Quill

Yet another ill-fated Woodstock band, Quill was the first group to take the stage on the second day of the famed 1969 music and arts festival. Sadly, due to a technical glitch, the quintet’s set was captured on neither video nor tape, and any momentum the group might have garnered from such an appearance quickly disappeared. The group did stick around long enough to record one album, a self-titled project first released in 1970 on Cotillion Records. Aside from a trio of strange, ‘60s-styled song titles—“Thumbnail Screwdriver,” “The Tube Exuding” and “Shrieking Finally”—Woodstock enthusiasts will find little of interest on this seven-song lp. Quill is a dismal record, a dull and directionless mix of guitar-heavy hard rock and elongated progressive-influenced psychedelia. Sandwiched between two sturdy, workmanlike rockers—the aforementioned “Thumbnail Screwdriver” and “Shrieking Finally”—sit a handful of bewildering slices of grade-A weirdness. “They Live the Life” features a relentless percussion solo, while the oddly titled “BBY” is peppered with layers of awkward brass instrumentation. Confounding matters, perhaps, are the bizarre pseudonyms these guys assumed (I’m still trying to figure out what instrument Phil Stan D’There plays). All in all, Quill is a disappointing record, a fairly regrettable addition to The “I-Own-Every-Record-You’d-Never-Buy” CD Consumer’s Guide collection.

Notes: Ironically, the label for which Quill recorded—Cotillion Records—is the same company that released the original Woodstock soundtrack. Here is a brief audio-only YouTube clip of the band’s performance that day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVnTI8R4WpE.