My evening with Helios

[allynh@calder.berkeley.edu (Allyn Hardyck)]

Hello all... lot of things have happened since my last posting to anybody...

First off, one of the people in the building has become Helios Creed's
manager, so I got a chance to meet him.  He used to be in Chrome, a
band which, paraphrasing the TP Guide, explored dark psychotic realms
only hinted at by 60s psychedelia.  He and Damon Edge, the other chief
member of the band, had a falling out resulting in Edge recruiting new
members, taking the band to Europe and becoming a big cult band.  Not
big in a commercial sense, but a comfortable living.  Meanwhile, Helios
just had the bus he lives in rammed, and a favorite guitar stolen, so
when I met him he was pretty depressed - was considering crashing in
Barrington for a while.  He's 33, has two ex-wives and two kids, tall
blond guy with a porkpie hat, fatigue jacket, stubble and board (That's
board, not beard).  He reminisced about when Chrome went into the
studio to do cuts for the Subterranean compilation also featuring the
Residents, MX-80 Sound, Tuxedomoon etc - "that was fun...".  He also
talked about how the manager of Judas Priest (I think) once told him
that he could make Chrome a big metal band, and of course he turned him
down.  A lot of the evening was spent playing old folk songs after I
found him a guitar (my suitemate's) - he used to do the early 70's SF
coffeehouse thing if you can believe it.  One of his favorites is Shawn
Phillips, so we heard lots of that, also Jethro Tull..!  He talked
about how he used to play X song and X couple would move just a little
closer to each other, hands held across the table, and would leave him
a nice big gratuity...  I got him about $2 in pot from a reliable house
dealer...  He'd like to do all acoustic on his next album, but for now
he has _X-Rated Fairy Tales_ out on Subterranean, with some acoustic
touches but mostly really raw.  He played a great show at the V.I.S.
Club in SF last May 16, a record release party, and apparently
attracted the largest crowd they've had there in a while...  Piglatin
opened, they're sort of Einsturzende Neubautenish (percussion guy had a
shopping cart full of large springs, water bottles etc.), I kinda liked
them but then I was on my 2nd Southern Comfort.

John (Helios's new manager) got through to Damon at his headquarters in
France and so there's a communication line if not a reconciliation.

allyn