Wendy worked with Australian underground musical cult figure Jeff Krozier some time after visiting him in at his home on Long Island, New York, somewhere in the early 70s.
Jeff was an accomplished magician and illusionist by trade that used rock music (and poetry) as a backdrop for his performances. He was well ahead of his time and, while never becoming a household name, was a major Australian influence on live stage presentation. Jeff hailed from Seymour in Victoria, Australia, and over the years has been likened to various unique musical characters such as Arthur Brown, Robert Calvert, and Alice Cooper. While though he couldn't play a note of music (or sing all too well), Jeff was a brilliant magician, and very well respected by his peers in the magic biz.
In May 1981, Jeff accidentally killed himself while preparing one of his new ‘illusinonary hanging’ tricks.
The following biography of Jeff Crozier is courtesy of ‘achuma’ at www.headheritage.co.uk/:
"‘Krozier’ was Geoff Crozier, demented psychedelic magician/performance artist from Seymour in Victoria, Australia; ‘the Generator’ refers to his musical accompaniment at this stage in his life, the group Rainbow Generator, who had previously released obscure albums of their own. Crozier was a unique character, part Arthur Brown, part Robert Calvert, part Alice Cooper (though without really singing in a conventional sense, or wearing leather jackets), part shaman, part trickster god and court jester, who appeared both on stage and in rehearsal or recording in face make-up and full outlandish regalia, living his life purely to explore and express, and to blow his own mind as well as the audience’s, and put them back together again to make something new and unexpected. Although not really a singer of much talent, the content of his words - often more recited dramatically or comedically, rather than sung as such - was sometimes puzzling, sometimes enlightening, sometimes funny, and always engaging and strange. He was both a stage magician/illusionist and a ritual magician/shaman, using multi-media performance and improvisation as the method and propulsion for his own anarchic vision of unhinged exploration, with each gig or recording session being a spontaneous ceremonial ritual to see how far out he could take it all and still be there once it was over.
"Crozier had been active doing his thing since the late 60’s in Melbourne, forming a group to play free-form rock music and help him present his unrestrained ideas for a full-on comedic, irreverent and psychedelic multi-media stageshow - first The Magik Word in 1969, shortly after settling for a while with The Indian Medicine Magik Show. Their spontaneous music was spun around Crozier’s magic performances, visual weirdness, and weird spoken banter and flights of fancy. Live gigs featured plenty of smoke and pyrotechnics, fire-eating, animals wandering around on stage, complicated props and all manner of furious antics that added up to an unpredictable and uncompromising sensory overload. The Magik Word even wrangled several TV performances on Channel 9’s ‘In Melbourne Tonight’, made possible by Crozier’s day-job as a set painter for 9, and winning a talent show after being in the right place at the right time to volunteer to fill a gap from an entrant who didn’t show. Though they had to tone down for TV they still managed to express some kind of compressed nutty freak-out/freak show. Two tracks recorded from this have recently been transferred from the acetates to mp3s for download, by an ex-Magik Word member. Imagine, if you will, a mashing together of crude, hamfisted psych-tinged rock that sounds like the musicians have only been playing for a few weeks after listening to old records by The Who, interacting with silly surreal comedic monologues from Crozier like rejected ideas for the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and you might get the idea. Apparently a lot more kookery and visual magic tricks were going on visually that would have made the TV experience even more enjoyable.
"Both The Magik Word and The Indian Medicine Magik Show were popular with the tokers and trippers but they didn’t last long. Some gigs were cut short by police or promoters who were worried about the fire hazards and the general weirdness, and when one large gig had the power pulled and lights turned on, Crozier got really pissed off, demanding the power be turned back on and the lights off, before setting fire to the stage curtain, ripping open a signal flare, and running into the street with it held in his hand!
"Not getting the degree of recognition he wanted, or many gigs either, Crozier suddenly left Australia in 1971 without warning to seek his fortunes in the US, living in Staten Island with a dog, a cat, a dove and a monkey [the last one he named ‘Sarcophagus Mayhem’, although he gave all of his animal companions odd names, but this was the best]. He formed a group called The Moon Rock Circus and toured the US doing a similar kind of thing to what he had done back home. But this time, his act [though hardly an ‘act’ for Crozier, it was just what he did] was well-received and he was hailed by critics as a genius, even getting a rave review in the NY Times. By 1977 he was working with a fucked-up group called The Kongress, which had formed in the mid-70’s as a duo including drummer Von Lmo (ex-Funeral of Art), who shortly after achieved a kind of obscure fame/notoriety of his own. Von Lmo left Kongress to pursue his own career after he and Crozier had "nearly killed each other on stage on several occasions" according to Von Lmo. The two didn’t get along, not surprising as both were men with a vision, but each with room for only one ship captain. [Incidentally, Von Lmo would release a compilation of his own rarities and out-takes also titled ‘Tranceformer’, in 2001.]
"The next year Crozier returned to Australia and obscurity. After winning an award as Australia’s top magician, he started collaborating with Rainbow Generator in 1979. Rainbow Generator were a semi-nomadic experimental electronic rock/inner-space synth band who eventually became more or less based between Melbourne and Sydney, consisting of David Mow a.k.a. Mojo on guitars, synths and rhythm machines and Rob Greaves a.k.a. Ras on synths and rhythm machines. Percussionist Keith Casey also sometimes contributed when needed. They released a number of albums on their own Fission Chips label, most notably their debut ‘Dance of the Spheres’ [1977] and a few cassette-only releases. The collaboration with Crozier allowed for an even broader sonic approach.
"By January 1981 this grouping had recorded more than 2 LP’s worth of experimental musical performances, both in their own temporary studio set-ups and live with some overdubs added later by Mow, but in May of that year Crozier died at home in an accident whilst practicing illusory self-hanging. A very sad loss, though fortunately Mow persevered to release a selection of the recordings as a double LP by Krozier & the Generator - ‘Tranceformer’ - a few years later. [The label web site lists it incorrectly as a 1980 release. Maybe they meant when it was recorded, as the album was not put together and released until after Crozier’s death in 1981].
"At the end of a show - which would often be at a loft acid party or something similar - the audience sometimes showed no reaction whatsoever, gobsmacked by the whole strange experience and trying to figure out what just happened. Probably some of them just didn’t get it or couldn’t take it. Regardless, Krozier & the Generator were remembered warmly by a few but were ignored or dismissed by the majority, and all these years after Crozier’s death he’s still virtually unknown. Let this at least be an on-line testimony that Geoff Crozier is not forgotten!
"It would be great if any film or video footage could be found of their shows, as a DVD release would go a long way to preserving the place in musical history deserved by Rainbow Generator and Crozier. There are plans to eventually reissue this album on CD but who knows when that will be available; at the time of writing, mint unsold copies of the original double-LP can still be purchased from Mow for something like AUS$400. Although the Fission Chips website seems to indicate that you can buy ‘Dance of the Spheres’ and ‘Tranceformer’ on CD, it’s said that for years and in fact no such CDs are available or ever have been. There were 2 other obscure, cassette-only Fission Chips releases by Krozier & the Generator - ‘The Quirkshop Tapes’ [1979] and ‘Krozier’s Crusaders’ [1980]. The latter was a compilation of recordings from live performances, and according to Mow, suffers from very poor sound quality as much of it was recorded with a single microphone stuck near the front of the stage. However, he played me some, and it sounded fine to me as an archive recording. Unfortunately, Mow doesn’t want to see copies of these circulate due to the quality concerns, even just for private listening, so it’s unlikely there’ll be a reissue."
For more information regarding Jeff Crozier, please visit the following websites:
Duncan Fry’s 2001 ‘The High Priest of Magik’ article at http://www.dunkworld.com/Crozier_story.htm, achuma’s extensive review of Krozier & The Generator’s Tranceformer (1980) at http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/1462, or contact Rattis at rattis@netspace.net.au - thank you Duncan and achuma.
