Fifty Foot Hose
Fifty Foot Hose is a psychedelic rock band that formed in San Francisco in the late 1960s, and reformed in the 1990s. They were one of the first bands to fuse rock and experimental music. Like a few other acts of the time (most notably the United States of America), they were consciously trying to fuse the contemporary sounds of rock with electronic instruments and avant-garde compositional ideas.
The 1960s - the original group
The original group comprised three core members: founder and bassist Louis "Cork" Marcheschi, guitarist David Blossom, and his wife, vocalist Nancy Blossom, augmented by Kim Kimsey (drums) and Larry Evans (guitar).
Cork Marcheschi (b. 1945) grew up in Burlingame, California. In his teens he performed with the Ethix, who played R&B music in clubs around San Francisco and in Las Vegas, and released one experimental and wildly atonal single, "Bad Trip", in 1966 - the intention being that the record could be played at any speed. Interested in the ideas of experimental composers like Edgard Varèse, John Cage, Terry Riley, and George Antheil, he constructed his own custom-made electronic instrument from a combination of elements like theremins, fuzzboxes, a cardboard tube, and a speaker from a World War II aircraft bomber.
David and Nancy Blossom brought both psychedelic and jazz influences to the band. Together, the trio recorded a demo which led to a deal with Limelight, a subsidiary of Mercury Records.
They released one album, "Cauldron", in December 1967. It contained eleven songs, including "Fantasy", "Red the Sign Post" and "God Bless the Child", a Billie Holiday cover. Although an erratic work, it was intriguing for its mix of jazzy psychedelic rock tunes with fierce and primitive electronic sound effects. "I don't know if they are immature or premature", said critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The record sold few copies at the time, although the group had a small but intense following in San Francisco and also toured with other acts including Blue Cheer, Chuck Berry and Fairport Convention, when the band was augmented by Robert Goldbeck (bass). They broke up in 1969 when most of its members joined the musical Hair, Nancy Blossom becoming the lead in the San Francisco production and later singing in Godspell.
The 1990s - reformation
Interest in Fifty Foot Hose resurfaced in the 1990s, as they became recognized as precursors to the electronic rock sounds of groups like Pere Ubu, Chrome and Throbbing Gristle, and '"Cauldron" was reissued on CD. By this time, Marcheschi had become a respected sculptor, specializing in public work using neon, plastic, and kinetic characteristics.
In 1995, Marcheschi reformed the group for live performances in San Francisco, with a new set of musicians. These performances led to the release of the album "Live & Unreleased", which was followed in 1997 by a new studio album, "Sing Like Scaffold". On the latter album, Fifty Foot Hose essentially comprised Marcheschi (on echolette, twin audio generators, squeaky stick, white noise generator, theremin, spark gap, and saw blades), Walter Funk III (jokers Ulysses and Cupid constructed by Fred 'Spaceman' Long, Bug (Tom Nunn), vocoder, Hologlyphic Funkaliser and other electronix), Reid Johnston (guitube, guitar, tools, horns, harmonium, hardware, bikewheel), Lenny Bove (bass, electronics, vocals), Elizabeth Perry (vocals), and Dean Cook (drums).
Funk and Johnston subsequently formed the avant-garde electronic band Kwisp, the first of whose two albums also featured Marcheschi.
In 2006 Marcheschi, Funk, Johnston and Konstantine Baranov (producer of "Sing Like Scaffold"), installed a public sound installation in an atrium in Hong Kong. Motion sensors inside multi-colored cones hanging from a large metal tree, would detect people walking by, triggering random sounds along with randomizing music. There were specific songs, random but with a logic to them.