Who was this grandiloquent 'Iconoclast'?

The town of Hadley, Massachusetts, lies between Amherst and Northampton.  It is one of the last remaining vestiges in New England (or anywhere) of "open-field farming."  It might also be the place where the young man who recorded two records called ICONOCLAST and ICONOCLAST TWO lived.  A box of these albums was found at a Polish Farm sale in the area, but there was no information on them other than a catalog number, song titles, the word 'ICONOCLAST' on some, "ICONOCLAST TWO" on the others.  Unfortunately, almost all of vinyl was trashed, but two copies turned out to be playable.

The word 'Iconoclast' (someone who attacks long-held beliefs, especially religious ones) reminds me of ponderous high school poetry (including some doozies I was responsible for) and studying-for-the-SAT's.  The youthful-sounding singer on both these albums--which sound late sixties/early seventies--uses an arsenal of SAT words, a clear admiration of Bob Dylan, and unrelenting anger at organized religion to deliver 20+ songs both tortured and tortuous [yeah, kinda like this sentence].

Although I do like Bob Dylan, I strongly dislike the legion of 60's-70's singers who worshiped at his altar.  Mr. Iconoclast, though, breaks the mold; while he's clearly emulating Dylan, he's simply too nerdy, earnest, and imprecise with his lyrics and delivery to make the attempt sound anything but endearingly flailing.  Also, for someone who could be just-out-of-high-school, he is sanctimonious almost beyond belief. 

But who is/was he?  No information on the lp, as I said, no year, no names, nothing except those catalog numbers.  Still, various lyrics definitely date this during the Vietnam War, like this gem:

For what you think is blessed you will reckon soon as cursed

And what you think is greatest you will reckon soon as worst

You still believe that structures can revive our universe

And better arms control can set the war trend in reverse

But don't you be surprised when life goes from bad to worse

And the victory bandwagon turns out to be mankind's hearse

So, here's to hoping that maybe someone who sees this post can fill in the MANY blanks about who was this erstwhile  'Iconoclast', what the circumstances were that surrounded the recordings, any information at all, really... Meanwhile, here's a couple of songs that demonstrate this lost-to-history Iconoclast's specific talents and predilections rather well.

01 Looking At Men's Faces

02 Holy Reverend Cleric

 

Comments

[Wolf]

Thanks, but 2nd song seems to be posted twice. Love to hear the other one, too...

[Jason Elbogen]

Oops--sorry about that. Both songs start out with the EXACT same chord progression, so I got confused. It's corrected now.

--j

[K.]

The guy has ...Issues.

[tim]

Oh man. . . youth is embarrassing, innit?

[xangoir]

YOUTH IS ETERNAL