{"id":5491,"date":"2022-06-11T10:44:59","date_gmt":"2022-06-11T09:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=5491"},"modified":"2022-06-11T12:35:30","modified_gmt":"2022-06-11T11:35:30","slug":"fifty-foot-hose-if-not-this-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=5491","title":{"rendered":"Fifty Foot Hose \u2013 If Not This Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

FIFTY FOOT HOSE\u2019s astonishing 1968 album Cauldron<\/em> united Californian folk-rock with bespoke electronic sounds. Overlooked in its day, it has gone on to become a treasured artefact among fans of avant-garde<\/em> pop and dreamy psychedelia.\u00a0<\/strong>Head gardener Cork Marcheschi speaks to RICHARD TURNER on the eve of both a new Hose studio album and a documentary about the band<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Fifty Foot Hose belong to a rare, if not unique breed in the annals of rock history. Although their lone cult classic album, Cauldron,<\/em> has a distinct mid-to late \u201960s San Franciscan flavour, its use of electronics as the skeleton on which the flesh is hung marks it out as both ahead and out of its time. Even today, electronics in rock are used mostly as another colour in the palette, whereas for the Hose, \u201cthe levels were set around <\/em>the electronics\u201d. Bands and artists continue to be in awe of Cauldron<\/em> \u2013 it\u2019s still a beacon \u2013 an alternative road less travelled that has not been ruined by being copied to death, and is original enough not to sound too time-locked. It continues to appeal to a wide variety of artists, often those that themselves defy easy categorisation. The likes of Broadcast, Pere Ubu, Throbbing Gristle, Chrome, John Spencer\u2019s Blues Explosion, DJ Vadim, Skinny Puppy, Hawkwind, and possibly even Deep Purple owe a debt to the Hose\u2019s prescient avant<\/em>-rock, whether by taking cues from them or directly sampling them.<\/p>\n

No one would argue that Fifty Foot Hose were the only ones to focus on electronics in late \u201960s rock and pop. The Silver Apples shared some similarities due to Simeon\u2019s home made assembly of oscillators and foot pedals. Of all their contemporaries, The United States Of America perhaps come closest to the Fifty Foot Hose model in combining driving psychedelic rock, an appreciation of various American musical forms, striking female vocals and upfront electronic sounds, though each with their own distinct characteristics. In all three cases, electronics are the key to the music, rather than merely a texture within it. Incidentally, these pioneers were working independently of one another, Fifty Foot Hose only heard The Silver Apples and The United States Of America \u201cyears later\u201d.<\/p>\n

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When Shindig!<\/em> finally caught up with Hose mainstay Cork Marcheschi, it was apparently \u201cperfect timing\u201d, as a house move has meant Cork has been unearthing things that haven\u2019t been seen in years, and his mind has returned to his past endeavours as a result of finding all kinds of reminders of his \u201cart life, music life\u201d including old acetates and even his own kind of notation for an electronic score.<\/p>\n

Cork remembers getting turned on to music by \u201ca very hip babysitter\u201d and he was soon listening to blues, R&B, gospel and rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. Later, at high school, he was keen to get involved in music-making whatever it entailed. \u201cBands showed up that might need someone to shake a tambourine and I was always game.\u201d He subsequently became a bass player in a band playing the hits and standards of the day.<\/p>\n

However, a pivotal event happened in 1962, Cork\u2019s senior year at high school, as he explains. \u201cI was at my friend Jeannie Gordon\u2019s home and she put on Edgar Varese\u2019s \u201958 composition, \u2018Poeme Electronique\u2019. He wrote it for The Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair. The building was designed by Le Corbusier and it had 200 speakers in the walls. You experienced the composition as you walked through this unique space. Hearing that piece of music changed my life.\u201d At that moment, the idea of electronics and avant-garde<\/em> music collided, though it was yet to manifest itself in Marcheschi\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

For the most part of the \u201960s, he was a jobbing musician at a time when opportunities were ample. Cork revelled in the nurturing atmosphere of The Bay Area before San Francisco became the hip place to go. \u201cIn \u201965, \u201966 and the start of \u201967, the SF Bay Area was as fertile as the gold fields were, until all of the outsiders came in and brought their uncoolness with them. Before The Summer Of Love, the city was full of young and old from every place and every colour. Until early \u201967 this was a haven for music of all types \u2013 there were hundreds of places to play and there were people who go and see stuff \u2013 a unique moment in time.\u201d<\/p>\n