Fifty Foot Hose is an American psychedelic rock band that formed in San Francisco in the late 1960s,[2] and reformed in the 1990s. They were one of the first bands to fuse rock and experimental music. Like a few other acts of the time (most notably The United States of America), they consciously tried to combine the contemporary sounds of rock with electronic instruments and avant-garde compositional ideas.[citation needed]
The original group was formed in San Francisco in 1967 by bassist and electronic musician Louis "Cork" Marcheschi, guitarist and composer David Blossom, and vocalist Nancy Blossom. The lineup was later completed by Kim Kimsey on drums and Larry Evans on rhythm guitar.[2]
Marcheschi (born 1945 in Burlingame, California) had played rhythm and blues during his teens with The Ethix, performing in Bay Area clubs and Las Vegas venues. The Ethix released one wildly experimental single, “Bad Trip,” in 1967, designed to be playable at any speed — an early example of proto-psychedelic irony and tape experimentation.[3]
Deeply influenced by the works of avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse, John Cage, Terry Riley, and George Antheil, Marcheschi began constructing his own custom-built electronic instruments from oscillators, tone generators, fuzzboxes, a cardboard tube, and even a loudspeaker salvaged from a World War II bomber. His goal was to merge electronic sound with live rock performance at a time when few musicians had access to synthesizers or tape studios.[4]
David Blossom, a classically trained guitarist who had worked in jazz and folk ensembles, and vocalist Nancy Blossom — noted for her wide range and theatrical phrasing — joined Marcheschi after meeting him through mutual friends in the local scene. The trio shared an ambition to fuse psychedelic rock’s emotional immediacy with the abstract textures of modern electronic composition. They recorded an early demo that attracted the attention of Limelight Records, a Mercury subsidiary best known for experimental and jazz releases by artists such as Sun Ra and Moondog.[5]
The resulting album, Cauldron, was recorded in mid-1967 at Sierra Sound in Berkeley and released that December. It featured eleven tracks, including “Fantasy,” “Red the Sign Post,” “If Not This Time,” and a cover of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child”. Critics have since described the record as an "innovative fusion of jazz-inflected psychedelic rock and handmade electronic sound effects", with San Francisco Chronicle critic Ralph J. Gleason remarking at the time, “I don’t know if they are immature or premature.”[6]
Although Cauldron sold poorly upon release, the group built a devoted local following and shared bills with Blue Cheer, Chuck Berry, and Fairport Convention. Bassist Robert Goldbeck later joined for live shows. By late 1969 the band had disbanded; most members joined the San Francisco stage production of Hair, where Nancy Blossom played the lead role before later appearing in Godspell. Larry Evans returned to his hometown of Muncie, Indiana, performing in regional groups until his death in 2008.[7]
The legacy of the original lineup persisted through underground reissues and the 1997 reunion album Return of Fifty Foot Hose, which saw Marcheschi revisiting many of the same sonic concepts with new collaborators, reaffirming the band’s influence on later generations of electronic and experimental rock musicians.[8]
1990s
Interest in Fifty Foot Hose resurfaced in the 1990s, as they became recognized as precursors to the electronic rock sounds of groups like Pere Ubu, Chrome and Throbbing Gristle, and Cauldron was reissued on CD. By this time, Marcheschi had become a respected sculptor, specializing in public work using neon, plastic, and kinetic characteristics.
In 1995, Marcheschi reformed the group for live performances in San Francisco, with a new set of musicians. These performances led to the release of the album Live & Unreleased, which was followed in 1997 by a new studio album, Sing Like Scaffold. On the latter album, Fifty Foot Hose essentially comprised Marcheschi (on echolette, twin audio generators, squeaky stick, white noise generator, theremin, spark gap, and saw blades), Walter Funk III (jokers Ulysses and Cupid constructed by Fred 'Spaceman' Long, Bug (Tom Nunn), vocoder, Hologlyphic Funkaliser, and other electronix), Reid Johnston (guitube, guitar, tools, horns, harmonium, hardware, bikewheel), Lenny Bove (bass, electronics, vocals), Elizabeth Perry (vocals), and Dean Cook (drums).[citation needed]
Funk and Johnston subsequently formed the avant-garde electronic band Kwisp, the first of whose two albums also featured Marcheschi.
In 2006, Marcheschi, Funk, Johnston, and Konstantine Baranov (producer of Sing Like Scaffold), known as CWRK Musical Environments, installed a public sound installation in an atrium in Hong Kong.
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