Innocence and Despair: Langley Schools Music Project
Posted by: zac | From: August 21, 2005
Earning his teaching certificate in the early '70s British Columbia, former struggling rock musician-turned elementary teacher Hans Fenger took a job at Belmont Elementary School in the semi-remote, "Canadian Bible belt" rurality of Langley, B.C. By 1975, Fenger was assigned by the Langley School District to shuttle between three very small rural schools: Lochiel School, which had an enrollment of about 50 kids; South Carvolth Elementary, a four room school house in the country; and Glenwood School. Fenger, a deeper hippie in the traditional sense, instructed fourth-through-seventh grade students with little regard for music theory—teaching the children to play modern pop music "organically," with arrangements taught orally. After several months of classes, the three schools (about 60 students in all) came together in the Glenwood Gymnasium for three rehearsals before Fenger brought in his buddy's 2-track and a couple of Shure 58s to document the cavernously echoing mess. Recording nine songs—The Beach Boys' "You're So Good To Me," "Little Deuce Coupe," and "Help Me, Rhonda"; Phil Spector's "To Know Him Is To Love Him"; David Bowie's "Space Oddity"; Herman's Hermits' "Into Something Good"; Paul McCartney's "Band On the Run"; Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon"; and the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night"—in one take, Fenger collected a small sum from the kids and pressed 300 LP copies of Lochiel, South Carvolth, and Glenwood Schools in 1976.
The next year, Fenger was assigned to Wix-Brown Elementary—also in Langley—where with roughly 180 children (and an interpretive gymnastics squad) he recorded a second album's worth of songs—twelve in all—including four more Beach Boys songs ("In My Room," "Good Vibrations," "I Get Around," and "God Only Knows"), the Eagles' "Desperado," and "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft." With a couple of stand-out soloists to set the to sessions apart, this group was pressed as Wix-Brown Elementary in 1977. And then—or so the legend goes—the recordings were promptly forgotten for about a quarter century.
Oh, right... I almost forgot to mention: the Langley Schools Music Project is perhaps the single most haunting sonic experience ever recorded. Terrifyingly so. Beautifully so. Crushingly so. Beneath a nullifying wall of elementary school gym reverb, dozen of pre-pubescent children singing in startling unison—crashing off-beat percussion, eerily echoed xylophone, tremeloed lapsteel, and coke-bottle slide guitar into something so transcendent and perfectly otherworldly it almost comes off like a put-on.
Rediscovered by DJ, outsider music historian and Songs In the Key of Z author Irwin Chusid (who credits himself for the Esquivel resurgence of the 1990s), the two records Fenger produced in the late '70s had, due to their tiny press run, virtually disappeared. Chusid—after hearing Lochiel, South Carvolth, and Glenwood Schools' rendition of "Space Oddity" on a mixtape submitted to his radio show—hunted down Hans Fenger, who, along with the Langley School district and the Basta Audio-Visuals label, assisted the author in his effort re-release the recordings to a wider audience. Compiled in 2001 under the umbrella of the Langley Schools Music Project, the two original records became Innocence and Dispair (the way Fenger described nine-year-old Sheila Behman's vocal solo on "Desperado"—released to a great deal of critical acclaim, and apparently spawning a VH1 reunion special.
What sounds like little more than readymade NPR fodder—and to be fair, the Langley Schools Music Project has gotten it's fair amount public radio time since its rediscovery—is actually a surprisingly listenable oddity; transcending the sort of novelty status this sort of project seems inevitably doomed to languishing in. It's beautiful, haunting, and incredibly powerful. Were I not so exhausted at present, the preceding description would no doubt be a good deal more evocative, but as it stands, I'll leave you with the obvious: the Langley Schools Music Project was—for at least a couple afternoons in the mid-70s—the Greatest Band of All Time.
You have to listen to these songs to appreciate the beauty of these lyrics were all grew up to being sung by angelic voices!
Posted by: carrie at December 5, 2005 09:37 PM
This record is amazing. If you haven't heard it seek it out and buy a copy today. What I noted either on another site or on the liner notes was that the children were not seeking stardom or fame when these tracks were recorded, this makes it all the more innocent. I dislike The Eagles as much as Tom Waits who said their records were only good for one thing: keeping the dust off your turntable but listening to 'Desperado' on this you cannot fail to be moved.
Posted by: Richard Gibson at December 19, 2005 04:12 AM
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this sounds so epic.
Posted by: ritchey at September 13, 2005 10:16 PM