Godz

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The Godz were a New York City experimental rock band formed in 1966 by Jim McCarthy, Larry Kessler, Jay Dillon, and Paul Thornton. They had almost no formal music training when they started playing together.

The band came together after Kessler, McCarthy, and Thornton met in a Sam Goody’s store and began jamming at Kessler’s home. Impressed, they auditioned for Bernard Stollman at ESP-Disk, who released their music. Their first albums were Contact High with the Godz (1966) and Godz 2 (1967). The Third Testament (1968) featured many improvised performances by a loose group called The Multitude.

The Godz were known for their wild, chaotic, off-key sound, which many critics found uniquely odd. Lester Bangs wrote about them in Creem magazine in 1971, and their 1973 album Godzundheit was their last with the original lineup.

They broke up soon after, but reunited in 2007 without Jay Dillon (who had died in 2002) and played until 2018. Paul Thornton died in 2019, and Larry Kessler was killed in 2022.

After reforming, they released material from new sessions, including The Godz Remastered (2012) and Gift from the Godz (2014). A later version of the band, called GODZ, toured with new members Mike Walker (drums) and Charles Walker (keyboards) and released the track “Thanks” on Manta Ray Records. The Godz also appeared in films and magazine features over the years, leaving a legacy as one of rock’s most unusual and influential oddities.