Royal Family And The Poor

Perhaps the most misunderstood band to record for Factory, The Royal Family And The Poor remain for many an (oc)cult enigma, releasing only four albums in two decades, and rarely performing live after 1984. Originally formed by Michael Anthony Keane and Arthur McDonald, their sound was created by dismantling a radio receiver and wiring it up to a small analog synthesizer & connecting them both to an old stereo gram. This could then be manipulated by moving magnets around the receiver in the radio. In fact the oblique band moniker soon became the identity of just one man, Michael Anthony Keane, whose chequered history is a complicated tale of perseverance in the face of adversity.

GAIA COMMUNICATIONS WORLD NETWORK

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Fraternal greetings.

My name is Michael Keane, I am a member of the OTO based in Liverpool, England; and since 1978 I have been working as a music(k)ian under the name of The Royal Family & the Poor. Over the last 20 years, under this name, I have produced numerous LP's, singles and videos, some on Manchester based Factory Records and later privately releasing material on our own Independent Label, Gaia Communications World Network.

The Royal Family & the Poor began in 1977 as a collaboration of two artists, myself and a friend, Arthur Mcdonald, who was the original vocalist. The very first recordings the Royal Family & the Poor were done on a £15.00 cassette machine and were nothing more to the average listener than white noise with an electrical drone. Over this, Arthur would read Situationist text taken from some of his own writings coupled with exerpts taken from Rauol Vanegiem's "leaving the 20th century"
Our "sound" was created by my dismantling a radio receiver, wiring it up to a small analogue synthesiser and connecting them both to an old stereo gram. This would then be manipulated by moving magnets around the receiver in the radio. The Royal Family & the Poor began as an Aural- Psychic-audio experiment in transpersonal forms of communication between ourselves and the listener.
The rehearsal room at home became our musickal, alchemical lab and The Royal Family & the Poor's Musick became a technique to explore consciousness. After all, what is Music(k) other than the ability to articulate the incommunicable, the occult or hidden? Music(k) can give insights of the Soul. It can teach us how to remain open and receptive to the new, the magical. It can move and inspire us to participate in creation, to mold, to draw, to etch, to carve, to Create; the creed of OZ, that "every man and woman is" an Artist or "a star."
It was specifically this relationship between magic(k), Art and the ability of sound to effect changes in consciousness that began to fascinate us and so we decided to call our music "musick". Factory Records heard a tape of what we were doing and invited us to contribute to a double LP sampler showcasing four of Factory's new acts. It was quickly recorded live one afternoon in Joy Divisions first four track studio.
After this first year the other members, including Arthur McDonald, left the group. As I had felt something profoundly moving in the musick we had made, the ideas behind it and the wave of energy which surged through our entire generation around these times, to say nothing of the wonderful music coming out of every dark corner in the UK, (called by the gutter-press "punk rock") I decided to continue any way that I could.
It was 1982, the year that I had been working on a "Practical correspondence course on the Mystical Quabbala with S.O.L., when out-of-the-blue I had a visit from a friend who just happened to be doing photographs for a William Burroughs event in the town centre that evening. He thought I might like to tag along.
The subsequent meeting was like something strait out of "Interzone" and shocked me by its Psychic reality. It was as if Burroughs had been expecting me. He shook my hand and treated me as if I was an old friend. In the hours that followed I experienced something that I had not felt since childhood, a sense of being loved by something far greater than myself. It wasn't until I returned home that I realised that that love I had felt from him had not left me. It never did and continues to inspire me today.
"The great God Pan is dead, Pan, the God of Panic, the sudden awareness that everything is alive and significant. But Pan lives on in the realm of imagination, in writing, painting and Music." William Burrough's -- from "Dead city radio", CD -- Island Records, 1990.
In 1985, The Royal Family & the Poor made the decision to leave Factory records for good and set about forming our own record label, Gaia Communications World Network. We quickly released one LP and a 12" single, as well as recording an entire collection of new material before the distribution company, (Red Rhino) collapsed, effectively wiping-out our label over night.
During this period, with various members of the band coming and going, (in a sense, the Royal Family & the Poor has been a large collective with many different people) we did numerous performances in Europe and in the UK, with five C90 cassette releases, contributed to various compilation LP's and publications, performed ritual workshops and gave lectures.
In 1995 the opportunity arose to procure a PC and phone line as well as to raise enough capital to re-launch our beloved long term project, " Gaia Communications World Network", (not to be confused with other fluffy-bunny "new age" groups of the same name!!).
Our first new release will be a project which has been some ten years in the making, the third audio release by Gaia Records, recorded during 1989-1990, a CD LP release titled, "Songs For The Children Of Baphomet: A Musickal Celebration on the Theme of Magick and A Tribute to The Life & Works Of Aleister Crowley, (1875 - 1947)". This LP CD includes a free 28 page full colour booklet and over an hour of some of the best tracks the Royal Family & the Poor have done to date. Each copy will be individually numbered from 1 to 2000.
We would like to thank the OTO for the copyright permission granted to us to use the Aleister Crowley material contained on the tribute LP, and we would also like to thank Frater A.M.T. and Frater H.B. for their invaluable support and encouragement with this project. We could not have done it without you, thanks!
For all enquiries or further information regarding Gaia Communications and The Royal Family & the Poor you can either email us at directly or, if you prefer, you can go to our Web-site on-line at the addresses below.

Love is the law, love under will.

Brother Michael A. Keane./ Fra: A.N.L.
Liverpool, near England. ! :-)