Disneyland's '80s-era Star Wars…
Disneyland's '80s-era Star Wars rock band had a Wookiee bass player covered in yak fur
The group is the subject of 'Live from the Space Stage: A Halyx Story,' a new documentary that debuts Thursday, Aug. 20 on the Defunctland YouTube channel with a festival run under consideration.
The Disney Records band Halyx played Tomorrowland's Space Stage in the summer of 1981. (Courtesy of "Live from the Space Stage: A Halyx Story")
By Brady MacDonald | bmacdonald@scng.com |
PUBLISHED: August 20, 2020 at 8:41 a.m. | UPDATED: August 20, 2020 at 4:18 p.m.
A new documentary film about a short-lived Disneyland band that combined the spectacle of a Kiss rock concert with musicians wearing Star Wars costumes travels back to a magically silly moment in the early 1980s that remains uncharted history for most hard-core Disney fans.
The Disney Records band Halyx that played Tomorrowland's Space Stage in the summer of 1981 featured a 7-foot-tall Wookiee on bass guitar, a stormtrooper playing a mobile keyboard spaceship and an acrobatic alien amphibian on the congos.
Wait? What? That's impossible! But the fabulous, fantastic and improbable story of Halyx is true.
"Halyx was 100% real," documentary director Matthew Serrano said via email. "And the footage, photos and stories are all real as well."
Disneyland officials confirmed that Halyx played in Tomorrowland in 1981.
The new "Live from the Space Stage: A Halyx Story" documentary debuts on Thursday, Aug. 20 at 4 p.m. Pacific time on the Defunctland YouTube channel with a festival run under consideration.
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"Live from the Space Stage: A Halyx Story" is a love letter to a bizarre moment in Disneyland history that time nearly forgot. The Halyx documentary was created for self-professed "Disney nerds" who surprisingly know nothing about Halyx, can't believe the band was real and desperately wish they could have seen them live at Disneyland.
Halyx (pronounced hay-licks) was a science fiction themed rock band created by Disney Records for Disneyland — years before Star Tours opened and decades before Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge debuted at the Anaheim theme park.
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Halyx was designed to appeal to an underserved teenage audience at Disneyland, according to Disney Records producer Bambi Moe.
"That very first time that they performed the kids went nuts," Moe said in the documentary. "They were screaming."
A Star Wars-like movie poster of the band displayed in Disneyland drew young crowds obsessed with "The Empire Strikes Back" to the over-the-top rock show in an outdoor amphitheater beneath Space Mountain.
A Star Wars-like movie poster of Halyx displayed in Disneyland drew crowds to an outdoor amphitheater beneath Space Mountain. (Courtesy of "Live from the Space Stage: A Halyx Story")
The idea was to create a cross between Van Halen and the Star Wars cantina band. The Disneyland gigs were designed to serve as a venue for Disney Records to showcase Halyx to Hollywood record labels that could give the band a bigger push in the rock 'n' roll marketplace.
Disney spent more than $150,000 on Halyx costumes for a visual production built for television and touring.
Halyx was fronted by a wholesome and hip "punk Snow White" singer who was a cross between Suzi Quatro and Janis Joplin. The keyboard spaceship piloted by a stormtrooper musician in a white helmet and armor was built by the same company that created the Main Street Electrical Parade floats.
The Wookiee bass player's fur costume was made from yak hair. The frog-like alien percussionist in a hooded burlap cape triggered Star Wars laser blasts with his electronic drums while performing cartwheels and scaling ropes into the rafters. The drum riser rose up like a rocket blasting off while spewing smoke and flashing lights.
Guitarist Bruce Gowdy and bassist Roger Freeland from Halyx perform at Disneyland in 1981. (Courtesy of "Live from the Space Stage: A Halyx Story")
The band played a mix of original and cover songs with the most memorable tune — "Jailbait" — featuring the very un-Disney lyric "Baby I want you, but you're jailbait."
Halyx constantly pushed the boundaries on what was permissible at Disneyland — from language to sexiness to volume, according to record producer Mike Post, who assembled the band for Disney Records.
"We were looked at in the park like lunatics," Post said in the documentary. "The rock and roll that was put on at the park traditionally was really kind of milquetoast."
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The wonderfully enjoyable new 90-minute documentary that will appeal to all Disneyland aficionados ends on a bittersweet note that answers a key question viewers have throughout the film.
"Halyx was not a success. It was not a disappointment," former Disney Records executive Gary Krisel said in the documentary. "It was a joy from beginning to end."
Brady MacDonald | Reporter
Brady MacDonald is a theme park reporter for the Orange County Register and the Southern California News Group. He's covered the theme park industry for more than 25 years. He writes about Disney, Universal, Six Flags, SeaWorld, Cedar Fair and Legoland parks in Southern California, across the United States and around the world. As a member of the SCNG Features team, he also writes about entertainment, travel, pop culture, music, restaurants and craft beer.
bmacdonald@scng.com
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