One of the world's most highly-regarded bassists, Tony Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel, and is also a member of Liquid Tension Experiment (alongside Dream Theater men John Petrucci, Mike Portony and Jordan Rudess) and King Crimson-offshoot supergroup Beat, alongside Adrian Belew, Steve Vai and Tool's Danny Carey, who're playing gigs performing music recorded by King Crimson in the '80s.
In a new interview with popular YouTube personality Rick Beato, Levin talks about his introduction to the music business in the late 1960s, and shares his memories of one of his oddest gigs, the only show ever played by the short-lived New York-based experimental rock band Aha, The Attack Of The Green Slimebeast.
After graduating from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, at the age of 22, Levin got a call to join legendary jazz drummer Buddy Rich's band for a tour of Europe. The bassist sold all his possessions, put an electric bass and an upright bass in his station wagon car, and drove from his home to Boston, to meet up with his new bandmates... at which point he learned that Rich had talked his outgoing bassist into staying, and would no longer require Levin's services.
“It was, 'Thanks for coming, but we don't need you',” he tells Beato. “That was, 'Welcome to the music business', not my happiest day.”
Rather than return to Rochester with his tail between his legs, Levin decided to drive to New York City, where he had friends, in the hope of finding a new gig. In 1970 this led him to join Aha, The Attack Of The Green Slimebeast, a new band featuring three musicians recently let go from The Mothers Of Invention by Frank Zappa - "really great players” - including keyboardist Don Preston.
“Very few people have heard of the band, because we only did one gig, ever,” says Levin. “Although the one gig we did, in Philly, stands out in my mind, for a few reasons. Only two people came - it hadn't been promoted.
“Don had a very early synthesizer, the kind with the patch cords you plug in, and on top he had a Van de Graaff generator, and a translucent green dildo beneath that. So it was a little bit of an intimidating show for the audience.
“Also there was a point [in the show] where Don would confront the audience,” Levin continues. “He would light little strings of gunpowder in different colours in front of them, and he would kneel cross legged at the front of the stage, and just stare at them, while he had a video [projector] projecting a movie on the audience. One of the two guys got up and walked out during that, leaving one brave soul: I would like to meet that person.”
As Levin recalls, the show also featured an improvised dance troupe, co-ordinated by avant-garde choreographer Meredith Monks, one member of which would go on to achieve international fame.
“Their bodies were painted red, and they wore little diaper kind of things,” he says. “One of them was Danny DeVito, then a struggling artist/actor. I wonder if he remembers that band?”
Watch the full interview below:
