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Artist
The Roots Of Madness
8+ albums
experimentalbluesAvant-Gardeavant-jazzavnat
about
The avant-garde musical group The Roots of Madness was formed in San Jose, California in 1969 by Geoff Alexander and Don Campau, and included Joe Morrow, Jim Kulczynski, and David “Dave Dolphin” Leskovsky. This core group was joined frequently by Gary and Chris Campau, Patrick Evans, and Vickie Leskovsky. Geoff, who was influenced by the likes of John Coltrane, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Japanese ichi-genkin music, was unaware of the rock musical revolution taking place 60 miles to the north in San Francisco. Don, influenced by British blues and San Francisco psychedelic rock, was unaware of the avant-garde. The melding of these influences became the framework for the group’s eclectic compositions and arrangements. The Roots existed from 1969 to 1973, and played in unconventional venues, such as laundromats and freeway overpasses, arriving unannounced, setting up instruments, and performing sets of up to two hours. Their only scheduled performance was at Forbes Mill in the town of Los Gatos, where they were joined by pianist Russ Ferrante (who later would form the jazz-fusion Yellowjackets), and local avant-garde musician and artist John Hayden. Their phonograph record, ‘The Girl in the Chair,’ was pressed in 1971, in a run of 500 copies, 100 of which were distributed by the legendary Norm Pierce of San Francisco’s Jack’s Record Cellar. Norm also distributed ESP-Disk recordings, and felt that The Roots would appeal to the same listener (Norm later jokingly said it
