In 1978, a wonderfully weird album was released under the name the Happy Dragon-Band. The Detroit outfit wasn’t really a band, but a project steered by a local wizard. The Happy Dragon-Band is an astonishing, art-damaged LP that’s languished in obscurity for decades—but it has returned.
The man behind the project is one Tommy Court—the “Happy Dragon” in the Happy Dragon-Band. Court is a musician, songwriter, and engineer, who built a recording studio on the third floor of Fiddlers Music, a Detroit music store that would become a major hub of activity in the 1970s.
Tommy Court behind the board at Fiddlers.
“Tommy recorded everybody you can possibly think of in the Detroit music scene,” renowned drummer Johnny “Bee” Badanjek recently told me. Badanjek is best known for keeping the beat in Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, and the Rockets, but he’s also done tons of session work for other artists, and plays on the Happy Dragon-Band album. Badanjek also said of Court: “He’s like a science guy, when it comes to recording and using all his keyboards and drum machines.”
When he wasn’t assisting others, Court was writing his own material and experimenting with guitars and synthesizers at Fiddlers. He tried to get a band together to perform his unconventional songs, but the results were too vanilla. So, Court ended up playing many of the instruments himself on the Happy Dragon-Band LP, bringing in top players like Badanjek to round out the recordings.
The Happy Dragon-Band was released on Fiddlers Music’s own imprint. Limited to just 200 copies, the album didn’t have any distribution to speak of, though it was sold by the Detroit-area record chain, Harmony House (yours truly worked at store #16 in the early ‘90s). The LP received some local and national radio spins, before quietly vanishing. The record has since become sought-after by those who love strange and sensational albums—like you, presumably. It’s been bootlegged (a kind of backhanded compliment for Court), while an original copy could set you back hundreds of dollars, these days.
On the Happy Dragon-Band’s album you’ll hear spacey prog rock, psychedelic disco, electro rock, and demented reggae, conveyed with heavy synthesizers, stabbing guitars, and off-kilter percussion. There are a couple of acoustic-based numbers that conjure up loner acid folk and an alternate reality singer/songwriter. One instrumental sounds like the soundtrack to an imaginary horror movie, while on another, lonely synth bombs boil into a bubbling cauldron of sound.
“A Long Time” is a good entry point for The Happy Dragon-Band. The track comes across as an evil blend of Krautrock and Blue Öyster Cult.
On Saturday, April 22nd—Record Store Day—the Happy Dragon-Band’s amazing, sole LP, will be re-released by Org Music. This marks the first time the record has been legitimately reissued, with Tommy Court’s full involvement, and widely distributed. Pressed on yellow vinyl, it’s limited to 1,000 copies, and features two previously unreleased cuts.
Here’s the original album:
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Stellar unreleased music from Michael Rother of krautrock greats Harmonia and NEU! (a DM premiere)
‘Necropolis’: Bob Bell’s heavy duty, mind-blowing prog rock/free jazz cult album returns!
Dig the explosive heavy metal found on White Boy and the Average Rat Band’s obscure LP