When do you celebrate the first anniversary of an event that happened on a Feb. 29? Che Underground: The Blog is jumping the gun with its birthday salute to “A Che Underground Leap Night Showcase,” which transpired Feb. 29, 2020, and featured performances by The Wrecktangle; Jerry Cornelius & The Cooler Heads; and P-Touch All Stars.
On offer today: JC & TCHs’ cover of The Answers classic “Electric Flowers,” along with some liner notes by Mr. Cornelius himself!
“Memories, they have no place/They take up precious time and space.”
When I first saw David Fleminger and The Answers in their form with Tony Suarez and Dave Anderson at the Adams Avenue Theater, I was struck by the force and musicality of what they were playing.
Over the 37 years since then, several of these songs — especially “Color Notes” and “Electric Flowers” — have never been far from my mind.
Dave and I had several conversations in the past couple years about revisiting these compositions. When the Leap Night project was proposed, original compositions by Dave were important for me to feature — relating The Cooler Heads directly to the sounds played in the Che Café era.
“Electric Flowers” became an anchor to which I fixed some ideas for collaboration between Dave and Paul Howland, and we began enthusiastically sharing thoughts. The instrumental passages are sublime in the result — especially with the inspired contributions of Hannes Kling’s enormous space-filling piano and synth, and Todd Barker’s urgent, stabbing, saxophone.
I don’t know what effects Dave has on guitar, but they’re exquisite! — Jeremiah Cornelius
The guitar effects are courtesy of an Electro Harmonix MEL9 Mellotron-emulator pedal.. that and a little delay.. but mostly the MEL9.
Wow! That’s badass! Really enjoyed it
Dave,
The sound is complete Back To Godhead!
In the video you can see a couple of points where I just pull back to float on the tones from everyone.
Lola, a very long time! -- I hope everything’s well!
I’m so happy you enjoyed it. These will soon be the NEW old days!