The Golden Dawn

I K N O W W H A T Miss Me,” in particular), the Eleva- overshadowed by the reputations bullshit”). Y O U T H I N K B U T tors used their influence to help of The Elevators, Red Krayola and In the thick of it all Mr. Kinney was secure a deal between IA and their Bubble Puppy. kind enough to give up some of his I T ’ S N O T T R U E brethren in The Golden Dawn, Disillusioned with their label and time and explain, for his part, what An Interview With George resulting in the group’s sole release, the Austin music scene in general, it all meant. The following interview Kinney of The Golden Dawn the 1968 LP Power Plant. Though The Golden Dawn broke up in 1970 took place in a back-corner booth at it had been completed for nearly a and George Kinney left Texas shortly landmark country bar The Broken n July of 2002, a handful of year, IA delayed the release of Power thereafter, only to return for health Spoke in Austin, Texas, early in the Texas musicians and enthusiasts Plant until after the Elevators second reasons in 1978. Since then he evening of August 1, 2002. I put together the first ever Texas full-length, Easter Everywhere, had has maintained a purposely-low Psych Fest, a two-day fund-raising hit shelves, not wanting The Golden profile, performing sporadically and So we’re five days beyond the affair inspired and sanctioned by Dawn to detract from their flagship rarely recording. The last few years, first show in, what 30 years? this very periodical that was held on act. This relegation to second-class however, have seen a comparative consecutive weekends in both Hous- status by the label predictably affected burst of output from the man: he With The Golden Dawn, yeah. ton and Austin, featuring much of the record’s reception, and the close recently released the CD After the the best expansive How do you music the state feel about the currently has to first one? offer: Charalam- bides, The I thought it was Dunlavy (their good, I thought first ever live we did okay. performance), We played some ST-37, Primor- songs I don’t dial Undermind, think too many Crevice, and people knew Linus Pauling about, there Quartet, to name were a couple of a few. The event’s chord changes final notes were where we didn’t sounded, how- all end at the ever, by a group same place, shit that had been like that. among the first That’s why and truest to we’re trying to strike them, back tighten it up for when many of this show tomor- the festival’s co- row (in Austin), participants were because all the but the tiny, mew- chord changes ling end results are so impor- of their parents’ tant. It’s that drunken and dramatic chord amorous anniver- change thing sary dinners. that we do that The Golden really helps our Dawn is not a overall sound. name that travels far outside the What to you orbit of the late defines the 1960s Texas rock “ d r a m a t i c scene and its c h o r d undisputed label change?” of record, Inter- national Artists; It’s like Rolling sadly enough, it’s Stones stuff, or Beatles stuff, a group that has affiliation between the two Austin Fall, his first available recording since and some of the Elevators stuff. too often received short shrift even groups led to the labeling of The Power Plant, and the publication Chord changes themselves set some- within that provincial history. Third Golden Dawn as a lesser, though of his first novel, The Bandit King, thing, they create a tone, this rhythm generation Austinite George Kinney, solid, imitation of the Elevators. is imminent. And, of course, The that’s really where it’s all at. Of the group’s singer and primary That critique has sadly not changed Golden Dawn is performing once course there’s the bass and drums, songwriter, had grown up alongside markedly with time; full of top-shelf again, to newly receptive audiences; th the rhythm section; but the chord 13 Floor Elevators singer Roky songwriting (“This Way Please” their Psych Fest sets were met with changes really set the pace for our Erickson; the friendship between is one of the finest moments in enthusiasm, and upon hearing that stuff. Whereas in straight blues, or the two extended to their bands, the IA catalog) and distinct as the band had reformed, Billy Gib- straight country, or even straight both for better and worse. After the the label’s most traditional Texas- bons invited the group to open for rock and roll, it’s basically three- success of their debut International sounding release – unapologetically ZZ Top at an upcoming Austin date chord stuff that’s real… if you can Artists album The Psychedelic Sounds shitkicking and shuffling — Power (though the whole concert eventu- play guitar, you can sit in with of…(and the single “You’re Gonna Plant nonetheless continues to be ally fell apart, thanks to “stupid Leary began with, the LSD prophets, were all about something that was possible in evolution. You’d take drugs and you’d get real high, you’d see all this stuff and your mind would expand, but somewhere in your mind there’d be this doubt because you knew you’d taken drugs to get there. It took something as heavy as psychedelics to bring people into that potential consciousness, make the neuron connections at the synapses that actually allowed a whole other perspective. But really that was all that it was supposed to do. The stuff itself, the essential levels of being, are, for all practical purposes, probably eternal like most religions claim. It’s always there, God’s everywhere, whatever, you just don’t lift your mind to it. To do that you had to do this thing to yourself, the good ol’ Eastern analogy in The Prophet that you use a boat to get anybody, play anywhere and play (Sutherland). In my opinion, Stacy stuff. Now it’s kinda backed away across a river, but you don’t drag a all the stuff. But with all of my was the musical genius in the Eleva- from that, you can’t really say ‘leave boat across the desert. Once you get songs it’s not really like that. It’s tors. Roky was a great singer; the your body behind,’ it’s not happening there you let the boat go on. almost like that, but there’s always things he could do with his voice, right now. Obviously Hermeticism is a big a designed chord change for effect, he’s one of the best singers I’ve ever influence on you – you named in every one of them, that you have heard, as a person I love him dearly, So, if we follow that idea of the the band after it – but at what to know or it just doesn’t sound he’s my life long friend, I can’t say masking of messages in the ’60s, point did you start delving into good. enough good things about him, but the typical line on Elevators it? a musical genius — that’s not a songs, for example, is that most How old were you when you term I would ever consider. But of the songs are full of drug began writing songs? Stacy, yeah. references, though they seem Early on. At 16 or 17-years-old open enough for interpretation I was reading more or less esoteric Early teens. I’d been writing poems Did you know Stacy… that you could think about them things, but not really until I met since long before that, but the first in many different contexts. Tommy did I really snap to what it thing that really snapped me to Before the Elevators? No, but we was really all about, that it was worth music was being able to write poems became good friends during the times Sure, of course. devoting a lot of time to understand, to it. That was the thing that really that we shared. But he was way that it was a life-long quest. interested me in music at first, out there musically; he was the best What do you think of that partic- Are the songs on Power Plant because I’d been writing lovelorn rock and roll guitar player there’s ular interpretation and, second, the extent of Golden Dawn’s poems to girlfriends in the ridiculous ever been. And then Tommy (Hall) in what ways was your songwrit- material, or were there songs not hope that somehow that beautiful certainly influenced my writing; I ing similar and dissimilar? included on the record? poem was going to win her heart. went in a whole different direction Of course it never did, but it helped after meeting Tommy. Instead of That’s an excellent question, because me anyway. love poems it was like the trouba- that’s really the essence of so much We wrote the last song in the hotel dours back in the 12th century, the of it. I’ve thought about it a lot, and or something. I think we wrote Did Dylan or someone influence bards that went around the courts I may not have a good answer but “Seeing is Believing” as the last your thinking that you could set singing their songs.

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