HERMANOS GUZANOS - "The Alley" (1990)

 I guess you could call us Hermanos Nostrazanos if you wanted to because our 1990 tape release on Carl Howard's aT or "Audiofile Tapes" label was meant as a joke, not as a prediction of the future! 

Twenty-Nine years later and living in the alley is the norm for a lot of people! What the Hell happened?

Our music didn't really blend in with the rest of the stuff on the aT label, which was normally much more intelligent, so it was kind of an honor to have one of our tapes released on Carl's label, and the resulting fame and fortune was beyond comprehension!

Many, many years later Steve Zimmerman gave it another shot on his Orange Entropy label with equal results!

HERMANOS GUZANOS - "The Alley"

THE LARRY TALBOT BAND - "Out Scaring Everyone" (2018)

 The Larry Talbot Band were Larry Talbot on Vocals, Claude Brains playing Guitar, Fella Lugosi on Bass, and Ralph Bulimia beating it out on the Skins!

Pretty scary stuff!!

"Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms, and the Autumn moon is Bright!"

THE LARRY TALBOT BAND - "Did The Hump" (Orig. By Herb Gross and The Invictas)

The back story for this song is The Invictas (who are still performing today) were a regional 60's band from upstate New York from the "Louie Louie, Farmer John"school of rock, and their original breakout song that never really hit the major markets was meant to be a new dance craze called "The Hump!"

Check it out for yourself and you'll have a better understanding!

Herb Gross and the Invictas - "The Hump"

TOO MUCH IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN NOT ENOUGH - "Various Artists Compilation" (1992)

 

 This 1992 CD from Come Together Prods or CTP in France was called a tribute to Bob Dobbs, but other than the artwork, I don't really get the connection. The guy who put this whole various artists compilation together was Jean-Emmanuel Dubois, and he was probably a follower of The Church Of The Sub-Genius.

I hadn't played this CD for many years, and I was actually fooled by it's appearance into thinking it was a Church Of The Sub-Genius production since we had been played on that radio show a couple of times, but it's not, and we're not on it, but a lot of other good musicians are including a couple of friends!

This CD featured artists from all over the world including Kashmir, The Wooden Soldiers, Bunty Chunks, A Band, Trespassers, Alice's Orb, Magic Moments At Twilight Time, O.R.D.U.C., Monotony Commission, Opiate Of The Masses, John Bartles, Lord Litter, and...

X/RAY POP - "DS"

KEN CLINGER & TOM BURRIS - "The Story Of Chester Bovine" (1989)

"The Story Of Chester Bovine" was an industrious and clever project from the manic minds of Ken Clinger and Tom Burris, a couple of the nicest guys I never met!

"The Story of Chester Bovine" was created in 1989 by Ken and Tom, and was literally a story in words and music that also included this booklet that guarantees delight and confusion!

It's pretty hard to explain, so here's cut number three. See if it makes it any clearer to you!

CHESTER BOVINE - "One Bad Cat"

There are 15 individual tunes, and on all but three, the words are by Ken, and the music is by Tom.
The voices are that of Ken Clinger for the most part.

"The Story Of Chester Bovine" was a mail collaboration no doubt, because Ken Clinger lived in Pittsburgh, Pa, and Tom Burris was from Anderson, In.

If "One Bad Cat" didn't pique your interest, I'm sure this will!!
CHESTER BOVINE - "ClownSong"

GODSPUNK VOLUME EIGHTEEN - "Various Artists Compilation CD" - Pumf Records (2018)

 It's time to head on back and see what's happening over at the

 House Of Pumf!

pStan Batcow's Godspunk series has been an ongoing run of various artist compilations since 2003, and this is number eighteen out of nineteen! You seriously need to check it out!!

 Volume Eighteen was released in 2018, and has 24 songs on it, and the one thing that you can be guaranteed is that you never know what's going to happen next!

 

There is something on this CD that will either thrill or annoy every person in the world if they would just only take the time to listen to it!

 One cool group that has three songs on this CD is called UNIT. The members of UNIT include
 Andy Martin: Vocals, Hammond Organ, Keyboards, Casio VL Tone, and Vibraphone. 
Fabian Fritze: Bass Guitars, Guitar, and
Colin Murrell: Drums, Marimba.
It was a difficult choice for me, but then I remembered "Image Is Everything!" 
Let's Go!!
UNIT - "Nina On The Dance Floor"

LORD LITTER - "In The Afterglow" (1994)

This 1994 cassette release titled "In The Afterglow" by Lord Litter was a bit on the different side for him! It also came in alternative packaging instead of the standard cassette box.

According to his liner notes, Lord Litter called this release an afterglow of the first period of his musical creation, going from the 'Spit It Out" method of creation with his band to solo songs that were more planned out!

Lord Litter doesn't record that much any more these days, instead spending most of his time promoting the music and art of others via his website at lordlitter.de 

or any one of his many international radio programs that you can always listen to for free at his site on The Internet Archive.

If you're interested in what real true independent artists are doing today, go and listen to some of his radio shows. You might just be surprised at the quality of music being created today that you're probably not going to read about or hear anywhere in the mainstream, and that's for sure!

We just had an earthquake while I was writing this. Just goes to show you how earthshaking this tape really is!

The song I pulled off of this tape is called "Al's Song," and is described thusly by the good Lord himself..."the original song has a different title. Al Perry sent me a tape with no titles, so I don't know."(But the real story is that this song is called "I Wanna Be A Number One Country Star," and was the first song of this Lord Litter incarnation he ever wrote in 1984. It was originally released on his first tape "Take the Trash.") Good enough, but it still sounds like an Al Perry song to me!

 Since I too am a big Al Perry fan, this had to be the toe-tapper to use here!

 Cheerz!

LORD LITTER - "Al's Song"

LAURELS - "Burn" (1991)

 So this was my basic modus operandi, we had 500 "Worm's Turn" tapes commercially produced, (I've still got about 25 sealed ones if anybody's interested) so I'd read reviews about bands in various publications, and then I'd send them one of our tapes. If I got lucky, they'd send something back, and if I got really lucky, they'd send me something like an actual record. So was the case with the Laurels!

 Basically, that means that anybody you read about here were really nice people, because they all responded to my meager trade requests. I'd say about 15 or 20% of the tapes I sent out, I never heard back a whisper, and that's all right because it made the people like Jeff of the Laurels that much cooler in my world. I also asked the Laurels for any videos they might have had that I could play on our "Offbeat" public access TV show, but they hadn't made any yet!

 I'd say most of the people I communicated with over the years were garage and home tapers like ourselves, but there was a share of them that were actual hard working bands like the Laurels!

 The amazing thing to me was they were using the same means as me to spread the word, by sending music to alternative magazines like Factsheet Five and college radio stations!

 Laurels were from Providence, Rhode Island, and had to be one of the most rockin' bands in the state. The members included John Masterson on the drums, Roger Foley on guitar, and Jeff Toste on bass and vocals!

This was a 4 song 7" EP titled "Burn." Here's the first song from the second side!

LAURELS - "Fueled"