History Of Rock N' Roll

Very smart clean vinyl with a good  gatefold cover showing sticker removal mark. Includes lyric sheet.

Laughing Clowns, sometimes written as The Laughing Clowns, are a post punk band who formed in Sydney in 1979. In five years, the band released: three LPs, two mini albums, and various singles and compilations. Laughing Clowns' sound is free jazz, bluegrass and krautrock influenced. The band formed to accommodate Ed Kuepper's growing interest expanding the brass-driven sounds created on The Saints third album, Prehistoric Sounds, and by adopting flattened fifth notes in a rock and roll setting while using a modern jazz styled band line-up.

Along with The Birthday Party, The Go-Betweens, The Moodists and The Triffids, the Laughing Clowns also sought fame in Europe during the early '80s, and gained an international cult status. All four aforementioned groups have cited Laughing Clowns as an influence at some point in their respective careers.

Laughing Clowns were formed in April 1979 in Sydney as a rock, soul, avant-jazz group by Bob Farrell on saxophone, Ed Kuepper on lead guitar and lead vocals (ex-Kid Galahad and the Eternals, The Saints), Ben Wallace-Crabbe on bass guitar, and Jeffrey Wegener on drums (ex-The Saints, Last Words, Young Charlatans).^[1][2] In late 1978 Kuepper had quit punk rock band, The Saints, in London – where they had relocated – due to a rift regarding future direction with fellow founder, Chris Bailey.^[1][3] Kuepper preferred "less commercial, more cerebral material" as seen on the band's third album, Prehistoric Sounds (October 1978).^[1][4]

When Kuepper returned to Australia in 1978 he had contemplated musical retirement,^[3] however he reconnected with two old school friends, Farrell and Wegener, at a party and they coaxed him into forming a new band. Both Farrell and Wegener had associations with The Saints: Wegener was an early member in 1975 and Farrell was one of the Flat Top Four, which performed backing vocals on "Kissin' Cousins" for that band's debut album, (I'm) Stranded (February 1977). Ben Wallace-Crabbe had played in a Melbourne band, The Love, with Wegener, and completed the initial line-up.^[1] A proposed single by The Saints, "Laughing Clowns" / "On the Waterfront", through EG Records was not recorded by that group due to the difference of opinion between Kuepper and Bailey.^[3][5] Each track appeared elsewhere: "On the Waterfront" on The Saints' first post-Kuepper EP, Paralytic Tonight, Dublin Tomorrow (March 1980) and "Laughing Clowns" provided Kuepper's new band's name and their self-titled six-track mini-album in May that year.^[1]

Laughing Clowns made their public debut in August 1979, immediately encountering both confusion and antipathy from The Saints' fans who expected a more abrasive punk sound. Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, noted that "Part of the problem was that the band's sound defied categorisation. Having to overcome such ludicrous labels as 'jazz-punk' ... [it] was diverse yet moody, at turns melodic or dissonant. It ranged from rock and soul to avant-jazz".^[1] The Saints' Prehistoric Sounds had not received a local release via EMI until 1979, so Laughing Clowns performed various tracks from that album in their early sets – including "The Prisoner" and "Swing for the Crime". Later in the year, Ben's cousin and former guitarist in the Melbourne-based version of Crime & the City Solution, Dan Wallace-Crabbe (also ex-The Love), joined the group on piano.^[1][2][6]