
You can’t pin point the end of Connecticut’s Crystallized Movements since the band ostensibly turned into front man Wayne Rogers’ next projects. The same players wouldn’t travel from band to band – or even from record to record. But what Roger’s is credited with during the early eighties is maintaining the tie between punky rock stuffs and psych freak-outs in the face of the Paisely Underground, the emerging shoe-gaze thing and reams of indie bands inflecting its music with faux-tripped out sounds.
First forming in 1979, Crystallized Movements was a basement project with Roger’s being accompanied by drummer Ed Boyden. Its initial recordings were all duo affairs with Rogers going back and adding additional guitar tracks to the whole thing.
Resulting in Mind Disaster, the tracks ape something of a Jap-psych thing – of course the lion’s share of that stuff had as of yet to fully inculcate the States. But the same vibe is present during Crystallized Movement’s most destructive passages – see the end of “Communal Storybook.”
Interestingly enough, following efforts like that drug damaged track is the almost pop like “Sandy Roy,” replete with hand claps and properly sung lyrics. Oddly enough, the guitar winds up sounding like what Operation Ivy would work up in the Bay five years on. Rogers’ vocals don’t move too far away from Jesse Michaels’ either: all spit and vigor, but in a teenaged angst kinda way.
Despite Mind Disaster’s ability to presage (although accidentally) a number of musics that would soon be hitting independent record stores, the willfully retro eighties’ garage bands and the groups associated with the Paisley Underground were apparently not impressed.
With Mind Disaster being greatly ignored here, the UK became an place where the band counted fans. This odd appointment – but not the first of its kind in the US rock world – continued on with the band eventually moving to Boston during the early nineties.
With the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh kicking around, there should have been a market for Rogers and the Crystallized Movements line up that coalesced in Boston. But that just wasn’t the case. Instead, Rogers founded another avenue to release music in the form of Magic Hour and Magic Stars, both of which garnered under-underground praise, if not widespread credentials.
Continuing to release music through his own label, Twisted Village, and running a record store has kept Rogers in the music world. If only the music world would be so kind as to keep him.

