The rules and codes of established genre didn’t apply to Arthur. Under the guise of various monikers-Dinosaur L, Loose Joints, Indian Ocean-Arthur produced playful and eccentric disco records that became hits of the pre-Studio 54 era. Simultaneously Arthur discovered the liberating social and aesthetic possibilities of underground discos. He composed melodic orchestral music and absorbed the vanguard ideas of the new music scene. But when the commune tried to take away Arthur’s cello, forcing him to secretly play in a closet, he followed his greater musical ambition, and he joined Ginsberg in New York.Īrthur began working with Philip Glass and other composers in the avant-garde music world, specifically at The Kitchen, where he became musical director in 1974.

Allen described Arthur as “delicate, exquisite-minded, youthful, and at the same time oddly reticent.” The two collaborated on a number of recordings.

He joined a Buddhist commune in San Francisco, and he met his lifelong mentor and collaborator, Allen Ginsberg. Clashing with his parents’ Midwestern conventionalism and inspired by these figures’ counter-cultural imaginations, Arthur ran away from home. As a teenager in the 1960s, Arthur was obsessed with Timothy Leary, John Cage, and Beat poetry. Chuck and Emily Russell remember their precocious son Arthur’s early inspirations. Wild Combination begins in the bucolic landscape of Oskaloosa, Iowa.

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