the abandoned schoolhouse out by 47th and Iris Avenue in north Boulder where original Miracle sessions were held without electricity. Leo Goya and Jeanne Strzelewicz were “care-taking” the building for a year before it was torn down. They lived in a trailer home on the schoolhouse property. The dog pictured belonged to George Stone, named “Mingus”.
73. J-card insert for WoG and Miracle, with cover art by Leo Goya, lettering by Evan Cantor. J-card insert and cassette label for Do Not Write Below This Line, the last WoG release by Walls of Genius. Do Not Write was available exclusively from Cause And Effect.
74. photos by Evan Cantor of the schoolhouse.
75. photos by Evan Cantor of the schoolhouse.
76. Off Beat, Westword, Jan 29, 1986 clipping about WoG and Miracle performance at the Pirate Contemporary Art Oasis. Photo of Leo Goya from the Pirate show. J-card for WoG and Miracle Volume 2 cassette.
77. Photos by Evan Cantor of the schoolhouse and one of Leo Goya’s found art sculpture/objects.
78. photos of Miracle at the Pirate: from top left clockwise, Leo Goya, Ed Fowler, Evan Cantor on sax, David Lichtenberg at the drums, “Moochy” (“Aaron Eldora”) playing the bass, Jeanne Strzelewicz and possibly “Scott Van Der” with tambourine, George Stone on a sax.
79. David Lichtenberg with the big plastic sheet that Frank Zygmunt gave us. George Stone skiing with his dog, Mingus. J-card insert for WoG and Miracle Volume 3.
80. Evan’s scratchboard art for Little Fyodor 45-rpm Slither. Cover of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. Photo of Russ Stevens contemplating big black balloon at a Telethon Party (pre-WoG). Off Beat, Westword, 3/12/86 clipping regarding Slither release.
81. photos of Miracle at the Pirate. top to clockwise, Jeanne Strzelewicz, George Stone and Leo Goya.
82. insert material for WoG compilation Son Of Madness!
83. flyer for Feb 1, 1986 WoG and Miracle performance at The Pirate.
84. Son of Madness invitation letter.
85. The last show Evan Cantor ever organized for Walls of Genius, “Tim Ore” with WoG and Miracle at the Pirate, May 11, 1985. Members of Miracle weren’t happy with Tim Ore’s presentation, which was long and obtuse and included a golden showers film. I put up with it all because I knew it was all over by this time.
86. Dated September 1986, this is Evan’s final record of the numbers of WoG tapes that went out into the world.
87. Evan’s piece of paper with contact phones. Bob Ferbrache was a member of Soul Merchants and has continued to be involved in alternative music over the years, including mastering two albums in the Little Fyodor catalog. Michael Moore (not the famous film-maker) was also a member of Soul Merchants, who shared the bill for the last Walls of Genius show at the Littleton Town Hall. Phil Bender is a Denver artist who was booking the Pirate Contemporary Art Oasis at the time. He is still around doing his thing, which includes his hubcap art in the permanent collection at the Denver Museum of Art. The AAA scimitar logo is something that Evan copied off a brick of Afghani hashish. The 11/7/1990 clipping from Westword is about the release of Little Fyodor’s vinyl release, Idiots Are Closer To God.