There are some images I'll never be able to extract from my memory, no matter how hard I try. One is the terrifying illustration of a long-nosed, green-skinned corpse that graced the pages of In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories, a book my father read me in his best faux-Vincent Price voice, and led me to countless sleepless nights. Another is seventy-something Daevid Allen pulling off his skintight shorts, whipping out his cock, and playing with it-- a few inches away from my face.

How did I get into such a compromising situation? It's probably not as interesting as you hoped. Basically, the Dylan Group and Marianne Nowottny were opening for the University of Errors. Tickets were cheap, the bill was pretty impressive, so I figured, what the hell. I got there a bit early, grabbed a seat up front, and waited. The Dylan Group and Marianne Nowottny were good, as expected. The real surprise of the evening came with Daevid Allen's thoroughly rocking set. Backed by a band of folks who looked like they ranged in age from 25 to 65, Allen turned out a surprisingly good set, complete with a hilarious "prog-rock dance contest."

And then came the encore. I had heard legends of Allen revealing his penis during "My Penis is Aging," and sure enough, the song begins: "My face is aging! My ass is aging! My penis... my penis! My penis?" And with that, Mr. Allen whipped out a pair of bifocals, placed them on his face, and then whipped out... something else. He then concluded, "My penis is not aging!" How nice for him.

Surprisingly, I managed to come away from that show with a somewhat-varied set of memories. Some of the harder numbers Allen played, such as one which I believe was called "Mysterio Fanatico," were quite excellent. I was hoping that E^2 x 10 = Tenure would be more of the same.

Sadly, it isn't. This is a painfully rambling, unfocused, and generally dull record. Considering that he's one of the few guys who can be quasi-accurately credited with inventing prog, one would think Allen has by this point figured out that being "spacy" just isn't enough. But the kind of bland, meandering music that's found on E^2 x 10 = Tenure suggests that this isn't the case.

The album begins promisingly enough-- a menacing minor chord segues into a fuzzy, goofy faux-dance beat. Spooky, ethereal guitars enter over the beat, generating a kind of bizarre tension that's never again recreated on the record. Unfortunately, the album's second track, "If You Are Changing," hints at the kind of aimless, dull repetition that will mark the rest of the album. The most egregious offense comes with the 9+ minute "Ocean Mother," in which Allen reads crappy beat-sounding poetry over sparse instrumentation. Sorry, gramps, but you can't pull that shit on us youngsters. We're on to you.

E^2 x 10 = Tenure is not without its high points, though. "Pinky's Party Song" almost lives up to its title, rocking out as hard as anything else on the album. And even the album's worst tracks generally contain a few moments in which there is some semblance of a melody, a structure-- of some kind of development to push the song forward.

Odds are, I'll never be able to forget Daevid Allen. As long as I live, that only-slightly-expected penis will haunt me. I was hoping that E^2 x 10 = Tenure would be a memorable enough album that when I think "Daevid Allen," the immediate next thought wouldn't have to be "old cock." But that is not the case. Nothing on this album is at all memorable enough to stick around in my brain, let alone displace such a vivid image. So I suppose that I'll never have pleasant memories when I think of Daevid Penis. I mean Allen!

-Matt LeMay