GURU GURU
"Stone In"
from UFO (Spalax) 1970

Stapleton: Right! This is Guru Guru UFO, the ultimate stoner album. I would think. It's the heaviest album I heard at the time. I think this track is "Stone In. " The interesting thing about this band is that a couple of members of this band came from free jazz. Uli Trepte and Mani Neumeier were from the German jazz scene, and the guitarist [Ax Genrich] came from a band called Agitation Free and gravitated to Guru Guru. Their previous lead instrument was a sax, amazingly enough, considering how guitar orientated they became. Yeah, a fabulous band! I had the privledge of meeting them in the early ‘70s and I think Kän Guru is possibly my all time favorite album. Actually seeing that band, that chemistry working with Conny Plank was remarkable. It's a stunning record.

Haynes: You got to witness the making of the record?

Stapleton: I met Conny Plank and stayed with him and he told me. Uli stayed with me, just after.

Haynes: How old were you at the time?

Stapleton: 15. I was a Krautrock groupie!

Haynes: Did you have any friends at the time who were into this type of music?

Stapleton: Only the other guy who, ten years later I started Nurse with. Heman Pathak, an Indian fellow, and I would travel around Germany and hang out with all of the bands that nobody was interested in at the time. Bands like Kollektiv, Creative Rock, Birth Control, Kraan, and many other bands. We would just travel around Europe. I remember the first stop and the first band was Gilbert Artman and Lard Free in Paris. Then we toured around Germany; there were three of us locked in a mini. We just got the bug, and I went back and forth to Europe, meeting all of the bands. I actually designed an album cover for Cluster, the Sowiesoso album; but it was never used. I can't remember why it wasn't or what it was. I was nice to do it.

Haynes: There was a Guru Guru record that came out on United Dairies, right?

Stapleton: Yeah, there was. Live in '72. In fact, one side was Guru doing one song off of Hinten, their second album, "Bo Diddley" which was extended into a 24 minute workout. The second side was unreleased material that Uli Trepte did with Conny Plank, with members of Thirsty Moon, another amazing band at the time.


PATERNOSTER
"Blind Children"
from Paternoster (Ohrwashchl) 1972

Stapleton: This sounds typical of the kind of stuff that was coming out in '72. Things like Jane or Paternoster...

Haynes: That's it!

Stapleton: I was never really into this kind of stuff, as it was kind of laboured and they would veer off into these symphonic things that never really interested me. Although I think the first Jane album is a classic. There were so many bands that were doing this kind of music. You could list 50 and they would all sound so similar. Of this kind of music, I think the first Jane album, called Together is stunning. It had a nice touch of soul that some of the others didn't have and were so ham-fisted. They would always sing in pidgin English, and sometimes that would be laughable. This is nice though! But if you like this, you should really check out the first Jane album called Together. Afterwards, it was really a different band, kind of like the Scorpions. The first Scorpions' record was a fucking astounding record, a total psychedelic wonder. They split up and I think it was just the guitarist and vocalist left. Another great band was Nine Days Wonder, who had more than a hint of Zappa but still made some interesting stuff.


SUN CITY GIRLS
"Soi Cowboy"
from 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda (Abduction) 1996

Stapleton: What the hell is this? I've never heard this!

Haynes: It's the Sun City Girls.

Stapleton: I've always wanted to hear some of their stuff. I met them a few weeks ago up in Seattle [for the Wooden Octopus Pfestival], and they're great guys. It's funny because there was a review in The Wire a couple of years ago for A Man With A Woman Face, and whoever reviewed it mentioned that parts of it sounded like the Sun City Girls.

Haynes: That was me.

Stapleton: Was that you? Oh okay! There seems to be several hundred CDs, and the ones I had heard were just of street sounds.

Haynes: Their stuff is all over the place, but there are two albums which are their quintessential psychedelic albums: this one and Torch of the Mystics. I would think you would enjoy them.

Stapleton: I'd like to hear more!