The Golden Palominos | |
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Origin | Cleveland, United States |
Genres | Alternative rock, experimental, ambient, country, industrial |
Years active | 1981–2000 2010–present |
Labels | Celluloid, Nation/Charisma, Restless, Almost Loaded |
Members |
Anton Fier Amanda Kramer |
Past members |
Bill Laswell Nicky Skopelitis Amanda Kramer Lori Carson Knox Chandler Arto Lindsay Jody Harris Syd Straw Peter Blegvad Lydia Kavanagh Nicole Blackman Andy Hess Tony Scherr David Moss Bernie Worrell Michael Hampton |
The Golden Palominos are an American musical group headed by drummer and composer Anton Fier, first formed in 1981. Aside from Fier, the Palominos membership has been wildly elastic, with only bassist Bill Laswell and guitarist Nicky Skopelitis appearing on every album through 1996. Their latest work, 2012's A Good Country Mile features vocalist Kevn Kinney.
While the Palominos' records usually featured a core set of musicians and a certain emotional continuity throughout the bulk of an album, various guest appearances resulted in stylistic changes from track to track.
The group first featured Fier, singer-guitarist Arto Lindsay, saxophonist John Zorn, bass guitarist Bill Laswell and violinist/guitarist Fred Frith. Their self-titled debut album was released on New York's Celluloid Records in 1983, and featured guest appearances by bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, percussionist David Moss, turntablist M.E. Miller and others. The album has some of the first recorded turntable scratching outside of rap music, courtesy of Laswell and M.E. Miller. M.E. Miller also used vocal splitting technique to create harmony on the song he sings.
They were heavily influenced by so-called no wave music (Arto Lindsay had played in the seminal no-wave band DNA), but their music also contained elements of funk and of the improvisational jazz stylings that would become Zorn's trademark. This line-up lasted only for the first record, although all of the core members apart from Zorn would guest on subsequent Palominos recordings.