My personal musical heroes continue to drop like flies in the present wretched scheme of things. Larry Kessler, founding member of psych/outsider/noise-rock pioneers the Godz, passed away on March 24th. It was a cruel and avoidable end: Larry was on his way to a recording studio in Baltimore to finish recording a new song ironically titled "Ain't Done Yet" when he was mowed down by a drunk driver in the studio's parking lot. Put quite simply, it was a very tragic accident which should never have happened. Larry was 80 years old and still active and healthy; many folks, myself included, were looking forward to seeing how many more years he'd have left in him. And as I mourn his untimely loss, my personal memories of the Godz have come flooding back to me to the point where I've realized I never did finish that damn memoir of my days as a fansite manager that I started writing in pre-dark age times. And since the next chapter's the Godz, well... the time is more than right to finally pick up where I left off.
In 1998, just after my initial internet success tracking down Armando Nava of Los Dug Dug's, I was hellbent on repeating that success. Just as I had done with Los Dug Dug's, I started another website as a plea for any info on the whereabouts of another favorite band of mine whose story was still untold at that point, and gave it the name FIRST CHURCH OF THE GODZ. It attracted the attention of a few informed fans as well as late-period Godz associate Leslie Fradkin, who deserves credit for helping the site get off the ground initially. But it wan't until late 2002 that this site finally found its way to Larry Kessler when he sat down with his then-teenage son Mike to learn about the internet, and out of curiosity they did an online search for the Godz. Bingo! And so it was that one fine day, Mike Kessler (one of no less than seven kids Larry fathered) emailed me and asked if I was interested in talking to his dad. At long last lightning had struck twice!
And so, on February 18, 2003, after we'd both dug ourselves out of a massive blizzard (he in Baltimore, me in New Jersey), I called Larry and we talked for a full hour. He couldn't possibly have been more cordial or appreciative of my interest. He had no regrets about his days with the Godz, and even spoke of current and future endeavors. He answered most of my questions, told some insane stories about the band, and even debunked some claims Jim McCarthy had made in a fanzine interview a fellow fan had sent me a few years earlier. He also spoke at length about his days as ESP Disk's general sales manager and lamented the fact that the band had never received so much as a cent in royalties from the label's many different issues of their albums. It was a wonderful chat and at last I had a truly clear vision of what the Godz' existence had been like. Here's a slightly edited version of my interview with Larry for your listening enjoyment, ripped straight from cassette:
We kept each others' contact info on file and promised to stay in touch. This vow would come in handy two years later when, in 2005, ESP Disk suddenly went back into business in NYC and began an extensive reissue campaign of many of its classic late '60s releases. Among their plans at that time was a box set reissue of all four original Godz albums. And it had just so happened that ESP's notorious president, Bernard Stollman, had also seen my Godz website by that point and was interested in having me write the liner notes and help him coordinate the project. Stollman was a man whose label deeply influenced me and my music over the years... and he was about to become one of the biggest assholes I'd ever meet in my entire life.
I already knew of Stollman's shady business practices going in, so I approached the situation with extreme caution and talked to Larry first. He was already hip to the label's plans, and I'd assumed he wouldn't want me to get involved, but to my surprise, when I asked if he approved of my participation, he said "Go do it!" Then, upon establishing phone contact with Stollman, I insisted on several terms for our participation in the project, such as securing the approval of all of the original Godz, and insisting the finished product be cut from the original analog masters which were in Larry's possession. ESP's previous reissues had been of absolutely pisspoor quality for the most part, and thus I made it clear that I was not willing to put my name on a box set the Godz themselves were unhappy with. This seemed fine with Stollman... or so he said at the time.
Getting the original members of the Godz on the same page was not the easiest of tasks. Larry, bless him, trusted me enough to pass me the phone numbers of Jim McCarthy and Paul Thornton. Jim flat-out refused to talk to me, while Paul, at first seemingly just as open to the idea as Larry, then began ignoring my follow-up contacts. I soon learned both were making plans to legally block ESP's production of the Godz box. This news came my way in the form of a lovely little cease-and-desist letter from their lawyers, who insisted any future contact with the band on my part was to be "through us and not our clients."
Eventually, however, Paul had some sort of disagreement with their lawyers, broke free from their grasp, and finally agreed to speak at length with me himself. This we did in August '05, just two days after my official formal meeting with Stollman, over lunch with him and his wife at the world-famous Veselka restaurant (a Ukranian eatery by the way... oh, these wretched times we're now in) on the lower east side of NYC. Just like Larry, Paul was super-friendly and more than happy to talk about his days with the Godz, and he was even able to answer a few questions Larry couldn't. Meanwhile, we all wondered about the whereabouts of the ever-elusive fourth member Jay Dillon, who the others hadn't seen or heard from since he'd left the band after their second album in 1968. Sadly, we found out Jay had just passed away that very summer as we'd finally tracked him down to his last address in Pennsylvania, where he'd been living a quiet life -- a sad end to a scenario which had me contacting nearly every damn person named Jay Dillon in the continental United States trying to find him!
With or without their involvement, though, the Godz box set project was quite honestly doomed from the get-go. Their breakup had been less than amicable and there were still plenty of unresolved tensions amongst them, which Stollman obviously saw as a golden opportunity to further exploit them for his own personal gain. At any rate, Jim continued to pursue his case against ESP while Paul, Larry and myself tried to cooperate with Stollman as best we could. Things remained stuck in a holding pattern until Jim's lawyers finally proposed a settlement which ESP promptly rejected, after which I called Larry and we both agreed the whole mess had become a complete waste of our time.
I then made the brave move of volunteering to call Stollman myself to inform him that Larry and I were quitting the project. Holy fucking shit. That scumbag completely lost his marbles before I could even get all the words out. He immediately launched into a truly insane, brain-dead rant in which he made the dubious claim that "I created the Godz and I can destroy them too" and threatened to "countersue them out of existence for good" if they pursued any further action against him. I finally hung up on him and that was that -- Bernard and I would never talk again.
By now it was 2006, a full year since work on the project had been started, and I'd made the decision to just leave Larry and the others alone for a spell. It was obvious the box set was now a dead issue, but I further assumed I'd failed miserably in getting all three surviving members back together. That's why I was astonished when Larry suddenly hit me up out of the blue several months later with the exciting news that I had, in fact, succeeded in reuniting the Godz after all. It turned out that after Stollman's rejection of Jim's offer, the three of them finally got together in the same room and talked out all their differences, and they were all now officially part of Jim's lawsuit against ESP. And Larry was excited to further announce that the Godz were also preparing to make their first recordings since 1973.
With everyone on the same page at last, Jim finally agreed to speak with me. It was a memorable half-hour call where he expressed his appreciation for the work I'd done on their behalf, spoke about his love of photography, and even hipped me to a super-obscure late '70s Australian noise band called the Primitive Calculators who had mysteriously dedicated an album to him! At last I'd now talked to all three Godz, and my personal fanboy experience was that much more complete.
The lawsuit dragged on for awhile but the Godz ultimately reached a non-disclosure settlement with ESP before Stollman finally (and thankfully) died of cancer in 2015. And as for the reunion, they managed to record some new songs which appeared on a retrospective CD Larry put out soon after the settlement -- the first official Godz release outside of ESP. Jim sent me regular updates during this time as well as CDRs of the new material (and even a Christmas card!), and I kept fans posted on my website. There was talk of a full new album and tour, but their rekindled affair didn't last long and they disbanded again. Larry kept the rights to the name and later formed his own new version of the Godz which Paul occasionally sat in with before he passed in 2019. And now Larry is gone, leaving Jim as the only remaining original member of the group. It is my sincere wish that we don't lose him too soon.
For all its ups and downs, I have no regrets whatsoever about my involvement in this whole glorious mess. Just as with Los Dug Dug's before them, I had succeeded in tracking down a band I'd loved for years, finally unraveling their mysteries, learning their story, and relating it to others. The liner notes I wrote for the aborted box set were ultimately updated further and published on this blog in 2016 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of "Contact High With The Godz." If you haven't already done so, you may read and enjoy them right here.
And so, to Larry Kessler... Godzspeed, my dear friend. I'm gonna miss you. And thanks so much to you, and also to Jim McCarthy and Paul Thornton, for everything you've done. And I must add special thanks to Larry's son Mike, who hooked me up with him and also broke the sad news of his passing to me -- you are a true servant of the Godz if ever there was one.
