[ Living ]
Colour
“Open Letter To A Landlord”
Living Colour
Vivid
1988 —
((( song )))
— dave.
still loud. still proud. still relevant.
n Vernon Reid (guitar)
n Corey Glover (vocals)
n Will Calhoun (drums)
n Doug Wimbish (bass guitar)
“Freedom of Expression,” the opening of Shade (2017) is a reminder that Vernon Reid and Living Colour are never reluctant to express their sometimes vicious, but always honest opinon … They believe in Truth, Racial Harmony, and Equal Justice for all, and have the confidence and virtuosity to say it loud, and say it proud.
“What’s Your Favorite Color?”
Living Colour
Live @ Sully’s Pub & Tiki Bar
2013 — Wimbash (Hartford, Connecticut)
((( song )))
((( video ))) b/ dave.
2OO1 — December 27, 2001. Living Colour ended many of its post 9-11 shows with Jimi Hendrix’ “Crosstown Traffic.” They did at Disney’s House Of Blues in Orlando, Florida, the last show the band played, before returning to New York City to play the 2001 Reunion tour’s final show, New Year’s Eve at CBGB, where it all began.
“We started the show with our man, and we’re gonna end the show with our man.”
— Vernon Reid
Announcing “Crosstown Traffic,” the encore of a show that opened with another Jimi Hendrix (Band of Gypsys) classic, “The Power Of Soul.”
1980 — Downtown New York City
Vernon Reid — As a member of Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society, and playing and recording with DEFUNKT, Vernon Reid’s star first rose in New York City’s Downtown, Free Jazz, Avant Funk movement of the early 1980s.
The Knitting Factory, Iridium, CBGB, offering stages for a collection of innovated instrumentalists who were shaping the future of music. Fusion.
“Everything is Fusion, or Fusion is nothing at all.” — dave.
Vernon learned much with Ronald Shannon Jackson, but, not surprising, his artistic needs led him to step out and build a band of his own …
A band he called Living Colour.
“Inner City Blues”
Living Colour
Shade
2017 —
((( song )))
— dave.
“Up On The Roof“
The Drifters
Under The Boardwalk (1964)
1962 —
((( song )))
— Up On The Roof
A most appropriate place for Vernon Reid and Living Colour to stand for their first (Epic Records) promotional photograph. Atop a building in their Brooklyn (NYC) neighborhood.
1987 — Hail! Hail! Rock N Roll
Chuck Berry
Keith Richards
Eric Clapton
A Band Grows In Brooklyn
1988 — Vivid
1989 — Steel Wheels Tour
1990 — Time’s Up
“Cult Of Personality”
Living Colour
No Dread
1994 —
((( song )))
— dave.
May 3, 1988 — With help from the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, Living Colour signed with Epic Records and released its debut Vivid. The band’s rise was immediate, as it’s first single “Cult Of Personality” was a regular in MTV’s primetime rotation, and Vivid rose to #6 on the U.S. Billboard chart.
April 1, 1989 — appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live was an important, high-profile presentation of Living Colour’s psychedelic, day-glo packaged, hard funk, metal attack.
n THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF LIVING COLOUR
n FLY ME TO THE MTV MOON
1981 — THE LAUNCH OF MTV (1:11)
When MTV introduced its new way of “presenting” music on television, Vernon Reid was living “underground,” in the darker, more experimental, Downtown New York City neighborhood, but a dramatic change was gonna come.
“Steel Wheels”
Rolling Stones
Steel Wheels (Album)
1989 —
((( song )))
OriginalNoise.Org
— “Time Tunnel” (1990) Documentary Film
December 14, 1989 — Vernon Reid, wearing a “Burn Baby Burn” (American Flag) T-shirt, and the rest of Living Colour, after nearly a year on the road, joined the Rolling Stones onstage in Montreal, at Olympic Stadium, for an end-of-Steel Wheels tour, “It’s Only Rock N Roll” jam.
Later that year, Living Colour was asked to open for the Rolling Stones on its Steel Wheels World Tour, for which the band received critical acclaim and enhanced it’s reputation notably. Also in 1989, Living Colour was named “Best New Artist” at the MTV Video Music Awards, and “Cult Of Personality” won a Grammy Award for “Best Hard Rock Performance.”
For Vernon and the band, it was as if they had boarded a Rock N Roll rocket ship, and had been launched into the outer region of musical space. Living Colour was living the dream, flying high above those on Earth below, weightless and un-tethered, moving fast, into a promising future.
Success seemed immediate, but of course it wasn’t. Yes, it was fast, but less immediate than MTV would have its audience to believe. Vernon and the band had been earning a solid reputation playing high-energy shows at CBGB, and other Downtown New York City clubs. The audiences were small, but passionate, and represented those who cared most about the music being made in the early 1980s.
Word of Living Colour’s outstanding live performances spread like wild fire … first in Manhattan, and soon all around New York City’s Five Buroughs.
No matter how talented, and comfortable playing live, Living Colour, like any young band would have been, was shocked by the sudden change of playing small, intimate clubs, to flying across North America, on private jets, with the Rolling Stones, and playing stadiums filled with 100,000 Rolling Stones fans.
Vernon and the band took stepped up, played well, and took full advantage of the opportunity to take such a large stage. The same way they had impressed those in the inner-city clubs, Living Colour was impressing the pop-culture, MTV masses.
Maybe most important, was Vernon and the band impressing Mick Jagger and the rest of the Rolling Stones. Jagger had Living Colour into the stratosphere, a place wide open for musical exploration and discovery.
1985 — The World According To Mick
Bernard Fowler
Second Coming
The Rock N Roll Gospel According to Mick Jagger.
1986 — Not of this Earth
Joe Satriani
“Big Bad Moon”
1987 — Appetite For Destruction
Guns N’ Roses
“Rocket Queen”
1988 — Vivid
Living Colour
“Cult Of Personality”
“Surfing With The Alien”
Joe Satriani
Surfing With The Alien
1987 —
((( song )))
— originalnoise.org
1988 — A Vivid Good Year
Mick Jagger knows a good band when he sees one.
Like some sort of Rock N Roll God, Mick Jagger, in 1988, anointed a new generation of musicians talented and eclectic enough to remind us that there was more to Rock N Roll than anger, volume, and speed.
1989 — Black & White
International Music Award for “Best New Artist” (1989)
Eric Clapton
Why not a Little Jimi? (Acceptance Speech)
Chuck Berry
“Johnny B. Goode” — Living Colour (International Music Awards Performance)
“Elvis Is Dead”
Jethro Tull vs. Metallica
Steel Wheels (1989)
Living Colour
MTV
Grammy Awards
International Rock Awards (1989)
Tiny E Statues / Eric Clapton
(EC Was Here)
Johnny B. Goode (video)
Tiny Elvis? Could have been a Little Jimi.
Stone Free: Tribute to Jimi Hendrix (1993)
“Crosstown Traffic”
Steel Wheels North American Tour
1990 — Time’s Up
Home Again Naturally
Eye & I (D.K. Dyson)
1990 — The incarnation of Living Colour (Corey Glover, Muzz Skillings, Will Calhoun, and Vernon Reid) recorded two albums, Vivid in 1988, and Time’s Up in 1990. Called “more experimental,” Time’s Up exhibited a number of musical styles [jazz, fusion, punk, blues, hip hop, funk, thrash, metal, jive, electronica] w/ guests, including Little Richard, Maceo Parker, Queen Latifah, and Doug E. Fresh
An excerpt out of Time Tunnel, an out-of-print Living Colour documentary, including performance clips and interviews with Vernon Reid, Corey Glover, Will Calhoun, and Muzz Skillings, telling the story of the band from its inception, to the success of Vivid, touring with the Rolling Stones, and starting work on Time’s Up.
— video (“Time Tunnel”)
1991 — Of note was Perry Farrell inviting Living Colour to join Jane’s Addiction on the inaugural Lollapalooza Festival Tour, originally scheduled to be Jane’s Addiction’s farewell. That first year’s lineup also featured: Siouxsie & The Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, Fishbone, Ice T & Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, EBN, and Violent Femmes. Living Colour also released Biscuits, an EP of outtakes, and on the Japanese pressing, a number of live performances, including “Love & Happiness.”
After a month touring Europe, enjoying time back home in New York City, a travel-weary Muzz Skillings chose not to continue on to Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro. Fortunately, the timing was right for Vernon to ask old friend Doug Wimbish if he might consider filling in for Muzz, helping Living Colour to finish its first world tour. Tack>>Head, Doug’s band (with Original Sugar Hill Rhythm Section mates Skip McDonald and Keith Leblanc, with Bernard Fowler and On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood) was taking a break after releasing it’s second record, Strange Things, allowing Doug to join Living Colour in South America.
— dave.
1992 —
1993 — After completing the South American leg of Living Colour’s 1991 world tour, bassist Doug Wimbish accepted the band’s invitation to join the band permanently.
Doug’s contribution, as a writer, player, and producer, are significant in what critics called the “darker” tone of Living Colour’s third album, Stain.
Because Stain came at a time (March 2, 1993) when Seattle, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and a new genre called “Grunge” were commanding most popular attention, it was overlooked compared to Living Colour’s first two albums, Vivid and Time’s Up. Despite praise from critics and fans, both who appreciated the record’s harder, industrial edge, Stain reached only #26 on the Billboard chart, and because a guy named Jon Stainbrook with a band called The Stain filed a lawsuit and had production of Stain stopped. The record remained out of print until 2013, when it was released on disc, and made available to download.
Equal Opportunity
Living Colour
“Bi” Not the usual for a Hard Rock band.
— dave.
1993 — While working on a record to follow Stain, a disappointed Reid decided Living Colour should take a break.
In the meantime, Living Colour’s 1993 looked, on television, like things couldn’t be better. They had already written and recorded a number tunes for a new record, won another Grammy Award for a cover of “Crosstown Traffic” on Stone Free, a Jimi Hendrix tribute record, contributed to two high-profile soundtracks, recording “Sunshine of Your Love” for James Cameron’s True Lies, and write and record “Me, Myself, and My Microphone” with RUN-DMC for Judgement Day.
It was something of an illusion, all the accolades were for efforts already made, Vernon, at that moment, was looking for something different. After he officially ended Living Colour’s decade-long run, he immediately went on to work on a number of solo projects, including a multi-tune collaboration with Public Enemy.
After two Grammy Award-winning efforts in Vivid and Time’s Up, Stain receiving wide-spread critical acclaim, and the production of “No/ Dread,” a fine document of Living Colour performances (electric and unplugged) with Wimbish a permanent member of the band, Vernon was still disappointed in Stain, and decided to call it quits in 1995, immediately after finishing a tour with the D.C. punk band, Bad Brains.
— dave.
“I want a closet big enough to live in. A closet big enough for the world to live in.”
1993 — Never reluctant to express an opinion, Living Colour played “Bi,” a song about bisexuality, on NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
1988 — Taking Mick For A Ride (Tokyo/Australia)
Bernard Fowler
Joe Satriani
Doug Wimbish
Chuck Leavell
— YouTube
Kick Ass Rock N Roll
November 16, 1989 @ The Orange Bowl — Steel Wheels Tour in Miami (Jon Stoll Fantasma Productions). Parked on the street in Little Havana. Two second row tickets for the Rolling Stones in the Orange Bowl, where the Miami Dolphins and the University of Miami Hurricanes play. Meet at the inflated “Bud” can. Passed out under the Visa banner. $300 Leather Jackets, rather than T-Shirts. Coffee-table, hard-cover, photography books, rather than a paper poster or ad-filled program. Entering the stadium, and looking down toward the mammoth stage in the opposite end zone, we saw Living Colour in the middle of “Cult of Personality,” the last tune in their set. Chuck Leavell, wish it was Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Yes, but it was Chuck taking a solo in
1991 — Time’s Up, Living Colour’s second album, was mostly written and edited while the band was on the road with the Stones. Being released so soon after Vivid and the Steel Wheels Tour, and receiving more critical acclaim, did much to improve Living Colour’s already good reputation.
When Guitar World magazine featured Vernon on its January 1991 cover, Living Colour had been invited by Perry Farrell to join what was meant to be Jane’s Addiction’s farewell tour. He called it Lollapalooza, and the inaugural was so successful, Farrell organized another, and another, and another … every of the twenty years since.
— video (“Time Tunnel”)
1991 — Of note was Perry Farrell inviting Living Colour to join Jane’s Addiction on the inaugural Lollapalooza Festival Tour, originally scheduled to be Jane’s Addiction’s farewell. That first year’s lineup also featured: Siouxsie & The Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, Fishbone, Ice T & Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, EBN, and Violent Femmes. Living Colour also released Biscuits, an EP of outtakes, and on the Japanese pressing, a number of live performances, including “Love & Happiness.”
After a month touring Europe, enjoying time back home in New York City, a travel-weary Muzz Skillings chose not to continue on to Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro. Fortunately, the timing was right for Vernon to ask old friend Doug Wimbish if he might consider filling in for Muzz, helping Living Colour to finish its first world tour. Tack>>Head, Doug’s band (with Original Sugar Hill Rhythm Section mates Skip McDonald and Keith Leblanc, with Bernard Fowler and On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood) was taking a break after releasing it’s second record, Strange Things, allowing Doug to join Living Colour in South America.
1993 — After completing the South American leg of Living Colour’s 1991 world tour, bassist Doug Wimbish accepted the band’s invitation to join the band permanently.
Doug’s contribution, as a writer, player, and producer, are significant in what critics called the “darker” tone of Living Colour’s third album, Stain.
Because Stain came at a time (March 2, 1993) when Seattle, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and a new genre called “Grunge” were commanding most popular attention, it was overlooked compared to Living Colour’s first two albums, Vivid and Time’s Up. Despite praise from critics and fans, both who appreciated the record’s harder, industrial edge, Stain reached only #26 on the Billboard chart, and because a guy named Jon Stainbrook with a band called The Stain filed a lawsuit and had production of Stain stopped. The record remained out of print until 2013, when it was released on disc, and made available to download.
Equal Opportunity
Living Colour
“Bi” Not the usual for a Hard Rock band.
— dave.
1993 — While working on a record to follow Stain, a disappointed Reid decided Living Colour should take a break.
In the meantime, Living Colour’s 1993 looked, on television, like things couldn’t be better. They had already written and recorded a number tunes for a new record, won another Grammy Award for a cover of “Crosstown Traffic” on Stone Free, a Jimi Hendrix tribute record, contributed to two high-profile soundtracks, recording “Sunshine of Your Love” for James Cameron’s True Lies, and write and record “Me, Myself, and My Microphone” with RUN-DMC for Judgement Day.
It was something of an illusion, all the accolades were for efforts already made, Vernon, at that moment, was looking for something different. After he officially ended Living Colour’s decade-long run, he immediately went on to work on a number of solo projects, including a multi-tune collaboration with Public Enemy.
After two Grammy Award-winning efforts in Vivid and Time’s Up, Stain receiving wide-spread critical acclaim, and the production of “No/ Dread,” a fine document of Living Colour performances (electric and unplugged) with Wimbish a permanent member of the band, Vernon was still disappointed in Stain, and decided to call it quits in 1995, immediately after finishing a tour with the D.C. punk band, Bad Brains.
— dave.
“I want a closet big enough to live in. A closet big enough for the world to live in.”
1993 — Never reluctant to express an opinion, Living Colour played “Bi,” a song about bisexuality, on NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
“Lollapalooza”
1991 — The Principal Players, including Vernon Reid, discuss the pomp, circumstance, and drama surrounding the first Lollapalooza.
“Love & Happiness”
Living Colour
Biscuits
1991 — Gulf War
((( song )))
— End Of The Beginning
Before embarking on a future voyage, Living Colour made the good habit of leaving a collection of live and unreleased recordings for the memories.
1991 — Biscuits is a collection of energetic live recordings and previously unreleased outtakes and B-sides recorded between 1989 and 1991, the Muzz Skillings years.
1992 — In the middle of Living Colour’s first World Tour, Muzz Skillings, unhappy with life on the road, decides to leave the band. Scheduled to leave for Brazil in less than two weeks, Vernon called his old (Downtown New York) friend Doug Wimbish who he knew was available, and was musically able to step in so immediately.
1993 — Stain is Living Colour’s first album after Doug Wimbish joined the band, and the last before the band dissolved (1994) and reunited (2001).
— Living Colour’s Epic Launch
Back In Black
Many, especially critics and industry professionals, argued that Living Colour’s third record, Stain, marked another exploratory change in the band, that from the beginning has been known for playing on the edge of its own making.
1993 — Stone Free: A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix (“Crosstown Traffic”)
1993 — Judgement Night (“Me, Myself, And My Microphone”) w/ Run DMC
1994 — True Lies Soundtrack (“Sunshine Of Your Love”)
— Living Colour
post-epic documentary recordings
1995 — Pride
Back To Earth
1990 — While touring North America with the Stones, Living continued to work on Time’s Up, their second album, and even before getting the call from Mick to join the Steel Wheels Tour, were anxious to finish and deliver the record to fans, critics, and the industry, that had all responded so well to their platinum-selling debut, Vivid.
Time’s Up quickly goes gold, and like a rocket’s second stage, pushes Living Colour to the next level. Time’s Up earned the band’s second Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy Award, following “Cult Of Personality,” Living Colour’s first (MTV) hit, Also of note was Living Colour being named “Best New Band” at the 1989 International Rock Awards, the same as at the 1989 MTV Music Video Awards.
Onstage, where the band always shines brightest, Living Colour followed it’s “Steel Wheels” run, with a spot on Perry Farrell’s (Jane’s Addiction) Inaugural Lollapalooza.
Storm Is Rising
It was a volatile time (1988) when Vernon Reid and Living Colour, entered the Rock N Roll fray. The 1980s had opened the door wide, and storming through it was a growing Punk, faster and faster metal, and a more angry and guttal Thrash. All shots across the popular music bow.
“Visions”
Living Colour
Pride
1995
((audio))
— The New Yorker
After Living Colour’s dissolution, each member went on to work on solo projects, reunite with old bandmates, and join other bands, both in the studio and on the road.
Vernon — Mistaken Identity (1996)
with Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society
Defunkt
Guitar Oblique with David Torn and Elliott Sharp
Magic Science, Gil Evans’ arrangements of Jimi Hendrix
songs with Medeski, Martin & Wood, and the Gil Evans Orchestra
Salif Keita
James “Blood” Ulmer
Free Form Funky Freqs
Masque
Global Noize with Jason Miles
Earth Driver
Lenny White (Miles Davis)
Corey Glover — Hymns (1998)
As Reverend Daddy Love, formed a band called Vice with guitarist Mike Ciro
Sonic Adventure Remix (1998)
Live at CBGB’s
Live at The Wetlands (1999)
w/ Galactic
w/ Jane Getter
w/ OZ NOY
Will Calhoun —
Housework (1995)
Drumwave (1997)
Herb Alpert Colors (1999)
The Will Calhoun Quintet: Live at the Blue Note (2000)
Dhafer Youssef Electric Sufi (2001)
Native Lands (2011)
Life in This World (2015)
Celebrating Elvin Jones (2016)
2000 – with Bobby Watson (alto saxophone), John Benitez (bass), Orrin Evans (piano), and Terell Stafford (trumpet) Head>>Fake (drum/bass) with Doug Wimbish
Jungle Funk (1999)
Doug Wimbish — Trippy Notes for Bass (2000)
CinemaSonics (2008)
Cyberpunk Billy Idol (1993)
Don’t Look Back Al Green (1993)
Wandering Spirit Mick Jagger (1993)
Time Machine Joe Satriani (1993)
Never Turn Back (1993)
The Wolf That House Built (1994)
Slow Fuse (1995)
Medusa Annie Lennox
Letters Never Sent (1994)
Carly Simon: Live at Grand Central Station (1995)
12 Hits and a Bump (1996) w/Bernard
Mas Feedback (1997) w/Bernard
Miracles Bim Sherman (1997)
Ultra Depeche Mode (1997)
Bridges To Babylon Rolling Stones (1997)
Michael Hutchence (1999)
Jungle Funk (1999) with Will Calhoun and Vinx
Herb Alpert Colors (1999) with Will Calhoun
Dhafer Youssef Electric Sufi (2001) with Will Calhoun
• The Wonderful World Of Living Colour
• Pt.1 — a vivid beginning
• Pt.2 — post-apocalyptic reunion
• Pt.3 — back in the USSR
• “who shot ya?”
• SHADE (Sept. 9, 2017)
• LIVING COLOUR / COVER
• LIVING COLOUR Pt./1 — a vivid beginning
• LIVING COLOUR Pt./2 — post-apocalyptic reunion
• LIVING COLOUR Pt.3 — back in the USSR
• LIVING COLOUR / “who shot ya?”
• LIVING COLOUR / SHADE (Sept. 9, 2017)
— Lollapalooza (1991)
Hot Fun In The Summertime
1991 — After a meteoric rise out of the Manhattan Underground, playing Saturday Night Live and stadiums with the Rolling Stones, Vernon and Living Colour landed back home, in New York City, but took no break. They immediately went into the studio and finished their second album before the end of 1990. When home in New York City, Vernon spent much time downtown, where he started his career, and where he feels most comfortable.