“…Burgin and Treece skate glorious circle 8′s on a frozen lake of blood drained from the dead hearts of Cipollina, Garcia, etc…”
The Two Hundred Pound Underground No. 1 November 1996 (no page #) Review of the GREEN RAY by Tony Rettman, Editor
The history of the Green Ray can be found at SHAGRAT RECORDS, hosted by NIGEL CROSS
We bid adieu in 2015 to the peerless RICHARD TREECE of HELP YOURSELF and the GREEN RAY. From Mike Nipper in The Stranger (6/5/15): Treece’s most notable playing was spread over the course of Help Yourself’s four album catalog, and although they were a solid band—lysergic laced rural American rock similar to later Quicksilver—they never got anywhere. It’s a bummer considering their narrative was threaded through many bands and players, including label mates, Man, Sam Apple Pie, and even Eire Apparent/Brinsley Schwarz. But even with a few big shows—they played Glastonbury Festival in ‘71—and nods from critics, the punters didn’t care. After Help Yourself fell apart Treece played in Deke Leonard’s Iceberg, the Flying Aces, the Splendid Humans, and then joined ex-Man members in progressive pop group, the Neutrons. In 2000, he released a solo album, Dream Arena East, and then joined the Archers, which evolved into his current band the Green Ray. The Green Ray released three records in the oughties.
Actually, the Green Ray released three records in the 90′s, not the “oughties”…
Tony Rettman? We can write his name a lot, cuz we like the name Tony. When Rettman is not wearing a monocle in The New Yorker, he’s busy updating his brand new something-for-everyone website http://www.tonyrettman.com/.
Tony Rettman’s bio includes the following cool stuff: “Rettman is a freelance music journalist whose woruk has appeared in Vice, The Village Voice, The Wire, The Guardian, Philadelphia Weekly, Cleveland Scene, Arthur, Swindle, Signal to Noise, Mean and Thrasher. In the late 80’s, he was the co-editor of Common Sense fanzine where he interviewed Hardcore bands such as Youth of Today, Sick of it All, Gorilla Biscuits, Turning Point and Alone in a Crowd at the age of 16. In the 90’s, he self-published the fanzine The 200 Pound Underground where he interviewed Proto-Punk legends such as The Electric Eels, The Godz and Screamin’ Mee-Mees while championing Psychedelic units of the day such as The No-Neck Blues Band, Six Organs of Admittance, The Green Ray, Crawlspace and Bardo Pond.”
Tony Rettman is also currently ignoring the cats by generating his relatively new podcast every week…NO IDOLS!