RY COOPER-rusty evans-Marcus Uzilevsky A FOLK ARTIST

Rusty Evans who currently tours as a Johnny Cash live band impersonator was doing something similar but way more

obscure in 1965. He was recording under the name Ry Cooder which is obviously an homage or rip off of Ry Cooder. He would have known about Ry from his studio trappings and possibly just from his connections in the folk scene. Rusty did hang with Robert Zimmerman in the Greenwich Village,  well according to Marcus, oh yeah that's Rusty's er, Ry, uh his real name, Marcus Uzilevsky a Jewish artist with strong creative and borrowed leanings.

Rusty worked many a music gig in various styles. He went through the whole Give me A Hammer folk stage, the whole Locomotion Blues thing he is proficient at Rockabilly and what I'm sharing with you is his output in cartoon (very mid 60s kitch) styling (that he inked) of his experience and humoured observations of a growing young adult music industry. This was released in tandem with his Ry Cooper

single on Musicor (1983 / the life game) which is his first foray into garage rock with a real George Orwell bent and a new sound in general.  

See my post in 2010 regarding that single HERE 

After this obscure and blazing single and releasing the Folk Bag cartoon 

there is a silence for around a year and then after some more acid

and who knows what he gathers his crack pot friends that were

ejected from the New Christy Minstrels with him from being too freaky

they formed the DEEP also known as The Freak Scene 

but were initially jokingly named The New Crunchy Monsters.

The DEEP released 'Psychedelic Moods' on Cameo Parkway in the USA

and then as Parkway melted into recession they jumped over to

Columbia and released 'Psychedelic Psoul' under the name the Freak Scene

with essentially the same group he has liquidated and moulded

to this new funky thing (it is said the band also worked behind the concept group the 'Devil's Anvil'.


That is something to really emphasize, practically all of the projects after 1965 Rusty was involved with are concepts realized with a new edge but never extended or toured in the mainstream sense. Was Marcus bored? Or was every company he worked with simply bewildered by his projects he turned in?

Not long after while it seems this was to be temporary all around

Rusty aka Marcus moves to NYC and hooks up with Teddy Randazzo

(in an Interview I had with Rusty he says this happened before the 

Deep but it is clear by recording sessions he mixed up the dates)

and cut some classic Garage acid classics like '5 years ahead of my time' 

recorded by the Third Bardo but written and produced by Rusty.

Lots more about this chain events to come as I have planned for some time

but for now I am sharing his Comic Book 'FROM THE FOLK BAG'

The pages of the Comic were layed out by Jean Hammond(s)  who was part of the Freak Scene
and the Deep.