The way I discovered Caroliner was different from most bands. Most of the time I can say I discover new music almost exclusively from recommendations, and I can comfortably say that this is where this story starts. It all starts on a road trip with a few friends to Santa Cruz, passing the aux around in the van, where one song seemed to constantly come on repeat. That song was by decently well-known horrorcore rappers Semetary & Ghost Mountain, of whom one of my friends was a huge fan; the song that kept coming up was Cleaver Valley, a song that, to me, was both goofy and eerie. What I can attribute that feeling most to is that weirdly tuned banjo sample, which made it sound like something between an actual banjo and a sitar. One night on the road the same friend who was responsible for the heavy rotation of “Cleaver Valley” said something along the lines of “I just found an industrial bluegrass band and I am too scared to listen to it by myself so I’m going to put it on the aux,” we all agreed with her to put it on, because how can you say no to something labeled as “Industrial Bluegrass.” What proceeded to play in the car was none other than the original song sample in “Cleaver Valley”, a song known as Burdensome Blood by and band called Caroliner Rainbow Open Wound Chorale.
Caroliner Rainbow, or just Caroliner, is a band that formed in San Francisco in 1983, originally signed to Subterranean Records (best known for the Dead Kennedys), and founded by a man only known as Grux. Caroliner today is still active and, throughout the years, has seen a large cast of rotating anonymous members, with Grux being the only consistent member and can be seen as a ringmaster for the group. Addressing the length of the name, it is important to acknowledge that the group’s name has changed, having a different name listed for each album that has been released, but each name does start with Caroliner and is most of the time followed up by the word Rainbow. Now with all that out of the way lets address what the heck you are looking at or even hearing if you decided to listen before reading to this point; Caroliner is known for their originally described “Industrial Bluegrass” which I can verify is the most accurate term for what is up for offer, most songs consist of the band members armed with home made electronics with a harsh noise song that can be occasionally interrupted by a banjo or piano melody and all around accompanied by a cacophony distorted reverbed voices, if I had to recommend any album from Caroliner I would recommend their third album Rise of the Common Woodpile released in 1991, The album has a sort of haunted house quality as it can sound like backing or even just ambiance at times for a hillbilly themed horror experience, through the harsh noise there are still often identifiable instruments and melodies to latch onto which other albums can often make that hard. Rise of the Common Woodpile is certainly not an easy listen, but if you’re one who is into hunting down the weirdness of the world, it is 100% worth your time.
As I mentioned earlier Caroliner is still an active band, their live shows consist of wild elaborate costumes that hide the human form covered in layer and layer of dayglow paint producing an effect similar to when you rub your eyes too hard (some of the newest and highest quality footage of them on on youtube by far), the shows in how they are presented give a nearly ritualistic feel reminiscent of how the stories of our past used to be told in the form of song, in Caaroliner’s case they have their own story to tell; It’s not an easy one to piece together and variations on it exist, but the gist of the story is sometime in the 19th century there was a singing bull named Caroliner, during a famine the family who owned the bull was forced to eat their prized singing bull, after they were done the skin of the bull was sewn back together and bull continued to sing. Now Grux of the band Caroliner claims that he owns a book which contains the songs sung by the bull way back in the day, and it’s the band’s job to bring these songs and stories to our modern ears. Outside the story of the singing bull, the band themselves have their own mythos surrounding them, lurking in the comments of various Caroliner-related uploads you can find people who have bought physical copies of their record back in the day.
“I purchased this record in 1990 (or was it 1890?) Underneath the shrink wrap, it had a discarded cigarette butt, rubber bands, and dried weeds glued to the back. My friend Shelly had a cockroach glued to hers! (I was so jealous).”
One of the things Caroliner is known for is their completely homemade DIY approach to merch; from shirts to record covers, all are made in-house. Pictured above is the back of my vinyl copy of Our American Heritage Volume 1, as you can see, it doesn’t really have a back because the cover is a single bent piece of cardboard with a photo glued to it. The back has a strange message and a tracklist, including hand-drawn bull heads (I believe by Grux because it matches his art style; I’ve seen other people get)
One of the few named people previously associated with Caroliner is a person named Dame Darcy, she was a member during the early 90s and is responsible for the banjo riff in their most famous song: Burdensome Blood. Darcy is a true creative, well known for her long-running comic meatcake and a doll made from Kurt Cobain’s hair (too much to get into right now), truly an eccentric character. In her autobiography, Darcy has a chapter dedicated to her time with Caroliner, in one excerpt, she describes the process of the homemade records:
“Grux found old records in the trash. He took the records out of the sleeves and laid them out on a rolled-out garbage bag and smashed them up with a ball-peen hammer. Then we’d take house paint and a paint roller and roll them slowly till they were all covered. Then we’d lay the record covers in still wet paint to stick it, and sprinkle the covers with the smashed-up record, hair from a ponytail a girl had just cut off, and rando crap found from everywhere. Put our record in, seal it in the plastic bag, and voila!”
This explains the comments left on the YouTube videos; Darcy also gives her own account of the mythos behind the band:
“Please forgive me if I don’t have it exact, but I believe it was about a famous magical singing bull who had been sacrificed in Wisconsin by pioneer settlers in 1890 who were hallucinating from the spores in their drinking water. I think they were originally from North Carolina. The bull, after being killed, either resurrected from the dead or the settlers hallucinated that he came back to life and started singing rainbows. Thus his name: Caroliner Rainbow. The songs were the songs of the bull, and we were supposed to be the settlers. Each show and album would be named after incidents or descriptions of what happened to the bull or with the settlers.”
Dame Darcy, just like the band she was once a part of, is a very interesting artist who is worth looking into, although her stuff is way more whimsical and less creepy than Caroliner, but she still has macabre undertones. I guess in a way her work is comparable to something like The Addams Family, spooky and fun! When I went down the Caroliner rabbit hole initially, I came out having read her full book, which I highly recommend if you are in the mood for an unorthodox read with tons of fun illustrations.
When I first found out about Caroliner it was easy to see them as this whole “creepy internet rabbithole” type band (a la KFC Murder Chicks), but going further I quickly realized that’s not what Caroliner was and it would be disingenuous to frame that way, they do outwardly have creepy and esoteric music, wild incomprehensible shows to accompany and information that isn’t easy to find and that can definitely be off putting at first, but this form of art is so unique to them and I personally have nothing but respect for this rotating cast of San Franciscan creatives.
If you have any questions about Caroliner or anything related to them, ask a question. This blog by no means covers all the information I personally have learned, so if you have any lingering curiosities, feel free to comment, and I will try my best to get back to you.
Comments (0)