Below you will find a few interesting artifacts that were mailed to my parents’ home late last month. I assume that an anonymous reader of this blog did some research on me! All is fair, I suppose. Since my father and I have the same name, I surmise that this anonymous reader, after finding out my real name, took a gamble and decided to mail the aforementioned package to my likely address. My mother tells me that the arrival of the package was preceded by a few odd phones calls that she attributed to telemarketers but in retrospect seemed connected. Thank you, thank you, thank you, whomever you are! However circuitous their arrival, I have found the contents of this package invaluable to my work. Speaking of real names, I now have real names (maybe) for Holiday and Dolf. I am not naïve, however. I am willing to accept that these names are also dead-ends; but, needless to say, I have begun to dig.
For all intents and purposes, my wish has come true. The package contains a cassette tape of some raw demos for tracks we have been reading about in the Trouser Trout Press this month. It took some scavenging in my garage to find a tape deck, but I knew I had one around for just this sort of musical anthropology. I was also able to use my USB-friendly turntable to convert these tapes to digital audio files—which I share with you below. But first, please read the following clip, which I believe is the Lather and Rinse entry to the Trouser Trout Press (you may remember that I recently shared with you the Optimus Prime entry that referenced this important side-project). – ed.
Lather and Rinse
Discography:
Sometimes Ts and Bs (Drive me Ns) (Taint) 1993
Little Flower (Taint/Universal) 1994
Lather and Rinse were a duo committed, at least in their final active years in music, to the short-lived soft rock revival of the mid-1990s. The group made two full-length recordings, a handful of singles (mostly covers and remixes), and one unreleased EP, which is often seen as a transitional document.
Dolf/Adolf (Alexander Adolfo) and Kevin Holiday (Kevin Halliday) began making noise and electro-acoustic experiments as early as 1984 as The Optimus Prime, The Ass Piston (Holiday’s solo vehicle), and Sawhorse (with Burton Fink), but by 1992 they had completely immersed themselves in the music of soft rock pioneers like The Association, Bread, and Curt Boettcher of the Millennium. Unlike Halliday, who cut his musical teeth in decidedly unmusical ways, dabbling in pure noise and field recordings, Adolfo was a trained artist and musician, competent on the drums, guitar, piano, and various woodwinds. It is likely that Adolfo’s influences won out by the end of the duo’s decade-long run in music. Adolfo played most instruments on recordings, while Halliday served as producer and provocateur. Ironically, it was Halliday who took on most vocal duties, with both a rich baritone croon and a surprisingly celestial falsetto. His vocals showed knowledge of soft rock history, referencing Colin Blunstone, Neil Diamond, Morrissey, even Robert Lamm (Chicago). Adolfo’s guitar playing, the anchor for the band’s music, had indie rock’s sloppy jangle and 60’s folk tastefulness. Neither man was afraid to pick up an instrument and see how it worked (or didn’t work).
Leading up to Lather and Rinse’s first proper album, Sometimes Ts and Bs (Drive Me Ns), many of the duo’s singles were covers or remixes of 1970’s soft rock favorites, most famously the cover of Bread’s “If” and the re-working of Shuggie Otis’s “Strawberry Letter 23” called “Hello Jerk Off” or “Hello JO” on subsequent pressings [I have attached the demo below – ed.]. But the B-sides were often original recordings. One particularly interesting B-side was dubbed, "The Duet". The song’s rich orchestration and funky drum beat (played by someone only credited as Repeat on the single’s liner notes) [The attached demo unfortunately used a cheap drum machine track –ed.] spoke to the early Quiet Storm/Philly Soul sounds of the early to mid 70's. The song finds Halliday crooning in a warm tenor, while Adolfo plays female (?) foil, singing in a lofty falsetto. The song is controversial for perhaps exposing the two's confused sexual leanings and the accompanying tension. It is also defiant in its politically incorrect celebration of “Mandingo” love. Adolfo at this time was drinking heavily and had put on some weight he did not carry while with the Optimus Prime (due to a steady diet of Chinese food and Tic Tacs). Halliday, also a bit heavier, had turned introspective, absorbed by his work as a translator and a taste for “kind bud.” Lyrically, the song was about an abusive relationship turned even more sour by neglect and abandonment, which, like substance abuse and unrequited love, became themes for the duo both in and out of the studio. The male persona “steps out” on his lady, much in the way that Dolf and Adolf would abandon their soft rock calling.
One telling incident in the duo’s short history occurred in Waretown, NJ at a party thrown by a mutual college friend. Holiday, Dolf, and an entourage of plus-sized male models (yes, they exist) arrived late and already quite intoxicated. By 11pm the dance floor was dominated by Lather and Rinse—alone. Reportedly, as if in some bizarre trance, the two danced moves like nothing the weary crowd had ever seen before. Finally, too much vodka, grass and cheese snacks assumed control. Halliday began to vomit a yellow orange onto the dance floor, while Adolfo continued to dance. Adolfo then slipped into the DJ booth, destroying the equipment and thus ending the evening’s music. The two were asked to leave, but before complying, decided to have one last dance, sandwiching the wife of one Scott Shrew (of the all white hip-hop trio Powelton Five-O). The uncomfortable mood worsened as the two bumped and grinded to the music in their own heads. By all reports, said lady didn't seem to mind, as Halliday and Adolfo were both regarded as handsome, excessive weight and body hair notwithstanding, and self-proclaimed “cocksmiths,” a fact not denied by various girlfriends and wives. At long last, smelling of vomit and glowing orange from regurgitated cheese product, the two walked out the back door of the Waretown home and into the vast New Jersey Pine Barrens, all the while loudly discussing the sundry atypical uses for Vaseline products.
In a rented trailer not far from Waretown (specifically, on the shores of Holgate, NJ), Dolf and Holiday set to work for two years bringing their soft rock vision to life. The results were two complete albums released in limited pressing only a year apart. By the end of that LBI stay, however, more problems surfaced. First, touring drummer Repeat left to join the crew of a lobster boat, and then Holiday became addicted to a mixture of NyQuil, Yoohoo, and Courvoisier. Rumor has it that Dolf had had enough. He changed his name and started working with other musicians who were part of the coffee house/university jazz circuit in central New Jersey. Holiday may have changed his name to Paul and, between trips hunting the elusive striped bass on his boat The Chocolate Starfish, reportedly sang cover tunes for a time at summer happy hours in the resort towns along the central New Jersey shore. [See the inconclusive photo below –ed].
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| Holiday in white pants doing his best Alvin Ayler? |
After releasing Sometimes... and Little Flower on their own Taint imprint, Lather and Rinse allowed Universal Recordings to reissue the Little Flower album in 1994. The title track paid tribute to Holiday's unemployed Latino girlfriend (who soon became his wife). The lyrics “Little Flower… You came along and rescued me in my darkest hour…” say a lot about how Holiday was feeling towards the end of a decade-long struggle with music and addiction. But while Little Flower herself was able to save Holiday, this period also marked the end for Lather and Rinse. Adolfo himself remarried and settled into a domestic life. Ironically, many artists are able to channel this domesticity into soft rock gems, but Holiday and Dolf were too embittered by years of obscurity. After the Little Flower record failed to sell, or even garner a little critical attention, the duo turned its attention to championing soft rock as an art form. Feeling unappreciated themselves, they didn’t want the same fate to befall heroes like Gilbert O’Sullivan or John Dever or Michael Bolton. Like their recordings, these writings have also become increasingly difficult to find.
See also The Optimus Prime, Sawhorse, Helen Reddy.
The attached demo of “Little Flower,” which I am told is found in a much different form on the later album of the same name, is generally accepted as the first recordings that Dolf and Holiday made post-Optimus Prime as Lather and Rinse. The tune is played on acoustic and electric guitars, but there are equal parts noise and random, improvisational moments, along with rudimentary drum machine programming and a commitment to a low fidelity aesthetic. The lyrics, far from fully realized and seemingly off the cuff here, do retain the puerile nature of earlier OP recordings, but this version of the tune definitely shows a decided break, a marked changed, from the OP’s previous oeuvre. The hook about this Little Flower changing Holiday’s life was already fully formed and alone worth a listen. – ed.
Here is the “Hello Jerk Off” demo, based on a loop from Shuggie Otis’s “Strawberry Letter 23." The lyrics are a cautionary tale for those husbands prone to late night "web surfing." –ed.
And finally the B-side called “Duet,” also in demo form. Listen closely and you can hear Adolfo leaving the room to vomit due to uncontrollable laughter and overindulgence in cheap beer.
I don't know if I will ever get this lucky again, but please enjoy this windfall! Thank you once again, anonymous reader, for this little package that has done so much to assist my work! - ed.
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