The Golden Palominos

The Golden Palominos was an American musical group headed by drummer and composer Anton Fier that was first formed in 1981. Apart from Fier, the Palominos membership was wildly elastic; While the Palominos records usually featured a core set of musicians though the bulk of an album, various guest appearances would result in personnel and stylictic changes from track to track.

Related Topics:
American - Drummer - Composer - Anton Fier - 1981

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The group first featured Fier, singer-guitarist Arto Lindsay, saxophonist John Zorn, bass guitarist Bill Laswell and violinist/guitarist Fred Frith. This line-up produced a self-titled debut album, released on New York's Celluloid Records in 1983. They were heavily influenced by so-called no wave music (Lindsay had played in the no wave band DNA) but its style also contained elements of funk and of the improvational jazz stylings that would become Zorn's trademark. This line-up lasted only briefly, although its members would guest on subsequent Palominos records.

Related Topics:
Guitar - Arto Lindsay - Saxophonist - John Zorn - Bass guitar - Bill Laswell - Violinist - Fred Frith - No wave - Funk

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The next album, 1985's Visions Of Excess, would sound vastly different, leaning towards more folk and country styles, although one song, "The Animal Speaks", featured a more pronounced electric guitar part and vocals by The Sex Pistols' John Lydon. This record was noteworthy as the debut of singer Syd Straw, whose songs & vocals were featured prominently, and who would influence the next record as well. Cream's Jack Bruce, guitarist Richard Thompson, and R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe also appeared. Of the line-up from the first record, only Fier and Arto Lindsey remained.

Related Topics:
1985 - John Lydon - Syd Straw - Jack Bruce - Richard Thompson - R.E.M. - Michael Stipe

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Blast Of Silence, released the following year, had much the same feel as Visions Of Excess and many of its personnel. It included covers of two songs written by Little Feat's Lowell George, both sung by Straw. The record also featured prominent guest appearances by Matthew Sweet, Don Dixon, Peter Holsapple and T-Bone Burnett.

Related Topics:
Little Feat - Matthew Sweet - Don Dixon - Peter Holsapple - T-Bone Burnett

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A Dead Horse, released three years later, carried on in this sound slightly, but some of the songs also showed the amibient, ethereal sound that would dominate the Palomino records of the 1990s. Straw had also moved on, with some of the vocals now handled by Amanda Kramer, formerly of the dance music group Information Society.

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Drunk With Passion marked the first record not on Celluloid, and a vastly different sound, decidedly more ambient and electronic. This album, more than most, is heavily influenced by its guest appearances, including Husker Du's Bob Mould (who would go on to form the band Sugar the following year), and the return of Thompson & Stipe, who provide a touchstone track in the song "Alive And Living Now". Nicky Skopelitis would also became more of a cornerstone of the band, contributing the bulk of the album's tracks, along with Fier and Kramer.

Related Topics:
Husker Du - Bob Mould - Nicky Skopelitis

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This Is How It Feels released by (Restless Records in 1993, continued much in the amibent sound of Drunk With Passion, but with more dance elements (a companion remix EP of the song "Prison Of The Rhythm" was released a few months later). It also marked the introduction of Lori Carson, who co-wrote nine tracks with Fier. Bill Laswell also returned to contribute on this record, and his production work on this and on the following record, Pure, would also heavily influence his remix work of the late 90's (such as the CDs Emerald Ather and City Of Light.). The album featured a trippy re-interpetation of Jackson Browne's "These Days".

Related Topics:
Restless - Remix - Lori Carson - Jackson Browne

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Pure, released a year later, is seen by many as the band's most focused work, due much to the strong contributions once again of Carson, Laswell, and Skopelitis. Tracks such as "No Skin" and "Pure" continued the dance/ambient style of the previous album, along with the song "Little Suicides" showing some of the same sparse sound (abeit less electronic) and vocal work that would influence Carson once she would leave the Palominos to re-focus on her solo career (Fier produced her first post-Palominos solo record, 1995's Where It Goes.) Pure would also cause a minor controversy over the bare female breast on its cover, with some stores only carrying a version of the CD with simple, text-based artwork. Another remix EP (No Thought, No Breath, No Eyes, No Heart) accompanied its release.

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1994 also saw the release of Fier's own first solo record, Dreamspeed.

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Dead Inside (1996) was another turnaround for the Palominos, and their last proper album. This time, the record had a deathly, industrial sound, with the line-up consisting only of Fier, multi-instrumentalist Knox Chandler (who before joining, was briefly in a band with Lori Carson), Skopelitis and poet Nicole Blackman. Blackman's dark and delibrate lyrics (tellingly, Blackman also previously worked with the industrial German band KMFDM) made for a challenging record (especially the album's opener, the brutal, spoken-word track, "Victim"), and with a sound decidedly unlike any of the others.

Related Topics:
Multi-instrumentalist - Nicole Blackman - KMFDM

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In 1997, The Palominos released another EP, named Dead Outside, composed of five remixes of tracks from Dead Inside. They were released as free MP3s onto the Internet, made available for a limited time through Nicole Blackman's and a fan-created (since decomissioned) band website. It was one of the first instances of a band making songs freely available to its fans.

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Of several best-of compilations (including two A History collections on Celluloid, both released in 1992, a German collection released in 1997, and 2002's Run Pony Run), none include any material from Drunk With Passion onward. The later albums on Restless are growing harder to find, with those on Celluloid and Drunk With Passion nearly non-existent. Dreamspeed is also extremely rare, and in its original release is a prized possession of Fier afficionados. (Fier would re-release Dreamspeed and his other solo record, blindlight on Zorn's Tradik label in late 2003.)

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Both Syd Straw and Lori Carson have gone on to moderately successful (but much critically acclaimed) solo careers, with Carson contributing several songs to televison shows and movies. A collection of these songs, called Stolen Beauty, was released by Rykodisc in 2003, and a new Carson solo record, The Finest Thing, was released in 2004.

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