By Jay Graboski (with text borrowed from the Okinawa and Vitamin OHO liner notes)

Here is the latest in an occasional series, the aim of which is to bring the story of 1974-76 OHO to completion on a high note. If the number of compact discs dispensed for this issue is any indication of the rate at which the Progression readership is growing, then the resurgence of interest in this music should, to some small degree, secure the legacies for obscure bands like OHO, and for those of us who enjoy hearing their music.

Notes on the tunes:

1) “Tinker’s Damn” (Graboski)-We saw Genesis at the Eastwind in Baltimore, spring 1974, during their “Selling England” tour. One Guitar Craft aphorism reads: “If we wish to know, breathe the air around someone who knows.” Steve Hackett was sitting outside afterwards, sipping a Heineken. We tried to get close that we might breathe in the air around him. Inspired, I went home and composed this song. Yeah, it’s saturated with a lot of cool mellotron sounds. Please find it a fitting tribute to one of the best groups ever. It is the last track on Vitamin OHO (more on Guitar Craft at www.guitarcraft.com).

2) “Parade/Charade” (Graboski/O’Connor)-Intended to open Dream of the Ridiculous Band, the team travels through 12 different keys on the intro. Featured are some unusual time signatures and our trademark lyrically obtuse pontification. Epic in proportion, engineer and co-producer John Ariosa ran the entire mix through a prototypical delay device, the Marshall Time Modulator, the inventor of which (Mr. Marshall) used to hang at Sheffield Studio in Timonium, MD, where we recorded.

3) “The Salient Sickle Sucker” (O’Connor)- From Okinawa, “Sucker” serves as matchmaker for alliteration and sibilance. Featuring the drumming of a teenage Larry Bright, who wore headphones all the time, the kind jackhammer operators wear to attenuate outside noise. (Who knows? Was this some restrained statement regarding his band mates, the music, or both?) It still amazes me that even in his self-imposed isolation, he was able to learn and record 30 songs in a very short time period. He was only a member for the month or so it took to rehearse and record Okinawa and to play the band’s first dismal gig. Larry went on to perform with Sun Ra, Ben E. King, and a host of fusion artists. He has also produced a number of percussion-related instructional videos and jazz/fusion compact music discs.

4) “Seldom Bought ”(GOHOG), “Lois Jane” (Graboski) and “Hogshead” (O’Connor & O’Sullivan) are presented here as “The Three” in segue, mimicking the way we played them in concert. All are found on Vitamin OHO. Dreams served as hors d’oeuvres on oppositional platters prelude the dancing before the slaying begins. “Lois Jane”-ankle-socked babootchka fond of lime phosphate. Spat upon too often to maintain a sanitary institution, she was eventually evicted. “Hogshead”-the main dish served complete with ambulance (exorcist extra). Du hast schwein gehabt (“you’re lucky”, or literally: “you have had pig”)!

5) “Lez Lee” (Graboski/Heck/O’Connor) was the B-side of our only single (“Seldom Bought” being the flip). With glamour rock glittering the airwaves, we had to “toss” in our own 10cc, inventing an appropriate sonic milieu for this fictitious, transvestite, go-go dancer.

6) “Hyphenate Ice-less” (O’Sullivan)-Last remaining icon of the unholy movement of the return to love of hate, sound and justlessness. The sequential syllabic arrangement of alternating languages served as hypnotic relaxant (from Vitamin OHO).

7) “No Fewer Days” (Heck/O’Sullivan)-A favorite chant of the faithful comrades of the Non-Separatists who were the chief denizens of the man’s Eatery. Symbolic of the defeatist movement that emerged in the end, the patients had a tendency to regress before release.

8) “Nocturnal Recurrence” (O’Connor)-Nite (sic) is coming back into vogue. The giant glazzy (sic) now welcomes back its former companion, the lite (sic) of the nite (sic) (tracks 7 & 8 from Vitamin OHO).

9) “The Plague” (Graboski/O’Connor)-alternative Okinawa version after the Camus book, the one about the wartime invasion of North Africa.

10) “Dance of the Ivy Dog” (O’Connor/O’Sullivan)- (from Okinawa) The feverish nightmare of madmen/genii? “Lowly buckjaw tzigane!” encapsulates the genre.

11) “Fwombat” (O’Connor)-Larry’s saga of misunderstanding and the strange imprisonment that ensued following perfectly creative acts of violence and paranoia. There were negative sanctions imposed in the old days upon such commonplace occurrences (from Vitamin OHO).

12) “Albumblatt” (O’Sullivan)-OHO’s “Horizons.” (from the unreleased Dream of the Ridiculous Band)

13) “Ms. Mouse” (Graboski)-One purpose of a broken (open) heart is to more readily recognize this condition in others (from Dream of the Ridiculous Band).

14) “Snow Lady (Pt.II)” (Graboski)-Brother Jeff pounded out the “In the Air Tonight” drum fill years before Phil. Also from Dream, I remember snickering in the control room as we urged co-producer Tom Apple to play numerous takes on the wind chimes, just to give him a taste of his own medicine.

15) “Naming OHO”-nomen ist omen. Yes, the tape machine just happened to be in the “record” mode (more on OHO at www.ohomusic.com).

16) “The Hand Over Isaac’s Head” (Heck/O’Connor)-(last song on Dream of the Ridiculous Band) “Let the sword fly, Abraham! All sons and downtown girls have all lost their heads. And this is all...”