JOHN KOWALSKI
Bandmembers in Haymarket Square are Gloria Lambert (vocals), Marc Swenson (guitar, vocal), Robert Homa (bass, vocal), and John Kowalski (percussion). Their sole album, Magic Lantern came out in 1968 and had been known in underground circles for several decades. After being bootlegged several times over the years, Gear Fab Records – a reissue label that combines two Beatles-era slang terms – finally put out an authorized release in 2001. My copy, however, is one of the bootlegs; it is dated 1996 and marked “Made in England”. The record label is given as LSD Records, and the catalogue number is LSD-007.
While in high school, Chicago teenagers Robert Homa and John Kowalski of Haymarket Square had been in a garage rock band called the Real Things; the name was in honor of the British band the Pretty Things. Stanton Swihart notes in Allmusic about this predecessor band: “Not your typical amateurs, the Real Things actually played professional instruments and earned professional gigs until they disintegrated in 1967 due to the usual reasons of the season.”
By then students at the University of Illinois – Chicago, Robert Homa and John Kowalski got another band together by advertising in the campus newspaper. Guitarist Marc Swenson – a devotee of the lead guitarist of the Kinks, Dave Davies – was quickly added to the line-up. A pretty blonde 20-year-old, Gloria Lambert also answered the ad, bringing her powerful, classically trained voice to the band Haymarket Square. She had previously been in a folk music band called Jordan, Damian and Samantha.
Stanton Swihart writes of Haymarket Square for Allmusic: “As the music featured on it was initially utilized as live accompaniment and created expressly with that purpose in mind, the album plays much like the records of the [Jefferson] Airplane’s middle, most psychedelic period, as much visceral experiences to fill San Francisco ballrooms as they are objects for home listening, or like early Grateful Dead recordings, intended as soundtracks for Acid Tests and experimental light shows. But as with the work of those bands, Magic Lantern transcends its intended purpose; in fact, it is one of the stronger – not to mention one of the earliest – slices of acid rock from the era, outstanding in every way, from [John] Kowalski’s expert drumming, to [Gloria] Lambert’s impressive, insistent singing, to the intensely mood-filled, darkly textured original songs.”
(June 2015)
