Rare Gems Found

A selection put together in 2014 from vintage footage,

including Live at Bob's Place, Live at Stanislaus State Grad Party,

and a selection from an International Pancake Performance

all by 5 Fingers.

5 Fingers - How It Started

I was doing these experimental multi-layering live radio shows on KPFA in Berkeley, CA with Don Joyce, Negativeland, Fake Stone Age, and Helen Holt. This was in the very early eighties, and my high school friend David Graver went on to Cornell University for his masters and PhD in comparative literature and after his BA in philosophy at UC Berkeley.

This is the time I coined the Audio Art Phone-In concept, allowing sound pieces to be phoned into a radio station and to be broadcast live. Later I did a weekly layering, live mixing program for a while on KCSS at Stan State University in Turlock, "Art Radio" (using radio as a creative art medium, taught a class on it.)

Leonard's Shoe Repair Shop in early 1983 became available for me to use as an art studio and occasional gallery, crossed out shoe repair on the sign, added artspace, and Leonard's Artspace was born.
Began doing these live Altered Audio performances for friends and interested people. It was a collage of the various recordings I had found or made with a little percussion and effects, creating interesting soundscape experiences.
Amon at an Altered Audio event.

Brent Cook of punk-band Problem Fish, wanted us to do something together, and 5 Fingers was born. We got Joy for the first female vocalist. David had been sending me these stream of consciousness postcards that I made into songs, and accompanied with a layering of sounds with percussion, synthesizer, guitar, and voice.

Brent wanted to make more regular sounding songs, Scott Campbell came along with a more electronic music background, and raised in a Scottish Bagpipe family band, replaced Brent for a more experimental art appeal.

A layering of sounds controlled and altered in the tape machines during the live playback, live instruments, live hip drumming, and the lyrics spoken to the beat like beat poetry, loosely scripted, listening to one another, and improvised at and for the moment. The bottom line was always listen to the drummer, and take your cues from him (which was me).

Lolly was suppose to replace college bound Joy, but Lolly didn't want to do it and Marion stepped in on the evening of the show, moments before we began. I explained the parameters to her, gave Marion the lyric sheets, and away we went.

Randy Magnus

5 Fingers Members

Marion Halloway - vocals
Randy Magnus - electronics, percussion
Scott Campbell - Korg, vocals, guitar
Martin Corgiat - vocals, guitar, casio
David Graver - lyrics
Mr. Speedo - waving
Jason Peterson - fill-in effects, percussion, kazoo

special guests:
Steve Kenworthy - guitar, violin, trumpet
Joe Bettencourt - banjo

Marion's Name

I first met her as Marion Halloway.
It took her a year to tell me that I was misspelling her name, and that it was Marian.
By then it was too late, I always spelled it Marion.

A little later she married Kjel Anderson,
and she became Marian Anderson.

Randy

Where They Went

Scott - went off to San Francisco to be with the Gothic rock bands Fade to Black and later Thrill of the Pull.

Marian - found herself in the Bay Area with punk bands The Misfits and Insaints.

Martin - was doing solo gigs in the Modesto area.

Scott and Randy - For a short period of time performed at poetry readings and art galleries as 2 Fingers, hip drumming and beat poetry. (It was never really beat poetry, but rather say the words to the beat.)

Randy - evolved into 3 Fingers, performing more instrumental/experimental music with Cathy George on marimba & vibes, Steve Shaw or David Dow on synthesizer, Deborah Kavasch on extended vocal, and other musicians, including at times a belly dancer.

David - was an assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University for eight years. In those years, he published The Aesthetics of Disturbance (University of Michigan Press) and Drama for a New South Africa (Indiana University Press) as well as numerous articles on theatre and performance art in periodicals, anthologies, and encyclopedias.

Where They Are Now

Randy - Still producing the television show Art TV now in Hawaii, performing on ukulele with a group of 70 year old ladies called The Ladies of Kona (and Randy).

Scott - Living in the San Francisco, working as a counselor, active with the Haight music scene.

David - Assistant Corporation Counsel, Dept. of Law, City of Chicago, and plays trombone with the jazz ensemble at the Old Town School of Folk Music, and was playing harmonica and singing in Alton Smith's Troubadours, doing Tom Waits songs.

Martin - dropped out of society

Mr. Speedo - aka Keith Longcor, still painting away in Modesto, CA

Marian - Marian died of a heroin overdose in Nov of 2001.

Comment from Scott

Always sentimental, it is tough & wonderful going back the days of 5 fingers.
My trustworthy korg synth, homemade guitar and voice were my instruments of choice.
Randy was the true mastermind of 5 fingers, allowing Marion and myself the space to be ourselves (however dark or destructive that may be).
There were hours of naive art in 5 fingers sounds.
Scott Campbell

Scott in Tin Shadows at Leonard's Artspace.

5 Fingers Equipment Used

Randy - Superscope Variable Speed Cassette Recorders, Mattel drum machine.
Later Yamaha drum pads DD17, Yamaha midi sound generator,
Synare 3 dual oscillator drum pad (bought from The Residents), BOSS cymbal/chime drum pad, various acoustic percussion instruments, anvil, sampling Casio keyboard

Scott - Early Korg Synthesizer, home-altered guitars, penny whistle, bagpipe chanter

Martin - electric guitars, 12 second delay, electric bass, electronic devices

PA System - SUN amp head/mixer, flanger, quadverb multi effects rack mount, BOSE monitor speakers from Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66

Synare 3

Five Fingers Performances

Performances by 5 Fingers included:

The Art of Sound - 1983
(Brent Cook, Randy, Joy, and others at Leonard's Artspace)

Pearl Harbor Performance - December 7, 1984
(part of the Made In Japan Show mail-in art show reception)

House Party

The Mall Show - March 10, 1985
(part of Art Awareness Week at the Vintage Faire Mail)


Live at Bob's Place - April 27, 1985 8pm
(Behind Robert and Jeff's storybook house in the middle of an orchard in Ceres, CA.)

Five Fingers Does Howl - 1985
(an evening performance of Allen Ginsberg's classic poem held at Leonard's Artspace)

A Free Concert at MJC - July 31, 1985 8pm
(an evening of 5 Fingers live in the Modesto Junior College Art Gallery)

Live at Dazzles
(part of a benefit show at a Modesto nightclub)

Lend A Hand (live at the coffeehouse Mondo Java)

International Pancake Day
(held at Charlie's house, including pancakes served during the break)

Groundhog Day
(Maybe we did 2 Groundhog Day shows, one was HOWL)

Hire a Human

Pre-Halloween Show - 1986
(held at Modesto Junior College's Art Gallery as part of Decade of Photography exhibit by Randy Magnus)

Pearl Harbor Day at Bob's Place - December 7, 1987
(Done inside Robert's storybook house, a live remote broadcast on KCSS Radio)


Live at Stanislaus State - 1988
(part of the university's art dept. graduation party, with a great version of the Beatles Get Back. Bob Raab helped out as roadie, transportation, & road manager for the event.)

I few of these shows really stand out, and a few I can't remember at all. Like what was Hire a Human about?

Paul The Barber

Paul The Barber had the tiny shop next to Leonard's Artspace.
He didn't have a phone-line, so I ran a line over to his barber shop.
Paul would take messages for me, it gave him a connection to his wife, and kept him awake. He always got a kick out of where the calls came from who were calling the gallery.

(photo by Randy Magnus)

5 Fingers on YouTube

Here is a chance for you to see brief moments of Marian and Randy in Leonard's Artspace, 5 Finger Does HOWL, and The Mall Show.
Also included is "Born in the USA" recorded in the winter of 1985-86 at the Mendocino Art Center, featuring Tamara and Uvea as live gogo dancers.
If I remember correctly, it was pouring down heavy rain during both The Mall Show and for the Live in Mendo-Land performances. Luckily, they both were held indoors.

Thoughts on 5 Fingers : Live in Mendo-Land

The band consisted of both Modesto musicians and Mendocino musicians.

From Mendocino was John Bush on sax (an excellent sax player who played with several local bands,) his father Charles Bush on synthesizer (who set up the innovative ROP program in Mendocino and computerized the Stanford University campus, and was orangish due to drinking carrot juice all the time,) Neil on bass, and Tim on bass a little.

Tamara and Uvea from Mendocino were the main dancers, and Tamera's dance class provided the video dancers.

From Modesto Mr. Speedo (painter Keith Longcor) brought along Marion, Scott with his girlfriend, Martin, and talented Jason Peterson (from a brass band family who later became an assistant editor of Reader's Digest.)

Charles Link brought a carload up from his trailer house on the coast who served as both cameramen and audience.

The video editing (and video feedback) was done at the ROP video studio in Mendocino village.

Special thanks to the Mendocino Art Center for giving us the space for the weekend.
And to the Mendocino Cafe for the space upstairs to sleep at.

Mauled in Motown Now Available

Longtime fan and musician Wil Hendricks recently contacted me with this link to a digitized copy of one of 5 Fingers earliest cassettes - Mauled in Motown.

Mauled in Motown included The Mall Show (March 10, 1985, 1pm - 1:40pm) and The Pearl Harbor Show (held on Pearl Harbor Day.)
The Pearl Harbor Show was the reception for "The Made In Japan" mail-in art exhibit at Leonard's Artspace, and was Marion's first performance with the group. Lolly was suppose to be the female singer, but refused to do it at the last minute.
So Marion Halloway offered to fill in and
her performance on "How Many Babies" was unforgettable.

And The Mall Show speaks for itself.
It was part of Art Awareness week at the Vintage Faire Mall. We were followed by a square-dance club.
(The tuxedos Scott and I wore at The Mall Show were rented for us to usher the movie premiere at The Briggsmore by Grace Lieberman and the Stanislaus County Arts Commission for the previous night (we had until Monday to return them.) And I don't know where Marion got the wedding dress, but it was great. The kilt and socks that made up the bottom half of Scott's outfit was from his family's bagpipe band.)
Included in the video are images of Marion's grandparents, who raised her during her Modesto years.


Thanks Wil -
Check it out:
Mauled in Motown
http://www.loftypillars.com/5_fingers/


(A side-note: Michael, a friend of mine who owned Recycled Records, we use to do television shows about obscure recordings, had his house raided by the Feds who took his personal collection of obscure bootleg recordings, including a copy of the cassette 5 Fingers "Mauled in Motown", in its original package.
The Feds thought it too was a bootleg.)

The Barking Song

Placed in a room full of well trained dogs,
Who bark for their meal, who bark for the ball,
Who bark for nothing really at all.

I saw the Bible written on the wall,
Grovel in shit, grovel in slime,
The surf kitchen really says it all.

I don't want to be like you,
Problem Sister's got nothing to do,
Except to feed the dogs,
Feed the dogs, feed the dogs,
Be with the dogs.

Be a cocktail zombie,
Be calm, be cool, and be poised.
So go pour yourself a drink,
And feed the dogs.
Placed in a room full of well trained dogs,
Who bark for their meal, who bark for the ball,
Who bark for nothing really at all.

I went to see Grandpa and its funny what he said,
He said, "Reality's only inside your head,
'Cause you've got to bark for your meal,
Bark for the ball, bark fir nothing really at all."

I saw the Bible written on the wall,
Grovel in shit, grovel in slime,
Feed the dogs, feed the dogs,
Be with the dogs.

Marian Halloway / Randy Magnus

(Marian gave me her journal, and I took out the best lines, and added Brent and Michael of the Surf Kitchen house the lines about groveling that they had written on the walls of Leonard's Artspace, and created a story around all of it.)

Listen to The Barking Song

Oxygen ('s Alright to Breathe)

Many of the graphics 5 Fingers used came from a book titled "Therapeutic Uses for Adhesive Tape" by Johnson & Johnson.

(Heavy Industry)

Death-head doorknobs dripping DDT
Fly like bats from formaldehyde seas.
Metallic mosquitoes and electronic gnats
Eat cardboard eggshells in acid-bath vats.

I don't mind reality
Oxygen's alright to breathe
But I can't swim through the fish-nets falling from the sky
In the sucking crystal swiftness of your whirl-pool eyes.

Jack-hammers dance in shows of molten glass
While parrots eating parachutes poison ocean bass.
Dinner plates and coffee trays heave hydrocarbon sigh
And plutonium feeds on secrets jerked from the jaws of butterflies.

I don't mind reality
Oxygen's alright to breathe
But the velvet, barbed-wire tresses of your midnight hair
Burn my shaking fingers in this neon, chrome-stained air.

Pipelines singing with petroleum tongues
Harmonize with plastic flies in lead-lined iron lungs.
Celluloid centipedes sell foam from cinder beer
While blind baboons in business suits buy bags of viscous fear.

I don't mind reality
Oxygen's alright to breathe
But the soft warm silent places seething on your skin
Dries the blood in my temples and pierces my gut with pins.

David Graver / Randy Magnus
May 1982

(Originally David had "I don't mind gravity", but I thought it was better for the times to change gravity to reality.)

Suck The Blood From My Lips

words by David Graver, who originally had it titled as Brain Surgery.
(It was a tune that Scott liked to perform on vocals.)

Minimal Country

King of the Road

Trailer for sale or rent,
rooms to let fifty cents.
No phone, no pool, no pets,
I ain't got no cigarettes,
Ah, but two hours of pushin' brooms
buys an eight by twelve four-bit room,
I'm a man of means by no means
King of the Road.

Third box car midnight train,
destination Bangor, Maine,
Old worn out suit and shoes,
I don't pay no union dues.
I smoke old stogies I have found
short but not too big around.
I'm a man of means by no means
King of the Road.

I know every engineer on every train,
all of the children, and all of their names.
And every handout in every town,
and every lock that ain't locked when no one's around.

(instrumental)

Trailer for sale or rent,
rooms to let fifty cents.
No phone, no pool, no pets,
I ain't got no cigarettes,
Ah, but two hours of pushin' brooms
buys an eight by twelve four-bit room,
I'm a man of means by no means
King of the Road,
King of the Road.

These Boots

These Boots

You keep sayin' you got somethin' for me.
Somethin' you call love but confess.
You been messin' where you shouldn't been messin',
Not what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet.

These boots are made for walkin',
n' that's just what they'll do,
One of these days,
these boots,
are gonna walk all over you.

You keep lyin' when you oughta be truthin',
You keep losin' when you oughta not bet.
You keep samein' when you oughta be changin',
And now someone else is gettin' all your best.

These boots are made for walkin',
n' that's just what they'll do,
One of these days,
these boots,
are gonna walk all over you.

You keep playin' where you shouldn't be playin'
You keep thinkin' that you'll never get burned.
I just found me a brand new box of matches,
And what he knows you ain't got time to learn.

These boots are made for walkin',
n' that's just what they'll do,
One of these days,
these boots,
are gonna walk all over you.

Lee Hazelwood

Listen to "These Boots" from the Mall Show.


(set to the drum riff of "Not Fade Away".)

J'Accuse - (Got You By The Balls)

You read the papers and watch the news
And swallow their lies like sweet cheap booze.
You pay your taxes and vote most years
While the government buys rifles and plays on your fears.

You can gossip, you can talk,
You can hope that wars will stop,
But the generals won't fall
'Cause they've got you by the balls, they've got you by the balls.

You like to make money and act like a snob,
But you're too dumb for college and there aren't any jobs.
Besides, you must register for the draft
And maybe shoot peasants to guard the government graft.

You can bitch, you can moan,
You can spend the day at home,
But you'll march out when they call
'Cause they've got you by the balls, they've got you by the balls.

Your mother's car was recalled when she burnt up in a ditch,
Your father dies of poison while his boss gets filthy rich.
Apartied and repression are funded by your bank,
Children die of hunger while the government builds tanks.

You can whimper, you can whine,
You can cry until you're blind.
They can make you dance or crawl
'Cause they've got you by the balls,
They've got you by the balls,
They've got you by the balls.

words by David Graver

What Does It All Mean?

Do Cars Cough At Midnight

(heart-beat tape) (percussion)

Furred with fire the fingers flicker guilt,
With golden glows in the wasting woods.
We went west, wondering with our open eyes
Where wild weaving water bloomed blue above winter.

Leaves left loafs of leaven looping our hands. (add bass)
Do cars cough at midnight?
Do cars cough at midnight?

On the plains eagles danced with their wooden wings,
waxed to the clouds.
The sun wrinkled in the west,
And left stars screaming in the purple mouth of morning.

And the leaves left loafs of leaven looping our hands.
Do cars cough at midnight? (build)
Do cars cough at midnight?

Our tears turned to wrinkled rocks in the ice fields,
And we drown in the dry grass dappled with dew.
As a warning could be heard: (voice only)
"Don't float in the fires of fantasy without wearing a wristwatch."

As a car coughs at midnight. (percussion & voice only)
As a car coughs at midnight.
As a car coughs at midnight.

words by David Graver

Listen to "Do Cars Cough At Midnight" from the Mall Show.

How Many Babies - the lyrics

How many babies, how many babies, how many babies......

Cold steel will turn in the twilight of your intestines,
A cough of hungry darkness,
dropping from the dollars your bank invests in the Third World.

How many babies, how many babies, how many babies......

Do you hear the gurgling Death Rattle Death Rattle,
Soft food warm in your dark intestines,
Clinging to mud/blood/death rattle dead rattle.

How many babies, how many babies, how many babies......

You've been bribed with TV dinners,
You've been conned by college and game shows.
Imperialism sleeps in the center of your Hostess Twinkie.

How many babies, how many babies, how many babies......

The pesticides in your coffee can't be sprayed on your lawn,
But they kill women in Guatemala.
Don't you smell the corpses in your kitchen?

How many babies, how many babies, how many babies......

There is blood on your bank book,
The tear gas and machine guns makes it hard to clean your swimming pool.
Cold steel will turn in the twilight of your intestines.

How many babies, how many babies, how many more babies......

David Graver / Randy Magnus

David wrote this to me on a postcard as stream of consciousness. I re-worked it, making the "how many babies" line into the chorus.

(The basic sound for this piece was recorded in a sound booth at the Exploratorium in San Francisco on a homemade sound generator that one of their artist-in-residence created. I would turn the dials until I got the sound and speed that I liked and record it with my Superscope portable tape deck.)

Listen to How Many Babies from The Pearl Harbor Show

 Or watch the complete performance on this YouTube player.
Video shot by Brenda Kleinfelder and produced by Randy Magnus for Art TV.

Marian Anderson R.I.P.

Marian Anderson R.I.P. 1968-2001
For those of you that don't know, Marian passed away Nov. 4th 2001 due to a Heroin overdose. She is greatly missed in words I can't explain... -Daniel
More on Marian Anderson can be seen on the Insaints MySpace page.

Marian Interview in Bay Area

This clip is from the movie about Marian, "Last Fast Ride" (The Life, Love, and Death of a Punk Goddess) by Lilly Scourtis Ayers.