Yama & the Karma Dusters - Up From the Sewers
SKU
18-Lion 636
"Super political, rocking, anti-establishment communal band (c. 1970) put together as a result of the Kent State Massacre. As the Euphoria Blimpworks Band, fronted by Howard Berkman from morose garage punksters the Knaves, they played demonstrations and student strikes when they weren’t opening for blues royalty—or being the first band to play the yard at Cook County Jail. They were inter-racial, anti-war, Stop the Bomb, free love hippies, the wildest of the wild kids. And this is the quintessential anarcho-hippie record, a surprisingly well-engineered indie effort which came inside home-made silk-screened jackets, with twisted, poetic lyrics (Dylan or Arthur Lee and Love? you decide), and funky, rocking bones—political, sociological, ecological, reflective and free-love sexy. The Karma Dusters really cook on the up-tempo tracks, sounding at times like a cross between The Blues Project and Dylan's band circa 1966, augmented by some dazzling violin. This excellent sounding master-tape reissue has two bonus tracks; it also has two booklets—one is for the outrageous and explicit Gonzo history of the band and their urban commune; the other is a wrap-around booklet for lyrics, all served up together in a Mylar plastic sleeve. You just know the FBI has a huge file on these punks. But do they have the album?"
"Forty years ago today Yama & the Karma Dusters played one of their first gigs as part of the first Earth Day celebration at Daley Plaza. Tonight members of the band will be present at another Earth Day event, a listening party at the more modest Heartland Cafe. Who the fuck are Yama & the Karma Dusters, you ask? I'm still figuring that out. Earlier this month Lion Productions, a great reissue label in Geneva, Illinois, reissued the band's 1971 debut album, Up From the Sewers, on CD. The insanely extensive liner notes include a rush of information and recollections that clutter rather than clarify my picture of the band, but they do capture a forgotten chapter in Chicago rock—at least I assume it's forgotten, since I stay pretty well informed and nearly all of it is new to me. The band grew out of what the notes claim was the city's first rock 'n' roll sound company, Euphoria Blimp Works (its logo featured a hookah-smoking caterpillar, apparently from Alice in Wonderland, curled up in a dirigible), born when the original Kinetic Playground club burned down and some friends salvaged the usable sound gear. From there the story gets a bit hazy, but it definitely involves communal living, Students for a Democratic Society, Cynthia Plaster Caster, and free love. The liner notes also provide detailed stories of the various gigs Yama & the Karma Dusters played in 1970 and '71, and mention what various band members have been up to since.... The CD reissue includes a couple bonus tracks not on the original album, a self-released effort packaged with gloriously amateurish silk-screened artwork" – Peter Margasak/Chicago Reader