Crystal Passion

"Where

is

everyone?" I asked when after an exasperating journey on Philadelphia's public transport system I'd finally got back to the hotel and found Crystal sitting in the hotel lobby with only Jenny Alpha and our luggage for company.

Crystal pretended to look around the hotel lobby at the scuffed velour chairs and the sticky linoleum floor. "They're not here, that's for sure," she said with a smile. "In fact, they've all left in the camper van for Boston."

"They left without me?" I wailed.

"It was much too cosy together on the way down and everyone complained about it," said Crystal. "Especially Thelma. So, we've hired a car to share the load. The rest have gone ahead so they get a chance to settle into Boston and maybe see the sights."

"What type of car did you get?"

"It's some kind of Chevrolet," said Jenny. "They call it a

compact

over here, but it's plenty big enough for us and our gear. I'll do the driving. It should be a cinch what with all American cars being automatic."

"It's not as if you have to change gear very often anyway when you get onto the freeway," Crystal commented. "So, come on, Pebbles. Let's get your equipment into the boot of the car. Or automobile trunk as they call it over here."

"Trunk of a Chevy!" Jenny exclaimed in delight. "Now I

know

I'm in America!"

The drive from Philadelphia to Boston took some six or seven hours including a couple of stops at roadside diners just beside the freeway. Crystal sat with me in the back of the car while Jenny did the driving and constantly twiddled the radio dial to find a station that wasn't either Country & Western or Top 40. And when she found a station that was at all tolerable, it was never long until the reception got so poor that she had to retune the radio to something else.

"We've had a stroke of luck," said Crystal. "There's a guy in Boston who knows our agent, Madeleine, and he's a real fan of the band. He works at Harvard University, which I'm told is in a suburb aptly known as Cambridge."

"I'm surprised anyone in America's ever heard of us let alone could claim to be a fan," I remarked.

"Well apparently he is. And what's more this guy—Professor Simon Kurrein he's called—has some influence in the university's music department and he's organised an extra gig for us at the John Knowles Paine Concert Hall which is normally reserved for classical music..."

"Do you think we'd be a good fit there? It's not as if we're a string quartet or whatever."

"I don't see why not," Crystal said. "We'll be at least as good a fit as we were at Mary Jane's. We've got the gig because another concert's been cancelled. A group of Persian musicians who couldn't get their visas, I was told. So there's an empty slot for us to fill."

"So how did this Simon get to know about our music? And why does he think it'd appeal to classical music fans?"

"Well, it's more likely to appeal to those who listen to Steve Reich and Terry Riley than those who enjoy Schubert and Mendelssohn, but I think it was the track

Dave's First Words

that won Simon over. You might remember I used an interleaved chant in a kind of counterpoint. Simon recognised the Reich influence and wanted to hear more. So, how good is that?"

I remembered the tune very well, of course.

Passing Passion

, the album it came from, was the first record I recorded with Crystal Passion. In fact, it had been a big deal for all of us. Crystal had performed solo on her previous album and now, rather than Crystal Passion being the assumed name of a singer-songwriter, it had become the name of a band. And this was the band that when we went into the studio for the first of our two sessions featured me on keyboards, my sister on violin, and Jane and Jacquie on drums and bass.

We recorded just over half an hour's worth of music, but this wasn't nearly enough for a whole album, especially not in the early 1990s when most CDs were over 70 minutes long. By the time we went into the studio for the second session, the band's membership had grown to include Judy Dildo and Tomiko Morishita. Crystal Passion had made the journey from solo artist to quintet and then to sextet and sound engineer in the space of just one album. And it was at about this time that Bertha joined the band as our first roadie, so including Crystal there was now already eight of us.

This was a huge change to the band's complexion and even more so the music we were playing.

It was inevitable that an expanded band should need both a roadie and a sound engineer. Crystal had got to know Bertha through a lover who frequented a lesbian bar that she'd somehow found the time to visit while still being sexually active elsewhere. It was no surprise that Bertha agreed to work for the band when asked. She'd already been roadying for lesbian Rock groups like the Nathanael Sisters (whose sisterhood was political rather than fraternal) and Peerless Ploughwoman.

It was through Mark that Crystal recruited our new sound engineer and in a fashion that was so typical of her. She'd come home after a gig to find her husband horizontal on the living room carpet and fucking an Irish-Japanese woman who was, of course, our future band-member. His prick was deep inside Tomiko's arse when Crystal opened the door and he continued to fuck her while Tomiko and Crystal discussed how much the services of a qualified sound engineer would improve the sound of the Crystal Passion band. And, inevitably, she and Crystal were soon also making love together and sharing Mark's cock as a kind of handshake to cement the deal they'd just made.

Tomiko and Bertha were only part-time band members in the sense that they were also working on other projects, but Crystal ensured they were treated as equals with the rest of us. But most significant change to the band was when Judy Dildo became a member. Although she only played on four tracks on the

Passing Passion

album, the presence of a rock guitar made an immediate and noticeable impact on the Crystal Passion sound. When the band consisted of Jane and Jacquie, Andrea and me, we were an electro-acoustic outfit backed by the steady metronomic beat that was the inevitable product of the passion for club music I shared with my Zimbabwean lovers. When Judy joined, we now began to sound more like a rock band. This wasn't surprising seeing that Judy Dildo had already played lead guitar for several years in a series of women-only and mixed-sex rock groups.

It was Judy who'd sought out Crystal rather than the other way round. Although she enjoyed the company of women, both sexually and socially, she was actually more comfortable when performing with men, even when she was the only woman in the group. She strutted and postured on stage just like a male rock star. She was almost more macho than the men she performed with. The bands she'd played with had typical Rock Group names like Gog, Six Demons and Silver Payola. You'd never have thought that a rock chick covered in tattoos and with an aggressive attitude to match would be drawn to Crystal Passion's eccentric and unclassifiable music, but like me she'd had an epiphany when she'd heard Crystal Passion playing support to Six Demons at a gig in Leeds. That was bizarre enough in itself. Who on earth would have booked Crystal Passion to play on the same bill as a death metal group whose songs weren't remotely ambiguous or subtle and which they performed at an excruciatingly loud volume? At least when she saw Crystal Passion sing at the Leeds Pilot Cellar Club, it was in a group with the four of us backing Crystal rather than just a single naked woman on stage.

Judy sought out Crystal immediately after the gig and there and then offered her services to the band. Right from the start she was offering practical suggestions as to how to make the band's sound more up-front and punchy and Crystal was listening intently.

We weren't so sure about Judy. She was a very different kind of character to the rest of us. She didn't go to night clubs like Jane, Jacquie and me. She wasn't interested in folk music like Andrea. The music she most enjoyed had to have energy, power and an instant impact. And this proclivity had to be overlaid somehow on the groove-based rhythm and melody that we were contributing to the Crystal Passion mix.

Within a week of Judy approaching Crystal, she was a full member of the band and joined us at the disused retail unit we'd hired to rehearse the remaining few songs for the

Passing Passion

album. It was Judy who's the chief author of the sound that rock critics like Polly Tarantella rate as the very best of Crystal Passion. This is ironic, of course, given that Judy Dildo is portrayed as the arch-villain in Polly's account of the Crystal Passion tragedy. In fact, I'd say that if it hadn't been for Judy Dildo's impact on the band, it's highly unlikely that Polly would ever have been attracted to Crystal Passion and her music at all.

The track that Professor Simon Kurrein most enjoyed,

Dave's First Words

, isn't one of the tracks Judy played guitar on. In fact, it consists mostly of Jane and Jacquie providing a steady beat with me adding an electronic pulse and voice samples, while Crystal intones over the top. It's peculiarly mesmeric and nearly became a signature tune for the band. It's almost always the first Crystal Passion tune that people ever get to hear, usually on the radio, and although it doesn't fit well into Polly's thesis of what the band is all about, she quotes the lyrics (in their entirety) more than once in her best-selling biography. She seems to view it as Crystal's manifesto. And, for all I know, she may even be right.

The recording of

Passing Passion

was enlightening and instructive for all of us. Crystal was extremely disciplined in her approach to composition. She'd taught herself to read and write music and whenever she presented us with a new song she'd already written it down in her neat handwriting on song sheets with annotations to mark where we could throw in our own individual flourishes or samples. Although she got us to rehearse each song in its entirety for hours on end, this was never a

Trout Mask Replica

ordeal in pursuit of perfection. Rather, it was a collaborative process in which Crystal sympathetically discussed how each song might be improved.

Nevertheless, there wasn't that much space for improvisation in the early quintet. Although Judy Dildo boosted the sound when she joined the band and sometimes jammed almost like a jazz guitarist, the rest of us weren't really competent to do more than play what we'd rehearsed. Even Andrea, who was a much better musician than me, didn't have much skill at improvisation. All that came later. But there was still a sense that the music was the collaborative creation of the whole band, although Crystal could never be deemed as anything other than the songs' composer. I had ideas about rhythm and sound collage that I'd plundered from my collection of Detroit techno compilations and Balearic mixtapes. Andrea knew stuff about East European and Arabic music as well as English and Celtic folk. Crystal threw all this into the mix and this helped give the music its distinctive sound.

Cheese

was a kind of rap that Crystal half-improvised to the extent that although the rhythm and measure of each line was always the same the actual lyrics changed from one performance to the next. Unlike the lyrics of NWA and other East Coast Gangsta Rappers, Crystal's rap didn't contain a single profanity or swear word.

Roast Peanuts

was almost an instrumental which Crystal overlaid with the kind of swooping vocalese you might associate with the Cocteau Twins. Then there was the upbeat

Electric City

which was the most danceable track on the album and has been extensively remixed since Crystal Passion was rediscovered by DJs as diverse as Daniel Avery, Pearson Sound, Flying Lotus and Erol Alkan. The catchy chorus "There's electricity in the Electric City" has been stretched and sampled and distorted beyond all recognition.

Hidden Glory

is a song which builds up like a bolero from an almost inaudible first bar to a distorted climax which I sampled from the soundtrack to the movie

The Day the Earth Stood Still

.

There are two stand-out tracks on which Judy Dildo performs. There's

Dusty Eyes

where Judy plays a frenzied guitar solo which somehow works in counterpoint to Andrea's violin and Crystal's interweaving lyrics that go "I see you see me see you see them see us..." and so on. And then there's

Three Little Pigs

which is broken into three sections which mirror one another but where the final section breaks into a heavy metal style rock guitar riff that in isolation could have come from a Metallica album.

There's a lot more to the album, of course, and Polly Tarantella is effusive about every single track. But I do know that the choral singing on

Lustful Lady

that she attributes to Crystal was actually a sample I'd taken from an obscure 1970s Italian horror movie.

When we at last entered Boston's outer suburbs, Jenny steered the car towards the Hotel Syracuse where the band was staying. By the time we arrived, everyone else was already getting to know the bars and tourist attractions in Boston's town centre. Needless to say, the Syracuse was no more salubrious than any other hotel we stayed at and Crystal heard my groan of dismay at having to spend another night in a grotty American dive.

"Look, Pebbles," she said. "We don't have to stay here. We can drop off the gear and drive out to this Simon Kurrein's house. I half-promised I'd visit him when we arrived and maybe he'll let us stay the night."

"I don't think I'm in the mood for sex with a middle-aged man," I said wearily.

"What?" said Crystal, who seemed genuinely startled at my interpretation of her remarks. "No, of course not. We don't have to have sex with every man we meet and in any case I don't think he'd even want to. He's a university academic who's married with adult children. I just think it'd be courteous to take the trouble to meet him in person since he's been so helpful and that it would also be nice if you came along."

Professor Simon Kurrein of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, lived in an almost stately home in Concord, not far from Walden Pond and the family home of Louisa May Alcott. This was a side of America I hadn't seen before. This America was liberal, affluent and open-minded. And, reassuringly, it seemed almost European to me.

The professor couldn't have been more delighted to see us.

"So you must be Pebbles," he said proffering a hand, although I could see that he was wondering whether he should also kiss me on the cheek. In those days, not so many English or Americans were as touchy-feely as they are today.

He led us into a living room that was large enough to host one of our gigs and introduced us to his wife, Alexandra, who was sitting at the console of what at the time was a very high-spec beige PC. Simon Kurrein and his wife were both academic sophisticates whose clothes seemed almost casual at first glance, but with closer scrutiny could only be very expensive. I wondered how it was that university teachers could be so affluent. Although they were both at least as old as my parents, they dressed and acted like a much younger couple. Crystal was perfectly relaxed in her inexpensive Liberty print dress (of which she did not divest herself on this occasion), but I felt very much the slattern in my jeans and tee-shirt. I even kept on my woolly hat in the probably misplaced fear that the professor would disapprove of my shaved head.

"How's America treating you so far, my dears?" Simon asked after we'd settled down in the plush leather armchairs and were both offered a glass of what he claimed was a very modest red wine.

Crystal gave the couple a reassuring account of our stay so far in which she made no reference whatsoever of our difficulties or the disappointing audience reaction to our shows, but laced it with amusing anecdotes and fulsome praise for the other band members. All the while, Simon and Alexandra nodded sagely and made the occasional encouraging remark. I glanced around their living room at the many books and neatly arranged records (both CDs and vinyl) of which the majority were classical and modern jazz. I glimpsed a Fela Kuti album sleeve besides those for Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, but most records featured the names of pianists, violinists, string quartets and orchestras I'd never heard of playing the music either of composers I'd also never heard of or those, like Brahms, Purcell, Schumann and Paderewski, whose names were familiar but their music wasn't. I felt very much the ignoramus in this company, but I wouldn't have been at all surprised if Crystal were to start discussing the relative virtues of symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich and Arnold Bax.

"And did you know that you're now famous in America?" said Alexandra with an amused smile, holding a wine glass poised in her left hand. "There was something about Crystal Passion on national television."

"Famous?" Crystal said. "I knew there was an article written about us in the

New York Post

, but I didn't know anything was broadcast about us on television."

"Well, I imagine it's mostly thanks to that newspaper article and a scurrilous radio campaign from one of those forthright and opinionated Christian Radio disc jockeys," Simon said. "You were mentioned in a discussion on a cable television talk show."

Crystal sighed. "I didn't know about any of that. I didn't know the band was the subject of any radio coverage whatsoever. And I didn't know that anything was said about us on American television. Please, Simon, tell us what you know."

Neither Simon nor Alexandra knew much about what was actually said on Samuel Hedrick's radio show

Voice of Reason

. They were no more likely to listen to the rants of a right-wing radio pundit than a listener to such a radio show would the music of Crystal Passion. Or indeed anything that wasn't reassuringly safe and familiar. Which would exclude them from getting to hear pretty much everything in Simon's extensive record collection. But the couple knew that Hedrick's tirade had been negative, vituperative, ill-informed and inflammatory. What else could it be?

Similarly, they'd have only known for sure what was broadcast on

The Daytime Show

with its regular presenter Peter Pilton, if they'd chosen to tune into CBS at three o'clock in the afternoon Eastern Standard Time, which, of course, as a professional working couple who more often watched their television programmes on PBS, they were never likely to do. But the fact that it was daytime television and that the only two likely reference points were the stated opinions of the

New York Post

and Samuel Hedrick, Simon and Alexandra more or less knew that it wouldn't have given Crystal Passion a fair and balanced hearing. So, although neither they nor anyone they knew had actually listened to the broadcast they were confident that it had presented Crystal Passion in the worst possible light. And Simon Kurrein, who'd been exposed to a lot of radical and determinedly uncommercial music and theatre, was under no illusion as to what the Crystal Passion band might be like as a performing entity and how that might be construed by the media. In truth nothing we did was remotely as radical as what came out of Andy Warhol's Factory in the 1960s. Nor was it as revolutionary as anything propounded by Ken Kesey, William Burroughs or Timothy Leary. But considering the outrage that a group of English yobs like the Sex Pistols could generate; or the voyeuristic fascination with a pop singer like Madonna; or the ability of the media in both Britain and America to demonise almost anyone: it was unlikely that Crystal Passion would ever be reported as anything other than dangerous, mad and subversive. And despite Polly Tarantella's efforts to make it seem otherwise, incitement to revolution had never been Crystal's intention.