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WHO THE HELL?
A DESIGN FOR LIFE
The soft-pop perfection of the Free Design
by James Barnes
The late '60s are said to have been a turbulent time, and the pop music associated with the era would seem to bear that out. But history has a way of simplifying the past, of suppressing voices that don't fit the story being told. Amidst the strife, there was also beauty. The Free Design, by fixating on this beauty, offered a disarming wedding of lofty harmonies and psychedelic-flourishes that even today stands apart from its '60s contemporaries.
"The most important thing you can is with sound," says Chris Dedrick of his approach to composition. "There may be a place that a chord can take you, and the song has a place too. You get to enter into that space and communicate it to others by playing."
Dedrick was attending the Manhattan School of Music in the mid-'60s when, in his free time, he began informally to play music with his siblings Bruce and Sandy. They had been raised in a musical household and these early sessions came naturally to the children of jazz trombonist Art Dedrick. "When Sandy and Bruce and I started to sing together," Dedrick explains from his home outside Toronto, "it was for fun." Only later did Dedrick start to view the nascent group as a vehicle for songwriting. The trio began performing at Greenwich Village folk clubs - younger sibling Ellen would join later - and their father helped them record a demo.
Despite sparking interest from a number of labels, they eventually chose to record for Project 3, started by producer Enoch Light of Persuasive Percussion fame. Focused mainly on easy listening, Project 3 offered an odd fit for the band's quirky pop. It did, however, offer creative freedom. "For the most part," Dedrick says, "he let us go," explaining Light's hands-off approach to producing the band. This freedom in the studio served the group well on six studio albums between 1967 and 1971.
In pockets of the Northeast, their harmonies and orchestral flourishes made them genuine stars. After performing at a fashion show in Buffalo, Dedrick recalls "teenagers […] literally swarming us." The group toured extensively along the Eastern seaboard, scoring such high-profile gigs as a halftime performance at Shea Stadium, an opening spot for Sonny & Cher in Tucson, and appearances on Merv Griffin and Dick Cavett; somehow, it wasn't enough to make them stars.
Part of the explanation for this lies with Project 3. The label's deep connection in the easy listening world got the Free Design airplay some MOR and adult stations, even as the complexities of '60s record distribution conspired to keep the records out of many stores. The band addressed its frustration on "2002-A Hit Song," singing, "Promotion will cause a big commotion, so, DJ, teenybopper, answer me this: How can this hit miss?" Sadly, the answer never came. In 1971, the Free Design disbanded.
As time passed, collectors seeking new sounds in music's past discovered the recorded legacy of the Free Design. The small group of fans broadened in the late '90s when a new generation of musicians began to cite the Free Design as influential. In Japan, Cornelius reissued the albums on his Trattoria label and the Free Design began cropping up in interviews with groups like Stereolab and the High Llamas.
This resurgence led to the group's reforming to record "Endless Harmony" for 2000's Caroline Now, a Beach Boys tribute album. Reaction to the new recording was sufficiently positive for the band to record an album of wholly new material, Cosmic Peekaboo, in 2001.
The rediscovery continues. Last year, Light In The Attic began its campaign to reissue all six original studio albums, beginning with Kites Are Fun and Heaven/Earth, the first domestic issues in almost 30 years. LITA also spearheaded a remix project, issuing the first of several 12-inch singles featuring reinterpretations by Madlib, Peanut Butter Wolf, and Chris Geddes of Belle & Sebastian. "With something that's had a life, it's great," Dedrick says of the remixes. "It isn't quite what I wrote, but if somebody can get some pleasure out of finessing it, great."
Thirty-odd years later, the Free Design have secured a small place in the pop pantheon. This modest berth allows those looking for fresh sounds the possibility of discovery, of connection, of wonder. "I think it's heartening," Dedrick says, "that the music does have a life of its own."
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