In 1979, Charles Goff III, Gordon Lyon, Steve Schaer, and Robert Silverman started working together as a “band”. They all had had various sonic interactions with one another previously. As far back as 1976, Goff and Lyon had performed simple guitar/vocal arrangements of pop music together at their UC Berkeley Griffiths Hall dormitory. Silverman also lived in Griffiths Hall, but he didn’t start making noises with Goff, and later with Schaer, until 1978. Schaer and Goff first began playing music with each other in 1977.

All four members of this “band” could play guitar in some manner. Silverman had some experience with keyboards, Schaer with synthesizers and woodwinds, Lyon with bass, and Goff with woodwinds and a variety of other noise making devices. During their first practice sessions, they partook of some simple rhythm & noise jams and learned to play a few psychedelic rock songs together (such as “Pushin Too Hard” by the Seeds and “Sometimes I Don’t Know How To Feel” by Todd Rundgren.) The first original song they learned was one which had been composed on a very strange night in late 1978 by Goff and Lyon called “Suck On My Nose.” (The objective had been to write a song inspired by the effects of a particularly powerful chemical. Two young co-eds who paid an impromptu visit to Lyon’s apartment later that night were treated to the first ever performance of the song. I do not believe they ever visited there again…)

The band members all proposed names for the group during its first few meetings, but they never could agree on one. The name “Temporarily KY” came about when, during one brainstorming session, Goff suggested “KY”, Silverman said, “Well, temporarily,” and Lyon said, “That’s it. Temporarily KY.” Over the course of several months, each member of Temporarily KY contributed original songs to the band’s repertoire. The group worked week after week arranging and refining these pieces for public performance. The four of them had a lot of fun for awhile. However, by the late summer of 1980, there were no more practice sessions, and Temporarily KY had run its course.

The main thing which kept Temporarily KY off of the stage and eventually led to its demise was its lack of a drummer. The group auditioned several. Each candidate provided a different type of flair for tightening up the group’s songs with percussives, but none of these percussionists would commit to actually joining up as a band member. Goff, Lyon, Schaer, and Silverman all mutually seemed to lose hope for their group as they were rejected by drummer after drummer. As the four of them all graduated from UC Berkeley that June, their lives began to change; and their enthusiasm for their band faded away. They continued to play music with one another, however, but in different, less formal contexts.

Here Taped Rugs presents three original Temporarily KY songs. These pieces were recorded through a microphone plugged into a cassette deck at a practice session in 1980 by Steve Schaer. Their sound quality fits the category of “for collectors only,” but since Taped Rugs possesses only about 25 minutes of Temporarily KY recordings, this is the best there is. There is no drummer on these recordings. None of these pieces has ever been previously made available to the public before now.

The first song, called “The Banquet,” was written and sung by Gordon Lyon. The song begins with Goff shaking a record album near a microphone. The middle section was later adapted by –ING for tape loop performance. Goff still plays that section today on occasion. The second piece, called “Object Of Hate,” was written and sung by Robert Silverman. Schaer plays the flute on the middle bit. It was the final song that Temporarily KY learned how to play and was a favorite of the group. The third piece is the aforementioned “Suck On My Nose” and features vocals by all the band members. Goff recorded a solo version of “Suck On Nose” in 1998 which was released on a Taped Rugs compilation called “Remnants Of Magic Carpets” by Belgium’s EE Tapes.

The very first official Taped Rugs cassette release will be featured in the next excerpt of this series. Stay tuned.

Oh, and the photo above features Gordon Lyon (author of “The Banquet”), June, 1980.