Ministry of Fools – Color While You Dream

Ministry of Fools – Color While You Dream
Self released – 1989
Psychedelic campfire music, love songs of rebellion
Waardering: ****

Back in the beginning of the eighties Fred Drake and Ted Quinn were playing in a band called Telekin featuring among others artist extraordinary Dean Chamberlain who also founded new wave, power pop/punk band Code Blue. At Chamberlain’s studio Fred was given free range and he stayed for days on end learning himself to record and lay the foundations for his first solo album Cowbells For Cowboys. When the end of the eighties rolled around Robert Allen Floyd and his band Third Eye entered the studio to record and needing a place to crash, Fred offered his couch. Within a day they had written and recorded their first song: Zero Tolerance based on a poem Quinn wrote about the anti-drug war started by Grandpa Bush. Not long after they jokingly named themselves Ministry of Fools in honor of the jesters who expose the Emperor. Together with Quinn they performed as an acoustic trio at the most diverse of events; from burials to protest marches and from the Chinese Consulate to the hippest clubs in Hollywood. A self-made tape made it to the radio station and garnered attention of big record companies. But since they demanded a big showcase the trio decided to ask twenty of their friends along to play on stage and mess with the heads of the executives. Rest assured: they did not get the deal. So they finished recording Color While You Dream themselves and went their separate ways in 1993. With a title taken from a children’s coloring book the album is a mixture of that typical eighties sound and a sixties spirit. It sounds in part decadent and depraved but preaches love, tolerance and understanding. It is highly Beatles inspired psychedelic pop with a new wave foundation. Honest, sincere and lovely!